Handing out Bibles at a high school: Why do we keep doing this in Georgia?
Too many public schools continue to blur the church-state divide in Georgia
The zest with which Georgia schools test the church-state divide never fails to stun me.
I wonder if other states grapple with this issue or is this unique to the Bible Belt?
With the threat of litigation, public schools ought to think very carefully about allowing any religious group access to students and the possible charge of proselytizing on school grounds.
Yet, a north Georgia parent sent me a note that Bibles were handed out at her high school last week. She is a Christian and reveres the Bible, but doesn’t think the high school was the right place to hand it out.
Her concern mirrors my own: Our schools are attended by students of all faiths and traditions. All those faiths and belief deserve respect. We risk making many students feel like outsiders when we elevate one religion above all others.
Consider the 1656 warning by devout Baptist Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, on the consequences of mixing religion and government: “God requireth not an uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity, sooner or later, is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.”
More than a century later, Thomas Jefferson allayed the fears of the Baptist Association that the newly birthed United States of America was planning to designate a national religion. Responding to the worried Baptists, Jefferson wrote, “The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between Church and State.”
Many of you will argue that America was created as a Christian nation. But the 1797 treaty between the United States and Tripoli, written under President George Washington and signed by his successor, John Adams, says that “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
But what about the phrase “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” on our currency? Both grew out of the anti-Communist fervor of the McCarthy era.
In 1954, politicians tacked “under God” onto the pledge; three years later, they engraved “In God We Trust” onto paper money. Concerns were raised even then about blurring the line between church and state, but no lawmakers wanted to risk casting a vote against God.
James Madison believed that the only way to preserve both religion and government is to maintain a safe distance between them. “The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded against by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference in any way whatever, ” wrote Madison, “beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect against the trespasses on its legal rights by others.”
Madison got it right. Too many of our schools are getting it wrong.
Why?
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183 comments Add your comment
ScienceTeacher671
November 28th, 2009
9:05 pm
Maureen, don’t get too defensive. You’re doing a great job!
Cere
November 28th, 2009
10:28 pm
461 postings since August?!! I suddenly feel very lazy! You go girl!
Philosopher
November 28th, 2009
10:52 pm
WOW- what convoluted arguments…this is like talking to stoned people! Do they not understand what we are saying, or do they just think we are too stupid to understand what they are up to?
There are Christians, atheists, agnostics, and people from all different religions who DON”T WANT YOU INFLUENCING OUR KIDS! Your insistence on ignoring that fact is a clear indictment of your motives…drug dealers enlist kids, guerilla soldiers enlist kids…why? Because they are iimpressionable and vulnerable. Practice your recruiting on any acceptable front, but stay away from public school kids!
JTex
November 28th, 2009
11:04 pm
When we last had prayer in schools, we also had segregation and Jim Crow laws. Women were beaten by their husbands, and the law protected the abusers. Gay people were murdered on the streets and no one cared. Blacks were lynched for daring to “talk back” to Whites. Blacks were forbidden from marrying Whites, and people who were “different” were persecuted with no legal recourse. You think that putting prayer “back in the schools” will make the world a better place?
There is a logical fallacy known as the “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc” fallacy. A “Post Hoc” fallacy is one in which an effect is inappropriately ascribed to an unrelated cause. For instance – relating the so-called “downfall” of society (I would argue that there is no such thing – personal freedoms have advanced substantially – legal discrimination has decreased dramatically, and people who aren’t ‘the norm’ are more and more shuffling off their second-class status) to the absence of prayer in schools is clearly a Post Hoc fallacy. It is…infantile…to relate the various complex social issues which are usually referred to by Christian Fundamentalists in this country as indicative of our “downfall, resulting from prayer being taken out of schools” to such a simplistic cause. But then – I wouldn’t expect anything but infantile thought from Religious fundamentalists, whose thought processes stopped maturing around the time they first found hair “down there”.
“I prayed for a coworker that had an inoperable brain tumor and they got healed. ”
I once stubbed my toe and it rained. That means that if there is a drought, I just need to stub my toe. Tell me – given your “conclusion” how do you explain the many, many people who pray for people who don’t recover? Are you truly so ignorant as to believe that your prayer was instrumental in the recovery of your co-worker? You might as well practice voodoo.
Religion isn’t about magic. It isn’t about demanding that everyone believe as you do. It’s about individuals and families and groups and friends who share common belief trying to make sense of their existence, trying to understand WHY WE ARE HERE. It isn’t about hate, it isn’t about discriminating against others, it isn’t about making yourself special. The sooner the human race learns that, the sooner people stop FLYING PLANES INTO BUILDINGS, or SHOOTING EACH OTHER, or BEATING EACH OTHER TO DEATH.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
Nome
November 28th, 2009
11:05 pm
When we last had prayer in schools, we also had segregation and Jim Crow laws. Women were beaten by their husbands, and the law protected the abusers. Gay people were murdered on the streets and no one cared. Blacks were lynched for daring to “talk back” to Whites. Blacks were forbidden from marrying Whites, and people who were “different” were persecuted with no legal recourse. You think that putting prayer “back in the schools” will make the world a better place?
There is a logical fallacy known as the “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc” fallacy. A “Post Hoc” fallacy is one in which an effect is inappropriately ascribed to an unrelated cause. For instance – relating the so-called “downfall” of society (I would argue that there is no such thing – personal freedoms have advanced substantially – legal discrimination has decreased dramatically, and people who aren’t ‘the norm’ are more and more shuffling off their second-class status) to the absence of prayer in schools is clearly a Post Hoc fallacy. It is…infantile…to relate the various complex social issues which are usually referred to by Christian Fundamentalists in this country as indicative of our “downfall, resulting from prayer being taken out of schools” to such a simplistic cause. But then – I wouldn’t expect anything but infantile thought from Religious fundamentalists, whose thought processes stopped maturing around the time they first found hair “down there”.
“I prayed for a coworker that had an inoperable brain tumor and they got healed. ”
I once stubbed my toe and it rained. That means that if there is a drought, I just need to stub my toe. Tell me – given your “conclusion” how do you explain the many, many people who pray for people who don’t recover? Are you truly so ignorant as to believe that your prayer was instrumental in the recovery of your co-worker? You might as well practice voodoo.
Religion isn’t about magic. It isn’t about demanding that everyone believe as you do. It’s about individuals and families and groups and friends who share common belief trying to make sense of their existence, trying to understand WHY WE ARE HERE. It isn’t about hate, it isn’t about discriminating against others, it isn’t about making yourself special. The sooner the human race learns that, the sooner people stop FLYING PLANES INTO BUILDINGS, or SHOOTING EACH OTHER, or BEATING EACH OTHER TO DEATH.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
JTex
November 28th, 2009
11:54 pm
Why are reasonable, civil comments being blocked from publication?
John
November 29th, 2009
2:08 am
Low SAT’s, administrators who change answers on standardized tests, incredibly high drop-out rates, miserably inefficient systems, and you get hot and sweaty about this? Good grief, no wonder Georgia’s public schools stink.
Bio Teacher
November 29th, 2009
8:56 am
John, your citations have NOTHING to do with your fairy in the sky God. They are a result of parents that REFUSE to act like parents, with or without some deity!
d
November 29th, 2009
9:08 am
I would argue that the moral decay in America is not from a lack of prayer in public schools. Parents are not instilling morality and respect in their children. I pulled a student in the hall to talk to him last week and he kept staring off in the opposite direction till at one point I told him it is extremely disrespectful not to look at someone who is talking to you. His response: “I don’t look at my dad when he talks to me either.” I’ve heard similar statements from other students throughout my teaching career.
Bio Teacher
November 29th, 2009
9:22 am
d, that is mild compared to what has been said to me. Again, it is a lack of parental responsibility and the presence of one or more parents. Try being a white male in a class room, you gain new insights into the ills of society…and it has NOTHING to do with the presence or absence of prayer in the class room or any where else!
ScienceTeacher671
November 29th, 2009
10:00 am
I still want to know why these groups aren’t handing out Bibles at the local shopping centers. Wouldn’t they reach a lot more people?
Bio Teacher
November 29th, 2009
1:59 pm
ScienceTeacher671, two reasons. 1) Public school students are a “captive audience”
2) High School kids and younger are less likely to object, refuse, or state what they believe and/or feel out of fear of retribution.
ScienceTeacher671
November 29th, 2009
6:44 pm
BioTeacher, there’s probably also a bit of rebellious spirit, to see if anyone will complain…but I think if the agenda were really to get The Word out to as many people as possible, the giveaways would occur a lot more often and in a lot more places, rather than just once a year in a public school.
V for Vendetta
November 29th, 2009
7:23 pm
Simon T,
One time, while I was taking a dump, someone was healed of cancer. Connection? I think not!
Your argument–and your grammar–are laughably weak.
Wounded Warrior
November 29th, 2009
11:05 pm
Tolerance is what led to the FT Hood shootings. We don’t need to shove multiculturalism down kids throats. When Bibles were banned, then kids brought guns to school.
freemarket educator
November 30th, 2009
3:03 am
It is obvious that compulsory school attendance laws violate the First amendment. Otherwise, we would not be blogging on this topic.
Christian Professional
November 30th, 2009
9:09 am
I am a member of the Gideons International, an association of Christian business and professional men whose sole mission is to lead others to a saving knowlege of Jesus Christ by distributing and placing Bibles and by personal wittnessing. We are organized in 190 countries and our 290,000 plus memebers place over 78 million Bibles and New Testements in 93 languages each year. We once were allowed to go into the schools and offer New Testements to grades 5 thru 12, but sadly the misguided efforts of those who demand “political correctness” have stopped that. We now must stand on the public sidewalk and offer the Testements to the students before they enter the school property. No student is forced to take a Testement, and we never set foot on school property. Perhaps if we were to allow God’s word and presence back into our schools we would read fewer headlines about children and young persons bringing guns and bombs to school in order to kill and injury themselves and others.
John K
November 30th, 2009
11:01 am
I think it’s a shame the churches and religious parents in Georgia must be so inadequate in teaching their children religion that people feel the need to have schools pick up the slack.
John K
November 30th, 2009
11:08 am
Christian Professional, it sounds less like “political correctness” but more like whining on your part that society is now recognizing that there is more than one belief, or lack there-of, in this nation. I’m always amazed at how some in the 85% majority religion in this country are so quick to scream persecution. No one is stopping you from practicing your religion, but go ahead and pretend that you’re skating on thin ice.
April
November 30th, 2009
11:12 am
NO such thing as separation of church and state anyway- it’s nowhere in the constitution. Students don’t need to accept the Bibles. They can if they want and many of today’s students need Jesus in their life!!! It’s when Bible reading and prayer were taken out of school that most of today’s problems began.
John K
November 30th, 2009
11:17 am
April, who are you to decide what students need in their life. And if you want to play the false correlation between Bible reading, prayer and today’s problems, then on the flip side you have to say that segregation and racism were because of Bible reading and praying.
And, just to clarify, prayer was never taken out of school. Administration led prayer yes, but any student can pray as necessary. Or does it only count when one does it publicly where everyone else can see how “devout” you are?
Ole Guy
November 30th, 2009
11:55 am
Fred, your comments of several days ago require no clarification whatsoever. The unwritten messages from the majority of these blogs tells me that, in order to be a good Christian, one has to go ape over the acknowledgement of The Lord. In contrast to your pragmatic view, it would appear that many consider the primary objectives, for which public education exists, are to take a back seat, in terms of time and energies, to the studies of religous faith. When these kids face the world head-on, the watered-down academics, for which the education system “accells” will have prepared them for nothing but a life of mediocrity…but hey, they’ll be a hit at the lunchtime Bible studies in the backroom at McDees!
Before casting stones of aspersion, the Bible thumpers of Georgia would do well to consider the ole saw “God Helps those who help themselves”…without that firm grounding in the “three ars”, the future of America can rest assured that there will always be an ample source of labor for Wal Mart.
Honor The Lord, by all means, but keep it in perspective. If my engine starts sputtering on long final, the very last thing I will do is break out the ole Bible. I will, instead, exercise every skill my experience, and The Lord, has provided. Being a good Christian, therefore, in my view, is demonstrated through actions and not words alone. that 12-year pipeline is short enough…let’s use it wisely. AMEN!
Norm
November 30th, 2009
11:58 am
Your comment on the Tripoli treaty is only half the story. It is a good example of America kowtowing to Muslims for the first time. The words were added to avoid the presumption of a crusade as the Tripoli pirates were Muslim.
As far as handing out Bibles at high schools. Who really cares? It’s up to the student to accept or deny it. What if the Bibles were handed out across the street…would that be enough of a buffer for you to be a “separation”…how about 100 yards in either direction?
It isn’t like the principal is out there handing them to kids. Stop persecuting Christians for what they believe in, it isn’t harming anyone.
V for Vendetta
November 30th, 2009
12:17 pm
Actually, Norm, like all religions, it harms quite a few people–directly and indirectly.
John K
November 30th, 2009
12:19 pm
Persecuting the Christians for what they believe in? You surely must be joking. Why are there some Christians who seem to believe their faith trumps everything? So now since they are not to pass out their Bibles on school property, they are being persecuted? That is the most pansy definition of persecution I’ve ever heard.
E
November 30th, 2009
2:39 pm
I am not surprised these people find some need to target children instead of handing out material to their parents. When you pass them by, they often drop a bible in your pack, if it’s open, even after you say no. It’s a captive audience, and the targeting practice is unethical, unprofessional, and certainly treads on the establishment of religions. Our schools regularly denied other groups equivalent access. I don’t see how anyone can view this as neutral – it would require a willing blindness because the particular religion appeals to them.
j
November 30th, 2009
3:22 pm
According to “Religion In the Public Schools: A Joint Statement Of Current Laws” signed by Muslims, Jewish groups, many Christian denominations and more (including the ACLU) statement number 1 is “Students have the right to pray individually or in groups or to discuss their religious views with their peers so long as they are not disruptive.” There’s more, but I’ll let you Google it. So, yes, there is still prayer in schools. Just not school-mandated prayer.
Statement 9: Students have the right to distribute religious literature to their schoolmates, subject to those reasonable time, place, and manner or other constitutionally-acceptable restrictions…”
Statement 10: “Outsiders may not be given access to the classroom to distribute religious or anti-religious literature. No court has yet considered whether, if all other community groups are permitted to distribute literature in common areas of public schools, religious groups must be allowed to do so on equal terms subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions.”
Check it out. All sides will have something to learn by reading this. The separation between church and state is to protect religious belief from state intrusion and vice-versa, something all reasonable people of all points of view should want to respect and encourage.
Thanks for the post!
live.love.eat.
November 30th, 2009
4:43 pm
Go ahead people and hand out bibles. Just don’t be offended when I start handing out other religion’s holy texts to your children.
Georgia Teacher
November 30th, 2009
7:54 pm
Folks,
As a Christian who has significant problems with organized religion, not my faith, but the churches that pretend to be the authority on faith, I have some advice: if you want to attract followers, be more passive.
Instead of handing out books, set up a booth allowing people to come to you.
Instead of preaching to people, instead lead, quietly, by example.
Instead of condemning those who do not follow your faith to Hell, just be a good friend and allow them to make up their own minds.
When someone asks, enlighten them of your views, but do not press them.
In short, be a good person, be a good friend. Let your actions speak for you and your quiet, boundless faith will draw others.
If you do that, there is no need to distribute Bibles or any other religious text in school… the students who desire your faith will come to you.
Barry
November 30th, 2009
10:58 pm
Maureene,
When you write an article that bases your premise on certain historical facts, you should make sure your facts are accurate. The motto’s and slogans that you cited did not originate during the anti-communist era of the 50’s. Our national motto “In God We Trust” originated in the 1600’s with the Pilgrams. They engraved on the bulkhead of the Mayflower “God be with us, In God is our trust.” While it was in the 50’s that our national motto was imprinted on our paper money, but you conveniently left out the fact that it first appeared on our coinage in the mid 1800’s under the Lincoln administration. I also see that you have left out the numerous references to our country being a Christian nation by the majority of our founding fathers, but those facts would not have supported your liberal bias.
John K
December 1st, 2009
8:57 am
Seriously, what is wrong with Churches and parents not giving their children Bibles if they want the children to have them? Are we attempting to have some sort of Christian Nanny State?
If you want your child to have a Bible, then get one for them. Don’t wait for some group to pick up your slack.
I wonder what the reaction would be if it were a Koran or Book of Mormon?
jim d
December 1st, 2009
1:09 pm
The solution, my friends, is a simple one.
Schools of CHOICE. Then each school could hand out and teach whatever they could and maintain a student base.
Magenta
December 2nd, 2009
1:46 pm
Tennessee is worse than Georgia. There are more rural communities; many areas are isolated due to mountains and lack of interstates. It is not near a major media center such as Atlanta. My son was in an urban public high school a few years back. His Spanish teacher taught the class by bringing in tapes of sermons given at her church. No, they were NOT in Spanish. There were frequent assemblies led by local pastors. The rationale given to me off the record was that most of the students were poor minorities who “need religion to keep them in line.” IMO, what they need is education, since there are full-time cops at that school with frequent gang incidents, tazing and lockdowns. Churches don’t teach math & science, so why should schools think it’s okay to teach religion? My son went to live up north after one year.