Skip to main content

In the 1960s, there were several opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court dealing with prayer and Bible reading in the public schools.  Most prominent among these were a 1962 case that has come to be known as the "New York  State Board of Regents case," a.k.a. Engel v. Vitale, and a closely-following 1963 case, Schempp v. Murray  In the first of these, the court held it unconstitutional for a state to prescribe prayers to be recited by students in a public school classroom, finding that  practice to be a violation of the Establishment Clause "because that prayer was composed by government officials as part of a governmental program to further religious beliefs." In the Schempp case, a three-judge Federal appeals court ruled that the reading of Bible verses and a recitation of the Lord's Prayer in public school classrooms was unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court sustained the decision of the appeals court.

 
These two landmark cases are discussed in a book published by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in 1964.  The book, RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: Case Studies in Current Church-State Issues was printed by Convention Press, the official publishing arm of the SBC.  It was approved by the SBC for use in a "Church Study Course for "Adults and Young People." The co-authors of the book were ordained Southern Baptist ministers C. Emmanuel Carlson and W. Barry Garrett.  Carlson was Dean of Bethel College, St. Paul, Minnesota, a conservative Christian college, now known as Bethel University. Garrett held pastorates in SBC churches in six states and for eleven years was secretary of the executive board of the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention (ABC).  He held held a Master of Theology degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and was the editor of the Baptist Beacon, an official publication of the ABC. 
 
These two highly-respected Southern Baptist scholars analyzed both cases and offered several conclusions that might surprise certain evangelical conservatives of the current era who rise in high dudgeon to condemn the Supreme Court's opinions in these two controversial cases and to argue that the Court erred by "kicking God and prayer out of the schools."  Concerning Engel v. Vitale, Carlson and Garrett wrote (pages 102-104) that:
"
(1) "The Court did not express hostility to religion."
 
(2)  "The Court did not express hostility to religion."
 
(3) "The Court did not put God out of the schools or out of public life in America."
 
(4) "The Court did not eliminate all religious expressions from public life."
 
When this book, with its above-cited conclusions was written, the SBC and numerous other Baptist groups were members of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs (BJCPA, later re-named "Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty").  The BJCPA issued a resolution endorsing the Supreme Court's decision in the Engel v. Vitale case.  It included the following statements:
 
"We concur with the decision of the Supreme Court in Engel v Vitale that prayer composed by Government officials as a part of a governmental program to further religious beliefs is and should be unconstitutional."
 
We find that in the decision in the New York Regents' prayer case (Engel v. Vitale)  the Court made no attempt to limit or restrict the prayer life of the people, but that the decision was a restraint on government from regulating such prayer life. This decision is in harmony with  the voluntary nature of  genuine religious experience.  Its effect should be to challenge the churches and homes of the nation to become more responsible for the religious nurture of the people and not look to government for this function."
 
A short time later the Court upheld the ruling of a lower court in the Schempp case, affirming that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had acted unconstitutionally in its imposition of school prayer and devotional Bible reading in public school classrooms.  Carlson and Garrett (page  109) observed that public opinion by that time largely coincided with that of the Baptist position (as reflected in the quoted items above) and  that "only a brief flurry of negative opinion was expressed when the Court banned required religious exercises in public schools."
 
Shortly following each of the 1962 and 1963 decisions, the BJCPA secured and carefully reviewed copies of the Court's opinions. As reported by Carlson and Garrett,  the Committee concluded that "...the decisions were right and that the national discussion offered to Baptists an opportunity to  witness to the nation about the nature of a genuine religious experience." 
 
The aforementioned book written by by Carlson and Garrett and printed by the Southern Baptist Convention, unequivocally  endorses the position taken by the BJCPA in its analysis of and conclusions regarding the Court's  decisions in  Engel v. Vitale and Schempp v. Murray. 
 
By standards currently  embraced by certain Christian Nationist theocrats, the positions officially taken by the Baptists of the 1960s would constitute a liberal repudiation of the Nation's religious heritage and an endorsement of  secularism over religion. To their credit, those thoughtful Baptists would not allow themselves to descend to the kind of paranoid hand-wringing and hair-shirting that so often characterizes the gyrations of  anguished right-wing zealots who want to "put back" into the public schools religious observances that should never  have been permitted there to begin with.
  
 
Haunting used book stores can turn up some of the doggonedist stuff!

I yam what I yam and that's all I yam--but it is enough!

Last edited by Contendah
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Originally Posted by Bestworking:

Will there be a follow up thread titled COC and school prayer? Gotta tell you, the coc bunch in my family are way worse about "gawd not allowed in schools anymore" than the Baptists in the family.

____
I do not agree with anyone of any belief who ignorantly parrots the ignorant assertion that God and prayer have been kicked out of the schools. You should know this by now.

Add Reply

Post

Untitled Document
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×