School Prayer Research Articles

Conservative Chick? Conservative Culture Warriors at War

The American New Right that grew to prominence during the second half of the twentieth century consists of three major ideological strands – traditionalism, libertarianism, and anticommunism. The New Christian Right (NCR) that rose to prominence in the 1970s fell within the traditionalist camp. At the same time, not all theological conservatives or social traditionalists joined the NCR. The work of comic book artist Jack Chick demonstrates the phenomenon of opposition to the NCR among some theological and social conservatives. Beginning in the early 1960s, Chick published tracts and comic books that espoused extreme social conservatism while at the same time opposing government enforcement of social norms. He frequently criticized politically active or well-connected preachers such as Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham and opposed prayer in schools. Chick, along with many other fundamentalists, opposed the NCR because it involved cooperation with Roman Catholics. For Chick, doctrinal purity is more important than having a “Christian” nation. This essay concludes by noting how, as evangelicals lose ground in key battles of the culture wars, there are signs that Chick's antipolitics is gaining ground among conservative Protestants.

Sistem Sosial Ekologi Masyarakat pada Kawasan Kota Baru Mandiri Bukit Semarang Baru (BSB)

The spatial pattern of Semarang illustrate how the pattern that separates the production zone with consumption zone. Consumption zone is where we live, while the production zone is where we work, shop, school prayer, and recreation. The condition causes the townspeople have to commute (nglajo) every day from the residence to the production zone. Patterns of community life of the city brought in a mechanical rhythm of having to use a motor vehicle. Be they as a community-based automobile (Hadi, 2001: 100-101). The existence of these problems lead to the birth of the Self-reliant New Town BSB Semarang. Bukit Semarang Baru (BSB) as an Self-reliant New Town is an integrated spatial planning, where the provision of shelter is equipped with facilities meeting the needs which are within the scope of one area or also called mixed use zoning. To examine changes in activity and mobility of people in urban space integrated pattern which in this case is the Self-reliant New Town BSB then used a socio-ecological systems approach. Socio-ecological systems see the extent of the interaction between different systems. The link between humans and the environment is realized through a variety of physiological processes, psychological and cultural (Lawrence, 2003). The method used in this study is a mix methods with quantitative and qualitative approaches. A quantitative approach is used to analyze the activity and mobility patterns, and a qualitative approach to explain the socio-ecological system of the community. Results from this study that of the five regular activity performed, shopping activities and religious activities have high interaction, because most people have been doing the activity in the region, while for other activities such as the activity of work, school and activity in leisure time is still done in BSB outside the region. The use of public transport modes BSB still choose a long private vehicle.

Holding the Accountability Problem Accountable: Response Mechanisms to Counter-Majoritarian Decisions

If the Supreme Court rules against the wishes of the majority, how can that majority respond? I argue that while federal judges will never stand for election, majorities can employ various response mechanisms to counter-majoritarian decisions. I draw out observable expectations for inter-branch, local, and electoral responses. I then test these expectations in cases from the “mature” New Deal—communism, school prayer, busing, and abortion—showing the range of effective results achieved by anti-Court majorities. Given these results, I conclude that there is no “accountability problem”; there is just a narrow definition of accountability.

Words shaping the picture of the world: school prayer in the American system of education

Prayer constituted a core element of character and patriotic formation at the outset of the American public education system in the colonial period. Over the years, however, the status of this religious practice has undergone a significant transformation, including a complete ban on school prayer. The article discusses the factors that have had a decisive impact on the status of school prayer, including increasing religious diversity of the American population as well as tensions between dominant and minority religions and non-religion. Both old controversies over state-sponsored and school-run prayer as well as more recent ones surrounding graduation prayer and prayer before sports games will be discussed in more detail on the basis of landmark Supreme Court and lower court cases as well as government regulations, including presidential guidelines and other administrative documents.

Holding the Accountability Problem Accountable: Response Mechanisms to Counter-Majoritarian Decisions

<p>If the Supreme Court rules against the wishes of the majority, how can that majority respond? I argue that while federal judges will never stand for election, majorities can employ various response mechanisms to counter-majoritarian decisions. I draw out observable expectations for inter-branch, local, and electoral responses. I then test these expectations in cases from the “mature” New Deal—communism, school prayer, busing, and abortion—showing the range of effective results achieved by anti-Court majorities. Given these results, I conclude that there is no “accountability problem”; there is just a narrow definition of accountability.</p>

Religious Groups as Interest Groups: The United States Catholic Bishops in the Welfare Reform Debate of 1995–1996 and the Health Care Reform Debate of 2009–20101

The United States has a long history of religious influence on public policy: the anti-slavery movement, progressivism, prohibition, civil rights, abortion, school vouchers, school prayer and nuclear disarmament are all issues that have involved religion and religious groups in policymaking. In recent decades, the number of religious interest groups (as well as interest groups in general) has greatly expanded, but the role that the religious organizations play as interest groups in the policy arena has received relatively little attention. How are they similar to and different from other interest groups? What tactics do they use? How successful are they? Under what conditions is success or failure more likely? This article examines Roman Catholic religious groups as interest groups in the congressional policymaking process. First, it places Catholic interest groups in the context of the interest group literature, and second, it examines Catholic interest groups’ activity in the passage of welfare reform in 1996 and in the passage of health care reform in 2010. In both cases, they played a greater role in context-setting than in actually changing provisions.

How the Republican Party Used Supreme Court Attacks to Pursue Catholic Voters

Changes in Catholic voting behavior, as well as Republican Party (GOP) strategy documents, suggests that congressional attacks on the United States Supreme Court played an unrecognized role in the GOP’s efforts to appeal to Catholic voters in the 1960s and 1970s. Republican members of Congress used court-curbing proposals to publicize and take conservative positions on three key social issues: school prayer, busing, and abortion. These stances fit with majority Catholic preferences on these topics. Congressional attacks on the Court—in all three issues—played a heretofore unrecognized role in garnering enough Catholic votes for the GOP to compete for national majorities. Consequently, this research argues that the relationship between attacks and coalition-building deserves future scholarly attention.

Impact and Dilemma: New Christian Right in America

New Christian Right (NCR) in America developed during the social ferment and upheaval of the 1970s, initially focusing exclusively on social issues such as abortion, gay rights, and school prayer, etc. which was a reaction to the moral decline in American society. In the 1990s, NCR adjusted their political style in addressing social problems, abandoning extreme positions and adopting mainstream politics. NCR was active in the country’s national political arena, aligned with the Republican Party and gained its political fortune. The purpose of involvement in politics was to apply traditional Christian values to American public policies, but in most cases because of the challenges from both inside and outside, NCR movement had to accept compromise in order to get incremental policy gains. Unless NCR attained its final aims, it was for sure that the movement would always be around in the American political arena. NCR made a valuable topic for academic research.

One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin M. Kruse

Reviewed by: One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin M. Kruse Lily Geismer (bio) One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. By Kevin M. Kruse. (New York: Basic Books, 2015. Pp. 384. $29.99 cloth) Asking “why so many contemporary Americans came to believe that this country has been and always should be a Christian nation,” One Nation Under God, reperiodizes and refocuses one of the most vexing debates in and about American history (p. xiii). Through a carefully researched and engaging account, Kevin Kruse shows that the notion of “Christian America” was very much a modern construction and the product of midcentury politics. In Kruse’s telling, during the 1930s a group of corporate leaders joined with conservative clergymen to use religious principles to discredit the New Deal and promote the more narrow cause of “Christian libertarianism” (p. xiv). This campaign created the foundation for the flourishing of religious nationalism or what legal scholar Eugene Rostow dubbed “ceremonial deism” following World War II (p. xv). Kruse offers an important new reading of President Eisenhower that shows how religion was central both to him and to the goals and agenda of his administration, especially the effort to promote national unity. In the span of a few years, the administration either introduced or supported a National Day of Prayer; a National Prayer Breakfast; an explicit reference to God in the Pledge of Allegiance; and the replacement of “E Pluribus Unum” with “In God We Trust” as the nation’s official motto and its inclusion on stamps, coins, and paper currency. These actions literally and figuratively circulated notions of God into many of the basic transactions and daily life of America and helped to naturalize the bond between religion and politics. These public and political invocations of faith received widespread support. However, when the campaign spread to bringing prayer into public schools, it provoked intense controversy and became part of a protracted debate that extended throughout the 1960s. This battle, which reached the Supreme Court and was the subject of a proposed Constitutional amendment, has often been overshadowed by some of [End Page 284] the other dramatic events of that momentous decade. Kruse exposes how the school-prayer controversy became a moment “of national reflection” about the “proper relationship between patriotism and piety, religion and politics, church and state” (p. 206). These sections illustrate Kruse’s remarkable ability to pluck out evocative and vivid details from the archives, which turns the discussions of judicial deliberations and arcane congressional hearings into page-turning reading. Despite this detailed account, Kruse does not really explain the position on school prayer held by the corporate leaders alluded to in the book’s subtitle who are so central to the early chapters. On the whole, the corporate leaders recede from focus in the second half of the book. In the final chapter, Kruse shows how Richard Nixon and Billy Graham embraced the dual ideas of patriotism and piety to advance more divisive politics. Yet, Kruse could have more thoroughly demonstrated the involvement of corporate leaders in this effort. This influence seemed especially important since the business conservative movement itself gathered force in the early 1970s. In addition, Kruse provides only passing references to the civil rights movement and does not address the role of the movement in both contributing and appropriating the sacrilization of public life. This omission is surprising given Kruse’s masterful examination of race and civil rights in White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (2005). It suggests that the subtitle of the book might have circumscribed Kruse’s ability to fully examine some of the work’s larger implications about the rise of Christian nationalism and religion in politics in the 1960s and beyond. Ultimately, One Nation Under God highlights the significance of interrogating and historicizing the words that are insinuated in American public life. Kruse reminds us that simple and seemingly innocuous phrases like “In God We Trust” often have much more complex meanings and histories. After reading the book, you will never look at a dollar bill the same again, which is the ultimate sign of a provocative and important work...

Assessing the Rural-Urban Divide in a Red State

This paper explores the rural-urban divide, as it exists within Nebraska, which is a state that is largely homogenous, primarily red, with a historically sizable rural population that is in decline in most counties. 1 Using survey data of attitudes towards political and economic issues, and self-identified political ideology, two key questions are considered. Has there been change in the rural-urban divide in Nebraska as rural areas lose population? Second, does the rural-urban divide persist when controlling for party identification, age, and income in multivariate analyses? Bivariate results show that the rural-urban divide continues to be an important factor on several issues. The multivariate analyses reveal that the ruralurban divide remains significant when the issues are prayer and sex education in public schools, gun control, assisting the poor when times are bad, and choosing to reduce services rather than to raise taxes. The discussion considers the current and potential future effects of the rural-urban divide in Nebraska.

The Supreme Court, Factions, and the Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty

In merging the theories and assumptions of the regime politics and political party literatures, this article identifies a rare but important type of “counter-majoritarian difficulty,” that is, a situation where the Supreme Court makes policy against the political will or preferences of a majority. When the Court rules in favor of the dominant political party’s preferences on issues that are of secondary importance to the party, the Court can paradoxically trigger a cross-partisan alliance built around the very premise of undermining the judiciary. Using case studies from the mature New Deal—including communism, school prayer, busing, and abortion—this article shows how non-leading factions in the Democratic Party allied with Republicans to form grassroots, congressional, and electoral majorities. These three majorities, inadvertently created by the Court, successfully obstructed implementation, curbed the Court, and helped realign the party system, respectively.

Resistance to Domination

Resistance to Domination

Four ‘Cousins-in-Law’: (1) Substantive Due Process & State-Based Prohibition; (2) Slavery in the Federal Territory; (3) Polygamy and the Fight over Mormon Statehood; & (4) Public School Prayer & Bible Reading Decisions. Who Knew They Were ‘Related’?"

This essay compares four religious, political, and legal controversies in 19 th and early 20 th century America. Each was grounded in the sharp division between the Republican and Democratic Parties’ perspectives on public policy, and all four were fired by religious differences involving the active use of “positive” law and judicial fiat. Several scholars have addressed the emergence in the state courts of substantive due process, as well as the fight in those courts over the use of the bible and school prayer in the public schools. But no one has noted the similar political division there, nor has anyone examined the political or religious affiliations of the state court justices who decided tests of the constitutionality of the early substantive due process cases, or those involving bible reading and school prayer. Two other related issues - the first regarding slavery in the territories; the second, regarding Mormon polygamy and Statehood - will receive briefer attention. The four issues constitute what this essay offers to our understanding of how religiously inspired party politics determined the outcome of these controversies in both state and federal legislatures and state and federal courts. I begin with a well-known judicial controversy, set in the 1840s & ‘50s: the emergence of substantive due process, and I relate it to state efforts to prohibit the sale of alcohol.

Pre-Service Teachers and Muslim Parents: Exploring Religious Diversity in Canadian Public Schools

This study explores how a group of Caucasian pre-service teachers responded to Muslim immigrant parents’ accounts of the marginalization of their faith practices in Canadian public schools. Data were collected through interviews with parents, dialogues between parents and pre-service teachers, online reflections, and focus groups among pre-service teachers. Results indicate that the parents expected recognition of religious symbolic clothing, exemptions from certain classes, and accommodation of prayer in the public schools their children attended. The pre-service teachers recognized educators’ misconceptions about Muslim women, expressed concerns that exemptions from dancing and swimming classes and gender segregation may hinder students’ learning opportunities, and rejected parents’ requests of prayer in the name of secularism. Implications for structural change and teacher practice are discussed.

Prayer is Prologue: The Impact of Town of Greece on the Constitutionality of Deliberative Public Body Prayer at the Start of School Board Meetings

In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Supreme Court upheld a town board’s practice of opening each session with a prayer – often sectarian – delivered by visiting clergy. The Court drew upon the principles set forth twenty years earlier in Marsh v. Chambers, upholding the legislative prayer practice of the Nebraska state legislature. As the Article title suggests, prayer is prologue in these cases and is therefore permissible. The Court found in both Marsh and Town of Greece that religious invocations at the start of sessions of “legislative and other deliberative public bodies” do not violate the Establishment Clause. Rather, voluntary prayer givers direct these opening prayers toward the policymakers to encourage a spirit of cooperation prior to deliberation.The Town of Greece decision has prompted a number of school boards to revisit their own prayer practices. Since Marsh, circuit courts have positioned school boards at the intersection between the “legislative prayer” exception and the “prayer in schools” prohibition. Enter Town of Greece, which clarified that the concept of legislative prayer applies to even the most intimate of deliberative public bodies. Because school boards equate with town boards in deliberative function and design, the principles established in Town of Greece logically extend to school boards. This Article argues that the Court’s decision in Town of Greece lends a natural extension of its principles to school boards as deliberative public bodies. Part I examines the development of the deliberative public body doctrine leading up to Town of Greece, the avenues taken by school board circuit court precedent, and how some local school boards have reacted since the decision. Part II argues that a school board is nearly identical in nature to a town board, and therefore should have the discretion to open its meetings with an invocation in the same manner that town boards offer opening invocations. Part III explains that any structural distinctions between school boards and town boards are not constitutionally relevant for the limited purpose of solemnizing the meetings of adult school board members with a brief opening invocation. Part IV outlines the extent to which Town of Greece has eroded school board circuit court precedent. Part V examines the special case of student representatives to school boards. Finally, Part VI examines ways in which school districts may minimize potential Establishment Clause issues during opening invocations at school board meetings.

Tracing the Limits of the Reagan Revolution: The Christian Right and the Fate of School Prayer in the Age of Fracture, 1982–1984

Tracing the Limits of the Reagan Revolution: The Christian Right and the Fate of School Prayer in the Age of Fracture, 1982–1984

The devil is in the details: in America, can you really say “God” in school?

This article examines conflicts that have unfolded over the past 75 years regarding the separation of church and state in American public education. Through discussion of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses as articulated in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, as well as influential court cases that have set legal precedent and driven educational policy, it examines what is typically referred to as the “separation” mandate. This mandate, codified in the Constitution and interpreted and upheld by the courts, concerns the inclusion of religion in public schools, including discussion of religious history and ideology in the classroom setting as well as tolerance for religious exercise through such venues as school prayer and/or the celebration of religious holidays. It advances the argument that the controversy and litigation that have surrounded issues regarding separation of church and state in the realm of public education have prompted schools to remove most study and discussion of religious history and culture from the curriculum. This move, although understandable, is unfortunate because it denies them exposure to the religious ideologies and historical events that comprise their history and continue to influence the world in which they live. More troubling, it fails to equip them with a fundamental understanding of religious difference they need to co-exist and practice tolerance in a religiously pluralistic society such as our own. For these reasons, the author calls for the incorporation of religious literacy in k-12 public education.

Changes in Americans’ Views of Prayer and Reading the Bible in Public Schools: Time Periods, Birth Cohorts, and Religious Traditions

I use repeated cross‐sectional survey data spanning the years 1974 to 2010 to examine changes in Americans’ views of prayer and reading the Bible in public schools. Results from logistic regression models show that support for prayer and reading the Bible in public schools was relatively high in the 1970s and that differences between evangelical Protestants and both Catholics and mainline Protestants grew from the 1970s to the first decade of the twenty‐first century. Hierarchical age‐period‐cohort models demonstrate that changes in support for school prayer are due to both period and birth cohort changes, that baby boom cohorts are relatively likely to oppose prayer and reading the Bible in school, and that growing differences in support for prayer and reading the Bible in school between evangelical Protestants and both Catholics and mainline Protestants are predominantly due to changes across birth cohorts. Although religious liberals and conservatives have become more alike in many ways, evangelical Protestants have diverged from affiliates of other major religious traditions in their support for prayer in public schools. These results are relevant to debates regarding the social impact of religious affiliation, generational differences, and Americans’ views of the role of religion in the public sphere.

Team Prayer in Sports: Why an Action-Based Inquiry into a Coach’s Conduct Should Prevent Courts from Following Borden’s Confusion About the Reasonable Observer

Borden v. School District of the Township of East Brunswick, a 2008 Third Circuit case, provides the latest major appellate opinion on coach involvement in team prayer. The Third Circuit concluded that a coach’s actions with respect to team prayer must be evaluated in light of the coach’s history of involvement with religious practices. This comment attempts to explain that a judicially created reasonable viewer in Establishment Clause cases dealing with team prayer should only take account of a coach’s actions and not of his history. Part II of this comment will explain the relevant Supreme Court precedents regarding prayer in public schools. Part III will closely dissect two major federal circuit decisions addressing coach involvement in team prayer – the Fifth Circuit’s opinion in Doe v. Duncanville and the Third Circuit’s opinion in Borden. Part IV will explain why Judge McKee’s concurring opinion in Borden captures the appropriate method for courts to adopt when reviewing similar cases. Further, Part IV will discuss why Judge McKee’s approach will remove potential barriers for students and parents to confidently bring forth constitutional claims against their school district, when they otherwise would not have.

The Naked Private Square

In the latter half of the twentieth century, America witnessed the construction of a “wall of separation” between religion and the public square. What had once been commonplace (such as prayer in public schools, and religious symbols on public property) had suddenly become verboten. This phenomenon is well known and has been well studied.Less well known (and less well studied) has been the parallel phenomenon of religion’s expulsion from the private square. Employment law, corporate law, and constitutional law have worked to impede the ability of business enterprises to adopt, pursue, and maintain distinctively religious personae. This is undesirable because religious freedom does not truly and fully exist if religion expression and practice is restricted to the private quarters of one’s home or temple.Fortunately, a corrective to this situation exists: recognition of the right to free exercise of religion on the part of business corporations. Such a right has been long in the making, and the jurisprudential trajectory of the courts (especially the U.S. Supreme Court), combined with the increased assertion of this right against certain elements of the current regulatory onslaught, suggests that its recognition is imminent.