EDITORIAL: Religion, schools are still very much separated

A Christian rapper and a Christian speaker who conducted a full-blown evangelical worship service, complete with an altar call, at a Chesterfield County Middle School last September, say their mission is to introduce people (especially kids) to Jesus Christ.

It’s not clear how successful they’ve been at that, but there’s no doubt that they’re introducing a lot of South Carolina adults to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Complaints about the Sept. 1 performance at New Heights Middle School in tiny Jefferson, S.C. – the complaints were, of course, in this day and age, driven largely by a YouTube.com video – eventually led to a lawsuit by the ACLU, and, last month, to the signing of a consent order. Faced with losing an expensive lawsuit, Chesterfield officials signed the agreement, in which they promised not to do the sort of pro-religion things they were alleged to have done by allowing rapper B-SHOC and his companion, the aptly named Christian Chapman, to run amok at a district middle school. If the district violates the tenants of the agreement, district officials could be cited for contempt of court, and possibly thrown in jail.

Because of that decision, antennas are up in district offices across the state of South Carolina. Several districts, including Florence County School District 1, have held special meetings to discuss, or hear presentations on, the topic of religion and schools and just how far you can go. Chesterfield Superintendent John Williams himself came to speak to the Florence 1 board last week and quickly disabused them of any notion of tackling the issue head one. The best thing they could do when it comes to separation-of-church-and-state matters, Williams said, was to do all in their power to see to it that there never were any church-and-state matters. Avoid legal confrontations at all cost, he said. It’s a losing battle.

Williams also admitted no one in Chesterfield County was under any illusion that what happened at New Heights was right or wrong. It was clearly wrong.

“There’s no doubt that we stepped over the line,” said Williams said.

The shocking B-SHOC video backs up — and amplifies — William’s last admission. Kids listen to what is clearly a Christian sermon, volunteers are congratulated on bringing 324 kids to Jesus, and in the most telling scene, Chapman tells a group of parents that, “your principal (from New Heights) looked at me and I said, ‘How are you getting away with this?’ And he said, ‘I’m not.’ He said, ‘I’m tired of being a hypocrite. I’m tired of playing the game.’” The message, of course, was that the principal was taking a principled stand. In other words, the New Heights event was not a careless error, but an intentional, confrontational act.

Whether or not this is or isn’t the case (yes, we are implying that Christian the Christian might be exaggerating) can’t be known, but it would hardly be a surprise. Christians remain a dominant majority in Chesterfield County, and just about everywhere else in the country, and the message of religious tolerance is sometimes viewed as a contradiction by faith and others. A significant tenet of Christianity calls believers to an evangelical role. It’s tough to find a middle ground between that and tolerance.

America’s founding fathers, which included a fair number of Christians, viewed the issue in a different light. Having viewed recent (meaning European) history in which wars were fought and thousands killed over religious differences, they thought their new, progressive country ought to set the whole matter aside. The concept of a religiously tolerant nation was accepted and an idea crafted that would make it work: the government wouldn’t promote the establishment of an official, state religion. That’s been re-crafted in recent times to prevent government from supporting or encouraging religion, and the courts have upheld this idea on numerous occasions, a fact that sticks in the craw of many modern Christians.

Some are willing to test it – in school and elsewhere. The current Supreme Court majority might be willing to offer a differing opinion.

Until they do, school officials face a clearly defined mandate. Keep religion out of school, or face the consequences.

Unsigned editorials represent the views of this newspaper. Editorial board members are: Mark Blum (regional publisher); Tucker Mitchell (regional editor), Kimberly Ginfrida (content manager), John Sweeney (political writer), Rebecca Ducker (multimedia editor) and David Johnson (regional circulation director).