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A recent decision by the United States Court Of Appeals Tenth Circuit raises significant questions about the relationship between religion and politics.
The question at issue was whether students at Colorado Christian College could receive scholarships from the State of Colorado.
In other words, should public money be used to fund private religious education?
This case raises the question: When does religious education stop being merely religious and start being “pervasively sectarian?”
The criterion in place has been the “pervasively sectarian” test. Students who attend private religious schools have qualified for public scholarships. However, the students at Colorado Christian College were denied public scholarship money because their college was deemed “pervasively sectarian.” As evidence, students are required to attend chapel and the faculty must sign a statement asserting the infallibility of the Bible.
On July 23, 2008, The Appeals Court ruled in favor of Colorado Christian College.
The State of Colorado provides scholarships to eligible students who attend any accredited college in the state–public or private, secular or religious–other than those the state deems “pervasively sectarian.” To determine whether a school is “pervasively sectarian,” state officials are directed, among other things, to examine whether the policies enacted by school trustees adhere too closely to religious doctrine, whether all students and faculty share a single “religious persuasion,” and whether the contents of college theology courses tend to” indoctrinate.” Applying these criteria, state officials have extended scholarships to students attending a Methodist university and a Roman Catholic university run by the Jesuit order. They have refused scholarships to otherwise eligible students attending a non-denominational evangelical Protestant university and a Buddhist university. Colorado Christian University, one of the two schools held pervasively sectarian by the State, contends that excluding its students on the basis of this inquiry violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court disagreed, and granted summary judgment in favor of the state defendants. We find the exclusion unconstitutional for two reasons: the program expressly discriminates among religions without constitutional justification, and its criteria for doing so involve unconstitutionally intrusive scrutiny of religious belief and practice. We reverse, and order that summary judgment be granted in favor of the university.
Consider this decision in relationship to the decision by the Texas State Board of Education to offer elective classes in Bible in public high schools. “Should The Bible Be Taught In Public Schools?”
In each case, public authorities have attempted to make a distinction between instruction and indoctrination. According to the State of Colorado, state officials were supposed to:
- Examine whether the policies enacted by school trustees adhere too closely to religious doctrine.
- Whether all students and faculty share a single “religious persuasion.”
- Whether the contents of college theology courses tend to” indoctrinate.”
Notice the language. “Adhere too closely.” “Share a single religious persuasion.” “Tend to indoctrinate.”
How do public officials make such decisions? The court ruled that officials of the state of Colorado cannot use such questions to deny scholarship money.
The decisions in Texas and Colorado make clear that these are not simply interesting questions to debate. They are questions of public policy.
The ruling in favor of Colorado Christian College is just one more ruling in favor of religious schools to receive public money.
Last year, California’s Supreme Court upheld the rights of “pervasively sectarian” institutions to benefit from government programs that issue bonds on their behalf. Another federal appeals court, the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., sided with Columbia Union College in Maryland, a school affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church that had been denied access to a state bond finance program. The 6th Circuit in Cincinnati upheld bonds issued on behalf of Lipscomb University, a school in Tennessee affiliated with the Churches of Christ where students attend daily Bible classes. In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the state of Washington against a student who claimed discrimination because he couldn’t use a publicly funded scholarship to pursue a degree in theology. Religious Schools Win Again
Why does any of this matter? These are two current decisions, which are themselves part of a growing trend to blur the line between religion and politics. Any line between secular and sectarian is being slowly erased.
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
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