There is a growing movement to install Christian chaplains in public schools. The Washington Post reports that bills are pending in nine states, have passed in one legislative chamber in three states, and Florida has a bill waiting for the governor’s signature. This is clearly unconstitutional; it is bad for students, and it is bad for America.

While it is true that many of our Founders were Christians, they made the wise decision to form a Constitution that would not favor any one religion over another. Religious disagreements and conflict, they believed, could overwhelm and undermine our political life.

England and all of Europe had been ravaged for centuries by religious disagreements that had often led to bloody conflict. They wanted to establish a new kind of country where religion was kept out of the public sphere, to protect politics from religion and religion from politics.

They were concerned that politics could be dominated by religion and that religion could be corrupted and become a tool of politics. Neither of these concerns should be dismissed. Both remain a threat today.

It is not anti-Christian to want a strong separation between church and state. Wanting to keep Christianity (as our majority religion) out of the public sphere is not a “war on Christianity”; it is an essential part of our Founders’ plan to protect both politics and religion.

Consider the actual text of the Constitution. The only reference to religion in the unamended Constitution was Article VI, which prohibits religious tests for public office.

Think about that. The Constitution does not mention God, Jesus, the Bible or Christianity. It does not refer to the Ten Commandments, recommend prayer or demand observance of the Sabbath. Many original colonies were explicitly based on Christian doctrine. Still, our Founders refused to allow the new nation to follow that troubled tradition.

The First Amendment protected the free exercise of religion, but not if it created a form of religious establishment. In other words, our country does not allow any religion — including the dominant one — to be supported or preferred by the state.

Our public schools are government entities, and if we are placing Christian chaplains in our public schools, we are using state funds to support one religion over others.

James Madison, known as the Father of the Constitution, opposed Patrick Henry’s plan to use public funds in Virginia to support Christian teachers. In his Memorial and Remonstrance, Madison said that this could lead “to effect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of civil authority.” He said that rather than have one religion preferred and supported by the state, the country should “foster private diverse groups or associations and thereby broaden the base of social and political consensus.”

Diversity of religious and non-religious groups serves freedom more than a monolithic promotion of one religion.

Madison, who also wrote the draft of the Bill of Rights that we now have, can guide us on today’s issue of school chaplains. He strongly opposed the appointment of Christian chaplains to Congress. In what is known as his Detached Memoranda, he wrote that “the establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles,” and that “the tenets of the chaplains elected (by the majority) shut the door of worship against the members whose creeds and consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority.”

And there is more. Our students — even Christians — will be harmed to the extent that these Christian chaplains replace qualified counselors. The mental health issues of young people today far exceed what they were a generation or two ago. Chaplains of any faith can be compassionate and caring, but that does not mean that they are capable of counseling anyone.

We absolutely cannot have any religion promoting its faith by bringing chaplains into our public schools. Those wishing to promote Christian education, or what are sometimes called “values,” can establish private Christian schools, and other religious groups are welcome to establish schools that reflect their beliefs. Private schools are an option for anyone wanting a faith-based education.

Christian groups are supporting chaplains in the public schools because they believe — quite mistakenly — that America once was and should be again a Christian nation. This is both wrong and dangerous, as our Founders have warned.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Solomon D. Stevens is the author of “Religion, Politics, and the Law” (co-authored with Peter Schotten) and “Challenges to Peace in the Middle East.” He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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