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July 2, 2023: For the Good of the Children
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For the good of the children.
When it comes to education and nourishing the minds and hearts of our children, expanding their knowledge and learning of the main subjects taught at school, one would think that the laws of our states and nation would be such as to serve before all else the better needs of all students. I recently read an article in a religious newspaper how the state of Oklahoma passed a law that allows for a Catholic Charter School, the first one in the state, to receive government funds for those in need who attend the school. It is the first such school in the United States to receive such funding. The Governor of Oklahoma was all for it, supporting the idea of “what’s good for the children.” To give parents options for their child’s education was of the utmost importance as opposed to those who believe the separation of Church and State in America is a radical separation that does not allow tax money to be used for religious institutions who provide a worthy education for children and youth in any given community.
I may be biased (obviously), but as I see it, what supersedes all other issues connected to this matter is that of what’s good for the children. If a Catholic school, or another religious-centered school is a school that provides a strong education to those who attend such schools, how does this not benefit, first, the student, second, the family who enrolls them in the school, third, the entire community in which the student and their family lives, and fourth, the nation in which we live? Those who stand against such financial support tend to go first to the separation of Church and State as a separation where government funds should not be used for the purpose of an education provided through a religious-affiliated school, where separation is made total, complete, and absolute between our government and our faith institutions in this sphere of education. This as a harmful and misguided interpretation of the separation clause, not only for students and their families, but also for the betterment of our local communities and nation.
In the Oklahoma case above, while the passage of the law that supported funding for students attending religious schools was supported by the Governor of that state, the Attorney General of Oklahoma was dead set against the law. He shouted from the mountains that the new law opened the door for lawsuits (which it will), and feared his state would be spending much money and time in the court system on an issue he felt the state would eventually lose. Well, we’ll see. We live in a nation where religion and state have worked together from the earliest times in America, one supporting the other and vice versa, where challenges to such co-mingling for the good of our nation’s citizens were non-existent. Elected leaders such as the Attorney General of Oklahoma (he’s far from being alone) have come to fear the powerful forces in our nation who want the hardest separation between Church and State that, in the end, will punish, in this case, families (American citizens who pay taxes) who would prefer to educate their children in a religious school, knowing what’s best for their children, as most parents do.
This writing is not one that speaks against public education by any means. I think of Shrewsbury High School, and other secondary schools in this one town alone who do an outstanding job at educating the students who attend these public schools. Their students are set on an educational path in life that is very positive, helping to prepare them to be lifelong contributors and good citizens of the communities in which they will live, as well as our nation as a whole. They are set on a path that reflects the famous words of President John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Any educational institution – religious or secular - that sets their students on the “JFK path” in life is a most worthy institution, reflected in the lives of the students who graduate from there. Students who will love our country with all its faults, for there is no such thing as a perfect nation students who will work over a lifetime to help improve our nation where improvement is needed, and to be filled with gratitude for the freedoms we are guaranteed by a Constitution that protects freedom of speech, religion, and assembly.
The fundamental purpose for the separation of Church and State in our nation as given by the Founding Fathers was not to prevent any governing body to prevent the co-mingling of these two major, influential entities within our one nation. The separation we see today has passed into an extreme separation that was never meant to exist as established by our founders, who were God-fearing in their own right. The separation we witness today is so much out of balance and wayward to the extreme that it will take many years for it to return to the balance between Church and State as proposed by those who wrote the document. Secular forces are not meant to control the narrative, as they do today, of how religion and state join hands (or not join hands for secularists) for the betterment of our nation, and, in education, “for the good of our children.” The hardest of separations of Church and State which has presently been thrust upon us is detrimental to the good of our country. These two major forces, when working together to serve, allow our nation to reflect the name that was chosen; United States of America, and not divided states. The hard separation of Church and State is a house built on sand. It’s an ideology that will collapse at some future date because of its refusal to unite forces – even financially – to do good work together. And in a special way, in the education of all American children, whatever their religious background happens to be or not be.
We hope and pray the Oklahoma situation, a state that has chosen a balanced separation of Church and State where no one is forced to believe or favor one religion over another, where American families can send their American children to religious schools with assistance from our tax dollars where needed, and where government cannot interfere by way of forcing religious schools to teach certain cultural beliefs that are inconsistent with their doctrine. Again, the first principle in the American separation of Church and State is that of our government not deciding which beliefs and practices are proper and which ones are not. If so, then the government can force religious institutions to teach beliefs that are inconsistent with the religion’s faith and doctrine. The most fundamental purpose of the separation clause is that this does not happen in America. It leads to religious persecution, attacks on religious liberty, attacks against Churches whose beliefs disagree with the prevailing cultural winds, the removal of God from the public square, and government interference of the worst sort that resembles much more of a totalitarian state rather than a democracy with freedom at its core. Much of this presently occurs in our nation, and it’s because of the misplaced power of government upon religion driven by an errant understanding of the separation of Church and State.
I love the Oklahoma law because it puts the children first. Not teachers, not administrations, not political parties, and not whoever has the most money to influence policy and what subjects are taught. What the state of Oklahoma has opened the door to is the possibility for all schools to receive the same tax funding across the board, allowing our children, without distinction, whose parents pay taxes like those who attend public schools, to receive an education in the setting that best suits their child. For the good of the children is, in my humble opinion, a much higher priority over and above a self-defeating, erroneous interpretation of the separation of Church and State that refuses parents – or parent - to send their child to a religious school that provides an education which sets up the student for a positive future in ways any parent wants for their child, a student who will mature into a productive citizen for the good of our one common country.
As July 4th approaches this coming week, may we pray for the reuniting of the two major entities that have existed side-by-side for the good of our nation: Church and State. It is only through these two major influences working together that America can reach its potential as a God-fearing nation, even with atheists and nones in the midst of us. To separate Church and State in the extreme ways we see today will drag down our nation in every possible way. In the field of education, such dragging down needs to be halted for the good of our children. To Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, we say “Thank you” for opening a door that will lead to the betterment of our nation as many families can now send their child to the school of their choice with a little help from Uncle Sam disbursing your tax dollars.