Beware the Shrinking Divide Between Church and State

Oklahoma’s superintendent of schools orders teachers to incorporate Bible instruction in public schools. In Louisiana, a new law requires that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every classroom. Texas education leaders propose a curriculum that incorporates biblical lessons.

In 1947, a woman named Vashti McCollum argued before the Supreme Court that religious education had no place in public schools. In this landmark case, SCOTUS affirmed that the separation of church and state is enshrined in the first freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment, known as the establishment clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In the majority opinion, Justice Hugo Black wrote, “The First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other in its respective sphere.”

I was a young student some years after that, and I still remember feeling that I didn’t belong. In today’s parlance, I was painfully aware that I was the Other. I resented having to sing Christmas carols around a tree in December, having my absent days to mark the Jewish New Year considered an unexcused absence, and being obliged to recite the Lord’s Prayer every morning. I’m acutely aware of the impact such a sense of exclusion can have and the damage it can cause to a child’s sense of self.

Today, I am alarmed that the eroding distinction between church and state is eating away at our American identity. That distinction, and identity, is essential to a democracy, as our founders realized, and it’s been disappearing before our eyes. It’s also driving us further toward autocracy as part of a system of governance, which so many other countries have experienced.

While the words “separation of church and state” do not appear in the U.S. Constitution, the concept dates back at least to 1636, when Roger Williams, a Puritan minister, referred to the idea of a “wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the world.” An English expatriate, he left London and founded the colony that became Rhode Island, where he championed religious liberty, arguing that ‘a high wall’ between church and state was necessary to keep governments out of the affairs of religion.

Later, Thomas Jefferson repeated the idea that religion is a matter between “Man & his God.” He declared that the Establishment clause did in fact build “a wall of separation between Church & State.” It’s possible that he was inspired by Roger Williams to use that term.

It’s dangerous when popes, priests, politicians, educators, and others use their power to alter our personal way of life. It’s distressful when controlling our own ability to choose what we think, what we choose to believe, or choose to ignore, is no longer an option. And it’s terrifying for women whose bodily autonomy is being stripped away from them, sometimes resulting in death or incarceration.

It’s also stressful, and illegitimate, when the courts, namely SCOTUS, mandate that no distinction should be made between church and state. Three years ago, “the conservative majority of the Supreme Court made it clear that there was little room for the separation of church and state,” as the ACLU put it, when it ruled on two relevant key cases.

They were referring to two major decisions in 2021 that overturned 75 years in which the court “recognized that both of the First Amendment’s religion clauses are vital to protecting religious freedom.” In one of the cases, Carson v. Makin, the court upheld taxpayer-funded vouchers to pay for private religious school tuition. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court ruled in favor of a Christian public school football coach leading prayers at games. These were two incidents in which the Supreme Court overthrew long-settled precedent. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said these two cases led “us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.” This is a stunning reversal.

The ACLU also pointed out that SCOTUS allows “official, nearly exclusively Christian prayer at government meetings and … has sided with those who, in the name of religion, discriminate against customers, and recipients of government-funded social services.”

Efforts by religious groups are increasingly influencing public policy. One evangelical publication wrote this about government mandates: “Governments should employ the sword [to] protect life, enable the cultural mandate, and provide a platform for the work of the church.” Videos of preachers proselytizing in this way abound online and Project 2025 echoes these conservative sentiments.

Almost two decades ago, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor noted that “when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government,” this affirms that we need constitutional boundaries to protect us from similar worries. Why, she asked, “would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?”

Why indeed. This election cycle, it’s imperative that we keep in mind that we are voting not just for who will occupy the White House with their finger on the button, but who will be appointed to our federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, for lifetime terms. We owe it to the generations who follow us to leave them a legal legacy that protects their freedoms, their lifestyles, and their democratic way of life, even when they are in elementary school.

In the midst of the current right-wing attempt to mandate religion in the schools and allow a national religion to be established, the history of “separation of church and state” is enlightening. It would behoove schools to teach this history instead of Bible stories.

In 2007, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote an op-ed in a Louisiana newspaper in which he said, “The Bible is and should be an appropriate course of study in our public schools. Because it is the most widely read, widely published, most influential book in all of history, censoring it from the classroom is as unwise as it is unnecessary.” Last year, in an interview on CNBC, he stated, “The separation of church and state is a misnomer. … People misunderstand it.”

It’s a stunning place to find ourselves. The United States has held itself up for over 200 years as a global leader in democracy. So many of us have believed it for so long that we have no idea how possible it is for this country to become a totalitarian state. If we want to preserve our autonomy and freedom, the firewall between church and state is more than a talking point: It’s an absolute imperative.