Christian hymn at public school graduation

July 20, 2005 8:56 AM

Being from the UK I find the whole separation of church and state issue in the US confusing. At a recent public high school graduation "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was sung by the school choir. Now that's clearly a Christian song, so why is it sung at such an occasion where non-Christians make up a large part of the student body?
posted by TheManticore to religion & philosophy (29 comments total)

Seperation exists on paper but a very large proportion of American citizens believe, consciously or subconsciously, that there should be no seperation between church and state. Amazingly, this even includes college-educated people. In communities where there is no religious diversity, or no-one ready to stand up to the majority, the seperation is official but does not exist practically.

Also, American history is so strongly steeped in popular religion that it is difficult if not impossible to seperate our heritage from Christianity. For example, Battle Hymn of the Republic is a Civil War battle song.
posted by goethean at 9:11 AM on July 20, 2005

For the same reason that "God" appears on our currency and in our national anthem: separation of church and state is a crock.
posted by crapulent at 9:11 AM on July 20, 2005

Because Christianity is throughout the institution, so you'll still get weird things like that. Or, "one nation, under god" in the pledge of allegiance school children have to say every morning throughout this country. I don't think its right. But it really doesn't bother me that much.

Also, most choral music comes from Christian composers. When I was in choir about 99% of what we sang were Christian songs. I didn't have a problem with this. It is just how things are. On top of that "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a very easy piece to sing, and it sounds terrific for most practiced choirs. I think the choral director was asked to have the choir sing something at graduation, and they probably picked something that would just sound good and have their choir blast it. Not necessarily because it had Christian oriented lyrics.
posted by nickerbocker at 9:12 AM on July 20, 2005

As everyone above said, separation of church and state is mostly lip service.... Christmas, for example, has always been a spectacularly huge deal at all the public schools I went to. As far as Battle Hymn of the Republic, it never had religious significance to me... it just sounded like a mighty Zeus vs. Neptune battle symbolizing nebulous stuff about the nation's heritage.
posted by rolypolyman at 9:19 AM on July 20, 2005

Being from the US, it confuses me, too! Really, though, the point is that the government if forbidden from promoting a religion, restricting religious practice (except where other laws would be broken...you could have a religion condoning jaywalking, but jaywalking would still be illegal), and so on. Is a high school choir's recital of a Christian song a governmental promotion of Christianity? Probably not, I would guess.

goethean is right on. For what it's worth, I've never consciously registered BHotR as a Christian song...it's a Civil War song to me. I've known a verse or two my whole life, but never really thought about it. Personal blinders and brainwashing aside, I think this is just a case where the choir has worked up a good song that everyone would recognize. I think I'm fairly sensitive to these issues (as a non-Christian), and something like this doesn't bother me...but again, maybe I've been hoodwinked!
posted by abingham at 9:22 AM on July 20, 2005

The so-called "separation of church and state" comes from the first part of the First Amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

The interpretation of that sentence is complex. Many liberals (or more accurately agnostics, atheists, and members of non-mainstream religions) interpret it to mean total separation; no "under God" in the pledge, no "In God We Trust" on money, and definitely no Battle Hymn of the Republic. Many religious Christians interpret it very literally, and believe it should still permit federal funding of faith-based programs (or programs that only help people of certain faiths), and school vouchers that go to religious schools, etc.

Our system being what it is, the actual implementation ends up somewhere in the middle. (People on both sides of the issue will argue with that statement, thus supporting it.)
posted by Plutor at 9:28 AM on July 20, 2005

Well, partly, if you're talking about an American graduation, Christians probably made up the largest part of the student body, not non-Christians. Most polls I've seen claim that between 75% and 85% of the population is Christian, with more than half of the population Protestant and about a quarter Catholic. Keeping church and state separate is a constant fight, and it's one where 'the church' is almost always Christian - the recent Supreme Court cases regarding the display of the Ten Commandments in/around courthouses by Christian judges are good examples of this. Christian culture is still obviously more influential, even in public school classrooms, than any other religion's. Religious holidays - particularly Christmas and Easter, albeit in somewhat secularized versions - are still the biggest holidays in any school schedule.

In sum, though church and state are probably more separate than they have been at almost any time in the nation's history, the majority of Americans are Christian, and Christianity still seeps in to public stuff a good deal. Because most Americans are Christian, and an unfortunate percentage want their particular interpretation of Christianity to affect the government more rather than less, there aren't that many people who vocally object to the intrusion of religion into the state.

There's also the fact that historically, America's generally been even more Christian than it is today. Religion was a huge part of the founding of the nation, and even many things that aren't particularly religion-related [like the Declaration of Independence] include references to religion. Songs like "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" have had a history beyond servering as hymns - after all, I first heard it in the context of history class, rather than Church. When dealing with any sort of American history, religion is pretty much impossible to avoid. In certain contexts [mostly historical and cultural], academic study of Christianity is pretty much necessary to really understand the nation's heritage.
posted by ubersturm at 9:30 AM on July 20, 2005

Most Americans think of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" as a patriotic, not religious, song. It does appear in many church hymnals and I can recall having sung it in church a few times during my first twenty years, but I thought it was kind of weird when it happened. ("America the Beautiful" was also in the hymnal, though, and the only thing religious about it is the line "God shed his grace on thee.") The "battle" part is far more important than the "hymn" part, in other words.

Our First Amendment basically says that people must be free to practice the religion of their choosing. The "separation of church and state" is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the Constitution but is rather a derived guideline that has been widely interpreted by courts to mean that the government generally may not endorse any religion, restrict citizens' practice of religion, or require people to adhere to any particular religion in order to exercise their rights, and it was extended to private institutions by anti-discrimination legislation and legal precedent that established "protected classes" against which companies over a certain size may not discriminate (these include race, national origin, religion, or sex). The exact extent of the required "separation of church and state" remains somewhat contentious. Personally I don't think singing "BHotR," which most people don't think of religious anyway, is over the line, but others will object to any mention of any religion. It is this give-and-take that prevents the government from sliding over the edge into theocracy.

A lot of this is left up to community standards. A public school is locally run and if most members of the community are religious and nobody particularly objects to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," which after all is an important part of our history as a nation, then it'll go forward, just like the Christmas celebrations. The more powerful the government agency or branch, however, the more secular it typically needs to be to be agreeable to everyone. The Pledge of Allegiance, for example, is somewhat more contentious because it is endorsed by the Federal government (established by an act of Congress) and is widely recited in schools across the nation. Personally, I would be more worried about the fact that it is, you know, a pledge of allegiance to the nation than the fact that it contains the word "God." The "allegiance" part smacks of brainwashing when children are made to recite it every school day, especially when older children are no longer made to do it, as happens in many school systems.
posted by kindall at 9:32 AM on July 20, 2005

Mostly, we're making it up as we go along.

Public (=government-run) schools generally can have children sing religious songs, if the main purpose of doing so is musical education. If that weren't the rule, kids would be deprived of a huge chunk of Western music. However, kids who object to signing religious songs must be accommodated.

The big no-no is favoring one religious sect over another. References to Jesus, for example, are generally prohibited, because not everyone is a Christian. However, screwy as it sounds, the Supreme Court has held that references to "God" in the abstract do not favor one sect over another, and thus are fair game. Thus, we've got "in God we trust" on the currency, God in the Pledge of Allegiance, and so on. This is crap, of course, because references to God favor all "sects" that believe in a monotheistic God. But no one said we were perfect.
posted by profwhat at 9:34 AM on July 20, 2005

It is just how things are.

No offense, nickerbocker, but I'm glad that not everyone is so complacent.

TheManticore, no way should Battle Hymn of the Republic been sung by a public high school choir. Unfortunately, under our current administration, the wall separating church and state has been crumbling rapidly.
posted by amro at 9:36 AM on July 20, 2005

Tell it, amro. BTW I doubt that you'd hear the 'Battle Hymn' at a public high school down south -- it's a Yankee song.
posted by Rash at 9:41 AM on July 20, 2005

However, screwy as it sounds, the Supreme Court has held that references to "God" in the abstract do not favor one sect over another, and thus are fair game.

Not so screwy. The context of the Establishment Clause was, after all, that of the privileged status of the Church of England, hence the prohibition on 'religious tests' -- the oath of aherence to the 39 Articles that essentially prohibited Catholics and Nonconformists (not to mention non-Christians) from entering universities or holding public office. That leaves wiggle room for 'ceremonial deism', which is historically pertinent, since most of the significant authors of the US constitution were, um, ceremonial Deists who thought in terms of an abstracted Grand Architect of Nature rather than a Big Sky Blokey. Ideally, you'd want an practical interpretation that distinguished between the two, given that it's a rare atheist that cries out, 'oh human potential!' during sex. That's to say, every state-sponsored reference to 'God' should carry a mandatory, lengthy disclaimer.

The French constitution's 'La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale.' is much more straightforward in that regard.
posted by holgate at 9:50 AM on July 20, 2005

On a related note, I remember a MeFi comment on the blue that went quite into depth about Separation of Church and State. IIRC, the person was a student of history and the comment was even linked on the sideblog. Anybody here know what I'm talking about?
posted by jmd82 at 9:56 AM on July 20, 2005

Here is what you need to understand about the First Amendment if you want to understand the debates about it in the United States.

First: as Plutor and kindall point out, the "separation of church and state" is a derived catchphrase for the First Amendment religious clauses. The text of the First Amendment guarantees the right to free religious exercise, and it prohibits the establishment of a national religion (like the Church of England).

The details of how that will play out (is the endorsement of one religion an "establishment"? What constitutes an "endorsement"? At what point do our efforts to prevent establishment infringe on the right to free exercise, which even government officials retain? etc.) is constantly changing, depending on the attitudes, moods, and compisiton of our Supreme Court.

You might wonder (and this seems to be the heart of your question) why this would be so contentious. Here's why: The "separation of church and state" is frequently held to require government neutrality between all religious positions (including the different religious sects, agnosticism, and atheistm). But this is an impossible goal. Because the more you strictly separate Church and State, the more you're giving a de facto endorsement to atheism or agnosticism. So the First Amendment requires the government to do the impossible: to endorse the "view from nowhere" that takes no position (explicit or implicit) on religious matters. It can't possibly be done.

So what we do is muddle through, hopefully building a political consensus that reasonably respects the opinions of the minority groups without infringing too much on the free exercise of the majority. And this political compromise is constantly being renegotiated, through the political process and in the courts.
posted by gd779 at 9:58 AM on July 20, 2005

America separates church and state way more than the UK on paper, but this actually strengthens (where it's allowed) religion, because as society progressed the CoE as a state religion has become bland and all-encompassing.

It depends on how you interpret the Constitution - many read it to prohibit state funding or explicit endorsement of religion, but verging on encouraging. Meaning, a 10 Commandments monument in a courthouse is constitutionally fine if it's not publically paid for. An even more libertarian view (popular in this conservative period) is that all it's intended to do is "keep the government out of religion, not keep religion out of the government", whatever that means - sound pretty similar to me.
posted by abcde at 10:11 AM on July 20, 2005

BTW I doubt that you'd hear the 'Battle Hymn' at a public high school down south -- it's a Yankee song.

We sang it in Virginia, in the late 70s/early 80s, anyway.
posted by JanetLand at 10:11 AM on July 20, 2005

...verging on encouraging religious practice (songs, decorations, etc.) in state affairs, that is.
posted by abcde at 10:15 AM on July 20, 2005

In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom
That transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy,
Let us die to make men free;
While God is marching on.

The final verse is emphatically Christian. I wonder how it would be received if the name Mohammed was substituted for Christ. Granted God could be accepted by the followers of any monotheistic religion, but this hymn is clearly written for Christians. I know it was sung in Presbyterian churches in Scotland when I was young.
posted by TheManticore at 10:18 AM on July 20, 2005

I'd bet dollars to donuts that it was the famous arrangement by Peter Wilhousky (a public school music educator himself, albeit in the '20s and '30s). It's pretty much the definitive choral version of that piece.

I've taught chorus in public high schools, and I'm about as secular as one can get. I'm a huge believer in the separation of church and state... and yet, I would have no problem programming this arrangement in a concert- and have, in fact, done so- because it is a fucking awesome piece of music.

A big chunk of the choral music canon has texts that are religious in nature, and speaking as a choral director it seems limiting to avoid a quality piece of music because of the fact that the music's origins happened to be sacred. Avoiding all sacred music in a public school music setting means virtually all of Bach's music, much of Mozart and Mendelssohn, 99.99% of Renaissance motets and some excellent stuff by contemporary composers would necessarily be verboten. I do more secular music than sacred with school groups under my direction... but I don't feel that I'm giving students a complete music education if I don't give them the opportunity to experience Bach or Mozart (or Palestrina, or Randall Thompson) at some point during their time in a high school choral music program.

For me, it comes down to these questions: Does the piece have enough musical merit to warrant programming it despite its sacred origin? Will working on that composition improve the students' musicianship, or their knowledge of a particular historical style? Is music with religious texts programmed in extreme moderation, so as to maintain neutrality and avoid the appearance of proselytism? Are allowances made for students who do not wish to sing music with sacred texts for religious or philosophical reasons (e.g., students who are Jehovah's Witnesses)? If I can answer "yes" to those questions, then it's in the concert. Several years ago, the Wisconsin Music Educators Association published a set of guidelines on the use of religious music in public schools, and as someone who is on the email list for the AU those guidelines seem reasonable to me.
posted by the_bone at 10:18 AM on July 20, 2005

Government doesn't explicitly support religion. That means that ministers can't be trained at public schools, nor can they be paid by government funds. There is no church explicitly linked to political power; that is, no state church.

There was a big brouhaha here in Washington state because a student won a general tuition scholarship from the state (from the general funds, i.e. from taxes) and he decided to study ministry. The state revoked his scholarship and he sued. He could have used the scholarship to study at a private, religious college but not to study ministry.

Also, Comparative Religion is a fairly recent subject matter at public universities. But the departments have to make it very clear that they are only studying religion as it relates to cultures (eg history, sociology, literary) and NOT promoting one tradition over another.
posted by luneray at 11:09 AM on July 20, 2005

Because the more you strictly separate Church and State, the more you're giving a de facto endorsement to atheism or agnosticism.

Not necessarily: the French can be accused of turning secularism into something quasi-religious, with its own tenets and practices. But to argue that such an approach is either an endorsement of atheism/agnosticism, or functionally impossible, is a non sequitur.

Anyway, the case law here has some parallels with JL Austin's on language: the state can get away with sectarian references that are historical or cultural in nature, and if they don't carry an illocutionary value. Many recent disputes are bound up with the question of perlocutive force, such as the 'under God' case.

I'd want the choir to sing the Internationale, too, though.
posted by holgate at 11:24 AM on July 20, 2005

TheManticore, tBHotR is effectively secular irrespective of its actual words, because everyone "knows" that it's a history-song for the Civil War, even if it isn't. Likewise, Lincoln's Gettysburg address and second inaugural also have explicit invocations of El Queso Grande and could be seen, narrowly, as prayers. But they're effectively not, even if they are, because that's not why anyone gives a damn about them.

The Establishment Clause doesn't mean that NOTHING RELIGIOUS MUST HAPPEN IN SCHOOLS. When works are significant parts of the historical canon, they get read, or heard, or performed, or sung, even if they happen to be religious. Even if you're an atheist of Muslim heritage, you still have to read Paradise Lost and the Inferno and Donne's religious poetry and see pictures of Michelangelo's David or Creation-of-Man, because they're important in their own rights even if they also have religious content. Arguably the Battle Hymn fits there, though that's still an awfully weird piece to pick for a graduation. Here's your diploma, now GO GET JOHNNY REB!

But let's imagine that instead of that, they were singing, say, "There Is One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism," a Taize' song of, AFAIK, no great cultural importance. How could such a thing happen? Well, there aren't any Establishment Clause cops that walk a beat to make sure that public schools aren't performing religious indoctrination. The way these things usually settle out is that a school does something stupid (in retrospect), someone sues them, and then a court smacks the school around and tells them never to do it again. Until someone sues, or threatens to sue, the offending practice stands.

It's sadly common for schools to do all kinds of impermissible things. Mostly, they bring in religious content that's verboten, but from time to time you *do* see public schools illegally trampling on the free-expression rights of their religious students, or on religious elements of their community. Viz, the Mergens or Lamb's Chapel cases.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:42 AM on July 20, 2005

"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a song with an interesting history.... I think a good argument can be made that despite its explicit religious content, there's an educational, historical value to having it sung.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:47 AM on July 20, 2005

TheManticore, no way should Battle Hymn of the Republic been sung by a public high school choir. Unfortunately, under our current administration, the wall separating church and state has been crumbling rapidly.

"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" has been sung by public school choirs for a lot longer than George W. Bush has been President.
posted by kindall at 12:07 PM on July 20, 2005

I'm with RUO_X on this. Religion in the context of art/culture is OK as in the case of the song (the historical aspects are far more important than the religious one to most people who hear it). It's when the principal (or anyone) says "Please rise and join us in the Lord's Prayer" that it crosses the line. There are a lot of gray areas in this dichotomy, of course, but I think the Battle Hymn of the Republic falls safely into the OK side of things.
posted by jaysus chris at 12:12 PM on July 20, 2005

I went to a multicultural school in East London, and we had to sing Christian hymns in assembly. They don't do it anymore, but I'm not that old, so it's not just an American thing.
posted by lunkfish at 12:43 PM on July 20, 2005

(I'm no GWB lover, but we performed this tune when I was in HS during the height of Clinton's popularity. So, I don't see the connection between this song, the current administration and the crumbling wall of seperation between church and state.)
posted by achmorrison at 12:57 PM on July 20, 2005

There are so Establishment Clause cops -- it just happens that our present political arrangements delegate that job to guys with ACLU business cards rather than badges.

As with the vast majority of what cops do, it doesn't start with the cop seeing something on his own, it starts with a complaint, which the cops screen and then, if they think there's something to it, pursue. The various tiers of enforcement action by the ACLU (stern letter, complaint to higher authorities, lawsuit) reign in anything which exceeds community standards and/or blatantly violates precedent.

I've always been somewhat amused that the fate of religion in the public square is determined more by the whims of whatever law student is working the intake desk at the ACLU branch office on a certain day than by any other factor in society.
posted by MattD at 2:21 PM on July 20, 2005

Put it this way: if you lose the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' from the school choir, you also lose 'Steal Away' and 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot', and I'd hate for Paul Robeson CDs to be verboten in schools.
posted by holgate at 3:22 PM on July 20, 2005