In recent weeks, a number of articles have appeared in national media outlets with screaming headlines about how public-school kids are being taught evangelical Christianity. In breathless tones, reporters describe how Christian ministries are buying up land adjacent to public school campuses, building ministry centers on the property, and bussing kids to them for Bible lessons. The Bible lessons, they have discovered, are nothing short of preaching. Students are being taught that Christianity is the only true faith. Evangelization is the goal of these organizations, it is revealed, and their efforts are often successful—public school children are hearing the Word and converting to Christianity on the spot.
Well, yes. All of this is true.
The concept described is known as “released time instruction,” and it is perfectly legal. The clunky term “released time” was coined in the context of the United States Supreme Court decision Zorach v. Clauson that laid out how this off-campus religious teaching process worksand why it is constitutionally sound. Zorach got up to bat at SCOTUS for a test because a previous decision, McCollum v. Board of Education held that when ministers in Illinois came to public schools and taught religious classes during the school day that was unconstitutional.
In response to McCollum, a ministry in New York City started a program where children would instead go to the ministers. In released time, kids are temporarily “released” from the school campus during non-instructional periods and receive Bible teaching nearby, but only with express parental permission. Zorach said that was okay.
The year was 1952.
The point should not be hard to grasp. Parents give permission for their children to leave school and return. In released time, there is no McCollum going on; it is all Zorach. Nevertheless, school board meetings have come to a halt on just this point, with released time ministries being forced for weeks on end to rehearse over 70 years of settled law to prove what was obvious in 1952.
Released time instruction is very popular in both North and South Carolina. A number oforganizations with names like “Christian Learning Center” and “Bible Education in School Time” (BEST) operate all over. South Carolina stands out nationally also because it was the first state to pass a law awarding elective credit toward high school graduation for release time instruction. The United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, whose territory includes bothCarolinas, has found released time instruction constitutional on at least two occasions (1975; 2012). One national released time group, School Ministries Inc., is actually headquartered in the Palmetto State. That organization has a constitutional lawyer on its board, which is probably necessary given the misunderstandings, but his services should not be required. Just google Zorach. Or read this memo from the attorney for the South Carolina Department of Education.North Carolina does not have specific laws regarding released time so the authority rests with local boards of education.
Another very different type of Bible instruction is legal for public school kids as well.
I don’t know if you have seen the billboard campaign entitled Values: Pass It On. My favorite current one features an image of William Shatner with the phrase “Boldly Go” with Exploring as the value to be “passed on.” The Ben Franklin ad is another favorite: “Go fly a kite.” Ingenuity. Pass it on. The prime mover behind these ads is venture capitalist Chuck Stetson.
Stetson has another endeavor known as the Bible Literacy Project. The goal of BLP is to teach the Christian Bible strictly as history and literature. The textbook for the course, which contains no preaching or religious advocacy, is The Bible and Its Influence. The textbook itself is not only academically sound (over 40 leading scholars worked to develop it over five years), but because of its many striking illustrations, it is physically beautiful. Maybe that is why The Bible and Its Influence is being taught in over 640 public high schools in 44 states. More than 140,000 students have benefited from its instruction. Best of all, next year will mark its twentieth year, and during that time it has been found to be nothing short of “First Amendment safe.” It is purposely respectful of all religions. Many public school leaders like programs like BLP because exposure to the Bible as history and literature functions essentially like character education and there is a relationship between character education and student achievement.
Released Time Instruction and the teaching of the Christian Bible as history and literature are very different concepts, but when conducted properly neither violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. School board members in the Carolinas (and nationwide) should understand their constitutionality in case such a dispute ever arises in their district. It could save a lot of time. §
Oran Smith, PhD is co-founder and Senior Fellow at Palmetto Promise Institute, and a Carolinas Academic Leadership Network Board member.