LIBERTY

Gev

May/June, 1984

O

M

uch has been written in LIBERTY about the plight of those oppressed because of their religious beliefs. How about a word from an "oppressor"?

I am a district attorney for a rural Midwestern municipality. In spring, 1981, the administration of our school district informed me that Marie Engst, age 11, and her brother Able, age 6, had been absent from school for two weeks. Contacts with the parents, Martin Luther Engst and Ruth Engst, revealed that they were keeping their children at home because they disapproved of some classes and activities their children were participating in at school.

Our state has a compulsory education law. It provides that all children between 6 and 16 must attend a school, taught by qualified teachers, at least 175 days a year. Children physically unable to attend school are exempt.

If a student is absent without excuse, the superintendent of the school notifies the parents, and if the situation is not remedied, he notifies the district attorney. The district attorney may issue a warrant for the arrest of the parents and prosecute them for violating the compulsory education law, issue a petition claiming the children are delinquent

because of truancy, or issue a petition

claiming that the children are neglected because they are not being provided necessary education, since the parents neglect or refuse to provide it.

I wasn't enthralled with claiming that Martin and Ruth Engst were neglecting their children, but I am required to enforce the state's compulsory education law and child protection laws. I decided that a truancy petition was the least offensive. It was filed and a hearing date set.

On the appointed day the Engsts, with Marie and Able and a younger son, Peter. arrived in court. The children were neat, clean, and well dressed. They seemed to have an excellent relationship with their parents.

Martin was called to the stand. During his testimony, he objected to his daughter's being forced to participate in unfeminine sports, and in teaching concerning the Statue of Liberty ("I think it was to mock us that a woman can be in control and can judge what is justice"), health ("Health is a field that you must bring God in and tell us first of all that a sound body is from God and sickness is because of sin and the curse"). and evolution ("Everybody knows in their hearts that there is Creation, but they have to fight God's Word, so they make and force us to take on evolution, which is written in

your heart that there is no such thing as evolution").

When asked whether he was a member of any religious organization, Engst responded, "Well, I hold the Christian church which is indivisible, hold it to be the truth, but none that carries the name of like Methodist or Lutheran or Catholic, no."

Engst admitted that his children had not attended school for more than a month, but he told the judge that he would send his children to school the next day.

A month later we were back in court. The school had contacted me to report that Marie Engst was refusing to participate in physical education, health, and science classes.

Engst asked the Court for permission to speak. "I feel most strongly that our children, not just our children, all children throughout the United States, are being forced to deny Christ, to deny God."

The judge lectured Engst on the separation of church and state. "The religious education of your children can be taken care

Pat Becarma is a pseudonym for a prosecuting attorney in a rural Midwestern municipality. The case described in this article is still pending in court, so all persons have been provided with pseud

onyms.

143

ILLUSTRATION BY JEFF DEVER

LIBERTY

of by the church without interference from the government. But the two have to be kept separate. There are people who may not believe the same way that you do that shouldn't be subjected to your beliefs any more than you ought to be subjected to theirs."

"Where's our religious freedom that we're supposed to be guaranteed?" replied Martin Engst. "School interferes with our religious beliefs. God's Word is God's Word. When you kick God out of the schools, you're saying, 'God, You get out of here,' and He made the world! We have a pagan government."

The judge concluded by telling Martin Engst that if he didn't allow his children to participate in their classes, I, as district attorney, could press for a finding of parental neglect and remove the children from their home. I didn't relish the idea.

Eleven months later we were back in court again. The children had been kept home from school again for 15 days. Prior to the absences, the children had refused to do health assignments, some science projects, and storytelling. The judge, finding the Engst children were neglected because their parents were keeping them out of school, said, "I can't permit your sense of what love is and what love should be to result in depriving these kids of going to school."

Engst, however, was adamant. "We are not objecting to our children going to school if the school would let our children participate in the things we see fit. It says it's better to obey God rather than man. They wanted the apostles to quit preaching about Christ too."

The judge told the Engsts that if the children were not in school, fully participating, they would be taken from their home and placed in foster care. With that, the judge adjourned the hearing.

Nine days later we were back in court. The Engsts, however, refused to attend this hearing. The court transferred legal custody of the Engst children to the welfare department. The sheriff placed the children in a foster home in a neighboring town. They attended school there and were returned to their parents' home for summer vacation.

As the next school year approached I hoped that the Engsts had decided to send their children to the local school and give them their religious training at home rather than losing them again to a foster home. My hopes were not fulfilled, late in September we were back in court.

Engst told the court, "This has come to a point where you either pull out of the system

16

or you take the sin on. What we are holding onto is the Christian doctrine justification by faith. You are justified in God's eyes by believing in His Son, Jesus. Now our school stealthily gets us and our children on works which oppose the one work that saves us: the work that Christ did for us on the

cross.

**Our schools teach lies concerning evolution, and everything that the Bible says has to go down the tube, but everything that our scientists say, that gets put up on a pedestal. Our schools can't teach nothing decent. All our schoolteachers are leeches and willing tools for the devil to push these lies down our children's throats. It's a rotten system, and that's that. I have nothing good to say about our government. Unless there's repentance, the whole works is going to be destroyed just like Sodom and Gomorrah."

The judge asked, "So the long and the short of it is you want your children to receive no other education other than what you and your wife can give."'

"The problem is," Engst responded, "we'd like them to have an education. But the problem is, they're not getting an education in our school system. And I tell you, I don't hold there are any acceptable parochial schools. That looks very arrogant on our part, but I cannot condone any of our churches, Catholic, Lutheran, or whatever. There's not one decent God-fearing creature in this city, this county, or this state. If there was one, they'd string him up."

"So there is no church or no school within this state with which you can live compatibly, is that right?'' asked the judge.

"Not under the doctrine of justification by faith." replied Martin Engst. "They are all on works. We're all guilty of not keeping God as our one true God, but that we condone it and sanction it, and our government backs it up with all its might. Therefore, we have an ungodly government."

"You kind of put me in a box," said the judge.

"Well, I'll tell you, I didn't put you there. I can't change the Word of God." replied Engst.

"Well, Mr. Engst," the judge said, "the children, under the laws of this state, must receive an education. I appreciate your concerns and I think you might be right in certain areas. If you cannot find a school which shares your beliefs, the court would have to place them in a foster home so they could attend public school."

"Your Honor," replied Engst. "we cannot willingly give them over. We want them to be taken from us. We don't want to take the sin on. We do want our children to

have an education. And yet we don't want to have the children stripped from our home, because to me it seems quite cruel. But I know we can't eat the cake and have it too. Therefore, I would like God to run your mind and tell us what we should do. If we have your covering in God's eyes, gladly they can go. But if we don't, then it's going to be a problem."'

Since the court hearing the Engst children have been in foster care and attending public school. Marie is in fifth grade, Able in first grade, and Peter is in kindergarten. Three times a week they call home and talk with their parents. (Since the Engsts refuse to insure their car on some religious grounds, they have no driver's licenses.)

This case has perplexed me since I first met Martin Luther Engst. I find his views on religion and education repugnant. The Engsts were, after all, depriving their children of an education. There was not even a lip-service attempt at education in the home. I felt sad because these innocent children were being warped by the parents' ideas.

And yet a strong bond of love exists within this family. I ask myself, Where in the Constitution does it say that a person can have freedom of religion only if he belongs to a recognized church? I can't rule out the possibility that Martin Engst is right and the rest of the world is wrong! And you can bet that if teachers were advocating the Engsts' view to their classes, I would be the first to protest and pull my children out of school. Shouldn't Martin Engst have the same privilege?

I see the Engst children from time to time at their school. I don't recall ever seeing one smile. They have been caught in a classic struggle between their parents' beliefs and the state's interest in an educated populace.

I am confused. I sometimes think Martin Engst ought to be committed. I sometimes think he is a courageous man, using passive resistance to stand up for his rights. I sometimes think his children should be put up for adoption. I sometimes think they should be returned to their family and allowed to grow up illiterate.

Soon, however, I'll have to act. Summer is coming again. Should the children be returned to their parents and go through the same trauma again next fall? Should I start the legal machinery necessary to terminate the parent-child relationship in the Engst family, and ask that the children be placed for adoption? Should we try to commit Martin and Ruth Engst as mentally ill?

I don't know. By the good Lord and the Constitution of the United States, I just don't know.

M

y pastor's text on a recent Sunday was "Where there is no vision, the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18). At that point he lost me. I was back in my high school assembly hall reading the same words inscribed over the podium.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." The principal, Dr. Wetzel, hurled the challenge at both students and faculty. And it became our motivation.

That was a half century ago, but the memory and motivation remain, along with a question: Are today's students experiencing the permeating values, character development, and intellectual understanding that had their genesis in my high school? Certainly our age demands them. A Gallup poll concluded that in the United States and Europe "religious values are declining, morals also have slumped, honesty is on the wane, happiness is becoming hard to find, peace of mind is rare."

Dr. Wetzel had answers to these evils. Every day a new quotation appeared on classroom blackboards, and we discussed it. Many are still part of me:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."-Edmund Burke.

"The noblest of all studies is the study of what men should be and how they should live."-Plato.

"The mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled."-Plutarch.

"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we appear to be."-Socrates. "The child is father of the man."-William Wordsworth. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."-George Santayana.

Every day new thoughts. Through our discussion we furthered the basics of education. Reading, writing, and arithmetic were important, but they were only tools to be used, tested, and improved in furthering life's goals.

Are today's schools meeting the challenges of our age? Is the wisdom of the ages brought to bear on our problems? Have new, even more effective approaches to teaching values been developed? Or are our schools, as is said in some religious circles, failing to teach values as they did in the good old days?

Nostalgia can be deceptive. It leaves yesterday smelling of roses and lace; today, by contrast, seems characterized by funeral wreaths and stale coffee grounds. Memories of the little red schoolhouse color our perception of today's consolidated school. I would not depend on memory. I would find out for myself.

I began with a visit to my neighborhood high school and then explored others throughout the county. I was welcomed everywhere. Principals, supervisors, and teachers gave me free access to classrooms. I visited with teachers and students in cafeterias, hallways, and gymnasiums. And I learned much.

All the schools emphasized development of the whole child-character, unselfishness, thoughtfulness, the spirit of service, life purpose, and moral values, as well as educational basics. One English department, to my surprise and delight, put challenging quotations on the blackboard each day. They were not, to be sure, from the philosophers of old, but they inspired discussion and broadened thinking. Here is one week's supply:

May/June, 1984 "No world is so perfect that it deserves to remain unchanged forever."-Dennis Gabor.

"Human life has to be dedicated to something."—Jose Ortega y Gasset.

"If the object of education is the improvement of men, then any education without values is a contradiction of terms."-Robert Hutchins.'

"If one is truly alive, he believes that the world has meaning, in its whole as well as in its parts."-Paul Elmen.

"The passion of American fathers and mothers is to lift their children to higher opportunities than they themselves enjoyed."-Herbert Hoover.

WHERE THERE IS NOVISION”

Are Public High Schools Teaching Values

Other instructional practices pleased me. When I asked one student who his English teacher was, he replied, "I have no English teacher. I have an abstract-noun specialist."

He explained: "In our literature class, whenever we strike an abstract noun our teacher's face lights up, and we must define it and explain its implications to student life, government, social contacts, and personality profiles. It's the same in class discussions."

I recounted this episode to a friend who teaches in another system. He saw nothing unusual in the abstract-noun specialist's idiosyncrasy. "A history teacher in our school,** he told me, "never presents a fact in his history class without translating it, with the help of his students, into an understanding, an attitude, and, finally, an ideal."'

It's true that some public school teachers eschew emphasizing values, mistakenly assuming that all values are religious in nature. But if my county's schools are typical of those across the nation, times are changing. Many teachers seem to be acknowledging the aphorism attributed to Max Lerner: "Like it or not, all education is valuedrenched.

Thomas E. Robinson is professor emeritus of Rider College and president emeritus of Glassboro State College.

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BY KOLAND KIEGSTAD

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS THE VATICAN: A CAN OF WORMS

here are worms, and there are night crawlers. When the President established formal diplomatic

relations with the Holy See on January 10, he opened a can that may prove to be the twentieth-century Pandora's box. A cursory grab no deeper than testimony given to a Senate committee on February 2 should give a feel of the troubles within.

Following, under headings that describe the issue addressed, are segments taken from papers presented. The speakers and their organizations are identified.

On page 21 are quotes from a speech given by Ambassador designate to the Holy See William A. Wilson at the University of San Diego on January 10. Had the American public had access to his views before the Senate hearings, his confirmation might have been in trouble. But speakers before the Subcommittee on European Affairs of the Foreign Relations Committee did not challenge his qualifications; rather they focused on the appalling dereliction of duty of the U.S. Congress and Senate in failing to hold hearings before the President confronted Protestant and other religious leaders with a fait accompli, and on constitutional, theological, and policy grounds.

The question remains, Why dip into the can of worms after formal relations with the Holy See have been established? Isn't the battle over? Yes. But we suspect that the war will go on, and that in a decade or two our children will be asking how it all happened. When and how was the First Amendment dealt a lethal blow, opening the way to renewed sectarian conflict and loss of religious freedoms in America? The excerpts on the following pages and the philosophy of William A. Wilson tell the story.

The President's regrettable action of January 10, marking as it did a significant change in American church-state relations, was not the beginning; neither was it the end. That chapter is yet to be written. We have little doubt that it will be written and read someday with anguish and regret by those who both forgot the lessons of history and little noted the words of the prophet who wrote to "shew unto his (God's] servants things which must shortly come to pass" (Revelation 1:1).

Perhaps no words can better emphasize concerns expressed before the Committee than those of British historian Lord James Bryce, who spoke in admiring terms of the unique relationship between religion and government in America:

"In examining the national government and the state governments, we have never once had occasion to advert to any ecclesiastical body or question, because with such matters government has in the United States absolutely nothing to do. Of all the differences between the Old World and the New this is perhaps the most salient. Half the wars of Europe, half the internal troubles that have vexed European states... have arisen from theological differences or from the rival claims of church and state. This whole vast chapter of debate and strife has remained virtually unopened in the United States. There is no Established Church. All religious bodies are absolutely equal before the law, and unrecognized by the law." James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, third edition (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1895), Vol. II, p. 695.

A Wise Decision?

Senator Richard G. Lugar, Chairman, Subcommittee on European Affairs of the Foreign Relations Committee:

"I believe that the President has made a wise decision in establishing diplomatic relations with the Holy See and in nominating William Wilson to conduct those relations at an ambassadorial level."

Gaston D. Cogdell, Church of Christ: "That the United States Senate should even contemplate opening up this 'whole vast chapter of debate and strife' as Bryce called it, is alarming. No surer way could be found to destroy the unity and cohesion of our society and nation and to polarize our people into bitterly antagonistic conflicting religiopolitical segments than to do what you gentlemen are being urged to do right

now..

"In time, the government's toleration of other churches may depend upon whether they behave themselves and don't become obnoxious, trouble-making bigots-meaning outspoken critics of the religiopolitical power structure. 1984 may not be the year when Orwell's baleful prophecies come to

pass, but it could well be the year when the groundwork is laid for their ultimate actualization, if you gentlemen vote, in effect, to destroy church-state separation in America.'

Is Opposition
Based on Bigotry?

Peter M. J. Stravinskas for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights:

"After all the rationalizations have been stripped away, this attitude [of opposition] amounts to nothing other than conscious or unconscious prejudice against the Catholic Church.... It was prejudice against the Catholic Church that disfigured our statute books with a shamefully discriminatory law ; that prohibited the expenditure of public funds for the maintenance of an ambassador to the Vatican. It was prejudice against the Catholic Church that thwarted the efforts of President Roosevelt and President Truman to regularize our nation's diplomatic ties with the Vatican. It was prejudice against the Catholic Church that kept odious manifestations of religious bigotry in our national law for over 100 years until Congress... finally acted to repeal this shameful stain on our national honor."

James M. Dunn, Executive Director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs (BJC):

"[That] opposition to full diplomatic relations with the Holy See is an expression of anti-Catholic bigotry... may be true in some instances, but it is untrue and unfair paint all opponents with the same brush. The main thrust of our opposition is support for a clear separation of church and state. We would object to the appointment of an ambassador to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who heads a worldwide Anglican Church, or to the World Council of Churches with their vast network of cooperating churches. The principle is the same in all cases: both church and state function at a higher level when they are effectively separated from each other."

Dean M. Kelley, Director for Religious and Civil Liberty, National Council of Churches (NCC):

"In the early 1950s, the issue of an ambassador to the Vatican excited a lamentable flurry of anti-Catholicism. We hope that will not be the case now, but if it is. responsibility will rest with those who precipitated the issue, not with those who object for reasons of theological and constitutional principles."

James T. Draper, President, Southern Baptist Convention (SBC):

"Anyone who claims there has not been much vocal opposition to this action either isn't listening or isn't honest.

"As president of [the Southern Baptist Convention), I have traveled over a quarter of a million miles and in almost every state in this country.... Contrary to popular

belief, opposition to this move is geographically widespread. It is not limited to the Deep South. It is not a resurgence of anti-Catholic sentiment. It does not reflect any ill feeling toward Pope John Paul II. I have great admiration for the Pope and his great moral and ethical influence in the world. It is not a cause championed by a band of wild-eyed extremists. It is the real concern of millions of Americans deeply committed to our constitutional protections of religious liberty."

Straining Interfaith Relationships

Robert P. Dugan, Jr., Director, Office of Public Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals (NAE):

"No single act of the American government can so strain interfaith relationships as to favor one church over all others. As Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story said in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, this kind of action leads to 'perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of ecclesiastical ascendancy.'''

Robert L. Maddox, Jr., Executive Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU):

"This move accords to one church, and one church alone, a unique channel of communication to our government. Whereas every other religious group in the world will have to wait in line to have its views heard, the Roman Catholic Church can now stroll with impunity into the highest halls of government to promote its doctrines and ideals. The other religious communities are willing to compete in the marketplace to have their ideas put forth, but through this proposed action the Roman Catholic Church suddenly receives an unfair and inordinately preferential advantage in promoting its values and programs. That unequal access deeply offends our national sense of fair play.

"Because of this unfair advantage, such recognition will lead to political division along religious lines. In Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 622-23 (1971), the Supreme Court noted: 'Ordinarily political debate and division, however vigorous or even partisan, are normal and healthy manifestations of our democratic system of government, but political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intended to protect. . . . The potential divisiveness of such conflict is a threat to the normal political process. We have an expanding array of vexing issues, local and national, domestic and international, to debate and divide on. It conflicts with our

whole history and tradition to permit questions of the Religion Clauses to assume such importance in our legislatures and in our elections that they could divert attention from the myriad issues and problems that confront every level of government. The highways of church and state relationships are not likely to be one-way streets, and the Constitution's authors sought to protect religious worship from the pervasive power of government. The history of many countries attests to the hazards of religion's intruding into the political arena or of political power intruding in the legitimate and free exercise of religious belief.'

"This divisiveness along religious lines seriously threatens the harmonious fabric of our democratic society. We run the risk of unnecessarily awakening the ghosts of religious bigotry from a past that has long been laid to rest."'

Cogdell, Church of Christ:

**If the internal peace and harmony of this nation mean nothing to you, then by all means vote for this confirmation of an ambassador to the Holy See, because ecumenism and community harmony between those who have deeply held and sharply divergent religious convictions is possible only when one religious group does not attempt to arrogate to itself supremacy and sovereignty over the rest, as is being attempted by one church with the help of certain politicians who are willing to sell this nation's birthright of freedom for a very small mess of pottage:... Remove that equality before the law which we all now possess, and tensions and frictions will surface which will divide this country in a hundred ways....

"Please, look down the road on which you are about to take us, gentlemen: It is the road back to chaos and darkness. Do the blessings of our own experience with church-state separation and the curses of other nations' experience with a different arrangement mean nothing to us?"

John M. Swomley, Jr., Professor of Christian Ethics at St. Paul School of Theology (ACLU):

"At the moment when Protestant and other churches are proposing that the Pope's role should be chiefly that of president of an ecumenical council, the Reagan Administration, and hence the United States, would recognize the special role of the Pope and the existing religious structure and thus undercut ecumenical discussions."'

state,' not unlike any other nation. But the American electorate is not so gullible that it will swallow any such rationalization, whatever its technical trappings. Americans know a red herring when they see it."

Draper, SBC:

"The Indiana Baptist said, Calling the Roman Catholic Church a 'state' makes as much sense as calling the Pope a Baptist. Calling a 'church' a 'state' is as much a misnomer as 'grape nuts'-neither grapes nor nuts.... Let the entity be called a church or a state, but not both!"

B. B. Beach, Director, Department of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists:

"A well-known Roman Catholic historian has written: 'If there were to be an American ambassador to the Vatican, he would have to be ambassador to the Pope as Pope. This would not demand United States recognition of all the papal claims implied in the titles "Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor to the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church," but, to speak realistically, it would mean that the United States acknowledged the fact that such claims were made, and that a reality existed to substantiate them, and that the importance of that reality, the spiritual authority of the Pope, was such that it warranted establishment of diplomatic relations.-James J. Hennesey, S.J., 'U.S. Representative at the Vatican,' America, Dec. 4, 1965, p. 708."

Kelley, NCC:

"The contention that the ambassador is to be sent to the civil entity rather than to the religious is belied by the very title of the appointment, which is not to the state of Vatican City, but to the Holy See, which is an ecclesiastical entity; a 'see' is the seat of a bishop, and 'holy' is a quintessentially spiritual term.

"Theologically, we believe that it perpetuates the medieval misconception that the church of Christ (or any church) is or can properly be a temporal power. The fact that 106 nations are still involved in that diplomatic protocol surviving the Middle Ages is no reason for the United States to feel obliged to help perpetuate it; those 106 nations may not have the equivalent of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."

Maddox, AU:

"Roman Catholic leadership readily admits the Holy See is a religious entity. Archbishop Cardinale, a prominent member of the Holy See's diplomatic service, says, 'The Holy See is the supreme organ of the Church universal in its contacts with other members of the international community. The archbishop further says, in describing the various functions of the Holy See: 'Sometimes it denotes the Pope together with the central offices of the