Just before Thanksgiving, a U.S. Appeals Court in New Jersey upheld the Maplewood - Orange County school district's decision to ban all religious music in school performances.  The ban had been in place since 1990, but when the school district expanded it to include instrumental versions of religious songs in 2004, a parent named Michael Stratechuk filed a lawsuit saying that the ban violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

After the Court's decision, Mr. Stratechuk's lawyer said, "The establishment clause requires the government to be neutral to religion. A policy that makes exclusions based solely on religion is hardly a policy that is neutral to religion."  He said his client's intention is to ask the court to rehear the case, and if they decline, to take it to the Supreme Court.  The panel of three appellate court judges said there was no constitutional violation in the policy because other constitutional principles require public schools to be secular.

So it seems the question is whether the constitution requires government institutions to be neutral to religion or to be secular, which are not the same things.  I am no constitutional scholar and better minds than mine can argue this issue, but in my humble opinion the Establishment Clause means that a public school be neutral to religion, not specifically secular.  (Another question might be whether schools are a special category of government institutions and that the First Amendment somehow applies differently to them.  I can't think of a reason why this would be the case, so I'd assume schools would fall under the umbrella of all government institutions.)

I'd bet my Christmas presents this year that the reason the school devised this policy is not because of a conspiracy to secularize the world, but rather because they don't want to have to field a million questions from parents about why there were three Christmas songs but only two Hannukah songs in the program, or why they left out a Baah'ai song or an atheist reading.  The appearance of favoring one religion over others would also violate the Establishment clause.  Perfect neutrality is hard to achieve, and any particular program would never please everyone.

But the decision the court had to make was not about whether the First Amendment is easy or hard to enforce.  It's about whether this school district's policy is constitutional or not.  They made their call, but it doesn't seem like the right one to me.  It also raises an issue that is dear to my heart, which is classical music.  If the New Jersey schools are truly going to avoid all religious music, even instrumental religious music, they are going to be hard pressed to find anything from the Baroque, Rennaisance, and Medieval periods that they can sing or play.  Yes, there is extant secular music from these periods, but virtually every note Bach wrote was in some way religious.  Many of the great works, especially the choral works, of Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Schubert are also religious.  The Church used to be the biggest supporter of music composition, and students will have a seriously lacking musical education if they ignore these works. 

I am taking it as a given that a well-rounded education includes music and the arts, and that any decent musical education would include studying and performing music from all periods.  I'm not saying it's the public school's job to make every student into a classically trained musician, but I think it will impoverish society if students aren't at least exposed to some of this great music.  Because most of them are certainly not being exposed to it at church - and here's where my rant really begins. 

Christian churches have been turning to "contemporary" music for a few decades now, and it's spread continues.  Lots of churches have "blended" services, in which they'll still sing some actual hymns, but make sure to include a good bit of guitars and drum sets, with music that sounds like Dan Fogelberg with "Jesus, I praise you" in place of "baby, I love you."  The music is simple (no harmony), repetitive, and vapid.  Basically, it sucks.  And I do not say this as some stodgy old lady with narrow, high-brow taste.  I like rock, alternative, pop, and even country music as much as anyone, I just don't really want to hear it in church. 

It seems at the same time that classical sacred music is being squeezed out of the schools, it's also being unceremoniously dumped from churches and ignored by the classical music world.  I’ve yet to hear our classical radio station in Chicago, WFMT, play the Corelli Christmas Concerto during the holidays or the St. Matthew Passion during Easter.  They hardly ever play sacred music on Sundays.  They just play piano music and bombastic orchestra music All. The.Time.  And a friend of mine recently went to an Advent service at a Catholic Church and, I kid you not, their musical offerings were "Can you Feel the Love Tonight" from the Lion King, and “And So it Goes” by Billy Joel.  For ADVENT.  At a CATHOLIC CHURCH.  Good grief, if the Catholics won't include O Come, O Come, Emmanuel in an Advent service, who will? 

I take some comfort in the fact that my church (the Mormons) takes a dim view of "contemporary" music in worship.  But they also have lay musicians so the quality of music in our services varies wildly.  And the music at the interdenominational church where my husband works is of great quality - of course, since he's doing it :), and it's varied.  They do the classics, some world music, and some new music.  Sacred music doesn't have to be 200 years old to be good.  It just has to have some musical integrity and meaningful text.  Is that too much to ask?