Just How Secular Should America Be?

When I was a young man just starting off in the ministry, I knew an older Christian minister who, though deeply conservative theologically and politically, believed that it wasn’t a good idea to mandate state-written, teacher-led prayers in public schools. In response, he faced withering attacks from some in the evangelical world. Some called him a “liberal”; others called him a sellout to the other side of the culture wars.

His argument, though, was simple: As a Christian, he believed that prayer could only come through the mediation of Jesus Christ, not through a school board curriculum-writing process. But he also had a warning. He had spent time in England, which unlike America has an established church. To him, the result was rote doctrine and, ultimately, secularization. “If you get what you want,” he told his critics, “you’ll hate it.”