Seminole County School Board Announces New Guidelines Which P ermit High School Choir To Sing At Religious Events

[Berg, Thomas C.]

In response to Alan's question below:  There is not a plausible secular
cultural reason to focus on Protestant theology alone in a public-school
course.  The academic value in such a course would consist solely in
learning, understanding, grappling with the theological assertions
themselves; and when that is the focus, I agree that (at a public high
school, at least) the school should be concerned to expose students to a
variety of theologies/faiths.

The gospel choir is a tougher case precisely because there are secular
musical and cultural reasons to focus on this genre -- its distinctive
harmonic progressions, "call and response" structure, bending of tones and
other solo moves and devices, etc., and the way the music itself
communicates certain emotions (stemming from the African-American
experience).  There was an international choral festival in Minneapolis this
summer, and it ended with a concert by several leading area choirs, which in
turn concluded with all those choirs assembled onstage to do a couple of
songs together -- the last song was a gospel song whose words I don't even
remember, but it had everyone in the audience standing, clapping, singing
the response phrase, etc.  I'm sure that the audience contained many
non-Christians (both local and from around the world) who nevertheless could
enter into the mood created by the music itself.  The same could never be
true with a public reading from a Protestant theologian, whether it's Karl
Barth or Billy Graham.

At the same time, I recognize that with a gospel choir, it can be very
difficult to separate the music from the theological message.  Any good
choir director wants the singers to identify in some way with the message
and the emotions of the lyrics, in order to be able to bring the music to
life again in performance.  In the case of religious music, there is a fine
line between encouraging that kind of identification and encouraging an act
of corporate worship by the choir as a whole.  I agree that it is easier to
cross that line when (1) the gospel music is not simply one among many
genres performed, but is the whole repertoire of a choir, and (2) when the
music is also the familiar church music of a majority of students in the
choir or the high school.

Although it may be fairly easy for a high-school gospel choir to slip over
into an unconstitutional worship program for a single faith, I do think that
courts have to be fairly deferential about such questions, for the reasons
I've tried to raise in previous posts.  There can be secular reasons for
focusing on a musical or artistic genre that overlaps with one religious
faith, and so precise religious equality shouldn't be demanded;
correspondingly, if our standard of religious equality is too demanding, we
make it very difficult to include religious themes in the  school arts
programs at all, and that produces an unwarranted and improper
secularization.  That's all I'm saying.  (Plus, as I said before, I'm really
just prolonging this thread because I like to talk about choral music.)


*******************
Thomas C. Berg
University of St. Thomas School of Law
Mail # TMH 444C
1000 La Salle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN   55403-2005
Phone: (651) 962-4918
Fax: (651) 962-4915
tcberg at stthomas.edu

************************




-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Brownstein [mailto:aebrownstein at ucdavis.edu]
Sent: Friday, November 29, 2002 12:42 AM
To: Berg, Thomas C.
Subject: RE: Seminole County School Board Announces New Guidelines Which
P ermit High School Choir To Sing At Religious Events


I don't know much about music but I would think that a choir director with
such a narrow and rigid perspective should not be directing a high school
choir. Still I understand Tom's point. There may be some circumstances
where a musical program can not include significant diversity of religious
music, but the non-religious basis for choosing the program and the
non-religious content included in it effectively negates concerns about
religious favoritism and endorsement. The Madrigal Choir at Davis High
School might be an example. I believe they sing a few songs with religious
subjects -- and probably all of the madrigals with religious subjects are
Christian. In my judgement, the burden is on the school that creates a
program with religious content limited to a single faith tradition to
demonstrate that there is no religious favoritism in the selection and no
endorsement of a religion in effect. I think it is far easier to make that
showing for a Madrigal Choir than a Gospel Choir -- for obvious reasons.

Tell me Tom. How would you handle my prior example of a high school with
just two courses in Philosophy, one in Logical Positivism and the other in
Protestant Theology. If the school offers a class in Rhetoric, may it
include an alternative class in Prayer and Commentary from a single
religious tradition. Students can certainly study theology, prayer and
religious commentary from an academic perspective. But I have a hard time
accepting a class in the theology, prayer or commentary of a single
religion being taught in a public school -- even if there is a secular
alternative. And if a class in just Protestant Theology or Protestant
Prayer and Commentary is unacceptable, how is a Gospel Choir any different?

Alan Brownstein
UC Davis
visiting at UNSW


Tom wrote:
>  A question concerning Alan's post
>  Alan:  You point out, correctly, that music from a variety of religious
>traditions could be incorporated (along with secular music) in an overall
>music program.  But what if the choir director thinks that only a certain
>repertoire has music or cultural value, and that repertoire coincides with
>only one religious tradition?  Suppose, for example, that the director
>thinks that only the classical Western European tradition from, say,
>Palestrina (16th century) through Brahms (mid-19th-century) has musical
>value; as a result, although the repertoire has both secular and religious
>pieces, the religious pieces are only Christian in content.  While that
>choice might reflect a narrow musical vision, I doubt that it is
>unconstitutional, since there is plainly a secular reason for the choice;
>and I don't think that the director is nevertheless under an obligation to
>maintain religious equality in the results (unless it could be shown that
>the choice of classical Western European music was made *because* it would
>favor Christian content).  In other words, I still wonder whether your
>emphasis on religious equality can really be fully operative in this
setting
>-- where there may be secular cultural reasons for choosing music that
turns
>out to reflect one religious tradition.  Similarly, secular musical and
>cultural concerns could explain the choice of the gospel choir, although I
>concede that it's more of a stretch.  I'm just questioning how much we can
>really demand religious equality in this sort of context.