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

[Berg, Thomas C.]

To go back to my previous example:  The religiously pluralistic audience
(including I assume plenty of nonbelievers) at the  choral festival in
downtown Minneapolis responded enthusiastically to the closing gospel
number, suggesting to me that there is musical, cultural, and emotional
appeal apart from the specific Christian theological concepts.  By contrast,
I would be very surprised if a program simply reading the Bible would elicit
great response from such a wide ranging audience -- the audience would have
to be gathered for a specifically religious purpose, I would bet, unless
it's some unusual event like a post 9/11 gathering.

The question is whether a gospel choir is more like Bible reading per
Schempp, or more like the Bible as Literature course taught in many high
schools, including mine, and which I assume is constitutionally valid.  I
agree that it would be very easy for the director to create an atmosphere
more like the devotional reading.  I am far less certain that this is
unavoidable and thus that the choir is per unconstitutional.  Even in the
Bible as Literature course, a good instructor would want to stir up in
students some feelings of appreciation for the text:  for its beautiful
language, for its grappling with fundamental human issues, for its
wide-ranging influence on later history.  I don't think that that is
unconstitutional; it's a part even of any "objective" teaching that has any
zest to it.  I said the same thing about the UNC mini-course on Islam, in
earlier exchanges with Rick Duncan.

Finally, the premise of the discussion was that the gospel choir was one
among several choral options, unlike the stand-alone Bible reading for
everyone in homeroom time in Schempp.



*******************
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: Michael Newsom [mailto:mnewsom at LAW.HOWARD.EDU]
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 12:49 PM
To: RELIGIONLAW at listserv.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Seminole County School Board Announces New Guidelines Which
P ermit High School Choir To Sing At Religious Events


I don't see how Tom's arguments do not apply with equal force to Bible
reading. Is Schempp wrong?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Berg, Thomas C." <TCBERG at STTHOMAS.EDU>
To: <RELIGIONLAW at listserv.ucla.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: Seminole County School Board Announces New Guidelines Which P
ermit High School Choir To Sing At Religious Events


> 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.