Abstract
Music with sacred texts is integral to the historical and modern development of the music education field, yet many who teach in public schools find themselves limited or banned from using sacred music. School divisions do not have a consensus opinion on how to handle this sensitive topic, and the law is not explicit. In this article, I provide an overview of the legal landscape on this subject and advice to help music educators in making informed and ethically sound choices about the role of sacred music in the public school setting.
How can a conscientious teacher find the middle ground in dealing with sacred music so performances are both enriched by tradition and within the law?
In today’s highly charged spheres of political and social correctness, it can sometimes seem as if it’s nearly impossible to do or say the right things without offending someone. For music educators in public schools, this tightrope walk often happens in the context of programming sacred music. Swing too far in either direction, and you’re likely to be the hot topic at your next school board meeting for either “religious indoctrination” or fueling a “war on Christmas.” School divisions have been sued, both for using religious music 1 as well as for banning it. 2 What is the conscientious educator to make of this situation? Is there a place for religious music in the public school setting? If so, how do we make proper use of it?
Regardless of personal religious affiliation, most music educators will readily acknowledge the importance of sacred music to the historical and modern development of our field and would like the ability to program music as they see fit. For those teaching in public schools, it should also be obvious that there is a sacred/secular balance to strike somewhere—but where, and using what criteria? Some try to reflect the beliefs and culture of their local community or student body while others aim to program sacred music from multiple religious traditions to avoid appearing biased. Still others find it safer to avoid sacred music altogether so as not to offend or alienate anyone (which does not always have the intended effect). Due at least in part to legal and political ambiguity around the issue, many school divisions provide official guidelines that limit the use of sacred choral music, and some have banned its use outright. One colleague told me the story of performing Thomas Tallis’s “If Ye Love Me,” using solfège syllables instead of the words—an odd and unintended result of these local guidelines. Another, whose school did not provide such overt criteria, unwittingly sparked a scathing review titled “Keep the ‘Christ’ out of ‘Christmas’” in the student newspaper after her choir performed a set of carols during the annual winter concert assembly.
Are we violating the First Amendment when we bring sacred music into public schools? Do the same rules apply in all settings, to all of our performances that involve sacred music? If we do program sacred music, how should we go about choosing what, where, when, and how much to perform?
It is not difficult to find literature in support of sacred music in the public schools (see the endnotes for a list of resources that may be useful to you as advocacy materials). If these publications are correct and teachers should be allowed to choose their own repertoire, how should they include sacred music in a way that is ethically and legally sound? I will begin this article with an overview of the current legal landscape on this topic in a way that is directed specifically at music educators. I also present some ways to help teachers make informed and ethically sound choices about teaching religious music. For those who find themselves in danger of losing the opportunity to program sacred music for their students, perhaps the content here can give you a starting point from which to make a case to your administration for greater freedom in repertoire choices.
Because I am a high school choral director and not a lawyer, I’m not qualified to provide any specific legal advice. Please consult your school district’s lawyers to better understand your local policies or regulations.
Sacred Music and the First Amendment
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Though the phrase does not appear anywhere in the Constitution, the United States recognizes what Thomas Jefferson called “a wall of separation between Church & State.” 3 In 1947, Everson v. Board of Education expanded this wall of separation to include state governing bodies. 4 This language is vague when applied to school music, and since the U.S. Supreme Court has never issued an opinion on the matter, school divisions have interpreted the application of the “wall of separation” in a number of ways. However, the judicial system has given several indications of its opinion on the matter in the form of other Supreme Court opinions related to the First Amendment as well as cases heard in lower federal courts.
Before getting into specifics, I’d like to point out two other reasons why so much of this seems murky. First, since we’re looking for legal precedent that would help us defend the use of sacred materials in public schools, it seems obvious that we should look for cases where the Court has upheld the use of religious materials. However, if you read summaries of many of the cases I cite (Abington v. Schempp 5 and Lee v. Weisman 6 are two excellent examples), it seems that they’re doing just the opposite! In Abington, the Court ruled against school-directed Bible reading and in Lee against prayer at a graduation ceremony. In these and the other cases mentioned here, it is important to read the Court’s entire opinion rather than seeing it as a “yes or no” to a particular case. In the explanations, we often find certain qualifications in the logic that allows a specific case to function as legal precedent for future instances. You will find that many of the sources listed for this article come from law journals rather than music publications because it is there that these nuances are often more clearly explained.
Another reason this is legally murky is that even court cases that dealt specifically with sacred music in public schools, such as Bauchman v. West High School (a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals case that upheld the performance of sacred choral music at a graduation ceremony), are only legally binding within that court’s jurisdiction. Only rulings from the Supreme Court are considered the “law of the land,” and here we have no specific cases to which to refer. As it would happen, the Supreme Court declined to hear Bauchman on appeal, which could be seen as implicit agreement with the 10th Circuit’s decision (though not necessarily). Until Congress passes specific legislation or the Supreme Court hears a specific case, it seems we are to continue in legal ambiguity.
In Abington Township School District v. Schempp (1963) the Supreme Court declared “religious exercises” in public schools unconstitutional. However, the Court specifically noted that teaching about religion, even using the Bible as literature, is acceptable under the Establishment Clause. 7 From this opinion, we can infer that if religion as an academic subject is not off-limits and the Bible as literature is acceptable, then choral music with sacred texts may also be permissible provided it is not used as part of a religious exercise; in other words, that sacred music in public schools is not in and of itself at odds with the First Amendment.
Two other landmark cases are often used to test the constitutionality of religious content in the public schools: the “Lemon Test,” from Lemon v. Kurtzman 8 (1971), and the “Endorsement Test,” from Lynch v. Donnelly 9 (1984). The “Lemon Test,” which has never been overturned, has three basic parts. The government-sponsored use of religious material (read: sacred music in public schools) must fulfill three requirements: (1) It must have a secular purpose, (2) it must have a primary effect that neither enhances nor inhibits religion, and (3) it must not “foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.” 10 The Endorsement Test considers whether the action has the effect of endorsing a particular religion. The actions of the government (or public school) must not “convey a message of endorsement or disapproval of religion,” wrote Justice O’Connor, even if the intent was not explicitly to do so. This clarifies the “purpose” prong of the Lemon Test and eliminates excuses for unintended consequences. Applying these principles, we can see that appropriate use of sacred music in public schools probably passes the Lemon and Endorsement Tests provided its use has a secular purpose (education), its effect is religiously neutral, and there is no perceived endorsement of any sort of religious cause.
Based on these tests, it could be argued further that totally banning sacred texts from the school music program is itself a violation of the Establishment Clause. By intentionally avoiding all religious music, it could be inferred that religion has no place at all and that perhaps no religion is preferable to having one. In Lee v. Weisman (1992), Justice Kennedy wrote that a “relentless and all-pervasive attempt to exclude religion from every aspect of public life could itself become inconsistent with the Constitution.” 11 Therefore, the total exclusion of sacred music likely fails the Lemon Test by “inhibiting religion” and the Endorsement Test by, in effect, endorsing non-religion. The advocating teacher could argue not only that is it more educationally enriching to include both sacred and secular music in our school programs but also that we may see it as a legal obligation to do so. But this is only the beginning; how should educators decide how to “appropriately” use sacred music?
Reflecting Community Religious Beliefs
Since it would be impossible to study and perform music from every culture around the world, many educators may choose to focus on music that reflects the makeup of the student body or local community. Indeed, teachers may find a valuable link to their students and the community by embracing cultural traditions in their music-making. A teacher in a school with a large population of Armenian students would definitely want to highlight music and performance practices from that culture, perhaps even bringing in parents or other local residents as special musical presenters. The same is true in a school with large numbers of adherents to a particular religion; we are wise to acknowledge and celebrate the musical traditions of our students. Many schools encourage music programs to include “multicultural music” in their curricula, which can encompass religious music from traditions that are unfamiliar to the teacher and students alike. Educators need to be careful, however, to present culturally authentic and respectful examples when teaching about an unfamiliar culture. Adding a djembe to a song doesn’t make it “African”; in the same way, well-intended efforts to include diverse religious music are not always culturally sensitive or educationally sound.
In the United States, December concerts are often the time this issue comes to the forefront. Many American public school teachers work in communities with a Christian majority or at least whose local culture recognizes Christian observances. This often comes with the assumption that a December concert is essentially a Christmas concert. Aware of this, teachers may program Christmas music such as “Carol of the Bells” that does not reference any religious figure. To include people of other faiths, they might add in a Hanukkah tune. However well meaning, this gesture shows a lack of understanding of the Jewish faith and of the privileged position of the Christian majority as well as a lack of acknowledgment for anyone who does not fall into one of those two categories. As Joshua Jacobson, DCA at Northeastern University and an expert on Jewish choral music, said, “Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas. Hanukkah is a minor holiday, and most of the Hanukkah music you’ll find was actually created in a futile attempt to balance out Christmas concerts.” 12 There are of course eleven other months of the year in which educators can program Jewish sacred music of high quality. It is also obvious to non-Christian students that a concert program centered upon secularized Christmas songs still recognizes a Christian holiday and still casts them as outsiders. Instead of an isolated piece of music that may come off as trite to your religious minority, sometimes secular music unrelated to any holiday may be the best balance to sacred music.
Consider how this applies to communities with homogenous religious beliefs. First, a “homogenous” community is usually not 100 percent homogenous. By accommodating the majority, vast though it may be, the minority few are further marginalized, and in the case of public schools, they are marginalized with government endorsement. Even if the community as a whole approves of and requests specifically religious programming that favors one religion, complying with that desire is almost certainly going to discriminate against someone.
Second, even if everyone in the school and community was of the same religion, the lack of a diverse music curriculum does the students a disservice, just as the exclusion of sacred music would have done. A winter concert devoted entirely to Christmas music, for example, is not appropriate for a public school, even if the community and students support it. At best, this type of concert overtly favors Christianity; at worst, it constitutes a religious service with “excessive government entanglement.” Law professor Richard Mangrum said, “The school, by word and deed, must distinguish between singing about religion as an exercise in cultural affirmation . . . and singing religious songs for the purpose of a state-sponsored exercise pertaining to . . . religious faith.” 13
Context and Interpretation
Context plays a large role in the perceived effect of a religious work (see Lynch v. Donnelly). Singing a piece of sacred music may not in itself pose an issue for students with differing beliefs; singing the same work in a religious building or as part of a religious service may. The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) recommends avoiding the use of devotional settings for performance whenever possible. 14 You may have chosen to use a local church for your concert venue because it has a nicer acoustic than your school auditorium: Have you ever considered that singing sacred music in a church is different than singing sacred music in a school building? Lines can quickly become blurred; remember that music, more than words alone, has a place in which it is heard and performed, and that place can influence its effect. Each year as a public high school choral director, my choirs have been involved in a Baccalaureate service for the graduating class. This explicitly religious ceremony is held at a local church, where members of the clergy, students, teachers, and parents all participate in the reading of scriptures, prayers, and preaching (note: in Bauchman v. West High School, favorable acoustics are specifically mentioned as a plausible secular reason for performing in a church, but with the other explicitly religious reasons for using a church for a baccalaureate, I have never considered it reason enough to overlook the contextual importance). Though the senior class is not required to attend, I must require my students to attend in order to have a performance (unless, of course, they cannot perform in a church because of their own religion). Considering the already blurred lines in this situation, I program secular music to offset the religious setting. This has never seemed to detract from the event, and I’ve been able to include more of my students as a result.
In rehearsals, focusing on the composer’s intent and interpreting the text for a more informed performance are effective and appropriate ways to use sacred texts. Catherine Connor-Moen, director of Fine Arts in Norwood, Massachusetts, public schools, tells her students, “My job is to help you be a storyteller. You don’t have to believe the story, or like the story.” 15 Encourage students to understand and convey the meaning, knowing that they need not believe or endorse the meaning in order to have an effective performance. With adequate preparation in this area, students who might object to religious music may be able to understand your secular purpose for assigning it and in turn engage in a more enriching musical experience. This is sensitive business and one in which it is likely impossible to leave religion out entirely. DePaul University music professor Clayton Parr said, “When encountering music of another culture [or religion], we may need to suspend our own beliefs—at least temporarily—to fully appreciate the music’s emotional depth and cultural richness. As singers . . . [w]e are called on to internalize the other culture to some extent, to allow the other belief system to influence . . . our singing technique, so that the result is more in line with the original expression.” 16 As you toe the line between education for effective performance and “government entanglement” with religion, keep yourself and your students aware of the secular reasons for studying the music at hand.
Sacred texts often deal with universal human experiences and emotions and can be studied in ways that avoid or minimize explicit religious language. For example, many spirituals use Bible stories and other sacred references to portray the feeling that the world is a place filled with hardships and that there’s hope that those hardships will one day go away. These sentiments are often less about religion than the struggles of life and the desire for freedom from those struggles, even if the language talks about God or biblical figures, and the same can be said about the emotional content of many sacred texts. This is not to say that we should pretend sacred music has no religious message; our students are smarter than that. Rather, using an approach like the one mentioned here is merely a tool to allow all students the ability to connect to a text and effectively communicate it in performance while remaining respectful of various beliefs and the “wall of separation.”
Explanations and educational reasons for using sacred music are not always going to resolve all issues. In some cases, respect for students and their beliefs must take precedence over educators’ academic or performance goals; our students are people before they are musicians. If a student does feel uncomfortable with performing a particular piece of music due to its religious content, teachers should honor their objection and allow them to modify their contribution or simply not participate if they feel that is necessary. However, we need not remove all sacred music on their behalf. Mangrum explained: “Acknowledging the possibility of an ‘opt out’ alternative permits the school to tolerate religious objections without permitting the same student to censor the curriculum for others.” 17
Practical Recommendations
It is imperative that music educators know their students and attempt to be proactive in accommodating various religious beliefs. For example, in many areas of the United States, school calendars ignore the existence non-Christian holidays (“Christmas” and “Easter” vacations may have been renamed to “Winter” and “Spring” breaks, but the timing is still the same); scheduling competitions, concerts, rehearsals, or other events during your students’ religious observances is an unacceptable and completely avoidable mistake. 18
What’s the lesson here, amid all of these qualified statements and careful considerations? Is Christmas music during the Christmas season too much “government entanglement” for the public school setting? Do we avoid music from cultures or faith traditions with which we are unfamiliar so as not to offend? How do we choose music at all with so many toes to avoid stepping on? Allow me to make several recommendations:
Sacred music holds an important place in public school music programs. It is an integral part of musical life from cultures all over the world. Prohibiting or severely limiting the use of sacred music is not only educationally unsound but may be unconstitutional and a government endorsement of non-religion. It is important for music educators to create a well-balanced curriculum that includes authentic repertoire from many traditions, religions, and times and to be able to explain the educational significance of any given part of that curriculum to students, administrators, parents, and school boards. With the right balance and the right instructional approach, as well as an awareness of context and knowledge of your students, sacred music can form an important and enriching part of your public school curriculum.