Wednesday, June 17, 2026

It is the 17th of June 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Longtime listeners to this show might recall my personal fondness for dissecting issues pertaining to Christianity and the peculiar First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Considered by many to be a beacon of our individual freedoms (I agree!) It has two clauses that have long been at the center of national conversations about faith, or a lack thereof- at least publicly. These are the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause (shout out to Nate, a listener whose life surrounds these ideas and might even be a guest if we ever get that figured out in the new studios).

In the First Amendment, we read that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Note first that we are talking about congressional action- national laws. And by the 14th Amendment, this has also been applied to state laws.

Put simply, there cannot be an “established” Church. The Anglican Church is the “established” church of England. Other countries have “national” churches, but we in the U.S. don’t. And then secondly, no national or state law can prohibit me from freely exercising my religion. Ooh… that might get trickier. What does “exercise” mean, and can we define “religion”? If you’ve been following the news lately, the Department of Defense redefining categories of religions- namely, calling the LDS, not Christian, caused some consternation (and a mailbag question I’ll get to later).

The middle of the last century saw a flurry of cases making their way to the Supreme Court over the place of religion in public life and institutions. We have a number of factors: one, the Cold War pitted the U.S. versus the “godless” Soviet Union. “One Nation Under God” was only added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. “In God We Trust” has only been the national motto since 1956.

So a tick up in national religiosity brought questions as to how these might jive with those two clauses in the all-important First Amendment. And it was on this, the 17th of June in 1963, that the Supreme Court famously laid down its decision in the case of the Abington School District vs. Schempp.

There was a Pennsylvania law which read: “at least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day.” The child could pick the verses and the translation, and there was a carve-out for parents who wanted to exempt their own children. But surely by requiring it to be the Bible, there would be some pushback. And there was, when Ellery Schempp either refused to read or read from the Koran. This was obviously inflammatory, such that a legal case could be made- it’s how the system tends to work.

The Court would decide in favor of Schempp, against Abington School District and the Pennsylvania Law by a count of 8 to 1. The rub can be read in the decision of the court by Justice Clark- "There must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion”

A law must have a secular purpose that neither advances nor inhibits religion. Bible reading, or any religious reading required by law, would be advancing religion. The dissent came from Justice Potter Stewart. He suggested that the state be free to make its own decision and that the 14th Amendment didn’t give the Federal Court the right to make this decision for the state. Furthermore, it puts religion, any religion, at a disadvantage to the religion of no religion, or secularism.

The previous year, 1962, saw the court rule in Engel v. Vitale a similar injunction against prayers in school. As you can imagine, this case, coupled with that, led to claims that either the constitution was being upheld or that God was being kicked out of Public Schools. It should be noted that the Bible, being read as literature and for academic reasons, has not been banned- and in some recent cases, teachers, students, and coaches have been given the right to pray as a matter of freedom of speech without invoking the establishment clause… It’s all very tricky- and kind of fun if you don’t get too worked up. Today we remember Abington v. Schempp- a landmark ruling on religion in public school, made on this day in 1963.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Luke 12… please don’t play this on speaker if you’re at the public school… I don’t want any problems:

12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 17th of June 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who can’t believe that justice has both the names from It’s A Wonderful Life- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who knows he would have picked ten verses from Song of Solomon… every time… Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.