Piety, Muffins, and the Board of Education

Sitting in a muffin shop at 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday is unusual for me. Minus vacations, I’ve been in church at this hour nearly every week for my whole life. I’m not flaking out or going through a crisis: my church moved out of Brooklyn’s John Jay High School two weeks ago, and last week we started worshiping at Greenwood Baptist Church, with services at 4 p.m.

The move was forced by the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Board of Education v. Bronx Household of Faith, a lawsuit about meeting space that has been going on between the New York City Board of Education and a tiny church in the Bronx for about fifteen years. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Board of Ed’s suit, and the Supreme Court wouldn’t review their decision, so between 60 and 100 churches have gotten the leave notice. Yesterday was to be their first official day of homelessness. Now a temporary injunction has been issued against the Board of Education until next Sunday. Still, Park Slope Presbyterian is at Greenwood Baptist to stay for some time.

First of all I have to say New York’s pastors are behaving with exceptional quality. They are, of course, opposed to the decision. Many are involved with efforts in the city council and state legislature to intervene for the churches. And the Alliance Defense Fund continues to pursue legal options on our behalf; hence the current injunction. But in articles, interviews, and comments to their congregations, pastors are displaying what it means to submit to the rule of law as per Romans 13, in spite of disagreement with the governing authorities.

The court’s decision deserves to be challenged. Its logic is dicey and insincere, its premises unconstitutional. It waters down our hard-won freedom of religion to “freedom of worship”—the freedom to keep our opinions to ourselves.

The majority opinion creates a convoluted distinction between religious instruction or points of view, which are permitted in schools, and worship services or organized religion, which are not permitted. Supposedly it does not prohibit Christian belief, only a specific class of Christian conduct: “a collective activity characteristically done according to an order prescribed by and under the auspices of an organized religion, typically but not necessarily conducted by an ordained official of the religion. The conduct of a ‘religious worship service’ has the effect of placing centrally, and perhaps even of establishing, the religion in the school” (10).

But churches don’t meet in schools to “establish” religion. If anything, it’s all the more obvious in schools that the building isn’t the church. We’re just passing through. The court’s distinction between religious activities and worship services attempts to say, “You can be religious in a public space as long as you keep religion out of it.” Nonsense.

My favorite part of the opinion is the part that got quoted in the newspapers:

“A worship service is an act of organized religion that consecrates the place in which it is performed, making it a church…[Churches] tend to dominate the schools on the day they use them. They do not use a single, small classroom, and are not merely one of various types of groups using the schools; they use the largest rooms and are typically the only outside group using a school on Sunday. They identify the schools as their churches, as do many residents of the community.

Our pastor, Matt Brown, told the New York Times, “I would love to know who at the Board of Education is theologically capable of making these decisions.” What does the Justice mean by saying a worship service “consecrates” a space? We don’t leave our chairs, much less our banners or religious artwork, standing around. Is the Justice admitting he believes that consecration is real? Is he afraid of it? So much for religion being mindless superstition. The court seems actually worried that lingering shreds of holiness might cling to the children’s shoelaces as they shuffle around their auditoriums and cafeterias. Like dustbunnies. What exactly would those do? No one knows, but clearly a brisk regimen of intolerance is more to be desired.

Christians aren’t this superstitious. The sacraments embody God’s relationship with his people. The redemption of the world is implied and celebrated, yes, but temple rites no longer exist for a reason. The irony of this story is that those who are afraid of religion are religious themselves, but in an illogical, retro-pagan way. The greatest irony of all is that the Board of Education, short of space itself, rents classroom space from churches.

A final quote:

The fact that New York City’s school facilities are more available on Sundays than any other day of the week means that there is a de facto bias in favor of Christian groups who want to use the schools for worship services, compounded by the exclusionary practices of churches like Bronx Household.”

I do not know what Justice Leval means by “exclusionary practices.” Worship services are public. In all times and places, the church has welcomed its community. Hospitality is an essential part of evangelism and service. Where churches cannot offer this safely, it is a sure sign of persecution. The behavior of one church, which may or may not be exclusionary in a problematic way, should not dictate policy towards the rest.

Personally, I’m excited by this opportunity for the city’s churches. We get to be faithful to Christ’s example and obey without violence or threatening. It is a hardship, but hardship seems to inspire the greatest purity and growth. At Park Slope Pres we have the sense of excitement that comes with uncharted territory. It is something, too, that we are counted worthy of this small trial for Jesus’ name.

It’s also tough to complain about how this reshapes my Sundays. A long morning with my husband over muffins and tea is a luxury I didn’t know in the morning-church days. Not to say they’re gone. But this is a special time for us, and I think for the church as well.

So let the Pharisees buzz and bother as they please. God’s people are busy rejoicing.