Adventist leaders in North America say they plan to take a cautious line in response to a Supreme Court decision last week that opens the door to government aid for students at religious schools.
Seventh-day Adventist leaders in North America say they plan to take a cautious line in response to a Supreme Court decision last week that opens the door to a new form of government aid for students at religious schools. In its 5 to 4 ruling, handed down June 27, the United States’ highest court upheld the constitutionality of a state-funded school voucher plan in Ohio. The plan provides financial assistance to help low-income students attend private schools.
“We intend to wait and see what the ultimate results of this plan will be in practice,” says Clarence Hodges, a vice president of the Adventist Church in North America, and its public affairs director. He says the church in North America will carefully study the voucher program in Ohio, and any other programs subsequently set up, to see if religious schools involved retain full academic and administrative independence.
According to the working policy of the church in North America, state aid should be rejected if acceptance of it would lead to “excessive control by or entanglement with the government,” “dependence on the government,” or in any other way would “compromise the integrity of the church or reduce its ability to design programs and curricula to fulfill its gospel commission.”
The school voucher issue has sparked heated debate within the United States about how far tax-payers’ money can flow, even indirectly, to religious schools without violating the constitutional prohibition against advancing religion.
Supporters of the program say that school vouchers act as a “life-raft” to low-income students trapped in substandard public schools. Under the Ohio plan considered by the Supreme Court, parents receive state assistance to send their child to a private school of their choice—whether secular or religious.
Opponents of school vouchers say these plans will drain sorely needed state money from public schools, and may, ultimately, leave religious schools vulnerable to state interference. Since the vast majority of private schools in the Unites States are faith-based, opponents also say that the scheme is, in practice, a direct advancement of religious enterprises.
Seventh-day Adventists, who have been longstanding advocates of a principled separation between church and government, operate the largest unified Protestant school system in the world.
