First Things RSS Feed - C. John Sommerville https://www.firstthings.com/author/c-john-sommerville en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:53:44 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/c-john-sommerville 60 Secularism at Bay https://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/06/secularism-at-bay https://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/06/secularism-at-bay Sun, 01 Jun 2003 00:00:00 -0400 Among the many notable decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in the area of religion was the 1963 case Abington Township School District v. Schempp , which held that tax-supported schools were only allowed to teach about religion. Meaning, of course, that government schools could not directly teach religion in the sense of encouraging belief. But teaching about religion “relativizes” or marginalizes it. It teaches children to see religion from the outside, from some perspective that is thought to transcend it. The Supreme Court recognized this in stipulating that the teaching of religion should be “part of a secular program of education.” Thus it would tend to undermine the claims of any particular religion, although perhaps it was meant to give children an appreciation of “religion in general.”

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]]> Ben Bradlee’s Version https://www.firstthings.com/article/1996/04/003-ben-bradlees-version https://www.firstthings.com/article/1996/04/003-ben-bradlees-version Mon, 01 Apr 1996 00:00:00 -0500 A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures
By Ben Bradlee
Simon & Schuster, 514 pages, $27.50

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]]> Why the News Makes Us Dumb https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/10/why-the-news-makes-us-dumb https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/10/why-the-news-makes-us-dumb Tue, 01 Oct 1991 00:00:00 -0400 I

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