On June 17, 1963, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Abington School District v. Schempp. Schools in Pennsylvania had opened their days with a Bible reading and the Lord’s Prayer. The court in this case struck down such practices as violating the First Amendment ’s establishment clause, which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

The conclusion that Bible readings and prayer in public and in governmental forums ran afoul of our Constitution would surprise most if not all of our founders. It also would raise concern among them for a future of the republic without those boons to free and virtuous self-government.

For most of American history, our public morality and public law have been saturated in biblical language and ideals. To find examples amassed on this point, one might pick up a copy of the Faith and Liberty Bible , which the American Bible Society published in 2021. This edition of Scripture is prefaced with a letter from former President John Quincy Adams, who wrote, “The Bible is the book, of all others, to be read at all ages, and in all conditions of human life.” Adams goes on to list the breadth and depth of an education one can receive from Scripture, not just regarding eternal life, but about morals, history, law, and more. It teaches us human equality and the conditions necessary for liberty. Scripture thus gives a primer in the qualities needed by any people for ruling and being ruled well.

The Faith and Liberty Bible then shows how the potential Adams saw became actual again and again in our history. In between the Scripture’s own words in this edition are recounted a plethora of instances in which the biblical text influenced American figures, laws, and events. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance, cited the Genesis account of man’s creation in God’s image when discussing the stakes involved in fighting Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. A North Carolina court in 1917 said, “Our laws are founded upon the Decalogue [the Ten Commandments].” And Martin Luther King Jr. called on various Bible passages to make the case for racial equality during the Civil Rights Movement.

Contrast this awesome heritage with the system wrought by the Supreme Court 60 years ago. That court argued that it merely sought neutrality by the state in matters of religion. In particular, the justices rejected the claim that in removing the readings and prayers, “a ‘religion of secularism’ is established in the schools.”

However, what can we call the current state of too many children’s educations? We see ideologies regarding race, sexuality, and gender enforced with the confidence of dogma and the vehemence of an inquisition. Cancel culture has become the new form of excommunication, exercised by a combination of public intellectuals, bureaucrats, and online mobs who act as priests for the new religion.

This new order shows that perfect neutrality regarding religion was not only outside the minds of the Constitution’s makers, but it also reveals that such neutrality is incapable of acting as a coherent principle of political action.

Church and state can and must be separated as institutions with neither entirely subservient to the other. The First Amendment’s free exercise clause requires the protection of religious belief and practice against threat and coercion. But religion and politics cannot be entirely separated because they overlap on crucial matters. Whether God exists or not matters for both. Consequently, the source of justice and thus of law is important for faith and political life. Even the existence of an afterlife has significant ramifications for how we view the purposes of human governments.

Sixty years ago, the Supreme Court tried to make decisions on these matters for the country, doing so against our historical practice. As a result, we have given up a precious set of resources for our republic, one that made us better human beings and citizens while pointing us to truths universal and a life eternal. We are not better for it. To get better, we must consider how we might reobtain it.

Adam Carrington is assistant professor of politics at Hillsdale College.