This article studies the situation in church-state relations in the United States in the late 1940s - early 1950s. The Supreme Court's decisions in the Everson (1947), McCollum (1948) and Zorach (1952) cases concerned the majority of U.S. religious bodies. These decisions provoked debates on the issues of the secularization of American society and cooperation between church and state in various fields. Interpretation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was an important subject of the polemics too. In its analysis of the debate, the article pays special attention to the attitude of Roman Catholic and Protestant leaders toward the issue, as well as to the disputes between and inside churches.

Keywords: USA, the U.S. Supreme Court, religion, church-state relations, parochial school, public school, Protestant denominations, Catholic Church, secularization.

In the MIDDLE of the 20th century, major changes took place in the religious life of the United States. In the 1940s and 1950s, several factors coincided: strengthening the position of the Roman Catholic community, which has finally "Americanized" and parted with any signs of co-existence.-

Borzov A. "Everson", "McCollum", "Zorach": The Supreme Court and the Discussion around Church-State relations in the field of school education in the USA at the Turn of the 1940s and 1950s.Gosudarstvo, religiya, tserkva v Rossii I za rubezhom [State, Religion, Church in Russia and Abroad]. 2017. N 2. pp. 197-221.

Borzov, Alexei (2017) "'Everson', 'McCollum', 'Zorach': The Supreme Court and the Debate on Church-State Relations in the United States in the Late 1940s - Early 1950s", Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom 35(2): 197-221.

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social and cultural isolation; the acceptance of pluralism (still according to Will Herberg's formula "Protestants-Catholics-Jews") as the norm of American religious life; the growth of the Evangelical and fundamentalist movement with the simultaneous beginning of the decline of the Protestant mainstream; the increase in the role of religion in public and political discourse in the Cold War situation, combined with the strengthening of the voice of those who who sympathized with secular ideologies. A significant phenomenon was the activation of the federal judicial power in the field of relations between religion and the state. In 1947-1952. The U.S. Supreme Court issued three decisions in cases concerning the interpretation of the First Amendment's prohibition of the establishment of an official religion in the United States in relation to school education: Everson v. Board of Education, McCollum v. Board of Education, and Zorach v. Clawson. These decisions led to a discussion that went far beyond the discussion of American schools and touched on a wide range of issues related to the religious situation in the country. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, "Everson", "McCollum", and "Zorach" were frequently mentioned when discussing topics such as the role of religion in secular education, government aid to Catholic and other religious schools, trends in secularization of American society, and the interpretation of the First Amendment. In the course of the controversy that unfolded in religious and secular circles, in the pages of the press of that time, these aspects turned out to be closely related.

The ecclesiastical and social situation in the United States at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s is largely similar to the corresponding situation in Russia at the beginning of the XXI century. In both cases, we see a religious revival (expressed at least in quantitative terms), a close intertwining of religious and patriotic discourses in the context of increasing international tension, debates about the church's presence in the public sphere (primarily in the field of education), and finally a discussion of the legal aspects of the relationship between religion and society. The religious diversity that characterizes the United States and the absence of a dominant denomination forces us to be careful when drawing historical analogies. However, it is very useful to study the solution of the problem of church-state relations in this period of American history, especially since in the above perspective this issue is very difficult to solve.

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the issue has not yet been the subject of a detailed study in Russian historiography1.

Although all three trials were mentioned by contemporaries in connection with the same problem, researchers approached them from different points of view, touching on different elements of the American religious landscape. In the Everson case, it was a question of state support for students of non-state, primarily church, schools. This mainly affected the interests of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as some Protestant denominations, which, like Catholics, had parochial schools.2 The McCollum and Zorach trials addressed the issue of optional religious instruction provided at the expense of churches with the assistance of public schools, which directly affected the interests of Protestant communities. Strictly speaking, both of these processes (unlike the first one) were not related to the problem of state funding of religious institutions.3
In the Everson case, the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of State funding for transportation of students from non-State schools to their place of study. The prehistory of this process was the claim of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States to state financial support for parochial education. In the second half of the 1940s, the leaders of the Catholic community, on the one hand, strenuously sought the adoption of a law that would provide federal funding for church schools, and on the other, they continued to fight for the preservation and expansion of the system of indirect state education.-

1. There are a number of scientific articles that address such related issues as legal norms in the sphere of church-state relations, as well as the role of religion in education: Dzukaeva Z. N. "The Holy War" in America // USA-Canada: Economics. Politics. Culture. Vliyanie pravovoi doktoriny na zakonodatel'stvo SSHA, ee rol ' v interpretanii Kontstitsii SSHA [Influence of the legal doctrine on the legislation of the USA, its role in the interpretation of the US Constitution]. Vestnik Penzenskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. 2013. N 4. pp. 51-54; Nikolaev B. V., Pavlova N. A. State, higher education and religion: North American model of regulation // Modern problems of science and education. 2011. N 2. pp. 29-38; Zadorozhnyuk I. E. Grazhdanskaya religiya i patrioticheskoe vospitanie v sisteme obrazovaniya SSHA [Civil religion and patriotic education in the US education system]. 2007. N 9. Pp. 150-155.

2. Marty, M. (1996) Modern American Religion, Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960, p. 220. Chicago.

3. "The Constitutionality of the Inclusion of Church-Related Schools in Federal Aid to Education: The Roman Catholic Viewpoint" (1962), Journal of Church and State 4(2): 162.

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in particular, free transportation of students from Catholic schools to their place of study and from school to their homes. These claims faced opposition from both local courts and a significant part of Protestant circles and the secular public.

At the same time, debate has intensified in various states around bills that would allow students from private schools, including church schools, to be transported to and from their place of study at the state's expense, 4 and/or free supply of textbooks to church school students.5 Thus, in the state of Wisconsin in the summer and fall of 1946, a controversy developed around the draft amendment to the state constitution concerning the use of school buses. Support for the amendment was expressed by Catholics, who made up a large and influential group of the electorate in Wisconsin, as well as representatives of the Lutheran Church. The opponents were the leading Protestant denominations and secular circles. There were concerns in the central religious press that disagreements between supporters and opponents of the amendment could "leave a deep scar" on the state's civil and public life.6
Some opponents of state support for church school education have argued that the divide is between Catholics and Protestants, and therefore it is a matter of Catholic-Protestant contradictions. 7 The position of the Wisconsin Lutherans showed that this view was somewhat simplistic and contrary to reality. However, it is true that at that time the vast majority of the leading Protestant denominations in the United States had a negative attitude towards the demands of Catholics.

The argument of opponents of providing assistance to church schools cannot but be considered convincing. A reasonable opinion was expressed that if the relevant laws are adopted, not only Catholic educational institutions, but also numerous Sunday schools and groups for preschool children will be able to apply for state assistance.,

4. Bell, C. (1946) "Church-State Issue in Wisconsin", Christian Century. July 17, p. 891.

5. Kean, C. (1947) "Protestant Reaction to Roman Catholic Pressure", Christianity and Crisis, November 3, p. 4.

6. Bell, C. "Church-State Issue in Wisconsin".

7. Kean, C. "Protestant Reaction to Roman Catholic Pressure".

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owned by Protestant congregations. The state authorities would be faced with a dilemma: either exorbitant financial expenses or unacceptable discrimination on religious grounds. 8 There were also legitimate concerns that state financial assistance to church institutions (in the form of financing the transportation of children to private schools) could be a cause and tool for violating religious freedom in small towns. Churches that were firmly established in a given area, so that their congregation was an absolute majority, could prevent other religious groups (for example, evangelical sects) from coming there, on the grounds that another religious community would put a heavy burden on the local budget, since it would probably require funding for the transportation of children to their schools. Finally, another argument was put forward against the argument that the church cannot survive without state assistance: a church that cannot exist without state assistance "does not deserve to live", and "the state should not support this defect at its own expense or artificially prolong its life"9.

Government funding for the transportation of children to church schools, which was heavily debated, was the subject of a Supreme Court hearing in 1947 in the case of Everson v. Board of Education. The subject of the lawsuit was a New Jersey law that provided for the payment of compensation from public funds to parents of Catholic school students whose children use public transport to get to their place of study.10 This law was challenged on the grounds that it allegedly forced taxpayers to fund assistance to "schools that are devoted to the Catholic faith and... teach it", thereby violating the First Amendment 11. As a result, the Supreme Court upheld this law, recognizing that the practice provided for by it does not violate the First Amendment. At the same time, this decision was accompanied by numerous additions that defended the idea of maximum isolation.-

8. Bell, C. "Church-State Issue in Wisconsin", p. 891-892.

9. Ibid., P. 892.

10. "The Constitutionality of the Inclusion of Church-Related Schools in Federal Aid to Education: The Roman Catholic Viewpoint".

11. Marty, M. Modern American Religion, Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960, p. 220.

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states and religions are different from each other. First of all, the Supreme Court applied Thomas Jefferson's thesis about the "wall of separation between church and state", which, as Martin Marty notes, has never been used in constitutional law before. The majority opinion of the judges read: "According to Jefferson, the purpose of [the First Amendment]... - to erect a wall between the church and the state, which must remain high and impregnable; we cannot approve of the slightest breach in it. " 12
In addition to referring to the Jefferson metaphor, the Supreme Court's wording stated that neither the federal nor state governments should enact any laws that "provide support for any one religion, all religions, or give preference to one religion over another." 13 Many objected to this thesis, citing the following reasons: In the United States, government support for the religious sphere was regular and took various forms - for example, the institution of chaplains, the presence of religion in the official rhetoric of presidents, 14 government spending on the construction of religious buildings for the armed forces, and tax exemption for religious organizations in the United States15. Catholic Archbishop Robert Lusi, criticizing the idea of the need for complete neutrality of the state in relation to religion, noted that in reality there is not a single country where there would be an absolute separation of church and state, "this is not even in [Soviet] Russia, which favors the Orthodox Church"16.

Catholics supported the final judgment of the Court 17, while opposing most of the accompanying commentaries-

12. Ibid., p. 221.

13. Gaustad, E. (1962) "Church and State Re-Examined: A Baptist View", Journal of Church and State 4(76): 77.

14. Marty, M. Modern American Religion, Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960. P. 221.

15. Archbishop R. Lucey (1948) "The Catholic Position on Church and State", Christianity and Crisis, February 2, p. 54.

16. Ibid.

17. The judges ' commitment to the idea of prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds for any support of religion did not contradict the final verdict, as the opinion was expressed that the Court's decision should be considered as an endorsement of state aid not to church schools, but to "citizens themselves... in order to help them master the secular benefits of education, regardless of whether they attend public or private (including religious) schools" ("The

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and especially against the idea of a " wall of separation between church and state." They feared that the amendments to the Court's decision would further secularize the educational sphere.18
Following the decision in the Everson case, Catholic hierarchs stepped up their efforts to secure legislative guarantees of State aid to Catholic education. According to the Protestant publication Christian Century, in April 1947, the Catholic Church of the United States launched a special campaign to ensure that state budgets at all levels (city, state, federation) are used "to support Catholic schools throughout the country." 19 At the same time, Catholics increased their criticism of those who opposed their demands. This criticism was directed primarily at local courts and public school teacher communities. At the National Association for Catholic Education convention, Archbishop Richard Cushing of Boston said:: "We... we should not allow legislators, courts, or anti-Catholic speakers to do this... distract attention from the central place that parents occupy... in all democratic and Christian pedagogical theories." According to the hierarch, those who considered various forms of" democratic assistance "to Catholic education (in the form of, for example, providing school buses) to be an unacceptable rapprochement between the church and the state, in fact show" fanaticism "and hinder the realization of"the sovereign right of parents to choose teachers for their children in accordance with their conscience." The National Teachers 'Association (a public school teachers' union), which opposed federal financial aid to private schools, was accused by Catholics of pursuing "anti-social and anti-democratic policies." 20
American Protestants, for the most part, traditionally attached great importance to the public school system, contrasting it with parochial schools, and therefore had a negative attitude to the idea of public education.-

Constitutionality of the Inclusion of Church-Related Schools in Federal Aid to Education: The Roman Catholic Viewpoint").

18. Gaston, H. (2014) "'A Bad Kind of Magic': The Niebuhr Brothers on 'Utilitarian Christianity' and the Defense of Democracy", Harvard Theological Review 107(1): 21.

19. "Catholic Leaders Ask Federal Help" (1947), Christian Century, April 30, p. 564.

20. Ibid.

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th funding of the latter. Accordingly, some Protestant denominations opposed the decision in the Everson case, believing that the verdict would allow church school students to qualify not only for free travel, but also for government funding for other ancillary services, such as the provision of free textbooks.21 Many Baptists and Methodists declared the Supreme Court's decision a departure from the principles of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. A number of Methodist bishops were clearly anti-Catholic: they called the decision in the Everson case "a threat to our public education system" and assured that they "will resist any attempts by the Catholic hierarchy to get state support for their schools."22. This view was supported by fundamentalist communities, which traditionally advocated an uncompromising separation of church and state.23
Eleanor Roosevelt joined in the discussion with the Catholics. In one of her newspaper articles, she criticized the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Francis Spellman, who was most active in defending free transportation and textbooks for Catholic school students.24 In turn, the hierarch accused Roosevelt of anti-Catholic bias.25 According to Spellman, Roosevelt's position on state aid to church schools was an insult to the memory of those who died or suffered for America. The cardinal said that many Catholics sacrificed their lives during the world wars, making a huge contribution to the defeat of the enemies of the United States, and now "the president's widow wants to deny their children equal rights." 26
21. Marty, M. Modern American Religion, Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960, p. 161.

22. Ibid, p. 223.

23. In 1947, a small Seventh-day Baptist denomination officially condemned the use of public funds to provide direct or indirect assistance to religious institutions because "this practice violates the principle of ... separation of church and state" ("Seventh Day Baptists Urge Church-State Vigilance" (1947), Christian Century, September 10,p. p. 1090).

24. Marty, M. Modern American Religion, Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960, p. 161.

25. Niebuhr, R. (1949) "The Rising Catholic-Protestant Tension", Christianity and Crisis, June 7, p. 106.

26. Marty, M. Modern American Religion, Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960, p. 161.

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The decision in the Everson case triggered the creation in January 1948 of an organization called "Protestants and Other Americans United in Support of the Separation of Church and State "(POAUSCS). Initially, the leaders of this organization were some prominent representatives of liberal Protestantism, including Bishop Garfield Oxnam of the Methodist Church and editor-in-chief of Christian Century magazine Charles Morrison. They were supported by fundamentalist circles 27. This organization took not just an anti-clerical, but a pronounced anti-Catholic position. It was aimed at resisting attempts by the Catholic Church to gain state support for its parochial schools or to gain clerical control over public schools in areas where Catholics made up the majority of the population.28 In February 1948, Archbishop Richard Cushing, addressing the Knights of Columbus in New Hampshire, harshly criticized the POAUSCS, calling its members "intellectual followers of the Ku Klux Klan." 29 Accusations of Protestant nativism and anti-Catholic prejudice were an important argument in the dispute between Catholics and supporters of the idea of an" impenetrable wall " between church and state. John Witt, a contemporary researcher in the field of law and religion, is inclined to consider such accusations justified. In particular, according to him, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who supported the final decision in the Everson case, but supported the absolute separation of church and state, was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, which had a significant impact on his position on church-state relations.30
Archbishop Richard Cushing expressed his belief that the POAUSCS did not represent the point of view of all Protestants, 31 and he was right. The goals and ideology of this organization were rejected by a significant part of the Protestant mainstream, which was dissatisfied with the increasing secularization of the public sphere. Prominent Presbyterian theologian and preacher-

27. Ibid., p. 224.

28. Bennet, J. (1948) "Editorial Notes", Christianity and Crisis, February 2, p. 2.

29. "Cushing Attacks "Separation" Body" (1948), Christian Century, February 25, p. 276.

30. Witte, J. (2006) "Facts and Fictions about the History of Separation of Church and State", Journal of Church and State 45(1): 15-16.

31. "Cushing Attacks 'Separation' Body".

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John Bennett, founder of the United Seminary in New York, suggested that the "Protestants and secularists" who are part of this" alliance "(POAUSCS)"have themselves invented a humanistic religion of democracy that they want to introduce into public education." 32
The position of such people as John Bennet, Frederick Ernest Johnson, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Henry van Dusen showed that" a very negative interpretation of the idea of the separation of church and state " was puzzled by a significant part of the moderately liberal Protestant spectrum. Bennett spoke of the inseparability of the interests of church and State, and expressed the concern of many Protestants about Judge Wiley Rutledge's call for a "complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority" and his view that religion is "a completely private matter." 33
Unlike Catholics, Protestants were concerned about the fate of religion in public schools, which was bound to be affected by the Supreme Court's position in the Everson case. For example, John Bennet, on the one hand, opposed clerical control in the field of education and the requirements of Catholics to provide state support for their schools, and on the other hand, condemned the desire for a complete break between public school and the Christian religion. As a means to preserve Christian content in school education, Bennett suggested that religious subjects should be studied as objectively as possible during extracurricular activities.34 A similar opinion was shared by one of the leaders of the Federal Council of Churches, 35 Frederick E. Johnson, who called for filling the "shortage of religion" in public education36. Some

32. Bennet, J. "Editorial Notes".

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid.

35. The Federal Council of Churches is an ecumenical association of Christian churches in the United States established in 1908. Initially it was composed of Protestant denominations, but in 1938 several Orthodox jurisdictions joined the organization. In 1950. The Federal Council of Churches was transformed into the National Council of Churches of Christ by merging with other ecumenical associations.

36. Christian Century, 1948, February 25. P. 251.

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Protestant leaders were prepared to cautiously support Catholics ' push for state support for their educational system. According to F. According to J. Johnson, Protestants with "their commitment to religious freedom" should have asked themselves "whether parents who are forced to send their children to [fee-paying religious] schools and who are denied even such ancillary services as free travel [to their place of study] enjoy full religious freedom."37 The same opinion was expressed by R. Niebuhr, who noted that "the Protestant and secularist do not understand the sense of injustice felt by a Catholic taxpayer who contributes to the support of public schools, where he does not send children to study, and then pays for his own... [catholic] school"38.

Thus, in connection with the decision in the Everson case, some Protestant leaders began to sympathize with the Catholic position on topical issues of church-state relations. The view that Protestants should be concerned with confronting "aggressive secularists"rather than the Catholic Church has become increasingly clear.39 This trend was reinforced by the Supreme Court's decision in the McCollum case in March 1948.

For Protestants, the main means of maintaining the link between Christianity and school education in the 1940s were optional religious lessons for public school students, 40 which were conducted during school hours, but were not paid for by the school itself (i.e., the state). This practice has existed since the early twentieth century, and in 1946 it involved more than two million students in forty-six states.41 These programs were divided into two types. In one case, religious electives were conducted outside of school (for example, in a church) and were not part of the school curriculum, so the school administration took minimal part in organizing them.-

37. Johnson, F. (1948) "Editorial Notes", Christianity and Crisis, February 2, p. 53.

38. Niebuhr, R. "The Rising Catholic-Protestant Tension".

39. Bennet, J. "Editorial Notes".

40. Marty, M. Modern American Religion, Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960, p. 225.

41. Humble, E. (1960) "Religious Instruction and Activities in Texas Public Schools", Journal of Church and State 2(2): 117-118.

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Of course, it's a good idea. In the second case, the lessons were conducted directly on the school grounds and were integrated into the school curriculum.42 This particular situation was the subject of proceedings in McCollum v. Board of Education (333 U.S. 203 (1948)).

Vashti McCollum, a resident of the city of Champagne (Illinois), challenged in district court the program of optional classes in religion, which operated in local public schools. The claim was not satisfied, and in October 1947 the case was accepted for consideration by the Supreme Court. McCollum actively supported the American Civil Liberties Union, which saw the danger of losing the secular character of public education in using the premises of a tax-funded school for religious education. The court, by a vote of 8 to 1, declared unconstitutional the program of optional religious education in Champagne.

The Supreme Court again used the thesis of "the wall of separation between church and state, which should be high and impregnable." According to Judge Hugo Black, in the present case, there was "the use of a tax-funded school system to assist religious groups in spreading their faith." While the judges recognized that public school education should not be hostile to religion in principle,they held that in Champagne, elective courses were intended to teach a particular faith and therefore violated the First Amendment. 43
The Supreme Court's decision in the McCollum case has revived the debate over the relationship between religion and the state. Both Protestants and Catholics have become increasingly concerned about the secularization of education and the public sphere in general.

In the spring of 1948, a meeting of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish representatives was held in New York with the support of the National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ) to discuss church-State relations.-

42. "The Constitutionality of the Inclusion of Church-Related Schools in Federal Aid to Education: The Roman Catholic Viewpoint", pp. 162-163.

43. Marty, M. Modern American Religion, Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960, p. 227.

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research institute. The meeting was attended, among others, by Reinhold Niebuhr and the Catholic priest, Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray, and their views on church-state relations were almost identical.44
The consolidated negative reaction of a significant part of the Protestant spectrum of the United States to the Supreme Court's decision in the McCollum case was a joint statement of June 17, 1948, published in the publication Christianity and Crisis. It was prepared by a group of Protestants, including John Bennet, Frederick E. Johnson, as well as prominent Presbyterian pastor John S. Bonnal and Methodist minister Harry M. Taylor, and was signed by "moderate Protestant leaders" .45 It was the first such joint statement on current church-political issues by the Protestant mainstream in the United States, presented during the conference. in all its diversity 46. Among the signatories are prominent pastors, active lay people, and theologians belonging to the Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Congregational congregations. The statement expressed a position in support of a" neutral " interpretation of the First Amendment. On the one hand, this meant that Protestant leaders supported a ban on the state giving any religious community a privileged status and controlling religious institutions. On the other hand, this interpretation implied that the First Amendment allows " cooperation between church and state... not threatening anyone's religious freedom " 47, as well as providing state support to all religious groups equally 48. The statement said that the McCollum decision " broadened the meaning of the constitutional ban on the creation of a state religion in such a way that any state action aimed at providing assistance to all religious communities without discrimination fell under this ban." Concerns were expressed that

44. For more information, see: Gaston, H. " 'A Bad Kind of Magic': The Niebuhr Brothers on 'Utilitarian Christianity' and the Defense of Democracy", p. 19.

45. Ibid.

46. Bennet, J. (1948) "Imlpications of the New Conception of "Separation", Christianity and Crisis, July 5, p. 89.

47. "Statement on Church and State" (1948), Christianity and Crisis, July 5, p. 90.

48. Gaston, H. "A Bad Kind of Magic": The Niebuhr Brothers on "Utilitarian Christianity" and the Defense of Democracy", p. 19.

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the Supreme Court's position threatened to ban even those "forms of cooperation between church and state that were taken for granted", and this, in turn, should have led to an acceleration of the "secularization of our culture". The statement argued that "Jefferson's words about the 'wall of separation', which are not in the Constitution but were used by the Court to interpret it , are a misleading metaphor. " 49
Those who condemned the McCollum decision were undoubtedly concerned that many Protestants were willing to accept the Supreme Court's "dangerous" interpretation of the First Amendment. John Bennet, in an article published in the same issue of Christianity and Crisis, criticized the Protestants who supported the McCollum decision. In his opinion, they did not then recognize the fundamental significance of the Court's interpretation of the Constitution, and in the future, if the state began to pursue an openly anti-religious policy, they would regret their position.50
The concerns expressed were not unfounded: the Supreme Court's opinion in the Everson and McCollum cases set a precedent. In 1949, the Illinois Supreme Court banned the Cook County practice of inviting priests and rabbis by local judges in order to reconcile couples who intended to divorce, but expressed a desire to receive advice from clergy. The state court found that the invitation of clergy violated the constitutional norm of separation of church and state, as in this case, tax-funded courts were allegedly used to help religious groups spread their faith.51
The threat of secularization has forced Protestant leaders to think about intensifying inter-Christian dialogue and broad interaction between various denominations within the United States. In a statement, Protestant leaders said it was necessary for "religious communities, without concealing differences in doctrine and politics, to explore opportunities for co-operation."-

49. "Statement on Church and State".

50. Bennet, J. "Imlpications of the New Conception of "Separation", pp. 89-90.

51. Weigle, L. (1950) "Freedom of Religion and Education", Christianity and Crisis, July 24, p. 100.

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work together to support the religious foundations of our national life " 52.

Hilan Gaston, a religious historian at the Harvard Divinity School, points out that the inter-religious meeting in New York in April 1948 is poorly understood, but interesting from the point of view of the convergence of Protestant and Catholic positions. It was also suggested that the joint statement of Protestants in June arose from the event at which J. Murray and R. Niebuhr made their addresses. Murray's speech at the conference was titled " Common Enemy, Common Cause." Obviously, this meant that Catholics and Protestants had a common enemy in the form of "aggressive secularism", the fight against which required overcoming the differences between both parts of American Christianity.53 As Gaston notes, the efforts of R. Niebuhr and J. Murray's efforts to bring Catholics and Protestants closer together in opposition to secularism were an important shift in Catholic-Protestant relations.54
The coincidence of Protestant and Catholic opinions took place at the level of argumentation. At an inter-religious meeting on April 16, 1948, R. Niebuhr and J. Murray spoke of the danger of turning secular democracy into a religion or a higher goal, and also that democracy should be understood only as "a means to realize spiritual and moral goals." According to Murray, the Supreme Court, which is supposed to "protect US citizens from establishing a state religion in our democracy," actually promoted the "establishment of the state religion of democracy, "with the" church " of this new religion being a public school.55 John Bennet shared similar concerns. In his comments to the joint statement of Protestants, he expressed the opinion that the interpretation of

52. "Statement on Church and State".

53. According to Gerald Fogarty, J. Murray expressed concern as early as 1942 about the growth of secularism and called for cooperation between Catholics, Protestants and Jews in shaping the socio-political agenda, and the McCollum decision only increased his concern and forced him to act more actively (Fogarty, G. (2003"Reflections on Contemporary Anti-Catholicism", U.S. Catholic Historian 4: 40).

54. Gaston, H. "'A Bad Kind of Magic': The Niebuhr Brothers on 'Utilitarian Christianity' and the Defense of Democracy", pp. 19-20.

55. Ibid.

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The Supreme Court of the First Amendment can lead to the implantation of a "fanatical" religion of secularism, to the triumph of a non-religious, and therefore false understanding of democracy as a self-sufficient philosophy of life.56
One of the key points of the McCollum Supreme Court decision was that "The Fourteenth Amendment allows the First Amendment clause prohibiting the establishment of an official religion to apply to [state Governments]."57. In other words, the First Amendment, which specifically refers to Congress (i.e., the federal government), should prohibit support for religious groups from all levels of government - state, county, city, which was relevant in the McCollum case. This theory has been challenged by some legal scholars and representatives of religious circles, who, in order to argue their position, turned to the idea of the creators of the First Amendment and their view of the privileged status of individual churches at the state level. As noted in a historical reference compiled by two Columbia Law School students and published in the 1949 issue of Christianity and Crisis, the congressional debate before the First Amendment was adopted shows that its creators sought, among other things, to protect church-state relations in individual states from Congressional interference. That is, the First Amendment was considered by its creators, on the one hand, as a ban on the establishment of a state religion at the national level, and on the other hand, as a protection of the already existing privileged status of churches in individual states. The same opinion was expressed by constitutional law specialist Edward Corwin. According to him, "a Congressional ban on actions aimed at [state support for religion] does not mean a similar ban on state authorities under the Fourteenth Amendment, unless there is a violation of someone's religious freedom."58
The third decision of the Supreme Court, which, according to Martin Marty, ended the "mid-century discussion" 59 around

56. Bennet, J. "Imlpications of the New Conception of 'Separation'".

57. "Historical Note on the First Amendment" (1949), Christianity and Crisis, July 5, p. 29.

58. Weigle, L. "Freedom of Religion and Education", p. 101; Dusen, Henry van (1951) "Religion in Public Education", Christianity and Crisis, April 30, p. 51.

59. Marty, M. Op. cit. P. 228.

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church-State relations, was the decision in the case of Zorach v. Clauson (343 U.S. 306 (1952)). The court was debating the constitutionality of a New York law that, like the McCollum case, allowed optional religious instruction to students in the city's public schools. In contrast to the situation in Champagne, Illinois, the law in New York provided for religious classes to be held outside of school. In addition, all expenses, including the application forms of parents requesting that their children be released from school for religious studies, were to be borne by the religious organizations themselves. Some parents opposed the program because they felt that it meant that public schools supported religion. This support, in their view, was reflected in the fact that schools specifically adjusted the schedule of basic lessons and monitored students ' attendance at religious classes (churches were required to inform schools about this on a weekly basis), thereby indirectly forcing students to engage in religious instruction. 60
The judge, by a vote of 6 to 3, supported the New York law and the optional religious education program that operates in accordance with it. The majority opinion of the judges in the Zorach case differed from the two previous decisions of the Supreme Court. The wording of this decision contradicted the idea of a comprehensive and unconditional separation of church and state, which was so actively promoted earlier. In particular, Judge William Douglas emphasized the importance of religious faith in the life of the American nation and noted that Americans are "a religious people whose institutions presuppose [belief in] a Supreme Being."61 Douglas also opposed the state's attitude toward religion in a position of "insensitive indifference."62 In his view, the First Amendment does not require that "church and State be separated in all respects without exception." 63
The decision in the Zorach case marked the suspension of a trend that many considered forced secularization

60. Sorauf, F. (1959) "Zorach V. Clauson: The Impact of a Supreme Court Decision", The American Political Science Review 53(3): 778.

61. Gaustad, E. (1962) "Church and State Re-Examined: A Baptist View", Journal of Church and State 4(1): 78.

62. Sorauf, F. "Zorach V. Clauson: The Impact of a Supreme Court Decision", pp. 778-779.

63. Gaustad, E. "Church and State Re-Examined: A Baptist View".

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the public sphere. At the time, those who believed that the Supreme Court's previous decision in the McCollum case had established once and for all the doctrine of the absolute separation of church and state and paved the way for the elimination of what opponents of this doctrine called "the fruitful relationship between state and religion.".. for one hundred and sixty years. " 64
However, there was no drastic change in the position of the judiciary. The Supreme Court did not reject the validity of Jefferson's words about the" wall of separation " between church and state and the idea of a constitutional ban on state support for all religions in principle. The court order stated that public schools should not provide religious instruction, but church leaders said it was unclear what could fall under the concept of "religious instruction." The question was raised whether in this case any objective study of the churches and their creeds would not be prohibited.65 As in the McCollum case, the Court affirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the First Amendment applicable to individual state authorities.66 Along with the words of Judge W. Douglas, "We are a religious people," there was a statement by Judge R. Jackson, who supported the majority decision, about the need to protect freedom of atheistic beliefs in America.67
Those Protestants who were interested in the presence of religion at school were cautiously enthusiastic about the decision in the Zorach case. From their point of view, the trend towards secularization of school education was suspended, and the court decision itself "became a strategically important event that proves the moral resilience of churches in the face of indiscriminate nihilism" contained in the previous decision in the McCollum case. Frederick E. Johnson expressed the belief that the majority of Supreme Court justices in the early 1950s became

64. "The Constitutionality of the Inclusion of Church-Related Schools in Federal Aid to Education: The Roman Catholic Viewpoint", p. 163.

65. Johnson, F. (1952) "An Issue That Needs Re-Thinking", Christianity and Crisis, August 4, p. 105.

66. Marty, M. Modern American Religion, Volume 3: Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960, p. 228.

67. Geren, P. (1961) "Church and State in the United States and the Soviet Union: A Comparative Study", Journal of Church and State 3(1): 61.

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share a commitment to the principle that "public schools should respond to the religious needs and desires of the communities of which they are a part" 68.

The decisions of the Supreme Court in the three cases discussed above have become controversial not only because they have intensified inter-and intra-church debates on the relationship between religion and the state. There was a lack of understanding about how to apply the court decisions themselves, taking into account the diversity of religious and demographic situations in the United States. As noted by Frederick E. Johnson, it was impossible to apply the same principle of "religious neutrality" in a large industrial metropolis and a small religiously homogeneous population center. The McCollum decision was violated en masse throughout the United States, as local public opinion often rejected the position contained in this decision and did not agree that the Supreme Court imposed universal "arbitrary" restrictions on religious activism.69 In this case, the pressure of public opinion was stronger than the judicial power.

The analyzed court rulings had a great impact on the further development of church-state relations in the United States and became a kind of epochal event in this area. The significance of these decisions was revealed over time. On the one hand, the Supreme Court did not implement T. Jefferson's thesis in the final verdict in the Everson case and left the channel of interaction between religion and the state in the field of education70. The Zorach case gave rise for some time to talk about a partial departure of judges from the secular doctrine already at the level of principles. In the 1960s71 and later, those who advocated the revival of school prayer tried to use as an argument the words of Judge W. Douglas about the religiosity of the American people, expressed by him during the Zorach trial.72 On the other hand, the further history of-

68. Johnson, F. "An Issue That Needs Re-Thinking".

69. Ibid.

70. Davis, D. (2003) "Moments of Silence in America's Public Schools: Constitutional and Ethical Considerations", Journal of Church and State 45(3): 429.

71. In its decisions of 1962-1963, the Supreme Court declared it illegal to read prayers and the Bible in public schools.

72. Durso, K. (1994) "The Voluntary School Prayer Debate: A Separationist Perspective", Journal of Church and State 1: 88.

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The study showed that the First Amendment's interpretation of the prohibition of the establishment of a state religion, based on the metaphor of T. Jefferson, was firmly embedded in the ideology and practice of the Supreme Court and was used by it in subsequent cases concerning the relationship between religion and school.73 According to Derek Davis, editor-in-chief of the American publication Church and State, the Supreme Court decisions of the 1940s marked the beginning of a period of continuous growth of the "wall" between the state and organized religion. This period ended in the 1980s74 with the coming to power of President Reagan, who proclaimed as one of the goals of his presidency the revival of the active role of religion in the public sphere and tried, with the help of personnel policy, to change the position of the federal judiciary on this issue 75.

The discussion that took place within the clerical community about the Supreme Court's decisions makes it possible to draw interesting conclusions about the correlation between the theological and socio-political views of church elites and their position on the role of religion in American society. In particular, we should pay attention to the theological and ideological-political profile of those Protestants who signed a joint open letter in 1948 condemning the Supreme Court's decision in the McCollum case and expressed concern about the secularization of school education: all of them were guided by liberal-modernist theology and were convinced ecumenists. In socio-political terms, these Protestant leaders can be attributed to the liberal and left-wing spectrum, to supporters, often active, of social reformism. Thus, at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, the most convinced (if

73. Yarbrough, T. (1996) "Church, State and the Rehnquist Court: A Brief for Lemon", Journal of Church and State 38(1): 60.

74. Davis, D. (1993) "Rebuilding the Wall: Thoughts on Religion and the Supreme Court Under the Clinton Administration", Journal of Church and State 35(1): 7.

75. Learn more about the P policy. A. V. Borzov, "The question of religious ceremonies in schools in the activities of the first administration of R. Reagan (1981-1985)," in Uchenye zapiski Orelskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Series: Humanities and Social Sciences". 2011. N 6. Pp. 54-60; Borzov A.V. Religious conservatism and personnel policy of R. Reagan in relation to the Supreme Court.Nauchnye vedomosti Belgorodskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. History. Political science. Economy. Computer science. 2012. N 7. Pp. 92-98; Borzov A.V. Ronald Reagan and the problem of the relationship between the church and the state in the USA in the 1980s / / American Yearbook 2012. Moscow, 2012. pp. 89-104.

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the opponents of secularization of the US public sphere were not fundamentalists or religious conservatives, but Protestants of progressive views. The discussion that has been going on in the Christian press since 1948 confirms this fact.

Progressive Protestant theologians have argued that it is unacceptable for the American state to take a neutral position between religion as such and unbelief, and that such neutrality is tantamount to state atheism.76 The refusal to recognize the equal right to religious and atheistic beliefs fully corresponded to the historical context of the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. However, the ideals of the "civil religion" of the American republic were contradicted by statements about America as a Christian nation and that the state needed to recognize the absolute dominance of Christians in building the public sphere in its cultural and value dimension.77 This position is reflected in the words of the prominent ecumenist John Bennet, who argued that America "needs leadership and authority coming from God through Christ," and argued that "any sense of our being under the Right Hand of God and His mercy as a nation must either be expressed in Christian terms or rejected.""78. Thus, when it came to church-state relations, representatives of moderate-liberal Protestantism often expressed a position that can be called clerical-conservative. As for the position of fundamentalists, in this case they were on a par with"atheists and positivists" 79.

At the same time, those Protestants who, for example, opposed indirect State support for Catholic schools did not necessarily do so because of their commitment to the ideals of a secular state and freedom of conscience. Often the motive was their unwillingness to finance with their taxes the teaching of religious doctrine that contradicts the Protestant faith. As noted by the priest of the Episcopal Church

76. Bennet, J. "Imlpications of the New Conception of 'Separation'"; Weigle, L. "Freedom of Religion and Education", p. 99.

77. The civil religion, as it was established by the Founding Fathers and subsequent political figures, cannot be called Christian.

78. Bennet, J. "Implications of the New Conception of 'Separation'".

79. Weigle, L. "Freedom of Religion and Education".

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Charles Keane,"Protestant taxpayers don't understand why they should contribute to [teaching] what they disagree with." 80 Such arguments against clericalization sometimes included traditional nativist (also partly clerical) hostility to the Roman Catholic Church.

On the one hand, the rejection of the real or hypothetical weakening of the position of religion in the field of education, in state and public life has led to an ideological rapprochement between the leaders of the Catholic Church and a part of the Protestant mainstream elite. On the other hand, there were disagreements within Protestant communities. The leaders of the same leading Protestant denominations, who shared liberal and ecumenical views in theology and progressive positions in the socio-political sphere, were divided on the issue of church-state relations. An example is the figures of two bishops of the United Methodist Church-James Baker and Garfield Oxnam: the former signed a joint statement of Protestants concerned about secular trends, and the latter became one of the active members of the organization "Americans United in support of the separation of Church and state."

The Supreme Court's decisions in the Everson, McCollum, and Zorach cases were directly related to a fairly narrow area of school education, but they were one of the most important milestones in the religious history of the United States in the post-war period. The discussion that unfolded not only once again brought to the surface the contradictions between Protestants and Catholics, but also led to a division within the Protestant establishment and a rapprochement of its part with the Catholic Church on the issue of the relationship between religion and the state. These phenomena show the complexity of the transition period that took place at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, when Protestant dominance ended in American society and religious inclusivity and tolerance began to flourish.81 In addition, all three trials as a whole showed that the Supreme Court has become more consistently lagging behind.-

80. Kean, C. "Protestant Reaction to Roman Catholic Pressure".

81. Gaston, H. (2013) "The Cold War Romance of Religious Authenticity: Will Herberg, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Rise of the New Right", Journal of American History: 1133.

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promote the ideals of a secular state. In the context of an unprecedented increase in the influence of religion in US society and politics in the late 1940s and 1950s, the judiciary was ahead of the rest of American society and anticipated the secular trends of the following decades.

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