The Bible in School

Religion, according to old (84) Atheist William McCarthy, is a racket. When McCarthy, angel and sparkplug of a group called United Secularists of America, learned that his own state of New Jersey had a law on the books requiring public schools to read pupils five verses of the Old Testament each day, he whistled up his secularist cohorts to the attack. A suit against the state was duly filed by Mrs. Anna Klein, as mother of a student, and Donald Doremus, as a taxpayer, on the ground that the law was unconstitutional (TIME, Nov. 28).

Last week, in an opinion written by Justice Clarence E. Case, the New Jersey Supreme Court declared that "the Old Testament is not a sectarian book when read without comment . . . While it is necessary that there be a separation between church and state, it is not necessary that the state should be stripped of religious sentiment."

The New Jersey law also permits, but does not require, the recitation of the Lord's Prayer. Said the court: "We find nothing in the Lord's Prayer that is controversial, ritualistic or dogmatic. It is a prayer to 'God, our Father.' It does not contain Christ's name and makes no reference to Him. It is, in our opinion, in the same position as is the Bible reading . . ."

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