Salvation lies within a sealed envelope

In The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne hides a rock hammer inside a hollowed-out Bible. In Everett, Washington, school officials decided the Bible itself was the contraband.On Oct. 13, the Everett Public Schools board approved a settlement with LifeWise Academy, a privately funded, off-campus Bible program. The district agreed to pay $275,000 in attorney’s fees, send its board to religious liberty training, and post a public apology for six months. That’s the going rate for treating a child’s Bible like a carry-on that failed TSA screening.The “wall of separation” was built to keep government out of the church. Everett used it to keep children’s faith out of sight. I’ve served as an expert witness since 2015, and the exhibit that sinks a defendant is usually its own paperwork. Everett’s board produced plenty. According to the federal lawsuit, students returning from LifeWise had to keep their materials, Bibles included, sealed in envelopes inside their backpacks for the rest of the day, even during free periods when classmates could read comic books. Parents had to submit new written permission slips “every single week.” The complaint quotes board director Charles Adkins directly: “I do in fact hold animus toward LifeWise Academy.” In April, U.S. District Judge Lauren King granted a preliminary injunction, calling the backpack rule “overly broad” and finding the district had engaged in “viewpoint discrimination.” The district’s own apology concedes that board comments were “offensive and hurtful.”This argument started in Connecticut, where I grew up. In 1801, the Danbury Baptists, a minority in a state with an official church, wrote to Thomas Jefferson that they held their liberties “as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights.” Connecticut didn’t disestablish the Congregational Church until 1818. Jefferson’s reply promised a “wall of separation between Church & State.” That wall shielded dissenters. Everett pointed it at grade schoolers.John Locke made the point in 1689: “The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate.” The state can’t make your child believe. Nor can it make your child hide what you’ve taught them.The courts agree. In 1952’s Zorach v. Clauson, the Supreme Court upheld exactly this arrangement: parents sign a form, kids leave campus, a private group teaches, and the school excuses the absence. Justice William O. Douglas, nobody’s idea of a Bible thumper, wrote that “we are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court held in 2022 that fear of “phantom constitutional violations” can’t justify actual ones. A federal judge has now found Everett likely committed actual ones.I’m a father of three, raised Catholic and married into a Jewish family. I’ve coached sports for years, watching children of every faith and none share a bus and a bench. A teammate’s yarmulke never endangered anybody’s soul. Neither did a rosary in a gym bag. Adults signaling that one family’s faith is shameful do far more damage.Molly Gaines of the Secular Education Association argues that permitting release time doesn’t oblige schools to “accommodate, facilitate or promote it.” Others say the program costs class time and recruits aggressively. Yet look at the injunction: flyer space where secular groups already post, and reading time for LifeWise materials equal to other non-school books. That’s equal treatment. Nobody asked Everett to teach Genesis. Last year’s Mahmoud v. Taylor ruling held that government “cannot condition the benefit of free public education” on parents accepting instruction that burdens their faith.IN WAR ON BIBLE, PASTOR CONVICTED FOR PREACHING GOSPELHere’s the fix. With LifeWise expecting about 100,000 students in 34 states, more legislatures should follow the five that recently passed clear, neutral release time laws. Districts should allow semester-long permission slips, schedule release during lunch or electives, and give religious groups the same flyer space as the chess club. Board members should take First Amendment training before they grab the microphone. Voters should remember who ran up a $275,000 tab learning the Bill of Rights the hard way.Edmund Burke wrote that the first principle of public affection is “to love the little platoon we belong to in society.” For millions of American families, that platoon includes a congregation. Salvation, it turns out, doesn’t lie within a sealed envelope.Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management. He has a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice from Northeastern University and has completed postgraduate studies at UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard. He writes about issues in finance, constitutional law, national security, human nature, and public policy.