Editorial: Schools should ensure church-state separation

Tuesday, March 16, 1999 | 11:46 a.m.

A separation is supposed to exist between church and state, but that line was crossed briefly last week when a Christian evangelist group, Power Team, appeared before four public high school assemblies. The Sun's Stacy J. Willis reported Friday that the Cornerstone Christian Fellowship church recruited the Dallas-based group, which regales children with feats of strength and an anti-drug message, to come to Las Vegas and appear before local high schools as part of the local church's effort to attract new members.

It's important to note that Power Team didn't mention religion during the assemblies, but at the end of its presentation at Cimarron-Memorial High School the group distributed fliers to the students telling them they could catch the group's next performance at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship. It was wrong, though, for Power Team to distribute literature at a public school that in effect encouraged students to attend a specific church.

High schools should be encouraged to find new and captivating ways to encourage students to stay off drugs. And churches certainly should be free to use unique methods to gather more members. But churches shouldn't be sending surrogate groups to public schools to engage in membership drives. Students of all religions -- and even those with no particular belief -- should be able to attend public school and be free of even subtle pressure from religious organizations.