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In 1958 Harper & Row published this writer's book, Creeds in Competition. Its thesis, briefly stated, was that religious groups, avowedly or not, seek to translate their own particular hierarchy of social values into categorical imperatives for the community at large, including those members of the community outside their own respective folds. Laws forbidding business on Sundays was an example of primarily Protestant efforts, a ban on abortion, that of Catholic, and elimination of prayer in public schools, that of Jews. The book also considered a fourth contestant, secular humanism. A footnote on page 29 of the book reads: "The term 'secular humanism' is used in this book not to mean a consciously non theistic movement, but merely the influence of those unaffiliated with organized religion and concerned with human values." The book did not seek to define the term "religion." An effort to do this is found in the Supreme Court's decision in the 1890 case of Davis v. Beason.1 In it the Court said: "The term 'religion' has reference to one's views of his relations to his Creator, and to the obligations they impose of reverence for his being and character, and of obedience to his will."2 This would seem to have been a fairly workable definition for the time when it was formulated; but in the same case the Court said that to call the Mormons' advocacy of polygamy "a tenet of religion is to offend the common sense of mankind." Yet there is hardly any doubt that the Mormons' advocacy of polygamy expressed the believer's "views of his relations to his Creator, and to the obligations they impose." The Court's definition is obviously inconsistent with its more recent decisions. Since 1890, the Court has abandoned the concept that the First Amendment's guaranty of the free exercise of religion is

The Religion Clauses of the First Amendment are aimed at securing both religious freedom and the separa tion of church and state. The former forbids limitation not shown to be justified by a compelling government interest; the latter prohibits laws failing to meet the purpose-effect-en tanglement test. On the whole the Supreme Court has been faithful to the mandate imposed by the clauses and interpreted and applied by the judiciary. Although it has been urged that there are or may be instances in which freedom might demand what church-state separation forbids or vice versa, the Court has not yet been faced with any case requiring it to make a choice. While not fully satisfied with the Court's resolution of con flicts between church and state, particularly in the area of financing religious school operations or refusing to finance abortions for the economically underprivileged, the separa tionist agenda is basically the defense of present constitutional principles and the assurance of their faithful application by the executive and legislative branches of government.

LEO PFEFFER (B.S.S., City College of New York; J.D., New York University) is Professor of Constitutional Law and Chairman of the Department of Political Sci ence, Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York, and Special Counsel, American Jewish Congress. He is the author of Church, State and Freedom (1953; rev. ed., 1967) ; The Liberties of an American (1956; rev. ed., 1963) ; Creeds in Competition: A Creative Force in American Culture (1958) ; (with Anson Phelps Stokes) Church and State in the United States (1964) ; This Honorable Court: A History of the United States Supreme Court (1965) ; God, Caesar and the Constitution: The Court as Referee of Church-State Confrontation (1975), and Religious Liberty (1977). Pro fessor Pfeffer has contributed portions to Religion in the State University, ed. Henry E. Allen (1950) ; Cultural Pluralism and the American Idea, ed. Horace M. Kallen (1956); Religion in America, ed. John Cogley (1958); Church-State Relations in Ecumenical Perspective, ed. Elwyn A. Smith (1966) ; The Religious Situation (1968) ; The Politics of Confrontation, ed. Samuel Hendel (1971) ; The Rights of Americans, ed. Norman Dorsen (1971) ; Freedom and Responsibility, ed. Mereld D. Keys (1974) ; and Religious Movements in Contemporary America, ed. Irving I. Zaretsky and Mark P. Leone (1974). His articles have appeared in the law reviews of Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Georgetown, Michigan, Notre Dame, Stanford, and Western Reserve universities and in such periodicals as Catholic World, Chiristian Century, Churchman, Commonweal, Current History, Journal of Intergroup Relations, Journal of Social Issues, Nation, Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Saturday Review, and Today's Education. JCS has published Pfeffer's "Freedom and Separation : America's Contribution to Civilization" (November 1960), "An Analysis of Federal Aid to Parochial Schools" (November 1961), "The New York Regents' Prayer Case" (November 1962), "The Schempp-Murray Decision on School Prayers and Bible Reading" (November 1963), "A Momentous Year in Church and State: 1963" (Winter 1964), "The Becker Amend ment" (Autumn 1964), and "What Hath God Wrought to Caesar: The Church as a Self-interest Interest Group" (Winter 1971). Mr. Pfeffer has argued the following cases before the United States Supreme Court: Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) ; Lanza v. New York (1962) ; Flast v. Cohen (1968) ; Earley v. DiCenso (1971) ; Tilton v. Richardson (1971) ; Diffenderfer v. Central Baptist Church of Miami (1972) ; Levitt v. Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty (1973) ; Nyquist v. Com mittee for Public Education and Religious Liberty (1973) ; Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist (1973) ; Wheeler v. Barrera (1974) ; and Meek v. Pittenger (1975). He has filed twenty-seven amicus curiae briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Pfeffer has been the recipient of awards from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Minnesota Jewish Community Council, the New York Unitarian-Universalist Church, the Brooklyn Civil Liberties Union, the Horace Mann League, and the Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty. This guest editorial was in its original form presented as a paper to the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Philadelphia 29 October 1976. 1. Leo Pfeffer, "Issues That Divide," Journal of Social Issues 7 (19S6) : 21.

One cannot fail to be deeply sympathetic to the sorrowful plight of the agunah (one who is "tied") under Jewish religious law. An agunah is a woman who is no longer living with her husband but who cannot remarry because she has not been di vorced according to religious law. While the extent of the prob lem is not known, there are enough publicly reported incidents to permit the inference that there are many more unpublicized examples.1 Such at least is the view of significant elements of Orthodox (traditional) and Conservative (moderate) Judaism, who have looked to the state to resolve a problem that they can not deal with internally. However meritorious their motives, though, their proposed solutions cannot pass constitutional muster.

In what is undoubtedly one of the two most important decisions (the other being the malapportionment decision) handed down during its past term, the United States Supreme Court on Mon day, June 25, 1962, ruled unconstitutional the practice of some public schools in New York of engaging in the recitation of the so-called non-denominational prayer formulated by the New York State Board of Regents. Because of the importance of the decision, there is need to give briefly the background of the case, a summary of the opinions of the Justices, and some indication of the implica tions and consequences of the decision.

Tor the first time in American history the nation is faced with a serious challenge to the integrity of the Bill of Rights. Since the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution a century and three-quarters ago, there has until now never been a serious effort to abridge it by amendment. Even when the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Warren handed down decisions up holding freedom of speech and association which some felt weak ened America's defense against internal subversion, concerted opposition did not take the form of an effort to amend the Bill of Rights but rather to change the Court's power of judicial review. Today a determined campaign is being waged under the leadership of Congressman Frank J. Becker (R., N.Y.) to over rule by constitutional amendment the Supreme Court's decision outlawing sponsored prayer and devotional Bible reading. It is not unusual for controversial Supreme Court decisions to evoke demands for constitutional amendment. Quite often bills are introduced into Congress for that purpose. But in most cases these are recognized as being purely for public relations back home. They are not taken too seriously and are soon for gotten. It was therefore not surprising that after the Supreme Court ruled in the June 1962 case of Engel v. Vitale that the First Amendment forbids state-sponsored prayer in the public schools, and again after it followed this ruling a year later in the Schempp-Murray decision, almost one hundred Congressmen in all introduced separate measures to amend the Constitution so as to permit prayer recitation, Bible reading, or both in the public schools. But for the singular persistence of Congressman Becker, it is quite likely that these many proposals and the entire effort would have been forgotten by now. Becker, however, undertook a one-man crusade to assure that this effort would succeed. First, he prevailed upon the ninety-odd Congressmen who had introduced separate measures to join on one single bill. After this new measure was referred to the House Judiciary Committee, Becker began rounding up signatures to a petition for its discharge. Ironically, Becker himself had earlier always refused to sign discharge petitions, including those for civil rights bills aimed at achieving equality for Negroes and