Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Senator. You speak most eloquently for us. Senator YARBOROUGH. Dr. Emanuel Carlson, executive director, Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. He has submitted his statement. It is ordered printed in the record and considered in full as though read. (The statement referred to follows:) STATEMENT OF C. EMANUEL CARLSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BAPTIST JOINT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS I appreciate that the subcommittee and its staff are willing to hear an interpretation of the Baptist approach to some of the issues which are raised by the proposed S. 580. I am confident that most of you are aware of the nonauthoritarian emphasis which pervades the Baptist movement, so you will normally ask what coherence there can be in the movement and also what representative quality can be present in my statements. Apart from the broad tenets of the Christian faith shared commonly by the several Christian traditions, the Baptist movement has been marked by an emphasis on voluntaryism. That is, Baptists have emphasized that quality in religious experience is dependent upon a voluntary response to God. Accordingly, we have urged that the acceptance of religious ideas, participation in religious observances, and support for religious institutions should be genuine expressions of personal desire and experience and in no sense a conformity to law. This central emphasis, perhaps more than any other, has given coherence to Baptist thought and to a wide variety of organized activities. Also, in the midst of loosely related programs this central idea has found more organized embodiment than any other. What I have said constitutes the central concern of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. It is made up of delegated committees from six Baptist conventions in the United States, as follows: Southern Baptist Convention, American Baptist Convention, National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., National Baptist Convention of America, Baptist General Conference, North American Baptist General Conference. Each convention chooses its own committee in its own way. Those Conventions with 1 million or more members may send a committee of 15 persons. Similar groups send not more than three. The 6 conventions now have a membership of 19,295,563, based on 1962 reports. The customary pattern of representation includes the chief executives of the major agencies and organizations within the conventions' programs, such as the executive secretaries having responsibilities for home missions, for foreign missions, for social action, for men's work, for women's work, and for other fields of work. These together with the presidents and the chief executive officers of the conventions form a group which is supplemented by representative pastors and laymen. These committees combine to form the Joint Committee on Public Affairs. This "joint committee" meets twice a year for 2 days to plan the work and direct the policies of the office of which I serve as the executive director. 98-466-63-vol. 3- -23 While the Joint Committee on Public Affairs is independent in its authority to initiate consideration and to recommend action, it is limited to "act only on the basis of principles and policies generally accepted by Baptists or in support of official acts and pronouncements of the cooperating conventions or in accordance with agreements made between the committee and agencies of the cooperating conventions." In the midst of the rapid social changes of our day, we have been zealous for the preservation and the advancement in the world of those basic principles which make for true freedom. In this concern we have been happy to work in close liaison with organized efforts toward the same goals in other denominations. Accordingly the executive di rector of the Baptist Joint Committee has the privilege of serving also as chairman of the Baptist World Alliance Commission on Religious Liberty and Human Rights, as a member of the World Council of Churches Secretariat on Religious Liberty, as a member of the Department of Religious Liberty of the National Council of Churches, as a member of the National Council Committee on Church and Public School Relations, and of being in frequent consultations with the responsible leaders of many of the denominations. However, I am attempting now to express the mind of the Baptist movement. In the process of refining the basic principles of religious liberty and in discerning their meaning for the issues of our own times we have conducted annually for the past 6 years a 3-day religious liberty conference. In October of 1962 the conference was on "Church-State Relations in Higher Education." At that time 158 Baptist leaders from all parts of the Nation and from the several types of denominational responsibility gave 3 days to careful study of the data and the issues which now engage the attention of this congressional committee. The findings of our religious liberty conferences are reported to the joint committee on public affairs. Accordingly, the reports from the conference of 1962 are now under study looking toward action at the next meeting of the joint committee. In describing our organization and our methods of work so as to give you a basis for appraising the representative quality of my office, I should also indicate that a conscious effort is made to keep our communications open and adequate. The southern Baptist convention has been particularly effective in this matter by linking our office with 22 other openings in the convention by means of a teletype network. 8 hours per day. This gives us continuous communication with most of the State organizations, editors, and agency officers. Our studies and conversations have aimed at the clarification of the meaning of our own movement with reference to modern issues, and accordingly have not aimed at well defined legislative objectives. Nevertheless, from the large amount of materials and the results of consultations, I can read quite clearly the general thrust of the public mind among us. Both historically and currently Baptists are friends of the public school movement. This is documented in numerous resolutions. It is a friendship that is based on a concern for a free access to knowledge on the part of all people. We favor equipping the community with adequate institutional facilities to provide the best possible learning experiences. The Southern Baptist convention in 1961 adopted a resolution on "Religious Liberty and Education" urging four points: Be it resolved by the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention, assembled in St. Louis, Mo., May 25, 1961, That: 1. We will exercise a diligent stewardship of influence in behalf of a good program of public instruction, therefore and accordingly (1) We urge our people to give sacrificial support to the agencies of public instruction by (a) assisting in such legislation as may be needed for adequate financial strength, (b) by making their services available as teachers and administrators, as board members and civic supporters, and as parental friends and champions of the cause of free learning, doing these things with conscious stewardship of their influence under God; (2) In this same stewardship we urge upon all who either lead or support the cause of public instruction to give due care to the transmission of the noblest moral and spiritual values of our society without equating those with religion nor with divine imperatives; (3) And we urge all our people to communicate with public leaders from the President of the United States to the local school board our Baptist concern that every effort shall be made to keep church and state separate in their respective educational programs, in recognition of the distinctions which must be made between the objectives, the sources of support, the kind of administrative organization and control, and the legal requirements which are possible and appropriate to the two sets of institutions. 2. We recognize our distinctive obligation for the religious training of our own people and will work to strengthen the religious instructional programs of our churches and church-related institutions. 3. We encourage voluntary cooperation between our churches and the public schools to the end that separation of the two types of instructional programs not produce needless conflict, confusion, or competition. 4. We do, in light of the foregoing principles and aspirations (1) Commend President John F. Kennedy for his insistence that the Constitution of the United States be followed in the matter of not giving Federal aid to church schools; (2) Voice vigorous opposition to the use of tax money for grants or other direct aid to church schools on all educational levels; (3) Urge that, wherever possible, Baptists voice publicly our historical position on the separation of church and state and that we adhere scrupulously to this principle in our own policies and practices.1 These points of encouragement to the people and the churches were described as rooted in a number of considerations. The first five "whereas" points were as follows: 1. Whereas our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ has led us to place strong emphasis on (a) the voluntary quality of religious faith and participation, h) the importance of freedom for the church, (c) the rights of all to be free from the coercion of law in matters of religious practice and support; 2. Whereas the instructions which aim at the person's ultimate commitment are properly the responsibility of the family and the church agencies; 3. Whereas we have consistently sought the development of communities which are abundant in free facilities for unbiased and unhampered growth through learning the cultural, scientific, and technological skills of society; 4. Whereas we are persuaded that the goals of human well-being, productivity, and freedom have been and are well served by a strong program of public instruction which is administered by elected community leaders and supported by the Government's power of taxation; 5. Whereas our modern age, having become scientific and technological in an unprecedented manner, requires new and higher levels of personal competence of all people which can be attained only by the enlargement of the share of the Nation's productive effort which is given to the education of the new gener ation**1 "Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention," 1961, pp. 80-81 In striving for a strong system of public education some conventions have expressed the conviction that this requires appropriation of Federal funds. Other conventions have taken no position on this issue, leaving the method of financing to educational and political judgments. For example, in the former category the American Baptist convention in 1957 said: Public education is not keeping pace with the increase in the number of schoolage children. We recognize the dangers of Federal control in certain forms of Federal aid to education. However, aid in some form is necessary to ease the burden and raise the level of educational opportunity in some of the economically limited areas of the Nation. We urge, therefore, that our members interest themselves in all efforts to meet this problem without surrending community control of our public schools. We further urge Federal aid through congressional legislation to increase funds available for public education. We reaffirm our position that any governmental aid should not breach the wall of separation of church and state." More persistent, however, has been the concern for religious liberty. The American Baptist convention resolution on this subject in 1961 could be readily adopted by any Baptist convention in any recent year: We proclaim that separation of church and state is central to our American heritage; that it has made possible a measure of freedom not previously achieved under any other system; that it is indispensable to our national policy of equal rights for all religions and special privileges for no religion. They are separate in their function as well as in their support. Government being under public control is properly financed by taxation. Membership in religious institutions and organizations is voluntary, and therefore should be supported by voluntary contributions. We believe that the use of tax money for support of religious groups is in opposition to the spirit and letter of the Constitution. We declare that this principle does not mean that the state is indifferent to the church, nor that the church is unconcerned for the state. It means rather that church and state are separate in their institutional life and that neither controls the other. We reaffirm that public education is the birthright of every American child, and that to support such public education is the responsibility of every American. We observe that such support is as indispensable to responsible citizenship as support of public roads, public welfare, police protection, and other obligations of society as a whole. We recognize the right of churches and other organizations and groups to establish private schools in the interest of spiritual, moral, or other objectives which they believe cannot be accomplished satifactorily within the framework of the public school system. We insist, however, that the support of such private schools is solely the responsibility of their respective constituencies and is in no way a public obligation. We object strenuously, therefore, to any proposal that the public be taxed to pay for the special sectarian or other purposes for which particular groups establish private schools. We call upon our churches, educational agencies, colleges and universities, and parochial schools to study thoroughly their own present involvement in matters relating them to the State and tax funds. We urge disciplined thought. study, and action to maintain clearly the principle of separation of church and state and to withstand the dangers that first tend to blur and then compromise this historic American and Baptist position. We object strenuously, therefore, to any proposal that taxes or borrowing power be used to make grants or loans to sectarian or church-related schools. We emphasize that the use of Government finances in support of any sectarian purpose is a violation of basic religious liberties for it coerces citizens to support religious objectives which many of them cannot conscientiously approve.' 2 Year Book of the American Baptist Convention, 1957, pp. 94-95. Year Book of the American Baptist Convention, 1961, p. 52. In attempting to summarize the principles of church-state relations which seem to run through the numerous programs of S. 58), I have discerned what I believe to be four major premises. I wish to attempt an enunciation of these and then comment on a few areas in which clarification may be needed. 1. That Federal funds can properly be used to aid a person either as a welfare service or to provide leadership to meet a particular need in society. 2. That at the elementary and secondary school levels constitutional principles and public policy judgments require the allocation of public funds to public schools only. 3. That in higher education there is historically and currently a sector of public concern which justifies some specific aids toward public objectives, and that this public sector increases as the studies become more advanced, more technical, or more specialized. 4. That loans to a church-related institution do not constitute an improper aid. If I have correctly understood the principles of the bill and the proposed implementation through a large number of proposals, I would not anticipate any major difficulties from the ranks of Baptists on the above-stated principles. However, instead of attempting to react to the various programs in the seven titles of the bill I wish to look at a few illustrative points of principle in which clarification may still be possible. 1. Title I, part A, section 105, proposes to extend the debt cancellation features of the National Defense Education Act student loan program to include teachers in nonprofit private elementary and secondary schools, and in institutions of higher education. As originally written in the 1958 NDEA, the progressive cancellation of indebtedness was based on the rendering of public service in a public school. Obviously, this can no longer be the basis of cancellation if the private and church-related teaching staffs are to be included. The extension seems to require the determination of a new basis. The only basis which appears in the proposal is that the person be "a full-time teacher in a public or nonprofit private elementary or secondary school." This means an aid to a profession which is so broad as to ignore the orientation and the purpose of the institution. If a "professional" basis is to be the substitute for the public service, then the new base seems to need definition which ties it to the public interest and brings it under public administration. Unless this can be done the Baptist reaction is very doubtful. 2. Title II, part A, presents an expanded program of loans for institutions of higher education and for "building agencies." While loans have been a debated though generally acceptable service among us under the older programs (for example, HHFA), much confusion has resulted from conflicting reports on the adequacy of the interest rate. A Commissioner of the Community Facilities Administration of the Housing and Home Finance Agency has used such optimistic statements as this one: "It is anticipated that this one-quarter of 1 percent differential will pay for the cost of administering the program and that it will operate without eventual cost to the Federal Government." Some institutions that wished not to obligate themselves to |