Pulled from High School Marching Band's Routine:
Until recently, the Charlie Daniels Band song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" was in the [C.D. Hylton High School] marching band's line up of Georgia-themed music. . . .
On Oct. 2, The Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger published a letter to the editor arguing that while no one objected to that song about the devil, there would be objections if the band were to play a song about God or other spiritual beings.
After that letter ran in the paper, [band director Dennis Brown] dropped the song from the marching band's program. . . .
In the letter, [Robert] McLean wrote, "A high school band director would be fired for playing 'Amazing Grace' but no one bats an eye for the playing of a song about the devil … [H]ow can one mention the devil, and not be able to mention a Christian God?"
Brown said that the letter was the first objection he had heard to the song. . . .
Brown made the decision to drop the song to prevent any negative attention the students or school might receive because of it, he said. . . .
McLean said he did not intend his letter to be criticism of the school or the song[:] "I like the song. . . . I just thought it was kind of ironic that they could play that song, but they wouldn't be allowed to play a song about God." . . .
Thanks to Becky Dale for the pointer.
For those curious about whether playing The Devil Went Down to Georgia would be an Establishment Clause violation, the answer is no; though some songs that mention God (or for that matter the Devil) may in some contexts be seen by a reasonable person as endorsements of religion, this song wouldn't be.
Does this mean that any song with "Devil" in the title is now off-limits? What about Bruce Springsteen's "Devil With a Blue Dress On"?
What jerk sent the letter to the editor?
To play "devil's advocate," however, there is a major difference between Amazing Grace (which is essentially a prayer), and Charlie Daniel's song (a story where the Devil is a character).
I give the author credit. I'm sensitive to the hypocrisy of those who cannot tolerate religion outside the home or church, and I never noticed this, or read it elsewhere.
Truth is stranger than my (limited) sense of humor.
Yes, but Charlie Daniels was not telling that particular story.
More generally, "the Devil" is a type of character that predates and otherwise exists independently from Christianity, and I'll be damned if I am going to allow Christianity to take sole possession of this type.
The band playing this song is akin to your high school English class reading Faust or The Divine Comedy. In both of those, religious figures are part of the story, but the goal of the text is not to promote the religions from which those characters are drawn.
Pete Guither: In my opinion, the instrumental version of Amazing Grace could be enough to be an establishment clause violation. If a reasonable person could tell that it is a religious song, and that the school was playing it to promote a religion, that would violate the endorsement test. Vocals just make it much easier for a reasonable person to figure out what the song is and what message the school might be trying to get across.
As Per Son said:
"there is a major difference between Amazing Grace (which is essentially a prayer), and Charlie Daniel's song (a story where the Devil is a character)."
I don't think it matters if the Devil predates Christianity. If enough people associate the Devil with Christianity, then poof, it becomes A Christian symbol for Establishment Clause purposes. Since endorsement looks to what the reasonable person would get from the message, then if the reasonable person associates the Devil with christianity, it becomes a christian symbol.
(I'm working on writing without use of metaphors. Please bear with me.)
So, I don't think invoking the character of the Devil necessarily implies a belief in God, or even the supernatural.
Well, Lot went down to Sodom
He was lookin' for a soul to heal
But he was in a bind
Cuz he was way behind
And was willin' to deal
When he came up on a being
claiming of evil and layin' it thick
And then Lot got on a hick'ry stump and said
"i don't believe you one bit:
I bet you didn't know it, but I'm a pretty damn good judge
and if you care to take a dare, this whole town won't be sludge
Now you be a pretty high power, god, but give this guy his due,
I'll bet my wife against Sodom that this town isn't all poo."
Well god said "My name's -- well, nevermind, but your claim you will regret
Of the million here, there ain't fifty good guys, and that I'm willin' to bet."
Lot you saddle up your ass and roam those streets real hard
Cuz Heaven's come down to Sodom and god is dealing cards
If you win, he'll spare this town, from dirt to asphalt,
But if you lose, your wife will turn into salt.
(harpsichord interlude)
Lot opened up his case and invited two angels in,
And outsiders saw the new meat and ran toward his door.
And the Sodomites knocked on his door demanding angel sex,
And a band of others joined in, and Lot started to hiss
(harpsichord interlude #2)
(yes, I skipped a stanza here)
Lot bowed his head because he knew that he was beat
And he laid his wrath and anger upon the Sodomite streets
Then god said, "Lot, I appreciate your goal of saving all these guys,
You wife is safe if you leave now and all avert your eyes."
Lot said:
Family lets leave before he changes his mind
And whatever you do don't turn to look behind
I know all this moving can be a real grin
But it's better than being sodium chloride
(harpsichord)
SecretClerk here. I'm assuming you are talking about the song. I don't think the song requires any belief in the existence of the devil. It is a fictionalized story; Charlie doesn't want us to believe that Johnny and the Devil actually had a fiddle contest.
Similarly, I think the phrase "The Devil made me do it", in normal use, doesn't carry its literal weight. The average speaker isn't saying that Satan compelled him to take action, but that the speaker did his actions for less than noble reasons.
Compare this to "God bless us all." There, the speaker means literally what he says. He actually wants a divine being to bless them. Hence, this statement supposes the existence of a real divine being, where the devil made me do it does not. And that is why the second statement could run into establishment clause problems.
The decision to pull the song sort of proves the point Mr. McLean tried to make. We've somehow gone from the land of the free, to the land of the easily offended. No one in America feels this tension more than public school faculty and administrators. The good thing about Devil-gate is that everyone will probably get a good laugh out of it this time next year. Call it a mountain out of a mole hill or the tempest in a tea pot. And for God's sake, let the Hylton band play "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" prior to the end of the football season. And, if the director can find the sheet music, play Van Halen's "Running with the Devil" and Elvis Presley's "Devil in Disguise" as an encore. Maybe then, we can exorcise this demon of over-reaction and misunderstanding for good.
This is actually a good point. There is actually a double standard here, because everyone here has argued that the devil is not an entirely Christian concept. Of course, God is not an entirely Christian concept either. God is in many ways a generic concept. Yet if God had been invoked in the form of 'Amazing Grace,' no one would doubt it was religious. Nor does it seem satisfying to say 'under God' is not religious-- even though it is entirely vague and could be understood several ways.
The double standard occurs because culture often deals with the devil in facetious ways but rarely deals with God in a facetious way-- doing so would be offensive. But the fact is that the devil is a religious concept almost as much as God is. Many people fervently believe in the existence of the devil and believe that the devil-- the forces of evil and temptation-- is a serious obstacle to their own religious fulfillment. To say that God is religious and the devil is not does not strike me as a very powerful distinction.
The purported difference between the 'Amazing Grace' and 'Devil' is essentially that the 'reasonable man' would find the former religious but the latter non-religious. But the 'reasonable man' could reasonably find that the latter deals with a religious concept in a fundamentally offensive manner-- by dealing with a serious concept in a facetious manner.
This further confirms how silly the Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence is.
The Devil can be religious, but isn't necessarily religious. As I note above, the devil can also be mythological, or simply figurative. Consider similar figures like Lady Luck or Mother Nature ... people who say, "Lady Luck was on his side," or, "Don't mess with Mother Nature," are not really invoking the supernatural or the religious, and neither is someone who says, "The Devil made me do it."
"God" doesn't really work that way ... when people actually invoke the concept of God (distinct from using it in a non-religious phrase, like "Oh my God I can't believe I did that!"), they usually mean something religious.
Now there's a blast from the past. Enjoyed working with you on the Fredericksburg FOIA case.
FWIW, Googling "amazing grace" "high school" band gives 152.000 hits.
But your phrase is "usually" is misleading. There are all kinds of secular invocations of god-- for example, the Beach Boys song "God Only Knows," which surely is not a prayer. There are many similar sorts of non-religious references to God meaning simply an all-knowing being.
I reiterate my point that the religious/non-religious distinction between God and the devil is not a very powerful one.
I don't think that should be the case, and I hope it isn't. Even though Amazing Grace is overtly religious, it is also a beautiful piece of music. I think there should be room for high school music groups to play things like Amazing Grace for their musical value. I agree it may some times be difficult to decide when something is played only for its musical beauty, and when it is played for its message. But I don't think the possibility of the latter should always exclude the former.
FWIW, I'll disclose that I am essentially atheist, I think "Under God" should be removed from the pledge of allegience, and I think references to God should be removed from courtrooms and currency as well.
But I had no concerns at all when my son's public high school choir sang so many religious pieces. They weren't being sung as hymns per se, they were sung for their musical beauty and value as choral arrangements. I would view a high school band playing Amazing Grace in the same way.
The devil is a religious construct. The phrase may be used non-religiously, but the word "G_d" is probably used far more often non-religiously. "Oh my ___!", "Gott in himmel!", "Good G_d!" will be heard far more often than the word 'devil'.
Point two. "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" is a specific song with a specific melody, the music a band plays. There is no other piece of music with that melody, so the melody identifies that particular song.
Amazing Grace (c. 1779) had no melody originally, then had a number of them as church(es) began to sing instead of chant. The melody we know today is from a collection of melodies, their origin unknown. Ironically, current theory indicates the potential for pre-Christian roots of the music.
The fact remains that Amazing Grace's melody --or that of most traditional hymns-- is an association with the song; the music is not part of the song, and it is not definitive like the Charlie Daniels' song is.
It's a shame the song got stricken simply due to a sarcastic letter to the editor. Dogmatic secularism will deny our culture (mandated school attendance) most of written music's early works, almost all of which were written for religious purposes.
Obviously, I already noted that Christians use the concept of the Devil in their religious texts. But my whole point was that the mere fact that one or more religions use a concept or type in their texts does not render all use of that concept or type religious.
Also, I think we need to distinguish phrases in which the concept of God is not being invoked despite the presence of the word "God", such as "Oh my God". My point was not just that the word "devil" can appear like that, but rather that the actual concept of the Devil can be used without that concept being religious.
"God only knows," however, is an interesting example. I think you are right that is the same sort of thing as "The Devil made me do it," in that it invokes the concept of an all-knowing being but merely for a figurative purpose, and not a religious one.
So, insofar as I was claiming we do not commonly use "God" figuratively, I was wrong. And so I would also suggest that when we were just using God figuratively, such usages should be treated the same way as figurative usages of the Devil, which means we should treat them as non-religious.
Why then is Halloween is allowed in the government schools?
Halloween:
1) As a Christian tradition it is to remember all the saints/martyrs of the Church. No gouls, witches, ghosts, etc.
2) As a pagan holiday it is the Samhein. And it is a religous observance.
Halloween in the US is "Free Candy Day".
I am merely playing "Devil's Advocate" here (ha, ha), I don't actually believe that "Devil went down to Georgia" should be held to violate the Est. Clause.
It should be noted that by this standard, the playing of "Taps" at military funerals and other functions to honor fallen servicemen would probably also be an establishment-clause violation. (The tune actually does have lyrics, among them "God is nigh", which of course assumes a belief in God.)
Sorry, you are wrong. The establishment clause says what the words mean. Congress shall make no law. Thats what it means. It is the federal constitution. Remember that in the early 1800's, states funded and supported CHURCHES! How can that be? 'Cause the federal court understood the words of the Constitution. 'Congress shall make no law'. We have the Federal Constitution restricting the actions of the federal govt. It's a tough concept, but, the constitution also says, 'those things not mentioned here shall be left to the states'.
The Establishment clause: Ya’ll seem to ignore the balance of the statement that follows it. Congress shall make no law restricting the free expression of religion. Some how the court has seeped into all areas of our life, but, the portion of the first amendment to the constitution that states, plainly, ‘Congress shall make no law’, somehow applies only to some place ‘out there’ that tries to say a prayer, or post something,of religious content,(or play a song) that might be construed as ‘establishing a religion’, but, SCOTUS is not part of the govt, therefore can restrict the free expression of religion, since they aren't congress (but somehow a school is the same as congress) Someone please explain how SCOTUS can restrict the free expression of religion, and a school cant play 'The Devil came to Georgia'? Please, someone?
Please explain how ‘establishment’ trumps ‘prevents the free expression there of’?
"Battle Hymn of the Republic," which Jim Hu mentioned above, is the University of Georgia's fight song.