Court asked to evict church from school

NEW YORK — Dozens of volunteers show up at 7 a.m. on Sundays at Christ Tabernacle to haul screens, banners and musical instruments to a school two miles away.

The evangelical, charismatic church on bustling Myrtle Avenue near several strip malls, brick row houses and cemeteries is growing so fast that there is no place to put its 2,500 members.

The resulting spillover into a local school mirrors what booming churches in New York’s five boroughs do every Sunday morning. But a hearing slated for tomorrow could change that.

Federal District Court Judge Loretta A. Preska will hear arguments in Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York, which could lead to the eviction of all churches from New York schools.

The city is arguing that the use of a public school for religious worship violates the separation of church and state. But the churches say that if nonreligious groups can use public facilities, they should be allowed to do so as well.

Christ Tabernacle’s brick sanctuary was converted from a 1920s movie theater and takes up a whole city block in Queens, but when membership grew too large for the building to accommodate, the church leapt at the chance in October to use the auditorium at Bushwick High School in north Brooklyn.

“We were bursting out of our seams,” says Ralph Castillo, the church’s chief marketing officer. “Real estate is at a premium here. The high school gave us 800 more seats and they had classrooms.”

Now, 300 congregant meet every Sunday at the school, worshipping via video hookup from the main church.

New York’s school board had forbidden religious groups from using public school facilities since 1978, when a state court said Buffalo high schools could not allow student Bible studies on their premises.

But when the state allowed nonreligious groups to use school facilities, numerous religious organizations sued, seeking equal access.

One church, the Bronx Household of Faith, located seven subway stops north of Yankee Stadium, applied in 1995 to New York’s school board to rent a nearby middle school for its Sunday services. The board refused and the church sued, but Judge Preska sided with the board in a 1997 ruling.

However, New York schools lost two significant cases at the Supreme Court level: Lambs Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District in 1993 and the Good News Club v. Milford Central School District in 2001. In the latter case, justices said a New York school could not forbid a student religious group from meeting after hours on school property.

“It’s been like trench warfare in the state of New York to get the courts to follow the Constitution,” says Jordan Lorance, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the Lambs Chapel case. “The Good News Club case made them wonder: Why were they reversed twice? Maybe they should follow what the Supreme Court said.”

But Lisa Grumet, senior counsel for New York City’s law department, argues that worship services are far more sectarian than the student religious clubs.

“Given the diverse backgrounds of the children attending the city’s schools, the city is concerned about having any public school identified with a particular religion or congregation,” she says.

Story Continues →