Calvin College will host a Constitution Day event on Monday, September 19 at 3:30 pm in the Forum in its DeVos Communications Center.

Calvin will be one of thousands of colleges and universities across the country marking Constitution Day as a result of a recent federal law that requires colleges to present educational programs about the U.S. Constitution every September 17 (when September 17 falls on a weekend, as it does this year, institutions may hold events during the preceding or following weeks, according to guidelines issued in May by the U.S. Education Department).

Stephen Monsma of the Paul B Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics and Matthew Roberts of the college's political science department will speak. Calvin political scientist William Stevenson will serve as moderator. The event is free and open to all.

The topic of the conversation will be the religion clauses of the First Amendment.

Monsma and Roberts plan to address, among other things, what the authors of the First Amendment religion clauses originally meant by them, how they came to be interpreted by the Supreme Court in the 1950s to the 1970s and how more recent interpretations are moving them closer to what the authors intended by them.

Says Monsma: "We could better think of the religions clauses creating a fence of separation between church and state, not a wall of separation."

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education the requirement, designating the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, was inserted into a spending bill last fall by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a Democrat of West Virginia. It covers all educational institutions that receive federal funds.

The new law does not provide federal funds to defray the cost of colleges' programs and the Education Department does not plan to monitor compliance.

Corwin Smidt, director of the Henry Institute at Calvin, thinks the day has merit, especially if schools see it as more than a rote exercise.

"For us," he says, "it's an opportunity to take a closer look at a particular part of the Constitution and that's the religion clauses. As a Christian college with an institute devoted to matters of Christianity and politics it's certainly appropriate that we take this federally mandated event and shape it to who we are and what we're all about. If schools take the opportunity seriously it could have a nice ripple effect."