Bishop Pike was thought of as the wild man of the Episcopal Church (by this time he had been put on trial for heresy, though he had emerged still wearing the Episcopal purple), but on this show he is genial and persuasive on the subject of school prayer specifically and the First Amendment generally. JAP: "I think [the Supreme Court Justices] use the First Amendment in a way it was never intended to be used. [The Founding Fathers] talked about establishment of religion. And they meant, really, establishment like the Church of England is. ... It was forbidding the federal agency, the Congress, from interfering with the existing states' establishment." ... "I personally do not see the value of state-prescribed prayer or of the reading of the Bible, for instance, without study of the background, the context, the thoughtful criticism of the passages, in school. And I think it's a disservice to the Church, too, because it gives parents the illusion that this side of life is being covered by the public agency when, in fact, it's very trivial and perfunctory."