Teaching about Religions: A Democratic Approach for Public Schools

Notes

Notes Introduction 1. Here and elsewhere in the book, the term secularist refers to a person who believes in a strict division between church and state and who supports a political discourse largely free of theological and scriptural references and justifications. Secularists believe that public schools must be particularly careful in teaching about religion, to avoid influencing students’ views about religion and alienating religious minorities, humanists, atheists, and agnostics. While almost all humanists, atheists, and agnostics are secularists, many secularists hold strong allegiances to particular religious communities. For instance, Rev. Barry Lynn, who heads Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, is among America’s most well-known secularists and is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. 2. While teaching of religion that favors one religion is clearly unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has made it equally clear that teaching students about religion in a nondenominational way is consistent with the First Amendment’s establishment clause. In his majority opinion in Abingdon School District v. Schempp, which struck down sectarian Bible reading, Justice Tom Clark was careful to qualify the ruling by noting that “it might well be said that one’s education is not complete without a study of comparative religion and its relation to the advance of civilization” (Abingdon 1963, 226). 3. Although not familiar with his work when I wrote this book’s passages about zero-sum games, the logic of zero-sum and non-zero-sum games and their relation to religion receives powerful expression in the recent work of Robert Wright (2000, 2009). 4. This book confines its attention to the high school curriculum. Elementary and middle schools certainly play a role in inculcating students’ commitments to democratic values. But while sectarian religious and democratic commitments do not contradict each other, an understanding of how to reconcile them is often subtle. The recommendations in this book are thus targeted at high school students because, to a far greater extent than younger students, they have the intellectual sophistication necessary to appreciate fully the relationship between teaching about religion and the fulfillment of America’s central democratic values. 5. Nord 1995, Nord and Haynes 1998, Wexler 2002, and Prothero 2007 offer pio249 neering discussions of the civic benefits of teaching about religion in an American context. This book takes particular inspiration from the common-ground approach advocated by Nord and Haynes. Although written too recently to allow for extended treatment in this book, Warren Nord’s (2010) Does God Make a Difference? is yet another profound meditation from a consummate expert on the subject of religion and public education. Other excellent contributions to this topic include Tomasi 2001, Owens 2007 and 2008, and Viteritti 2007. Jackson 1997, 2003, and 2004 and Jackson and McKenna 2005 provide enlightening examinations of the civic effects of teaching about religion in European contexts. Greenawalt 2005, McConnell 2002, Yerby 1989, Wexler 1997 and 2003, George 2001, and Beckwith 2003 offer distinguished recent discussions of the legal and constitutional validity of teaching more about religion. 6. The more frequent treatment of religion in European schools has produced much valuable empirical research. See, for instance, Jackson 1997, 2003, 2004; Jackson and McKenna 2005. 7. This book does not focus primarily on the legal and institutional history regarding treatment of religion in the public schools. In part, this is in deference to other accomplished works in this particular field, such as Fraser 1999, Nord 1995, and McMillan 1985. More crucially, this is a consequence of the lack of a usable past that provides appropriate guidance for today’s public schools. Indeed, the longestlasting legally approved practices and most dominant educational philosophies in American history regarding the treatment of religion in public schools favored a sectarian treatment of religion unsuitable for American society today. Daily school prayer and Bible reading favoring Protestant Christian beliefs were widely used and constitutionally accepted until the Supreme Court struck down both practices in the early 1960s. Horace Mann—the most influential thinker in the history of the American common school—supported required Bible reading and recital of prayers and hymns in public schools partly as a way to encourage recent Catholic immigrants to adopt the moral and political values mainstream Protestants favored. Since the bulk of legal tradition and the history of American educational philosophy cannot offer effective guidance for the treatment of religion in public schools today, such guidance must be sought by examining what type of education is consistent with fundamental American democratic values...