Grappling with the Good: Talking about Religion and Morality in Public Schools

RELIGIOUS FRAMEWORKS AND SECULAR WORLDVIEWS: IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?

works that emerge from sources other than religious, they generally take on a function analogous to religion in an individual’s life. As a result, the process of Ethical Dialogue involves many of the same considerations, regardless of whether the framework can be explicitly identified as religious ; in the next section I address this issue as it relates to the notion of “secular worldviews.” RELIGIOUS FRAMEWORKS AND SECULAR WORLDVIEWS: IS THERE A DIFFERENCE? Is there something about religion that sets it apart from other ethical frameworks? Besides the rare occasion when religion is a direct topic of study in public schools, religion seems most likely to enter classroom dialogue around broad ethical questions: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be good? What type of life should I lead? Certainly such questions are a primary concern of many religions. Yet answers to— or at least reflections on—these questions are only part of religion. Despite the Western philosophical overemphasis on “doctrine,” the terrain of religion also generally includes communities, cultures, traditions, and rituals that are not adequately addressed when religious beliefs and their relation to metaphysical questions are the sole focus. To the extent that these other characteristics are present and influential in the shape of religious adherents’ ethical frameworks, they deserve consideration in ethical education. Dialogue that does not recognize these various commitments in participants will result in an inadequate understanding of their ethical frameworks. For public schoolteachers, understandably wary of violating churchstate boundaries, the legal definition of religion is likely of greater concern than theoretical distinctions. The U.S. Supreme Court has offered a vague definition of religion. In 1968, United States v. Seeger included the ruling that religious conviction is not defined as belief in a “Supreme Being” but “whether a given belief that is sincere and meaningful occupies a place in the life of its possessor parallel to that filled by the orthodox belief in God.” The conception of religion established in Seeger was further elaborated in Welsh v. United States (1970), which emphasized that military exemption “is not limited to those whose opposition to war is prompted by orthodox or parochial religious beliefs. A registrant's conscientious objection to all war is ‘religious’ within the meaning of [the statute] if this opposition 47 Why Religion Belongs in Ethical Dialogue stems from the registrant's moral, ethical, or religious beliefs about what is right and wrong and these beliefs are held with the strength of traditional religious convictions.” This ruling further clarified that God need not be a part of the belief, just something analogous to belief in God.11 It appears, then, that robust ethical frameworks not traditionally considered religious nevertheless have legal standing akin to religious belief. But legal complexity remains, such as with avowedly secular beliefs that reach ultimacy in a believer’s life (e.g., communism); theologian Paul Tillich terms these “quasi-religions.” Some, such as the plaintiffs in the Sixth Circuit case Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education (1987), argue that secular humanism falls into this seemingly oxymoronic category of secular-religious belief. In a recent example of this legal confusion, public charter Waldorf schools in California were accused of promoting religion through the influence of anthroposophy, a philosophy created by the original founder of Waldorf schools, Rudolph Steiner. This belief system rests on the conviction that human intellect can contact spiritual worlds, and some parents have accused these public Waldorf schools of weaving this belief into the school curricula. School officials responded that anthroposophy , without a “priesthood or dogma,” isn’t a religion. A federal court initially dismissed the case, but the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit two years later, underscoring our judicial ambivalence . In 2005, the court again ruled in favor of the Waldorf schools.12 One way in which some theorists have sought to avoid the definitional question is to use the overarching term worldview. This strategy acknowledges that while conventional religious belief is most often associated with various conceptions of the good around which people shape their lives, it is important to recognize that many secular conceptions of the good exist that also serve life-shaping functions. Whether secular or religious in nature, these frameworks seek to address deep, existential questions of meaning: How should I live my life? What is important to value? What are my obligations to others—family, friends, strangers? Some conceptions of the good are more comprehensive than others, but each offers...