Recently, increasing numbers of Americans have vied for the combining of church and state. My best guess is that as the White mainstream of America has begun to notice the loss of its foothold on its economic structures, it has knee-jerked in the direction that it thinks it has the greatest potential for positive impact. Those who believed that they were the privileged class, sometimes misconstrued as "middle-class," mount their last-ditch effort at the institutions of greatest symbology in the attempt to salvage their now-gone privileges and thus their way of life.
Now, normally I would argue that this is a mistake. The framers of the Constitution knew full well that combining religious practices with government could only lead to a quagmire of policy that would tear the nation asunder. And yet, those novices of nation-building may yet have had something wrong. I am coming to the belief that Church and State can be successfully combined.
I believe that it might be instructive for Americans to combine these two entities by creating a series of religious classes taught in every school between the seventh and twelfth grades. Two classes per semester in addition to other ancillary academic courses would be required. One requirement would be that those responsible for teaching a certain discipline could not belong to that belief. Christians could not teach Christianity and Jews could not teach Judaism.
But then, some of the best instruction would be left lacking if the experts in those religions were kept from instruction, you say? Well maybe, but the rudiments of religions could be taught quite effectively by those with no dog in the fight. The Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita and even the teachings of Bodhidharma and the Buddha would be required along with other religions. Though Buddhism can hardly be called a religion (of the more than one million words attributed to Buddha, never was God mentioned once in his teachings), we would include it in our instruction because so many Americans mistakenly believe it to be a source of religious belief. Indeed, as this philosophy was being taught, perhaps those Americans who only read their Bibles might learn more so as to be informed in conversation. It serves the Christian God no purpose to have followers who know not what they follow. However, it does serve those who would take advantage of such raw ignorance. Education trumps ignorance, or so it is believed.
Classes and instruction would rotate on a yearly basis, guaranteeing that some knowledge of something other than the beliefs of your parents became a part of everyone's experience. By the end of high school, it would be required that associated with your diploma was a broad-based perspective. That perspective would encompass all the world's great religions and a few less well-known "electives" as well. Debate clubs would actually encourage discourse that surrounded information that we have objectively learned about the many religions. This would certainly be preferable to the lack of true knowledge that abounds religious belief today.
An atmosphere of tolerance and greater understanding would be fomented and not just embraced. It would be the state's burden to assure the breadth of knowledge that comes of accurate information. And anyone who would balk at such an undertaking would be admitting ad hoc that the universality of his or her religion was subject to irrational whimsy. Most religions are not, in their best light, seen as closed or possessive. All those parties interested in religious understanding would encourage sharing the features of one's belief.
The potential for the kinds of long-term abuses associated with today's Catholic Church and the radical reviewers of the Koran in nations like Afghanistan would be better spotlighted. More individuals would speak from the platform of knowledge versus the islands of belief.
So let us rejoice in this new finding! Let there be a place for all belief to come and show itself for all to see. Let the strong voice of religious fervor resound in the classroom and not on the battlefield where its message is prima facie too late. And keep all governments actively involved. In that way, there will be no confusion as to hidden agendas on the parts of ruling elites. The official state position would thus always be in support of the power of knowledge gained in open religious discourse, snatching away the veil of governmental neutrality.
There may be dangers, of course. Knowledge may abound to the point that a new level of understanding is reached. There may be movements away from the secular and towards the global and the cosmic. But much as with many novel approaches to unsolvable problems, "you pays your money and you takes your chances."
Besides, if one-world globalization can be achieved through the prism of religious understanding and tolerance, aren't we all the better for that? The spiritual unification of a very small planet through individuated education concerning its many constituent parts must be considered a coup of the greatest magnitude.
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So you figure we could have a nonChristian teaching Christianity in the Bible Belt? That should go smoothly considering how the Deep South has such a long tradition of open minded intellectual discussion. And it needs to be taught in an unbiased fashion? Who will determine what it means to be "unbiased"? We're going to get out into rural Kentucky and teach them Islam? Are you going to leave out how every last one of the Muslims are going to burn in Hell fire? Because if you don't very few parents are going to let you spread what they consider to be "lies". And you're going to teach the tenants of Judaism in Oklahoma? Will the teacher be armed?
Collage level, sure. 7 through 12, not possible.
If you taught ABOUT religion/spirituality as an objective history, free of bias, and free from the supernatural; not teaching/indoctrinate a student into religions---great stuff. Man, religion as ancient history class would be great! You could use the Socratic method, logic, scientific method, etc. to objectively look at each system of belief and see why people thought they had to think that way or where that could have stemmed from. This makes me all tingle-like.
There was no talk of the right or wrong of what was said in these books, nor did the teacher make and verbal opinions. We read the stories, and were tested about the people, places and things to show we had actually read them. They were treated no different than any other written document included in that years teachings.
Unfortunately now you will get the fringe element (from every fringe) against this. Our teacher did a great job of keeping it very even, non-religious and as about as interesting as that amount of read can be for 15 year old and i consider myself a much more well rounded adult because of it.
Yes, of course. Exactly the way teaching civics in high school creates an environment of tolerance and understanding and good will between Democrats and Republicans.
Please join us in the real world. The majority of the world's religions teach theat they are the Truth, and conflicting teachings are false. They also require their claims be taken on faith, and that the strength of that faith is a measure of the virtue of the believer.
You could not have a structure of beliefs better designed to create irreconcileable conflict between them. Religion classes in high school will change nothing, and will only create unending opportunities for them to be abused for the purposes of using a government mandated activity for the purposes of proselytization. If you think making a rule that an adherent of a faith doesn't teach it in the class would get around that you're dreaming. adherent of a faith won;t
The primary concern with the separation of church and state is the passing laws based primarily on religious views and inserting particular religions into US patriotism via "God" in the Pledge and Motto.
When a child asks "Did Jesus really rise from the dead", what does a teacher say? The logical answer is "Well, that's what many people believe happened, but we have no evidence whether he did or not". And this is where it gets tricky, because you'll get a lot of people who will insist the teacher should answer "yes, of course he rose from the dead. That's what the bible says."
Even if such people are in the minority (and I'm not convinced they are), I still think there is enough of them to quash any attempt at comparative religion courses being taught in public schools.
But yes the probelm would be getting teachers who could truely discuss the textes with out any personal convictions coming through. Its possible, but difficult.
I agree that a world religions class should be taught in public schools at some point, but not on an equal level with the other subjects, and certainly not instead of other subjects.
However, this would not require any change in the constitution. A class that teaches all religions equally, including nonreligion, does not establish any religion.
In some people's opinion, yes; in other people's, including mine, absolutely not; the mother of all bad ideas. Contrary to what some seem to think, one worldism wouldn't mean world peace and understanding, it would merely mean perpetual war and misunderstanding without borders.
Another bad idea; teaching all the world's holy books in school. Whatever one may think of the worth, or lack thereof, of the world's historical accumulation of holy writ, none of it was written for, or is fit reading for, children, or anyone else whose neurology is not yet equipped for critical evaluation. To teachers of literature and history, this is a familiar problem, of course, and pedagogical attempts to address it are the perennial reason for the hash most public school curricula so notoriously make of such subject matter. IMO, considering the hash that has already been made of most of the world's holy writ by its authors and translators to begin with, it is not easy to see how compounding it by curricularizing it, and spending that much time and effort on stuffing kid's heads with that great a mass of what so many would call superstitious nonsense, could be considered a better idea than spending any fraction of that time actually educating kids and teaching them useful things.
You say that we should start by "creating a series of religious classes taught in every school between the seventh and twelfth grades". That’s a humdinger of an idea. Teach them religion instead of science or math or social studies.
You also say that of course “Christians could not teach Christianity and Jews could not teach Judaism" - another great idea. I'm an atheist so I should be invited to teach about ANY religion. I know many other atheists who would be glad to serve in this function. Does that seem right to you?
Europe has finally managed to extract itself from the chains of religion after centuries of fighting over it and yet you think it would be just a great idea to teach it over here. You are on the wrong side of history.
Sir - I'll fight to my last breath to see that ideas like yours never see the light of day.
I fail to understand why you are so vehemently opposed to teaching students what would basically be a comparative religion course. Granted, the author doesn't present his case in the best way - but the idea of christian students learning about hinduism or jewish students learning about buddhism (continue ad nauseam) seems like one that could only be beneficial.
Looking at it from an atheist point of view, wouldn't an atheist student learning about religion solidify in his/her head the foolishness of dogmatic belief in organized religion. Or do you not give the students enough credit?
I would never be opposed to teaching comparative religion in High School or college but that's not what is proposed. Re-read the title if you’re unsure what the intent is. He thinks it would be a good idea to combine Church and State. Would you not have a complaint against that suggestion? I hope so because its anathema to our Constitution and important part of why we separated from England. He even acknowledges that separation is important in his second paragraph but then allows that ‘these novices of nation-building’ may have had it wrong. Yes – he is right but Jefferson was wrong.
Notice that he does not consider teaching anything but religion in these classes. He would not allow Buddhism, because it’s not a religion, and I am sure he would never allow an Atheist prospective into such a curriculum. Instead I would insist that as a counter argument to these religious classes the students would be required classes in evolutionary biology, logic, and the philosophy of science.
What do you think