Religious Education and Censorship

Definition: Teaching of religious doctrines in secular educational institutions

Significance: Whether public schools should provide instruction in religion has been a subject of heated debate, especially in the United States

Free education has long been available to citizens of most developed nations. The content of that education, however, continues to be controversial. In Europe, for example, the earliest private schools were religious and were intended to produce members of religious orders. Likewise, the schools of the early Puritan colonists of North America were establishments of Christianity.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, in part, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” During the first century of U.S. independence, religious thought nevertheless was at the heart of American education. The Bible was a textbook, particularly in small schools, in which it was the only printed book available. As such, it was reading primer, history book, math book, science book, treatise on genealogy, and geography text, all in one. The Bible was, and is, also the linchpin of the Christian religion. For a young nation born largely of the desire for religious freedom, the Bible was the primary source of ethical standards—the characters in its collection of stories, histories, and parables were looked to, by children and adults alike, as behavior models. The Bible was considered by most to be a historical account of actual events and real people. Until the close of the nineteenth century, U.S. education reflected the prevailing view that embracing of strong religious values was basic to intellectual and moral development and that such values were to be disseminated through the schools of the land.

At the close of the nineteenth century, a nationwide reform, spearheaded by educator John Dewey, decreed that the partnership of education and religion should be dissolved in order to remove superstition and narrow thinking from the classroom. Education was to be separated from the influence of possibly biased religious thought and placed firmly in the hands of intellect. In the mid- and late twentieth century, separation of church and state moved more to the forefront of American thought and politics. The issue of whether aid to religious schools should be declared, as a matter a law, a violation of the U.S. Constitution, became one of the most hotly argued controversies in the American legal system. These decisions have been made primarily at the state level, and legislation about what is permitted and what is censored.

Whether or not a definitive separation of religion and education was the original intent of the Framers of the First Amendment, formal teaching of religious thought and practices has almost disappeared from modern public classrooms. This separation holds true not only in the United States, but, to varying degrees, in other educated nations of the world community—except in private religious schools and in seminaries.

Views from the Right and the Left

The conservative view of religious education holds that the individual is a spiritual being before all else, and that education, to be effective, must educate the whole person. Intellectual prowess is important, but the spiritual must not be neglected in favor it. According to the conservative view, the main thrust of education must be the molding of the moral and ethical beliefs of the student, because the moral and ethical standards of a nation’s citizens are vital to the continuing prosperity of that nation.

According to the educators espousing the liberal point of view, educating an individual should be a process of developing the intellect, without recourse to the use of religious myths, mysteries, or beliefs. The student’s mind should be equipped to think, to analyze, to judge, and the development of moral and ethical beliefs should be left to parents and religious institutions attended by choice.

Teaching of the sciences—especially physics, genetics, biology, and anthropology—has occasioned the major part of the controversy. According to biblical account, God created the universe; this belief is called creationism. Science holds that the universe was created by the big bang. The Bible depicts God creating humans from the dust of the earth (intelligent design); scientific theory states that humanity descended from earlier primates (evolution).

Methods of Handling the Controversy

Court decisions handed down during the late twentieth century have, for the most part, concerned themselves with the state-supported public school systems. Whether religion should form part of the curriculum of state-funded public schools is the legal question at the crux of most hotly contested court cases. A movement known as the National Association for Released Time Christian Education (RTCE) has offered one solution: Students wishing to participate in religious education should be able to leave their regular classrooms to receive religious instruction in off-campus sites from volunteer teachers. Such released-time programs have been found constitutional in the U.S. court systems. As of 2015, the RTCE estimated that over one thousand Released Time Programs were operating across the country.

Because what is taught in schools is primarily decided at the state level, state legislation regarding what is taught varies, particularly in the case of science curricula. Most states have opted to keep church and state separate and teach evolution in science classrooms. Tennessee and Louisiana have legislation in place that allows creationism to be taught in science classrooms of public schools. In addition, ten states plus Washington, DC, have schools (both private and public) that teach creationism while participating in state various state scholarship or special funding programs. Texas, in particular, has a charter school program, Responsive Ed, that receives a significant amount of state funding annually and has implemented a creationist curriculum that discredits scientific evidence.

State-supported colleges and universities in the United States have observed the separation of church and state precedents by presenting religion in elective philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and literature courses. Privately funded religious schools, as they are not supported by state monies, are exempt from the legal fray.

Bibliography

Kirk, Chris. "Map: Publicly Funded Schools That Are Allowed to Teach Creationism." Slate. Slate Group, 26 Jan. 2014. Web. 3 Dec. 2015.

Orr, Lisa. Censorship: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1990. Print.

Carter, Stephen L. The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion. New York: Basic, 1993. Print.

Bates, Stephen. Battleground: One Mother’s Crusade, the Religious Right, and the Struggle for Control of Our Classrooms. New York: Poseidon, 1993. Print.