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Religion and American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma
Warren A. Nord
University of North Carolina Press
481 pages, $20 (paperback)

------------------------------------------------------------------------"If we are so religious, why does our educational system ignore religion?" That question launches Warren Nord's thoughtful Religion and American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma. Nord indicts American educators for supplying a truncated view of human beings and their place in the universe. In his view, America's state-run schools distort the past by downplaying religion's role in history, while impoverishing the present by excluding religious views from the study of current issues. The result has been the creation of a nation of religious illiterates and the disaffection of the devout from public education.

In his early chapters, Nord carefully explains how religion was excised from the modern mind in general and from American education in particular. Then he analyzes and disarms supposed constitutional objections to teaching about religion in public schools. Next, he considers the true meaning of such concepts as "neutrality" and "academic freedom," arguing that an education which excludes religion is neither neutral nor free. Finally, he explores hot-button issues such as vouchers, school prayer, and the teaching of evolution — admirably presenting the opposing arguments on each side.

For all its strengths, however, the book offers a set of public policy proposals that are deeply troubling. Nord believes that religion should be an explicit part of public school curricula, and he argues that every child should take at least one introductory course in religion. At the high school level, he suggests a required three-course sequence exploring world religions, "religion and modernity," and moral philosophy. At the collegiate level he proposes that state universities hire theologians.

Nord is aware of the dangers inherent in his proposals. Given the modern tendency to reduce religion to a human construct, the study of religion in public schools might easily degenerate into the sociology of religion, with religion presented not as God's revelation to man, but as a human quest to create meaning. At the other extreme, partisans of specific religions may try to proselytize in the classroom, infringing the religious liberty of students who adhere to different faiths. To prevent such scenarios, Nord contends that public school teachers should be "neutral" and present each religion "empathetically" — that is, from its own point of view.

But whose version of a religion will the schools teach? Religious adherents often disagree vehemently about their core beliefs. Imagine a liberal Episcopalian, a Southern Baptist, and a Russian Orthodox trying to conceive a common curriculum about Christianity. Teaching religion "from the inside" is not nearly as easy as it might seem.

One must also question whether state-sponsored religious training that is equally sympathetic toward all religions is any less of a problem for religious believers than a wholly secular education. Devout Christians (or Moslems, or Jews, for that matter) are not believers in "religion." They hold one particular faith, believing it to be the only true way to God. For the government to depict all religions as if they have equal legitimacy implants a kind of religious relativism in students — something no pious adherent to a particular faith would find acceptable.

When one considers actual examples, this approach becomes even less tenable. Would Christian parents, for example, really want their children to gain a sympathetic understanding of India's Hindu-inspired caste system? Or would they want their children to gain an appreciation for the subjugation of women in Moslem countries? Nord's solution to this quandary is to permit teachers to criticize religious views with which they disagree so long as they do not impose their own viewpoint as the "true" answer to which students must subscribe. But do we really want government paid teachers serving as religious critics?

A completely secular education is indeed a bad thing, for many of the reasons Nord outlines. But government-run Sunday school is not likely to be much better. The way out of the dilemma is to recognize the indefensibility of state-run education in a political system premised on limited government. The fallacy at the heart of the issue is the notion that education can be completely secular and neutral at the same time. As Nord convincingly argues, questions of ultimate meaning are present even in so-called secular subjects such as history, science, and literature.

The solution, then, is not government-sponsored religion, but the privatization of education — or at the very least the radical restructuring of public education so that people of faith have greater opportunity to spread their beliefs by their own efforts. If religion is to be taught in public education, let it be taught by religious adherents. As Nord himself points out, schools can set up released-time programs where students (with parental approval) can attend religion classes taught off-campus by clergy of various faiths. It may even be possible to allow such religious classes to be taught on school grounds, given recent Supreme Court rulings protecting religious expression as free speech. In this scheme, students wishing to learn about religions other than their own would be free to do so (with parental consent) — but they would learn about other faiths from their actual adherents not from government teachers.

Expanding the ability of religious individuals to propagate their own faiths in public will do far more to promote religious literacy — without the attendant complications for religious liberty — than would any scheme for government-run religious education.

John G. West, Jr. is a Senior Fellow of the Seattle based Discovery Institute and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Seattle Pacific University.