Religion in Schools: Four Questions Evangelicals Ask

Two articles in CHRISTIANITY TODAY have expressed doubt about the possibility of teaching about religion in the public schools in a manner acceptable to evangelicals. Two other items in this magazine have supported such teaching. Evangelicals seem to be divided on this increasingly important subject. Is there any hope of consensus? What are the issues?

The following four questions seem to be the crucial ones for evangelicals:

1. Should the Bible be taught at all if it cannot be presented as the Word of God?

2. Is it possible to teach objectively about religion?

3. Will the evangelical point of view be given a fair hearing?

4. Are evangelicals prepared to have non-evangelicals (and non-Christians) teach about the Bible and the Christian faith?

What follows is an attempt to resolve each of these issues positively, so as to support the current beginnings of experimentation in teaching about religion in public schools.

Clearly the Bible cannot be taught in public schools as “the word of God.” Should we then teach it merely as the words of men? One evangelical has said, “The Bible with authority has no place in the schools, but the Bible minus its claim to divine authority is welcome in the classroom.” But this isn’t quite precise. It is not the Bible’s claim to authority that is taboo; rather it is any external claim to the Bible’s authority that is forbidden—as is any external denial of the Bible’s authority. The public school does not teach that the Bible is God’s Word; nor does it teach that the Bible is merely men’s words. The public school is neither authorized nor qualified to settle such issues. The public school teaches the literary and historical content of the Bible, letting the theological chips fall where they may.

Thus the Nebraska schools’ junior-high literature unit tells the teacher to “enter into” the literature, to hold up the vision of the writings and not “to censor them by making them say what we want them to.” The students are instructed about the school’s limited function: “It is not the place of the school to ask you to live by what they speak or in opposition to it. That is the place of other institutions” (The God and Man Narratives, University of Nebraska Press).

If the intrinsic authority of the Bible does not convince the reader, nothing said from outside is going to turn the trick. After all, in our age—and probably in every age—a book or idea is held in authority only as it is consistent with the realities of everyday life. Surely evangelicals, of all people, do not feel that the Bible needs human support to survive.

Isn’t the reading of the Bible without comment what was being done and found unconstitutional? No, not quite. While it is true that the Bible was read without comment, it is important to realize that the reading was part of a school-sponsored religious exercise. It is the school’s sponsorship of religious devotional programs that was declared unconstitutional. For such sponsorship amounts to official endorsement of a form of religion. Lack of comment was a comment: an endorsement. The Supreme Court was very careful to point out that both endorsement and denouncement were forbidden to public schools. They must teach in such a way that they are trying not to “advance or inhibit” religion.

This brings us to our second point: Is it possible to teach objectively about religion? Some would argue that by not declaring the Bible to be the Word of God, one declares it not to be.

But this argument overlooks two crucial factors. First, there is a tremendous cultural heritage that connects the Bible with God’s Word. Surely the majority of young people regard the Bible “religiously.” Perhaps one could argue that there would be bias if one did not explicitly declare the Bible not to be divine. Second, the Bible’s status as God’s Word is not based on our declaring it to be such; the Church only recognizes the fact that the Bible is God’s Word. In other words, the authority resides in the text, the same text that the student will study. The Bible will still speak authoritatively even if men deny its divine origin, call it only a human book, or even deride it.

But of course there is no reason to believe that such an unsympathetic view of the Bible will prevail. A negative approach would clearly violate the criterion of objectivity, and the Court declared that teaching must be objective.

In some discussions of objectivity, there is endless repetition of such obvious facts as the impossibility that any human being can achieve perfect objectivity, and the seeming impossibility that some can obtain any objectivity. But after conceding such points one can still point out that there is a practical objectivity that can be expected in the study of religion or any other controversial matter. There are, after all, only four possible approaches to an issue, whether religious, political, or other. First, one might choose one position as the only right one and teach that, hardly a possibility in anything but a homogeneous community. Second, one might try to develop a consensus or common core of shared beliefs about the issue. This will work with some issues, but overwhelmingly the most influential factors are those that divide. In politics it is much more important to see the differences between President Nixon and Senator Muskie than to recognize that they both believe in, say, democracy. In religions, some positions are exclusivist, and to adopt an inclusivist position is really to take sides and teach one view over another.

Third, one might choose to ignore the issue. But surely this too is a bias. Certainly a textbook purporting to study American history that never mentioned slavery and segregation would be as biased as one that advocated them. So, too, to ignore the role of religion in history (for good and for bad) is to give a distorted view of history.

Fourth, one might choose to study the representative views on a controversial issue, to examine them sympathetically for their strong and weak points without attempting to prove anyone right. Is there any reason to believe that religion cannot be treated as honestly and objectively as political history, economic theory, or military history, all of which involve controversy, partisan sources, warring factions? One outstanding success in this regard is the series of units on “Religion in American Culture” produced through the Florida Religion-Social Studies Project, housed at Florida State University. These units, soon to be available from the Addison-Wesley Publishing Company (Reading, Massachusetts 01867), demonstrate the historical honesty and the study of divergent points of view that we call objectivity.

Granted, some teachers will never be capable of such objectivity, and all will suffer certain distortions caused by their own limited experience. But all teachers can attempt to present the diverse possibilities, the multiple patterns of interpretation. This is all we ask in the study of politics. We can ask it also in the study of religion.

It is possible to teach objectively about religion, but will the teachers do so? Will the evangelical point of view be given a fair hearing?

How can we answer such a question in advance? Perhaps on the basis of past experience. Perhaps the fundamentalist’s unhappy experience with evolution should serve as our model. And yet there are differences. That controversy flourished in another day, before the stringent demands of objectivity and neutrality were clear. And there are indications that some amends will be made to the fundamentalists—the new California practice of studying both creationist and naturalist views of origins, and Mr. Justice Black’s weighty concurring opinion in the Epperson evolution case, to name two.

Furthermore, who can say what might have happened had the fundamentalists been involved in developing objective material from the beginning, rather than passing laws establishing their own orthodoxy? Who can predict what will happen if evangelicals become involved in producing, evaluating, and revising curricula on religion instead of hiding their heads in the sand and wondering why their views are not heard? (More than one project has, in desperation, called our office for names of conservative scholars to assist in their curriculum development and revision.)

The Pennsylvania Project has given some evangelicals good cause to wonder if their views will be considered. The original material conformed quite closely to Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s evaluation of the average college course on the Bible: “On the whole calculated to turn a fundamentalist into a liberal.” The Pennsylvania project was attacked by such diverse groups as the American Council of Christian Churches and the American Civil Liberties Union. It was, in other words, somewhat less than adequate.

But if we see only its inadequacy, we miss the main point. More important is the fact that it was seen to be inadequate and that steps have been taken to revise it, including consultations with conservative scholars. I will leave it to others to decide whether this revision has been sufficient; my point is only the readiness to revise unacceptable material that Pennsylvania has shown. The conservative position will be included if conservatives will avail themselves of the opportunity. (This material has been published under the title Religious Literature of the West by Augsburg Publishing House.)

But should evangelicals support such teaching when they know that often the teachers will be non-evangelicals and even non-Christians? This involves two other questions. First, can we trust the honesty of the teacher to present his material, rather than do “evangelism”? We must, and in fact do, exercise such trust already. This is not a question peculiar to religion study. A bad teacher is a bad teacher, regardless of his faith-stance or his curriculum material. Second, and more basic, can faith be understood, let alone taught, from the outside?

No, certainly not fully. But what are the options? Avoid studying religion? Impose a religious test? The former is unacceptable, the latter unconstitutional.

And yet Scripture declares: “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” What are we to do?

For one thing, lower our sights. No one is proposing that the public school be made the end-all of religious education. It is only a very modest beginning.

For another thing, we can clarify what we expect the school to teach: not the “things of the Spirit of God” but rather the facts of history and the literary and historic aspects of the Bible. One need not be filled with the Spirit to know there are four gospels or to recognize that there was some friction between liberals and conservatives in the early decades of this century. This can be taught by anyone. Maybe his account will be incomplete, by evangelical standards, but it will certainly be better than the prevailing ignorance.

For in the last resort ignorance and partial understanding are our only two options. In my more optimistic moments I see tremendous potential as the church builds a more perfect understanding on this lowly foundation. At the least, every Sunday-school class would not have to start from zero if we could assume that our students had some general idea of the overall chronology, say, of the Bible. In addition, a general knowledge of Christianity (and of other religions) could prove most helpful in “creating a climate for evangelism” or “pre-evangelism,” as Dr. Francis Schaeffer calls it. If a person understands what the issues are, it will be much easier to help him confront those issues in personal decision.

In closing I would like to plagiarize a kind of clever overgeneralization that might make my point. The basic idea was advanced by an evangelical author.

Only two people need be afraid to let the school study the Bible: those who say the Bible is not the Word of God but are afraid it might be, and want to be there to hinder it, and those who say the Bible is the Word of God but are afraid it might not be, and want to be there to defend it.

The Court has forbidden both. We may neither “advance or inhibit.” But we may study.

David L. Barr is a university graduate fellow at Florida State University, Tallahassee, from which he has the M.A. He previously was a consultant on religion in education for the Religious Instruction Association.

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