Religion Finds Its Seat in the Classroom

EDUCATION

The role of religion in American public schools has been a volatile issue in recent days, pitting educators, parents, and religious groups against one another in emotional controversies. Now an unlikely coalition has published a pamphlet saying religion belongs in school.

Entitled “Religion in the Public Schools Curriculum: Questions and Answers,” the brochure offers guidelines for teaching religion in public schools, asserting that such activity is clearly protected by the Constitution.

Better Than Yelling

Fourteen national religious and educational groups came together to produce the small pamphlet, including groups that often take opposing sides in religion-and-public-school conflicts: National Council of Churches, American Federation of Teachers, Christian Legal Society, National Association of Evangelicals, and National Education Association.

“This publication demonstrates that people with widely divergent views about many other issues can and do agree that study about religion in public schools, when done properly, is both constitutionally permissible and educationally sound,” said Charles Haynes, project director for Americans United Research Foundation, the group that organized the effort.

James Dunn, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, another sponsoring group, said the project shows there is “a better way to deal with religion in public schools than simply to yell at each other and threaten a lawsuit.”

Areas Of Agreement

The sponsors of the pamphlet found agreement in several areas. First, the brochure says the 1960 Supreme Court decision that banned school prayer did not prohibit teaching about religion. “Failure to understand even the basic symbols, practices, and concepts of the various religions makes much of history, literature, art, and contemporary life unintelligible,” the brochure says.

The pamphlet also outlines what schools may do to teach about religion without crossing the line to religious indoctrination: be academic, not devotional; strive for awareness of religion, but do not press for acceptance of any one religion; sponsor the study, but not the practice, of religion.

Some of the more controversial aspects of the issue are also addressed. For example, the pamphlet emphasizes that while the Supreme Court has struck down laws requiring that creation science be taught in science classes, the Court has said a variety of scientific theories about origins can be appropriately taught. “Though science instruction may not endorse or promote religious doctrine, the account of creation found in various scriptures may be discussed in a religious studies class or in any course that considers religious explanations for the origin of life,” the brochure says.

The coalition is distributing the pamphlet to parents, teachers, and school boards across the nation, and reports that reception of the guidelines has been very favorable. Christian Educators’ Association International (CEAI) is hailing the pamphlet as something greatly needed in the public schools. “Right now, there is such misinformation about including religion in schools that there is a chilling effect upon teachers,” said CEAI Executive Director Forrest Turpen. “A booklet of this type is very beneficial because it will free up teachers so that they might be able to include aspects of how religion is part of our society.”

Concerned Women for America (CWA,) a group that has entered several religion-and-school debates, welcomed the pamphlet as “a step in the right direction,” but would like to have seen less caution, CWA spokeswoman Rebecca Hagelin said, “I think it will comfort people who are running scared from the [American Civil Liberties Union], but it doesn’t go far enough in saying what teachers can legally do in regard to religion in the classroom.”

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