Do Public School-Religious School Differences Matter?

“Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil's propagation.” -- Hosea Ballou

It is the mission of religious and many secular organizations, e.g. the State, to convince, persuade, seduce, coerce or dupe us to concede authority to them over certain aspects of our lives: these are then called duties and obligations. As children, dependent and ignorant, we willy-nilly concede authority to those who importune us. However, as adults we ought to question -- as Thomas Aquinas reminds us -- whether the faith we concede as a child is appropriate as a free adult.

In a democratic country where custom and law maintain Church-State separation, it is more likely that secular institutions, especially the public schools and those that promote and administer them, will undermine freedom in pursuing the fads and fashions the flesh is heir to.

For example, non-sectarian university teacher-training programs routinely indoctrinate prospective public school teachers with questionable theory as though it were incontrovertible fact, e.g., All children can learn, Protect self-esteem, Consider learning style, Education for Democracy, International Competitiveness, etc.

Because such indoctrination is not based on religious sectarianism, public schools are not protected from, indeed, have become inundated with, dogmatic ideologies imposed with totalitarian rigor.


To examine these issues further, see PERSONAL LIBERATION THROUGH EDUCATION

Cordially,
-- EGR

Sharia? Not to Worry. It’s Evangelical.

Dictionary definition eu- good + angelos messenger -- American Heritage Dictionary, College Edition (1981) p. 453

You can’t tell from the standardly capitalized title above, nor from the centuries-old Christian practice of appropriation, that “evangelical” can be understood to mean “good messenger” or “good message” without requiring a commitment to the content of that message. Indeed, most practicing American Christians of various sects recognize this possible neutrality when they forego challenge of their competitors who use the term “evangelical” to describe their own competing, likely specious, possibly heretical, efforts at proselytizing.

What every zealot worries most about is another zealot -- who is not a member of his own camp. This holds for religionists, their apostates -- e.g. Hitler and Stalin, who were brought up in religion -- and secularists, examples of which are available at any and many a TV talk show, think tank, corporation, laboratory or university.

Just as other businessmen are wary of new competitors, so have competing Peoples of the Book begun a very likely futile campaign to have sharia “outlawed” in legal practice (NYT, 7-31-11). They appear to be worried that Muslim American jurists, trained and sanctionable by the American Bar Association and higher courts, would somehow be able to permanently upset American traditions of Law. One need only note that even Christian jurists and legislators, despite many an attempt, have not managed to do that for very long:

a. Jim Crow lasted about 100 years.
b. Prohibition, 14 years;
c. exclusive heterosexual marriage rights are dissolving; and
d. removing tax exemptions from churches can now be discussed without camp followers threatening violence.

Even the public schools have been dragged into these conflicts via the path of curriculum controversy. The “intelligent design debate” has brought both zealots and their camp followers to the public stage trying to foist off the argument that their particular position is the unique and correct depiction of the role of Science in Education. As the public schools go, so -- they seem to think -- will go the culture.

For references and to examine these issues further, see Religion, Intelligent Design and the Public Schools: serving God to Mammon?


Cordially
--- EGR