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<H2>
Why a Functional Definition of Religion Is Necessary If Justice is to Be
Achieved in Public Education<SUP><A HREF="#N_1_">(1)</A></SUP></H2></CENTER>
Richard A. Baer, Jr.

<P><I>Copyright Dr. Richard A. Baer, Jr. 1996.</I>
<BR><I>Permission is granted to reproduce this article for classroom use
(as long as there is no charge beyond reproduction costs) and to reproduce
up to 2 copies for other use. No copies may be sold.</I>

<P>Is it possible to teach morality and character education effectively
in our present system of public schools in America? Is public education--from
Kindergarten all the way through the Ph.D.--fair to religious and cognitive
minorities? Indeed, is it even possible for government actually to operate
schools in a manner that is consistent with the demands of our Constitution
and the American political compact? What does justice require regarding
the funding of education in a democratic and pluralistic society? Questions
such as these have troubled educators ever since the founding of the common
school in the 1830's and 1840's and the establishment of state universities
during the latter part of the nineteenth century.

<P>Horace Mann, one of the guiding spirits in the founding of the common
school, believed that his Unitarian/liberal Protestant understanding of
Christianity was "nonsectarian" and thus appropriate for all students in
what was even in his own day a fairly pluralistic society, but Calvinists
and Roman Catholics understandably did not concur. Catholic bishop John
Hughes argued that the common school could not possibly be neutral or nonsectarian
for Catholics when teachers routinely read from the Protestant King James
Bible and pressed Protestant/Unitarian religious teachings on Catholic
students. On the other hand, if religion were omitted altogether from the
common school curriculum, then, Bishop Hughes argued, students would simply
be left "to the advantage of infidelity" (quoted in McCarthy, Oppewal,
Peterson, &amp; Spykman, 1981, p. 90).

<P>Americans have never satisfactorily resolved this question of religion
and public education. During the post-World War II period, Bible readings,
religious instruction, and prayers were gradually eliminated from government
public schools, and the curriculum became progressively secular.<SUP><A HREF="#N_2_">(2)</A></SUP>

<P>The courts assumed secular school curricula to be religiously neutral
and thus not in conflict with the religion clause of the First Amendment.<SUP><A HREF="#N_3_">(3)</A></SUP>

<P>But is it really possible for a secular curriculum to be genuinely neutral
with respect to religion? I think not. Any genuine education (as over against
simple instruction, say, in how to type or how to operate a snowblower)
inevitably rests on particular religious or metaphysical views regarding
the nature of the good life and the good society. Quite apart from whether
a school sponsors specific instruction in morality and religion, its curriculum,
including decisions about which courses are to be taught and how they are
to be taught, will inevitably presuppose particular metaphysical and religious
views about who we are and about the world in which we live. Kenneth Strike
(1982) states flatly: "In a liberal state publicly controlled schools cannot
educate their students" (p. 87). He explains this strong statement by adding:
"I do not mean that schools cannot succeed in teaching basic skills such
as reading, writing, and arithmetic. Instead, I hold that liberal public
schools cannot coherently transmit private values, and I hold that the
transmission of private values is necessary for genuine education to occur."<SUP><A HREF="#N_4_">(4)</A></SUP>

<P>In trying to sort out questions about teaching religion and values or
promoting good character in public education, we will make little progress
unless we rethink the meaning of the term "religion" as it has to do with
public education. My basic thesis is this: public justice in education
and respect for the First Amendment's religion clause demand that we adopt
a functional definition of religion--at least for political and constitutional
purposes. That is, in reflecting on the role of religion in education we
should not focus primarily on the substantive content of religion or on
some hallmark of religion such as belief in a supernatural power, but rather
on what role religion plays culturally. This move is necessary precisely
because neither religious nor secular answers to the Big Questions are
religiously or metaphysically neutral. By "Big Questions" I refer to questions
about the meaning and purpose of life, how we ought to live, and the nature
of the good life and the good society.

<P>My argument rests on the assumption that human beings are creatures
that do not live simply by instinct but rather regularly inquire about
the meaning and purpose of their existence. We create symbols and myths,
tell stories, and constantly talk with each other about what reality is
like and about how we ought to live. Paul Tillich described religion in
terms of the category of "ultimate concern." Emile Durkheim argued that
secular stories and myths can provide ultimate meaning for a society just
as well as those that are supernatural. Secular descriptions of reality,
in other words, can function just like supernatural descriptions.

<P>Despite impassioned denial, even ridicule, from many academics and the
liberal media, the evidence for the claim that our public schools are dominated
by secular humanistic values and beliefs is overwhelming (Baer, 1982).
My claim, of course, is not that some comprehensive system of thinking
called "secular humanism" is being taught in our public schools and universities.
Even less credible is the view that there exists an organized conspiracy,
with secular humanists across America collaborating to indoctrinate public
school children in their particular beliefs. My argument is much more specific,
namely that a detailed examination of curricula in America's government
public schools demonstrates clearly that humanistic ideas and values dominate
public education in America. Our schools are pervasively secular in an
ideological sense. In virtually all government public schools humanistic
values and beliefs are taught about the nature of the good life and the
good society, and many of these values and beliefs directly compete with
and undermine traditional Christian and Jewish beliefs. In sharp contrast,
the latter are routinely excluded from school curricula. Unfortunately,
the public school education establishment has for the most part either
ignored or caricatured the claim that secular humanist beliefs and values
are prominent in public school curricula, even though evidence in support
of the claim is both clear and abundant (Baer, 1989; Vitz, 1977; 1986).

<P>It is by no means necessary to adopt the claim of an organized conspiracy
in order to make a strong case against the teaching of secular humanist
beliefs and values in government public schools. Our courts routinely hold
that public schools violate the Constitution's establishment clause if
they recommend even fragments of Christian doctrine. For instance, no public
school would be permitted to teach students that the meaning and purpose
of life is to be found in obedience to Jesus Christ, or even that students
ought to follow Jesus' example of self-giving, sacrificial love. By contrast,
overwhelming evidence exists that our public schools are teaching many
elements of secular humanist belief, often in very sensitive and controversial
areas like morality and sex education. The denial that secular humanist
beliefs and values play a major role in public school curricula is little
more than an ignorant and unthinking reflex for most liberal academics.
But the claim is a strong one (Baer, 1977; 1980; 1981; 1982).

<P>Now, if these secular humanist beliefs and values function like religion,
then if we are to achieve justice in public education we must treat them
like religion. Moreover, it is important to remember that the assertion
that secular humanism is a religion was not originally made by conservative
Catholics or Protestant fundamentalist critics of humanism but by humanists
themselves. Writing as a nontheistic or secular humanist, John Dewey (1934)
concludes his book, <I>A Common Faith</I>, with the words: "Here are all
the elements for a religious faith that shall not be confined to sect,
class, or race. Such a faith has always implicitly been the common faith
of mankind. It remains to make it explicit and militant" (p. 87). Although
Dewey's claim that his humanistic faith was always "implicitly the common
faith of mankind" is simply mistaken, his statement about making it "explicit
and militant" was prophetic, and it is no wonder that thoughtful religious
leaders reacted with alarm. Their concern was only heightened when Dewey
(1929) proclaimed that by advancing a common culture America's public schools
"are performing an infinitely significant religious work" (p. 514).

<P>One of the strongest reasons for insisting on a functional definition
of religion when dealing with public education is that not to do so results
in a reductio ad absurdum of monumental proportions. If we demand that
our definition of religion must include some kind of belief in the supernatural,
then the way is left open for atheists and secular humanists to promulgate
their particular beliefs and worldviews in government public schools, for
these views are considered nonreligious and thus cannot be excluded from
public schools on the grounds of constituting a religious establishment
or violating the free exercise of religion. In sharp contrast, Christians,
religious Jews, and other religionists must remain silent in the public
schools, for their views are religious, and thus the state is constitutionally
prohibited from recommending them to children as true and worthy of acceptance.

<P>Within such a framework, government schools are free to press on children
humanistic beliefs such as the doctrine that the meaning and purpose of
life is found in satisfying one's own needs and desires (the term "self-fulfillment"
is often used). Under the banner of secular neutrality, sex education curricula
and home economics texts simply assume and implicitly teach that rational
behavior is self-interested behavior. Public schools routinely indoctrinate
school children with humanistic beliefs like those found in Values Clarification,
including the metaethical view that moral claims are subjective and relative.<SUP><A HREF="#N_5_">(5)</A></SUP>
Christians, on the other hand, who believe that life's meaning is found
in learning to love God and serve one's neighbor, that committing one's
life to Jesus Christ is the essence of rational behavior, and that morality
consists of more than one's personal preferences must remain silent in
our government public schools. To believe that the founders of our republic
could have had anything remotely like this arrangement in mind strikes
me as bizarre and truly absurd. I can find no convincing historical evidence
that would support such a position.

<P>To be sure, as Americans we have developed practical ways of limiting
religious influence on a broad range of "secular" activities, including
many of those carried on by government. In part, this is because we have
held so much of our religious and moral tradition in common that it has
been relatively easy in many of our "secular" endeavors to presuppose this
commonality and not get bogged down in endless controversy over those religious
and moral beliefs where we disagree. In particular, we have been able to
develop something like what John Rawls refers to as an "overlapping consensus"
about the structure of a liberal democracy. We are able to guarantee a
high degree of "justice as fairness" to citizens without relying on metaphysical
or theological argumentation that is grounded in a single comprehensive
world view (Baer, 1990).

<P>However, when it comes to the Big Questions--those that deal with the
meaning and purpose of life, who we are, and how we ought to live in light
of our deepest religious and metaphysical commitments--Americans today
hold highly divergent views about the nature of reality and about what
is appropriate belief and behavior. Thus, although we do not ordinarily
think of a Jewish position on harbor dredging or a distinctively Presbyterian
view of managing the Post Office (although for Jews and Presbyterians these
activities by no means remain outside the realm of God's concern and sovereignty),
it is not at all difficult to envision a normative Catholic position on
abortion, an orthodox Jewish view of the family, or an Evangelical Christian
understanding of marriage and child nurture. And these religious views
often directly compete with secular views, for instance those of groups
like Planned Parenthood or of individuals like psychologists Carl Rogers
and Sidney Simon (one of the founders of Values Clarification).

<P>When nontheistic and humanistic beliefs serve as the philosophical basis
for important parts of the curriculum in government public schools--courses
in Values Clarification, decision making, and sex education are notable
examples--citizens who take their religion seriously face a difficult problem.
As noted above, many of these "secular" courses teach (implicitly, if not
always explicitly) that self-fulfillment and satisfying one's personal
needs are the goals of human existence. They insist that all value judgments
are subjective and matters of personal opinion. They view tradition and
traditional wisdom as a hindrance to achieving the good life. But each
of these particular secular views, rather than being religiously neutral,
directly competes with orthodox Christian teaching on these issues. Their
promulgation in government schools constitutes an establishment of religion
and also hinders the free exercise of religion by believing Christians
and other traditional religionists. Secular instruction can be (and often
is) just as "sectarian" (in the sense of narrow-minded, bigoted, one-sided,
and parochial) as religious instruction can be. And if this is the case,
then we must ask: Does the state have the right to take a captive group
of students and indoctrinate them in beliefs and values that will lead
them to defect from the teachings of their church and their parents?

<P>Whether or not political philosopher John Rawls (1971, 1993) is right
in his claims about justice as fairness, his views are basically relevant
to how we govern ourselves, not to how we educate our children. Rawls himself
concedes that as a comprehensive doctrine liberalism (and, of course, the
same would apply to secular humanist beliefs and values) deserves to occupy
no special place in our public life.

<P>Nonetheless, the belief that the secular is the realm of the nonsectarian,
although not defensible philosophically, continues to have great influence
on how most Americans think about education. For instance, it seems to
me quite remarkable that we permit secular philosophers in state universities
actually to do metaphysics and normative ethics (and to recommend their
results to their students), but scholars who deal with religion and religious
ethics must confine their efforts to description and analysis. In many
respects theological ethicists are far more open-minded than most secular
ethicists; virtually all theological ethicists, for instance, have studied
the most important writers in philosophical ethics, but the reverse is
seldom true. In the field of animal rights/welfare, as an example, deontologist
Tom Regan (Regan &amp; Singer, 1989) uses the term "rationally defective"
to describe the arguments of those who disagree with his conclusion that
what he calls "the rights view" includes animals as well as humans (p.
111). Similarly, Peter Singer (1990) considers his views regarding animals
to be rationally compelling, all the while overlooking the highly controversial
character of his initial assumptions about the nature of human beings and
animals. Explaining why he does not deal with the Biblical concept of humans
being created in the image of God or the theological concept of humans
possessing immortal souls, he writes: "Logically, however, these religious
views are unsatisfactory, since they do not offer a reasoned explanation
of why it should be that all humans and no nonhumans have immortal souls"
(pp. 270-71, note 14).

<P>Most theological ethicists (e.g., Hauerwas, 1981a; 1981b), on the other
hand, recognize that their viewpoints involve an element of faith and commitment.
They may believe their positions to be both rational and true, but at the
same time they recognize that technical reason as such usually does not
compel acceptance.

<P>There simply are no good reasons to believe that secular thinking about
morality, character development, and the nature of the good life is inherently
more universal, reasonable, or nonsectarian than is religious thinking.
Just as was the case with Jefferson's conviction that his own religious
views were "nonsectarian," the conviction of many educators today that
the secular is more rational or universal than the religious is not warranted
empirically or philosophically; it is a belief that is far sooner self-serving
than self-evident!

<P>It seems clear that all human thought enterprises rest on certain initial
assumptions and convictions about the nature of reality. All are limited,
operate within a particular time and place, and entail risk of error. I
find little justification for the widely accepted position that liberal,
secular, humanistic reasoning of the sort that is prominent in public education
in America today--from Kindergarten to Ph.D.--is rational and scientific,
whereas religious thinking about morality and the nature of reality rests
on dogma and faith.

<P>But even if secular thinking were inherently more rational than religious
thinking, within the framework of the Constitution and the American political
compact--assuming a functional view of religion--government would still
not be justified in preferring secular answers to the Big Questions over
religious answers. And insofar as school curricula always rest on one set
of answers to the Big Questions or another, government's role in actually
operating schools and universities must be seen as highly problematic.

<P>If my arguments regarding the necessity of adopting a functional view
of religion are basically correct, then choice is not just an option to
be employed in the name of efficiency and better access to quality education.
It is a political necessity for those who wish to be faithful to the American
political compact and the spirit of the Constitution.

<P>The argument is often made by those who oppose school choice that the
requirements of liberal neutrality can be satisfied by exposing students
to a multiplicity of values and ideas from which they are encouraged to
make their own choices. This cafeteria approach permits the school, so
it is argued, to remain neutral among various visions of the good life,
while at the same time inculcating specific democratic values such as justice,
tolerance, and rational deliberation.

<P>But there are a number of telling objections to such an approach. First,
taking a cafeteria-like approach to values and ultimate beliefs inevitably
carries with it relativistic implications. We do not teach science in such
a manner; instead we present students with the best science we have. We
want them to come to believe and accept what is true. To be sure, good
science teaching will help students see that scientists have proposed many
theories that eventually failed and have taken many wrong turns along the
way, but this is part of the normal course of science. It is not the same
as presenting astrology, phrenology, or Lysenko's genetics and suggesting
to students that they make their own choices about what they want to believe.

<P>Second, the idea that students in K-12 are mature enough or know enough
to make rational choices among different views of morality and the good
life strikes me as just plain silly. That children in grades K-12 possess
sufficient maturity and understanding to make intelligent choices among
the great moral, religious, metaphysical, and political traditions of the
world in which we live is wishful thinking. What actually happens in K-12--to
the put the matter bluntly--is that students become the patients of whichever
social engineers have the power to push their own values and beliefs on
them. The way schools have employed such fads as Values Clarification and
most sex education curricula, or even their use of such an impressive intellectual
achievement as Kohlberg's system of Moral Development, strongly supports
this claim. And even a cursory look at today's fashionable commitment to
diversity and multiculturalism in K-12 education makes clear that the range
of diversity permitted seldom extends beyond the boundaries of the politically
correct.

<P>Attempts to deal with morality in government public schools in terms
of specific courses have generally been either ineffective or else problematic
on constitutional grounds. Most such courses focus on trying to teach students
how to improve their moral reasoning. Amy Gutmann (1987) argues that we
should help students enhance "rational deliberation" (p. 51). But she largely
ignores the telling arguments presented by Alasdair MacIntyre and others
that there is little agreement today about precisely what we mean by rationality.

<P>The structure of the public school is even less hospitable to the more
traditional approach of focusing on character formation. Effective character
formation requires the freedom to deal with symbols, myths, and stories,
and also demands opportunities to engage in ritual actions (worship, celebration,
and so forth) that reinforce the lessons being taught. Furthermore, teachers
must be permitted to function as role models, not at the level of the lowest
common denominator, but in precise and specific ways. The public school
is far too thin and fragile a moral community for effective character development,
and in our society it is also severely limited by demands for religious
neutrality.

<P>At the time of the founding, Americans agreed that the federal government
should not establish a single national church. And over the following half
century those states which had established churches gradually cut them
off from public support. But McCarthy, Skillen, and Harper correctly argue
in <I>Disestablishment a Second Time</I> that this move towards freedom
of religion and conscience will not be completed till we end the religious
establishment constituted by our government public schools. Such a move
will require drastic changes in how we think about the relation between
government and education, and will also require that we begin to think
of religion--for educational, political, and constitutional purposes--in
functional terms.

<P>Perhaps more than any other current social issue, school choice will
challenge us as Americans to make clear whether we believe in religious
tolerance or not. Will we, in the tradition of Horace Mann, side with the
National Education Association in supporting a monopoly system of government
schools that are fundamentally vehicles for one or another cultural elite
to exercise social control, or will we, in the spirit of the First Amendment's
religion clause, endorse school disestablishment and view the state's role
in education as that of guarantor of just access to education rather than
that of religious mentor and moral tutor?

<P>Disestablishment will bring about wrenching changes in our educational
structures and will not come about easily. But to reject such a move could
very well contribute to a period of intense culture wars and widespread
loss of confidence in the ability of government to guarantee justice to
cognitive and religious minorities.
<BR>&nbsp;
<H3>
References</H3>
Baer, Jr., R. (1977). "Values Clarification as Indoctrination. <I>Educational
Forum</I>, 56(2), 155-165.

<P>Baer, Jr. R. (1980) "A Critique of the Use of Values Clarification in
Environmental Education." <I>Journal of Environmental Education</I> 12(1),
13-16.

<P>Baer, Jr. R. (1981/82). "Clarifying My Objections to Values Clarification:
A Response to Clifford E. Knapp. <I>Journal of Environmental education</I>
13(2), 5-11.

<P>Baer, Jr. R. (1982). "Teaching Values in the Schools," <I>Principal</I>,
61(3), 17-21, 36.

<P>Baer, Jr. R. (1989). "The Myth of Neutrality," in K. Sidey, (Ed.), <I>The
Blackboard Fumble</I>, pp. 49-61. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

<P>Baer, Jr. R. (1990). "The Supreme Court's Discriminatory Use," <I>Journal
of Law and Politics</I>, 6(3), pp. 453-54.

<P>Bennett, W. &amp; Delattre, E. (1978). "Moral Education in the Schools,"
<I>Public Interest</I>, 50 (Winter), pp. 81-98.

<P>Berger. P., &amp; Neuhaus, R. (1977). <I>To empower people: the role
of mediating structures in public policy</I>. Washington, D.C.: American
Institute for Public Policy Research.

<P>Coleman, J., Hoffer, T., Kilgore, S. (1982). <I>High school achievement:
public, Catholic, and private schools compared</I>. New York Basic.

<P>Dewey, J. (1929). "Religion and our Schools." In J.Ratner (Ed.). Characters
and events: popular essays in social and political philosophy. Vol. II.
New York: Holt, 504-516.

<P>Dewey, J. (1934) <I>A common faith</I> New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1934.

<P>Gutman, G. (1987). <I>Democratic education</I> Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.

<P>Hauerwas, S. (1981a). <I>Vision and virtue: Essays in Christian ethical
reflection</I>. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

<P>Hauerwas, S. (1981b). <I>A community of character</I>. Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press.

<P>Lockwood, A. (1977) "Values Education and the Right to Privacy," <I>Journal
of Moral Education</I> 7(1), pp. 9-26.

<P>MacIntyre, A. (1988). <I>Whose justice, which rationality?</I> Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

<P>McCarthy, R., Oppewal,D., Peterson, P. &amp; Spykman, G. (1981). <I>Society,
state, and schools</I>. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

<P>McCarthy, R. Skillen, J. &amp; Harper, W. (1982). <I>Disestablishment
a second time: Genuine pluralism for American Schools</I>. Grand Rapids,
MI: Christian University Press.

<P>Rawls, J. (1971). <I>A theory of justice</I>. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.

<P>Rawls. J. (1993). <I>Political liberalism</I>. New York: Columbia.

<P>Regan, T. &amp; Singer, P. (1990). (Eds.). <I>Animal rights and human
obligations</I>. (2nd ed.), Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

<P>Singer, P. (1990). <I>Animal liberation</I>. (2nd ed.). New York: New
York Review.

<P>Stewart, J. (1975). "Clarifying Values Clarification," <I>Phi Delta
Kappan</I>, 56 (10), pp. 684-688.

<P>Strike, K. (1982). <I>Education policy and the just society</I>. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press.

<P>Vitz, P. (1977). <I>Psychology as religion: The cult of self-worship</I>.
Ann Arbor, MI Eerdmans.

<P>Vitz, P. (1986). <I>Censorship: Evidence of bias in our children's textbooks</I>.
Ann Arbor, MI: Servant.
<BR>&nbsp;
<H3>
Endnotes</H3>

<H3>
____________________</H3>
<A NAME="N_1_"></A>1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at
a conference on Religion, Politics, and Cultural Dynamics, Cornell University,
April 9-10, 1994.

<P><A NAME="N_2_"></A>2. Here and elsewhere in this paper I deliberately
use the term "government public school" rather than simply "public school."
This is because private or independent schools, as well as public schools,
serve important public purposes. Also, because poor people typically cannot
afford housing in neighborhoods with the best public schools, many public
schools are not really open to the general public. Overall, social, economic,
and racial integration in independent schools compares favorably with that
in government public schools. See Coleman, Hoffer, &amp; Kilgore, 1982,
pp. 28-71.

<P><A NAME="N_3_"></A>3. Here and elsewhere in this chapter I refer to
the religion "clause" rather than "clauses" to underscore my belief that
the framers understood nonestablishment to be in the service of free exercise:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
(otherwise) prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

<P><A NAME="N_4_"></A>4. Although I concur with Strike's judgment about
the inability of the state to educate (because it cannot coherently transmit
what Strike calls "private values"), I find neither his distinction between
private and public values nor his emphasis on schools stressing the development
of rationality altogether convincing. Mediating structures in society--including
schools, churches, business and labor groups, and not-for-profit public
interest groups--typically espouse values that are neither private in the
sense of purely personal nor public in the sense of state-sponsored. The
realm of the public is broader than the realm of the state. It is appropriate
to use the term "public" in relation to the values and activities of these
mediating groups, for they clearly serve public purposes, even though they
are not owned and operated by the state.

<P>Defining the term "public" as coextensive with the realm of the state
begs important social and political questions. And when Strike emphasizes
the development of rationality in government public schools, it is important
to understand that rationality is not an altogether objective or morally
neutral concept. See: Berger, P., and Neuhaus, R. (1977); MacIntyre, A.
(1988).

<P><A NAME="N_5_"></A>5. In addition to my work, the following are examples
of scores of articles critical of Values Clarification that have appeared
over the past two decades: Bennett &amp; Delattre, 1978; Lockwood, 1977;
Stewart, 1975.