Tag: public/private

Is Atheism a Religion?

September 16, 2016 / Trent / 0 Comments

I recently read an article in which the author insisted that public funds not go to support religious schools. The rhetoric in this article was very much in the “us” versus “them” vein. In essence, “their” views, those of the religious, are tainted with the irrational and divisive forces of faith or belief common to all religions, unlike “our” rational and unifying position which is free from dangerous subjectivity.

In the comment section someone agreed saying:

Religious indoctrination of children is nothing less than abuse, and ought not to be allowed let alone publicly funded.

No child is raised without “religious” indoctrination

What this commenter does not understand is that there is no way to raise a child without “religious” indoctrination.

Modern rationalism or postmodern relativism, which dominate much of western education are inherently “religious.” So to is atheism. Consequently, public schools are, in essence, are engaged in religious education–religious indoctrination, if you will.

I said as much in my response to above comment. To which another commenter objected saying:

Atheism is not a religion for the same reason that bald is not a hair colour.

He is right, baldness is not a hair color, but it is a hair style.

Two Meanings of “Religious”

There are two ways in which one might use the term “religious.” In one sense, atheism is not a religion. When we define religious in terms of rituals and believing in spiritual beings, then atheism is not a religion for the same reason baldness is not a hair colour.

But in another very important sense, atheism is religious. The term can also refer to the guiding principles that one accepts by faith, that shape ones reality, and around which one organizes ones life.

These guiding principles are revealed in how one might answer fundamental questions about reality. Not everyone is aware of their own answers to these questions, but their lives testify to having answered them one way or another.

Does life have meaning? If so, what is it?
Does human life have value? If so, why?
Do we have a purpose? If so why?
Does the universe have a purpose?
Is the universe friendly, hostile or indifferent?
What’s wrong with the world?
What is the solution to what is wrong with the world?
Is there a God or gods?

Every human being lives out their answer to these questions. Interestingly, many people proclaim an answer to a question, but live out another answer. The answers, stated or lived, are religious. They are religious in that they cannot be proven; they are accepted by faith.

The Faith of Atheist

The atheist believes that there is no God on the same grounds that a theists believes that there is. Both do so by faith; neither can know it to be so.

One may chose not to use the term religious to describe this category, but it doesn’t get atheism out of the category, whatever you call it.

Baldness is not a hair colour, but it is a hair style. Atheism does not engage in religious activities that arise out of a belief in a God, but they do make unverifiable claims about reality based on faith.

There is no way we can have an a-religious education, so the government will always be funding religious education. The question now remains, which religions will they fund.

Objections to Christian Education

October 28, 2013 / Trent / 6 Comments

stevepb / Pixabay

My principal told me of a conversation that he had with a Christian minister who was strongly against Christian Education. I asked him if he could send me a list of his objections.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Here are 7 Objections to Christian Schools and a brief response to each. #ChristianEducation #ChristianSchools #ChristianorPublicSchool” quote=”Here are 7 Objections to Christian Schools and a brief response to each.”]

1. Children need to be salt and light in the public school.

The first objection to Christian education is that Christians are called to be salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13-16), and by sending our children to a public school we are fulfilling this mandate. I agree that it is vital that Christians “let [their] light shine before men,” but this injunction is meant for Christians, not the children of Christians. I’m not saying that children of Christians aren’t Christian (although some would), but I am suggesting caution. To be salt and light requires the supernatural strength provided by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Children of Christians are often well mannered, respectful, kind and encouraging. A lot of children are, Christian or not, if have been raised in stable and principled homes. Being polite and encouraging is not the same thing as being salt and light. Children of Christians are not necessarily equipped for this task for it requires more wisdom and spiritual maturity than a child usually possesses.

We always take the injunction to be salt and light to be a command for individuals. This is, how we understand everything, but the biblical default is set to community. Jesus’ metaphor was to be like a “city on a hill.” To be salt and light, then, is a command to create communities that spread the light. A Christian school is this sort of community. Our light is showing how education ought to be done in our particular time and place if Jesus Christ were truly Lord of all things.

2. Where will the world be if all Christians pulled out of the world

Behind this objection is the assumption that Christians are to function (as “salt and light”) in culture only as individuals. This mistake is understandable, since we are incredibly individualistic in our culture. This is one of the very idols that a good Christian education attempts to reveal and combat. We tacitly interpret our world through an individualistic lens. There is no doubt that the world would be in bad shape if there were no Christians, but Christian schools do not cause Christians to disappear. They are still there. They are just in schools that proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all of life. The Christian school is salt and light in the world, but it is a corporate response, rather than an individual one. Christian school must, then, be very deliberate in engaging culture–their local community as well as the education community–so as to truly be a blessing to “the world.”

3. Children who attend Christian schools experience culture shock when they enter ‘real world’

This is a great danger if the purpose of the Christian school is to protect students from the “real world.” Some religious schools exist for this very reason, because they overemphasize the power of sin in the world. Other schools are only Christian in that they have morning prayer, weekly chapels and offer Bible classes. The problem with these schools is they overestimate the created goodness in the world. There is a third type of Christian school that believes all things are created good, and all things profoundly affected by sin. This Christian school would explore all aspects of creation, including culture, and celebrate the creational goodness that we find there, but it would also train students to discern evil, not just “out there”—where it certainly is, but also inside our most intimate circles and within ourselves. A child educated in this kind of school would not be shocked, but would be prepared to faithful living in the world.

4. Science, English, Math… its all the same whatever school you go to… the religion part can come from home and church.

This objection comes straight out of the Modern worldview. Modernism separates reality into public/private categories. The public sphere is where reason guides political, economic, educational, (etc.) discussions. The assumption is that reason is neutral, and out of this value neutral position, we can dialogue on how we can best organize society. All the non-rational, things, like beliefs, opinions, religion, etc. are relegated to the private sphere. Society works if these things are kept in the church, the mosque or the bedroom. The public school is such a place. Reason directs the curriculum and, in the absence of beliefs, it is value neutral.

Many Christian parents also accept the neutrality of reason and, therefore, of a public education. The church and the home need add the religion component and the overall experience of the child tips toward the religious. The problem is that the public sphere is not neutral at all. Modern rationalism is a belief system that stands in opposition to the teachings of the Bible. C. S. Lewis puts it this way:

There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan.

5. Christian schools inoculate youth to authentic Christian living and foster indifference to the beauty of the Gospel.

This is a danger whenever the gospel is merely an abstraction. If the church and family do not embody the gospel, the child will probably become desensitized to the “beauty of the Gospel” as well. At school it isn’t enough to study truth and then leave it in the students head. A Christian school needs to help student blur the lines between knowing and doing, and not just in extracurricular activities, like “missions trips.” And not just within the lessons themselves. The embodiment of the gospel needs to be systemic involveing, course offerings, programs, assessement, discipline, Special Education and Learning Assistance, athletics, awards, councelling, etc.

But the road along which we travel is fraught with perils on all sides. There are significant dangers in sending Christian children to the public school as well. One of them is probably not the desensitization to the Gospel by constant exposure to it. The dangers to which children of Christians are exposed in a public school are pretty serious. The idea that Science, English, Math, etc. are neutral is one pretty big one.

I think a better approach is, rather than risking these far greater dangers, addressing the “desensitization” issue of Christian schools very deliberately and ask how we can, individually and collectively, embody the Gospel.

6. My Christian school experienced was meaningless for growth for me as a Christian

Perhaps this is true. Of course I can’t possibly say. Perhaps his Christian school experience has no bearing on the fact that today he is a pastor. But there is some pretty good evidence that Christian education in general has a long term effect on the future of its graduates. The Cardus Institute published a study on Christian Schooling in both the United States and Canada. In the Executive Summary of the Canadian report, it is reported that

graduates of evangelical Protestant schools not only show more commitment to and involvement in religious rituals and activities compared with their government school counterparts with similar religious and socioeconomic backgrounds, but, despite having been educated among peers from similar religious backgrounds, are likely to be just as involved in civic affairs as all public school graduates, with the exception of protests.

7. The best thing for us is to have our kids going to school with their neighbours, and to put the onus for children’s discipleship back on the church.

My response to this objection is mathematical. In a seven day period a child spends at least 35 hours at school. The church cannot possibly compete, and it is a competition if we are talking about the public school. Even with the most incredible curriculum and leaders, how much can the church do in its few hours a week? If, however, the church and the school worked together in the discipleship of the children, how much more effective would we both be. I teach at a Christian high school, and the youth group leaders of the local churches are regularly at the school interacting with students and coordinating with administrators and teachers to discuss how to better serve the children, their families and our Lord.

At the Christian School, young people are meaningfully interacting with Christian adults. As they work on cars in the mechanics shop, or delving into Shakespeare, or practicing basketball students are being discipled in faithful living and their character is being developed through authentic relationships with Christian staff. The Christian school is not in competition with the church; the church, family and school work together in nurturing of children.

Christian schools aren’t all the same. My response to each of these objections is from a particular approach to Christian Education. For a more detailed description of the three types of Christian schools, read :

Why Christian Education? — Part 1 and Why Christian Education? — Part 2

Enlightenment Dualism

January 2, 2013 / Trent / 0 Comments

Tama66 / Pixabay

No religion should ever be involved with anything other than its own place of worship, where worshippers can believe and practice anything they deem fit, far away from enlightened, logical, reasonable people.

This from Mark Rogers, “Why we must keep religion out of politics” The Belfast Telegraph–Opinion/Letter

Where does this idea come from? The idea that religious expression must be confined to the church like other ideas are to be kept in the bedroom.

Enlightenment Roots

Both Bacon and Descartes trusted in reason to be the arbiter of truth. Bacon used reason to take him from observation of particular phenomenon to universal principles, and Descartes saw the human mind as the final authority in understanding reality. Although they approached it from different angles, both trusted reason, rather than faith and tradition, to lead to the truth.

Because of their influence, by the middle of the 17th century, science was becoming the lens by which reality was viewed. Importantly, this does not mean that there was a corresponding loss of belief. Still, as the mysteries of nature that had previously been attributed to the direct intervention of God came to be explained as natural phenomenon, a division developed between science and religion. God was understood to be the creator but was no longer thought to be necessary for day to day management of the material world because it was obedient to Natural Law. Correlative to the division between God and His Creation, was a widening gap between God and human reason; reason was understood to be autonomous.

Immanuel Kant

Enter Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant saw the movement from reliance on God toward a reliance on reason as analogous to the movement from childhood to adulthood. This idea was foundational to the period we call the Enlightenment. The light of the Enlightenment was the realization that it was neither God nor the church which would lead to a better world, but human Reason. The light, in Enlightenment, is Reason. This view of is the essence of the modern worldview and is still with us today.

Kant believed that human beings were also developing morally as we continue to articulate universally recognized moral principles. All cultures and religions are expressions, to one degree or another, of these principles. He believed that these Moral Laws could be uncovered by reason. For Kant, religion was simply a particular expression of universal principles.

It was supposed that we could arrive at universal truth using only reason. Importantly, it was believed that reason was neutral, unaffected by belief, (or history, tradition, body, etc.). Because religion is particular, rather than universal, and because it is greatly influenced by belief (history, tradition, etc.) it wasn’t very long before Religion was thought to be the opposite of Reason.

This is where the divide between faith and reason was formalized–this is dualism. It’s the belief that we can hold to whatever particular beliefs we want, but these are to be kept in the private sphere. The public sphere is to be ruled by universal reason. If we keep things in their proper spheres, we can all happily get along.

Although, this idea is considered passé by many intellectuals–not just the religious ones either–it still dominates public thought.