by Richard Campbell

Created on: April 16, 2009

Teaching Religion in public schools is nothing less than insanity. Religious Parents of America, don't be sucked into thinking this is a positive idea, simply because it sounds like a religious education. Such an idea is most certainly NOT beneficial to your child's religious development.

First off, let us look at just what organizations you would be putting in charge of your children's religious education. The Public School system. Do you really want to risk that? Fox news reported in April 2008 that the high School graduation rate in a handful of big-city American schools was only fifty percent. The organization Highered.org noted that for 2005 (the last year's data available?) the overall Public High school graduation rate across the country was 68.8%. Are these the institutions we want teaching our children about religion? The ones struggling to graduate more than half their students as it is? No thanks, I may have to send my children to a public school, (but prefer a private, Church sponsored school if I can afford it), but I don't want to mix the worst aspects of each.

Even supposing that the schools will teach religion effectively, (a BIG assumption there), the question remains: Whose religion will the schools be teaching them. Remember that in a pluralist society ike ours, every view will want (and vigorously demand), to have its own point of view given a prominent place in the curriculumn. Don't think for a moment that you will have the right to 'choose' which religious views will be taught in the Public school; your children will be 'exposed to' the basic precepts of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Islam, Wiccan and a series of other religions without the actual spiritual content that your local Church provides. This is a recipe for confusion, not education; and it is confusion in an area where your child most needs a solid, stable foundation. Fancy your child studying xerox's of Wiccan 'rituals', or learning from the Koran how 'infidels' (i.e., Christians) should be treated? Would you like your child to confront you about how hinduism tells him you are going to be reborn as an insect because you eat hamburgers?

Then we must move on to what materials will be studied. Just what sort of study materials will Public schools provide for 'religion class'? To judge by my child's history texts, I would guess that a wide ranging and shallow overview, consisting mostly of 'exciting' little stories that substitute a humanist interpretation in place of any true religious meaning. Your family's religion is just that, a very specific faith, not an 'overview', or a 'general Christian" belief. Do you really think that a 'religion class', taught as a part of a general education curriculumn by a Public school teacher who may have very different religin from your family (or no religious beliefs at all), will truly benefit your children's spiritual development? Just wait until the 'dissenting view' of atheism is freely discussed in class.

Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic (both Shiite and Sunni?), Wicca, Jainism, Animism, and all the variations within each religion may make for an interesting Doctoral dissertation, but I think will do little to imbue your child with the moral and religious precepts important to your family. Do you attend a different church every week, in search of 'religious diversity', or is your specific place of worship one of the most critical choices you and your spouse have made for the well being of your family? The answer to that question determines whether or not you want religious education in Public schools. As for myself, I will teach my children about our family's religion at Home, in Church and in Sunday school.

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