Education Is Inevitably Religious

by Brandon Dutcher                                                                              Vol. XVI, No. 9, Nov/Dec 2003

In a school-prayer decision in the summer of 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that "school sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible." With proper respect to Justice Stevens and his concurring brethren, that statement is preposterous. Why? Because K-12 education itself is one gigantic exercise in "school sponsorship of a religious message."

Education – because it deals with ultimate reality, with ideas and values of ultimate importance – is necessarily religious.

Education must address some of life’s basic questions: Where did I come from? What is the nature of man? What is truth? What is the meaning of sexuality? What is the meaning of history, and what is my part in it? Parents or teachers who pretend the crucial questions can be avoided for 12 years, or can be answered in some "neutral" or "value-free" way, are deceiving themselves.

One cannot separate the "academic" from the "religious," as if the God of the universe could be placed into a tidy little compartment. Christ will not be marginalized: He is holding the universe together, and in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He is the central reality, the very I AM. He cannot be finessed.

Somebody’s religious assumptions will necessarily undergird and suffuse any curriculum. Did God create the world, or not? Is He the architect of history, or does man determine it? Does the government rest upon His shoulder, or not? And on it goes. From anthropology to zoology, education is intrinsically, inescapably religious. And as evangelical author and former New York Times editor Bob Slosser puts it, "How can children be expected to make sense of anything – from science to social studies – if the puzzle always has the central piece missing?"

World magazine’s Joel Belz rightly says that both churches and schools "are so profoundly involved with shaping the minds, the hearts, and the souls of their people that it should be all but impossible for someone to draw a line saying where ‘education’ leaves off and where ‘religion’ picks up."

Does this mean then that the public schools should impart the Christian worldview? No. They have neither the authority nor the ability. Besides, Golden-Rule-minded Christians shouldn’t use the coercive power of the state to foist our beliefs on others.

But that doesn’t mean the public schools will be devoid of religious messages. Far from it. As Humanist Manifesto signer John Dewey understood, public education is religious – and whether you call the prevailing philosophy humanism, or secularism, or agnosticism, the public schools are soaked through with it. Their religious message is clear: God may or may not exist, but He’s simply not relevant to what goes on in school.

Yes, there are many fine Christian teachers in public schools, but the fact remains that the schools are officially agnostic. They’re agnostic as a matter of law and public policy. This isn’t a criticism; it’s simply a description.

In sum, we cannot keep "religious messages" out of school. Somebody’s religion will be there no matter what. Every school – public, private or home – will either acknowledge Jesus or, like Peter, deny Him.

[Brandon Dutcher is research director at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (www.ocpathink.org), a conservative think tank. He and his wife Susie live in Edmond, OK, where they homeschool their four children.]