Have a Little Faith by Benjamin Justice & Colin Macleod

Author:Benjamin Justice & Colin Macleod [Justice, Benjamin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780226400594
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2016-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

Weekday Religious Instruction

While conservative Christians attacked modern science and cultural pluralism, liberal Protestants found an alternative way to promote God in the schools: altering the weekly schedule to allow for off-site (and sometimes on-site) religious instruction. This “released time” movement evolved out of continuing efforts that, like the Poughkeepsie plan, sought to accommodate religious groups’ claims to a voice in public education. Popular programs in New York, Utah, and especially Gary, Indiana, during the 1910s led the way. During the 1920s the idea spread to hundreds of cities and towns, accelerating to thousands during the 1940s and 1950s.41

Liberal and moderate Protestants led the movement, or attempted to, through the International Council of Religious Education (ICRE). Their goals were explicitly Protestant. But unlike their fundamentalist counterparts, the ICRE embraced religious pluralism. They urged local religious authorities, including Catholics and Jews, to cooperate with each other, even as they hoped to win the hearts and minds of the “unchurched” children for Christ. For Protestant liberals, the acknowledgment that all groups had equal claim to civic identity (an important aspect of democracy) could be found in that bedrock of Christian ethics, the golden rule. That other groups might not tolerate the liberal Protestants was not the point—at least not while the liberals enjoyed political power.

While not explicitly rejecting science, the ICRE preached a soft anti-modernism, teaching children a “Christian interpretation of life and the universe; the ability to see in it God’s purpose and plan.” Or as a director wrote more bluntly decades later, “The greater emphasis upon the social and physical sciences in public education has tended—except where these scientific facts are given a religious interpretation—toward an increasingly secular and humanistic view of life.” ICRE promoters saw no contradiction between these goals and the mission of public schools—indeed, they viewed weekday religious instruction as rounding out the progressive vision of education for life.42

Initially other Christian groups adopted a wait-and-see approach. Within two decades, Catholic and Lutheran leaders, historically hostile to public schools and religious instruction within them, warmed to the idea of weekday religious instruction. Mormons embraced it enthusiastically, as did African American educators, most of whom taught in segregated schools. On the other hand, Jewish leaders usually opposed such programs, as did freethinkers, atheists, and others—especially when programs were just thinly disguised efforts to Christianize public school students.43

In high schools, religious instruction fell easily within the organizational structure of the school: classes in Bible study and religious history could provide advanced knowledge of religion without, in theory, promoting belief in its supernatural aspects. Elementary schools were more challenging. For these, weekday religious education programs fell into three general types. In the first, least common, and most logistically challenging type, individual religious bodies coordinated with public schools to require children to attend weekly off-campus religious instruction in that faith. Liberals frowned on this “denominational” method, primarily (they argued) because it tended to sow division among children. Religious conservatives, on the other hand, favored its autonomy and doctrinal purity. In the second type,

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