After the post I wrote last week on Respecting Families of Other Religions, I got to thinking about how the entire subject of religion is approached in schools.
In the USA, our Constitution guarantees a separateness of Church and State, such that one religion cannot be established as a State Religion, and thereby forced down everyone’s throat. But these days, unfortunately, with even things like prayer in schools being frowned upon, the inverse of “State Religion” is taking place, where students never get a proper grounding on what religion is, and what the people and families and traditions around them believe.
There are a lot of problems with coming up with a curriculum for teaching comparative religion in school. The biggest one is making sure that, if you’re going to “teach” religion, that all religions thus taught are fairly represented.
And the only way to make sure they’re fairly represented, would be to make sure that the source of the text on each religion actually came from that religion itself.
After seeing the way that the media can mistreat, misunderstand, and misconstrue what my own religion is about, I know that the only information I’d trust on finding out about the Catholic Church, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Mormonism, etc, would be in a statement that religion actually made on the subject.
What about the idea of having a comparative religion text, where each religion was given 15 or 20 pages to give a good overview on their beliefs and practices, what they stand for, what their morals are, and what it means to call oneself member. Then, should the student desire more information, that religion can give suggestions on how best to find out more. I.e. what texts to read, where to go, who to talk to, etc. Even if all major religions and belief systems were to be represented, the volume would still be of approximately the same size as a normal textbook.
Such a text would bypass any misunderstandings or misconceptions that even trans-religious scholars might have on each religion, and would give every religion a fair shot at being understood by the general population.
Imagine, as well, if a generation of our youth were so-educated, the strides that could be made in international peace and understanding, as opposed to growing up in a world where even speaking of religion is increasingly shunned in school.
What do you think?