Religion in Schools - Mike Grodem (edison)

I am just discovering what I consider to be a major social problem in the United States. This problem affects most of the U.S. population, and most haven’t even considered it to be an issue. I’m speaking of the idea of religious illiteracy. The country has done so much to keep preaching out of school that they have effectively destroyed religious learning in an academic, secular sense.

The Bible has had a profound impact on the course of American history, but it is often ignored. Regardless of whether or not one subscribes to the Bibles doctrines, it is an important influence on the world that should be studied. The first settlers in America were here for religious reasons, the most widely publicized books (even excluding the Bible) were very often religious and almost always had some biblical references in them. For decades the country, for better or worse, used the teachings in the Bible as a moral and legal compass. Even today you will see the president referencing Bible stories in their speeches. The Bible is so entwined with our history that I think it is irresponsible to ignore just because it’s a religious text.

More important than the bible, though, is the utter ignorance of Americans concerning other culture’s beliefs. Civilizations are sculpted by their religions, and in our ever shrinking world ignorance to these beliefs can, will, and do cause problems. Most Americans, depending on their up-bringing, can name a few bible stories. Very few, however, know the story of the life of Buddha, or the importance of Mohammad to Muslims, or why Hindus typically worship at home, or why Sikhs wear turbans. These days companies in America are working with companies in India and Japan, and of course there is huge connection between the U.S. and middle eastern, predominantly Islamic, countries. Not understanding these region’s religion is a sure way to damage international relations. I feel that religious ignorance easily transforms into religious intolerance, and everyone knows where that leads.

I’m advocating required classes about world religions in public schools. I don’t want preaching, just facts about what a culture believes and how the people are shaped by the religion. I’d like all of the major religions to be covered: Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, Shinto, Daoism, Confucianism…. all of these belief systems that have such a huge impact on our world and deserve to be at least fundamentally understood by all. I would also like history texts to stop being so dismissive about religion in the name of political correctness. Things weren’t always P.C. and it’s insulting to pretend that they were.

My views were partially shaped this way by taking a World Religions class with professor Rob Avola at Edison and reading a book titled Religious Literacy by Stephen Prothero. I suggest that anyone that is interested in religions, and enhancing their understanding of why cultures are the way they are, take Mr. Avola’s class.

This entry was posted on 20. November 2009 at 23:50 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.