Should Schools Promote Christianity to End Violence?

Some Christians regularly complain about how public schools do not promote, endorse, or encourage their religious beliefs. They don't care about non-Christian students, or the fact that it's impossible for the government to teach a form of Christianity that doesn't exclude some Christians. All that matters to them is that their religion should be given a favored, privileged status by the state.

A common argument used in defense of this position is the idea that violence, sex, poor grades, and other problems are all due to a failure by government schools to single out Christianity for special treatment. They can cite no actual evidence for this claim, which may explain why it's so common for them to misrepresent whatever they do read about in order to twist it into the service of their religious agenda.

Chaille Brindly responds to the recent Time article in which people call for teaching about the Bible in public schools:

Maybe pulling God and the Bible out of schools wasn’t such a good idea after all?

I guess all the violence, drug and alcohol abuse, teen suicide, and discipline issues in schools has convinced some journalists that a godless education may not produce the best students. Among the reasons suggested by Time for teaching the Bible is that many references in pop culture and the media are based on concepts in Scripture. This is true because the Bible touches on real life issues. It is the story of God and mankind. Many key political and cultural movements have been grounded in Biblical concepts. In the United States much of our moral code and our laws stem from the Torah.

Is it possible to misrepresent the facts to a greater extent? It's not the journalists suddenly agree that public, government schools should get involved with religious education; instead, it’s that some journalists are starting to realizing that there is value in teaching about the Bible. It might shock Chaille Brindly to learn that many if not most atheists agree. Atheists have no problem with teaching about the Bible — not only is knowledge about the Bible helpful background for understanding history, politics, and culture, but a serious and scholarly investigation of the Bible has been a key component in many atheists' deconversion from Christianity.

Of course, the only way a government school can teach about the Bible is to adopt an objective, scholarly perspective — it would be unconstitutional to adopt any faith-based perspective and teach the Bible as if it were genuinely holy scriptures, as if it had a divine origin, etc. Ideally, though, schools would teach about religion generally, not just the Bible specifically. That carries further problems for Christians, though, because such classes would be forced to present Christianity on the same level with all other religions. Christianity could not be presented as more "true," nor could other religions be presented as "false."

Chaille Brindly may be convinced that a godless education is somehow responsible for violence, drug abuse, teen suicide, and discipline issues, but it's noteworthy that no evidence for such a connection is offered. This isn't surprising because Christians who keep making such claims never seen to have any evidence at hand. A person doesn't need religion or God to be moral, so why would they need a religious education to be moral? Besides, if a lack of religious education lies at the heart of immorality among young people, the blame lies with the families and churches failing to provide that education — they can't pretend that the government is responsible for such a task.

By the same token, it's not possible to support the claim that American laws are derived from the Bible. American laws are secular and godless — which is just as they should be, because America's government has no authority over religious matters. America's government must be secular and godless because the alternative is to have a religious and theistic government — and since it's not possible to be "religious" or "theistic" in a general sense, it can only mean being religious and theistic in a very particular sense. This would involve picking one religion with one conception of theism to privilege above all others. Christians like Chaille Brindly may be convinced that their religion and their theism are the obvious choice, but the American government has no authority or right to privilege their religion in such manner.