In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, students are allowed time off from the school day to receive religious instruction - off school grounds and by teachers who are not employed by the state. Christians like this because it relieves them of the burden of having to take care of religious education on their own time; non-Christians argue that it violates the separation of church and state.

Jim Belcher writes for The Augusta Free Press:

For those who simply want to remove WRE from the school day, you are wrong, wrong and more wrong. These children, and more specifically, their parents who are responsible for their upbringing and moral guidance, have a right to learn, share and hold their religion unencumbered by government and fellow citizens.

Because, evidently, the parents are too busy on Sundays doing things like going to sporting events, mowing the yard, and shopping at Wal-Mart to ensure that their kids get an appropriate religious education. Thus it's necessary for them to get the state to organize it.

For those who want to keep WRE in the schools as it is (or make the program as is even more predominant), you too are wrong, wrong, wrong. The program is not WRE, but should be called WRCE for Weekday Religious Christian Education, and it is well known that a growing portion of the U.S. population is non-Christian. It is the fear of the continuing erosion of Christianity in America that is the root of the problem on this side. ... You have parents of non-Christian children who would like to see WRE removed from the schools because it promotes Christianity over non-Christian religions, or promotes religion at all.

This, of course, is in large part why those who want to end WRE are not "wrong, wrong, wrong" but "right, right, right." The state has no authority to promote and organize religious education at all, much less privilege the religious education of Christians.

The education community wants to end WRE so they can increase some instruction time during the school day to do what they are supposed to do in the presently allotted time, i.e., prepare our children to pass standardized tests demonstrating minimum basic knowledge.

Even if church/state separation weren't an issue, this would be more than enough reason to end WRE. Why even bother going on from this point?

I believe the solution to our problem is right in front of us. Promote and encourage religious education in the grade schools. All religions. Teach our children about Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist, Buddhism, Chinese traditional religions, primal indigenous religions including African and all the other world religions.

An excellent idea that any attentive observer will know won't work. Why? Because a legal class on religions would have to treat all religions equally. Christianity wouldn't be privileged over Islam or Wicca. Teachers couldn't even imply that Christianity is more "true" or more "moral" than any other religion. Moreover, Christianity would have to be presented in a neutral, academic manner — leaving out all of the apologetics and propaganda that normally accompanies religious instruction in churches but including all the errors and problems that are left out of apologetics.

Now, can you imagine the outcry from conservative evangelicals if something like this happened in their local school district? Of course you can. They would, suddenly, discover the "principle" that religion should be taught to children by churches and parents rather than by state employees.

Read More:

• Separation of Church and State 101
• Church and State News
• Religion in Public Schools
• Secularism 101