Kudos to Montana, whose Republican governor (Greg Gianforte) just signed innovative legislation related to religious education, sponsored by 78th District Republican state representative Randyn Gregg.
Many states allow for “released time,” whereby public school students whose parents want them to participate in religious education or “catechism” usually are dismissed an hour or so earlier once a week to go elsewhere to receive it. Participation is voluntary, and students taking part in it are responsible for making up the work they missed, but time is reserved for those who want to avail themselves of it.
“Released time” almost always take place off school premises, usually at the church or parochial school of the denomination providing it. That’s because a series of Supreme Court decisions in the late 1940s declared “released time” schemes to be constitutional off school property but not on it. The latter was seen as too excessively entangling church and state.
Lots of states allow for “released time,” either informally or by authorizing local school boards to adopt the arrangement. One way Montana’s law is innovative is that it assures kids all across the state of that time carve-out; it doesn’t depend on the discretion of a local board. Once upon a time, that might not have been an issue, but in secularizing times, when some school boards won’t call the vacation around December 25 “Christmas break” or deliberately separate “spring break” from Easter, all bets are off, especially in woke districts.
The other innovation is that the new law (which goes into effective July 1) is that it envisions the possibility of academic credit for religious education participants. The specifics haven’t been worked out, no doubt will involve further regulations, and always threaten heightened government interference, but they also recognize that religious education is education and is important.
It is important because it recognizes that many people do adhere to a religion. Religion addresses ultimate human concerns. It shapes fundamental ways that people see the world and their place in it. A democratic society, even one in which church and state are separate, is not obliged to pretend its people are not religious, that religion does not affect how they see the world (including their civic duties), or that it has no obligation to reckon with those truths — truths not necessarily about religion, but about their fellow Americans, their history, and their culture. Indeed, it would be a bizarre notion of “democracy” that insists that the majority strip itself of its religious and values convictions in order to participate in civil life. The late Richard John Neuhaus had a term for this: “the naked public square.”
By making sure Montana kids can get religious education if they want it, the new law acknowledges those realities. It affirms what John Adams said over two centuries ago: “We are a religious people whose institutions [including our laws] presuppose a Supreme Being.” Our history would not recognize a clear distinction many elite versions of law blur: Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.
When states play pretend about religion, refusing the acknowledge that it exists, they are implicitly saying that what many Americans — perhaps majorities of Americans — consider important really isn’t, at least not in terms of being publicly acknowledged. Montana’s new law corrects that misperception: Without forcing a child into religious education, it recognizes that not everything important enough to claim time is dictated by government.
By creating the possibility of academic credit, Montana likewise acknowledges the value of religious education as education. It rejects the secularist’s pejorative dismissal of such instruction as “indoctrination.” And that opens a bigger lens: awareness of religion as such as a phenomenon worthy of an educated person’s study.
Some states have tried to build elements of religious studies into their public school curricula — e.g., by incorporating the Bible or the Ten Commandments. Note that here I said “religious studies,” not “religious education.” The two are different. “Religious studies” takes the phenomenon of religion seriously and expects some intellectual acquaintance with it, regardless of one’s personal belief as to what a religion teaches. “Religious education” is education within a particular faith tradition, aimed at giving a reason for what a particular person believes.
There is no way that one can understand Western or American culture independently of the Bible. One may not be a Jew or a Christian, but those two great religious traditions shaped the Western mind. The Bible shaped America in ways that — like it or not — the Koran, the Analects, or other sacred books simply did not. Understanding where America came from, how its Founders thought, what allusions like “the Good Samaritan” in literature mean is just impossible without basic Bible literacy. That’s why some states are putting the Bible back into classrooms.
Likewise with the Ten Commandments. Admit it or not, those tablets are in many ways constitutive of why American law looks like it does. They also espouse moral principles that, in many ways, are common to human beings as such, not just Jews or Christians.
Lots of things compete for today’s kids’ time: extracurricular activities, sporting events (often long-distance), “enrichment” activities, “required volunteer” (service) hours, etc. Religion should not have to wait to pick up its time crumbs by itself after all those other things make claims. Under Montana’s law, it won’t have to — to the benefit of student and parental choice.
Image: Darkmoon_Art via Pixabay, Pixabay License.