A Thorny Path to Tread: 
Teaching about Religion

By Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr

Adapted from "Chapter 2: Teaching about Religion" in Religion and Public Education: Common Sense and the Law (1991), available from Americans for Religious Liberty, P.O. Box 6656, Silver Spring MD 20916) or via www.arlinc.org.
[This abridged rendering of the authors’ material is placed on this Web resource with their permission.]

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Without adequate safeguards for objectivity and balance, 
and against slanting and bias, the schools would 
do well to do too little rather than too much.

Teaching about religion in public schools can be both constitutional and desirable. It can also be unconstitutional and undesirable. It all depends on how it is done.

Some naive souls imagine that teaching about religion can be accomplished, as if by magic, with little preparation, planning or foresight. They are wrong. The history of sectarianism in American education suggests that misplaced emphases can easily turn religious study courses into little more than indoctrination sessions.

Indeed that seems to have been the case in nineteenth century schools when a strong Protestant bias permeated the curriculum, from the Puritan primers of colonial days to McGuffey’s Readers to the partisan strife engendered by anti-Catholic biases in school texts well into the 1890s. (Such strife caused community instability and political turmoil in Boston and several other communities during the last decade of that century.)

Ruth Miller Elson’s pioneering study of school textbooks, Guardians of Tradition: American Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century (University of Nebraska Press, 1964) found that an evangelical Protestant worldview pervaded U.S. history, social studies and literature texts long after the country had become religiously pluralistic. Only Protestant contributions to history and literature were recognized. All other religious traditions were ignored, or, worse, denigrated. Even geography texts clearly preferred Protestant to Catholic or Eastern Orthodox countries. They were seen to be industrious and cultivated.

Since World War II, fear of controversy and desire for profits on the part of textbook publishers seem to have led to a downplaying of religious themes and events in history and social studies texts. Several organizations, from right to left on the religious and political spectra, concluded that too little attention was being given to religion—including the history of the struggle for religious freedom—in most textbooks.

Inadequate textbooks are only a small part of the problem, and their inadequacy is nothing new. Several scholars have concluded that religion never has been dealt with adequately in texts. A comparison of 1930 to 1965 books revealed a general dearth of useful religious information.

It is true that textbooks have tended to overlook religion, but the reasons for this are seldom discussed. Textbook publishing is a highly profitable and competitive business with sales in the billions. Our school populations are highly pluralistic, and religion is one of the touchiest subjects. In order to sell books, publishers have to avoid offending or making nervous the people responsible for selecting or approving textbooks for the schools of a district or state.

Can a textbook mention one religion or denomination without giving some sort of equal treatment to all? Should a textbook present only the positive side of religion and ignore the dark side? One critic bemoans texts which fail to discuss the reasons for the first Thanksgiving and the religious motives of the Puritan and Pilgrim settlers. Yet, a balanced treatment of religion in early New England would have to discuss the intolerance which led to the Salem witch trials, the execution of Mary Dyer for being a Quaker, and the exile of Anne Hutchinson for holding unauthorized religious meetings in her home. The Great Awakenings may be left out, but so too is the mention of religious support for slavery and religious insensitivity to other forms of social injustice. Schools and publishers evidently have found from generations of experience in hundreds, if not thousands, of communities that neglecting religion is safer than paying much attention to it.

But the real challenge is developing a mutually-agreed-upon framework for teaching about religion in a lively, intelligent way that is consistent with our Constitution—and in a way that respects, even celebrates, religious diversity.

A number of responsible organizations have worked to promote constitutionally acceptable, pedagogically respectable programs for teaching about religion. They have promulgated guidelines and position statements. Those at the forefront in speaking to the issue have included the Public Education Religion Studies Center (PERSC) at Wright State University (now defunct), the National Council for the Social Studies (which represents thousands of teachers who daily confront these issues), and the lively and thoughtful journal Religion & Public Education, edited by Michael Waggoner (520 Schindler Education Center, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls IA 50614).

The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) issued the following set of recommendations for schools which are trying to resolve the religion/education controversy:

"If your school district is concerned about appropriate ways to include teaching about religions in your school curriculum, here are some important considerations: The study of religions in public schools is permitted by the Constitution as long as the subject matter is presented objectively as part of a secular program of education. Teachers of religion courses should be sensitive to varying beliefs of their students. The First Amendment does not forbid all mention of religion in the public schools. It does prohibit the advancement or inhibition of religion. Public schools are not required to delete from their curriculum materials that may offend any religious sensibility. The decision to include—or exclude material from the curriculum must be based on secular, not religious, reasons. The material must be presented objectively. Religion should be taught with the same care and discipline as other academic courses. Schools should be especially sensitive to the developmental differences between elementary and secondary school students. Subjects or teaching methods that may be appropriate for secondary students may not be appropriate for younger children."

Those school districts that are trying to deal responsibly with this issue of teaching about religion have adopted a multiplicity of approaches best suited to their needs. Kristen J. Amundson, in her book, Religion in the Public Schools, (AASA, 1986), noted: "There are at least three major trends in teaching about religions in American schools. The first is an objective study of religions, generally included as part of the social studies curriculum. . . .A second major trend is an increased involvement of students in exploring religious influences on art and literature, as well as studying such religious works as the Bible for their artistic and literary content... .A third major curricular trend is helping students understand the relationships between civil government and religious liberty. Such an understanding is a critical part of preparing youth to live in a multi-faithed society."

Agreeing on general principles, however, is far easier than actually designing programs for teaching properly about religion. The difficulties are really rather formidable, certainly more so than in any other part of the curriculum.

Simply finding room in the curriculum for more material is not easy. Already American students get less instruction than their counterparts in other advanced countries in science, mathematics, and foreign languages. In only a minority of states are students required to study world history in high school. Few students are exposed to literature other than by American and British writers. Remedying these deficiencies would be less controversial than adding more instruction about religion to the curriculum, and yet even that would require lengthening the school day and/or year and the expenditure of a great deal more money.

Even beefing up instruction about religion in existing history courses raises the questions of how much new material is enough and what material should be taken out to make space for new material. Further, at what grade levels should students be exposed to what and how much material?

Then, too, few teachers are presently qualified to teach about religion. If teachers in other subject matter areas are required to be qualified and certificated, shouldn’t teachers who deal with religion be properly trained in accredited universities?

Finally, although there is general agreement as to what should be taught in science, math, Spanish, and music courses, there seems to be little agreement about precisely what should be taught about religion. Should instruction be about the history of religion, or the creeds formally espoused by various religious traditions? Should course work deal with only religious traditions found in the United States at the present time, or also with religions around the world? Should courses deal with the sociology, psychology, and demography of religion?

There is some agreement among experts that instruction about religion should be integrated into history and social studies courses, but here we still encounter problems. Fair, factual, and adequate teaching about religion means that a balanced picture be presented, the bad along with the good. If students learn that many European settlers in the New World came here to improve their own religious liberty situation and/or to "spread the Gospel," they should also learn that European settlers wiped out native populations, forced conversions, and persecuted dissenters. It should not be forgotten that statues on the lawn of the Massachusetts state capitol call attention to the hanging of Quaker Mary Dyer on Boston Common in 1660 and the expulsion of Anne Hutchins on from the colony in 1638. If Martin Luther King’s contributions to the advancement of civil rights are studied, so too must be the actions of other religious leaders to hold back those advancements.

If teaching about religion in history courses is not to be mere applesauce, it will have to deal with controversial subjects. In world history, and to an extent, in U.S. history, schools would have to deal with such thorny subjects as how to treat the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and other scriptures; Catholic and non-Catholic differences over the development of the papacy; syncretism in the history of Christianity; the extermination of the Albigensians and persecution of the Waldensians; the Inquisition; Calvin’s Geneva; the religious wars after the Reformation; the unpleasant facets of the Crusades; the wars between Christians and Muslims; the long history of anti-Semitism and other often murderous forms of bigotry; the role of religion in social and international tensions; the conflicts between religion and science; the religion-related "troubles" in Northern Ireland; the role of religion in French, Spanish, and other European colonizations; religion and the Vietnamese quagmire; religion and liberation theology in Latin America; religion in the Spanish Civil War and World War II. And these are just some of the problems in world history that would require fair, factual treatment.

In U.S. history, some of the equally thorny issues would be native American religion; French and Spanish missions; the European religious background of migration to North America; the execution of Quakers in and expulsion of Anne Hutchinson from Massachusetts; Salem witchcraft trials; colonial establishments of religion and bigotry; revivalism; Deism; anti-Catholicism; anti-Semitism; pacifism; the evolution of religious liberty and church-state separation; the history of various denominations and movements; denominations and religions founded in the U.S.—Christian Science, the "Campbellite" churches, Shakers, Mormonism; new religions—Unification Church, Hare Krishna movement, Scientology; "deprogramming"; religious utopian experiments; religion on both sides of the slavery issue; Black religion; non-Western religions in the U.S.; nativism; the temperance movement; the controversy over evolution and other conflicts between religion and science; religion and welfare programs; contemporary church-state problems; religious conflict and abortion rights; religion, war, and conscientious objection; the modernist-fundamentalist debate; important theologians; religion and the Vietnam War; women and religion; religion and the civil rights movement; religion in public education; the relation between religion and values, daily life, and behavior; the new Religious Right and politics; the "unchurched"; liberal religion and Humanism.

Finally, students would need to learn about religious pluralism. Labels like Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Evangelical, Humanist, Quaker, fundamentalist, etc. do not tell us very much about how any person really thinks, acts, or makes moral or political decisions. Each label covers a wide spectrum of persons. Further, opinion polls which purport to show Americans’ beliefs tell little that is substantive and much that is conflicting. Instruction which oversimplifies what Americans or any others believe is not educationally sound.

Religion is probably the most difficult topic to deal with in public education. While in theory it can be done properly, in practice it presents daunting problems. History cannot be taught without some references to religion, but these require much of teachers, curriculum designers, administrators, and textbook writers. Without adequate safeguards for objectivity and balance, and against slanting and bias, the schools would do well to do too little rather than too much.