Texas Should Start Over

The Texas Board of Education, the nation's second largest purchaser of public school textbooks, is revising its K-12 social studies curriculum and deciding how to characterize religion's influence on American history. Three consultants have recommended emphasizing the roles of the Bible, Christianity and civic virtue of religion. As America's children go back to school, how would you advise the Texas board? How should religion be taught in public schools?

The Texas Board of Education should start over. It could begin by replacing consultants who are overly enamored with "emphasizing the roles of the Bible, Christianity, and the civic virtue of religion." These are code words conveying an exclusive agenda that seeks to devalue the diverse roles of religion in American life and culture.

Religion should be taught in the public schools like any other aspect of culture. The problem is that religion is not just any aspect of culture: religion asks for a special kind of allegiance because it makes claims about what is ultimately true. But in order to teach religion effectively in the public schools, such claims must be set aside. But before we get to teaching religion in the public schools of Texas, let's take a brief detour to consider how religion is often taught on the college level.

Religion as a term has a peculiar genealogy. Religio is the Latin word referring to "rite," "observance," or "supranatural constraint." The term religion itself comes into use in Protestant/Catholic polemics after the Reformation. In the wake of the Enlightenment, there was a search for what was called "natural religion" in the hope that a common origin of all religions could be found. Soon a dream of a science of religion developed, sometimes called the history of religions or comparative religions, that would classify religions or even explain religious phenomena much like a biologist would classify and explain various life forms and natural processes. Such an approach, at least theoretically, remains distinct from theology since theology is situated within a particular religious tradition.

On the college level, comparative religions and theology have their own separate courses, and even departments. The two approaches do overlap and merge. But sometimes they fight over the best way to understand and teach religion. The comparative religion scholar would say that in order to understand religion we need to bracket out our own assumptions about religion in order to be open enough to understand its myriad forms across culture. The theologian would argue that the term "religion" is a very specific concept that belongs to the Christian west that does not find parallels in other traditions. Therefore, religion is itself a religious term--it makes no sense to speak of it apart from some sort of a religious context.

We find distant echoes of this debate in the Texas Board of Education efforts to characterize religion's influence on American history. While it might seem innocuously "historical," emphasizing the roles of the Bible, Christianity and the civic value of religion recalls intra-Christian disagreements. Although the Bible is clearly important for understanding American history, so too are non-textual religious traditions such as those embraced by Native Americans. But it should come as no surprise that the Bible is privileged, since "Christianity" is privileged as well. In this case, however, Christianity is a code word for a particular evangelical construal of Christianity that would seem to find little room for liberal Protestants, Catholics, or Mormons. It also is quite unclear whether there would be any room for a discussion of Judaism's place in American life except in its connection to Christianity. Not surprisingly, there seems to be little consideration given to religions such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism that are increasingly part of the fabric of American society and culture.

The consultants also seem to implicitly value only certain forms of civic virtue inspired by religious belief. The proposed removal of Cesar Chavez from the curriculum points to an unwillingness to acknowledge religion's power to cultivate the civic virtue of resistance to economic and cultural marginalization. Paradoxically, in so ignoring religion as protest, consultants to the Texas School Board of Education have reminded us once again that religion is also about conflict.

While the theoretical divide between comparative religions and theology is far too academic for a K-12 audience concerned with American history, the Texas School Board might be well advised to draw lessons from it. The crucial lesson is the importance of critical self-reflection. Religion is so deeply enmeshed within human life that it is difficult to stand outside it. But that is precisely what teachers of religion must try to do. The Texas Board of Education should start over and begin by bracketing out considerations of what religion should be. Maybe that way, both liberal and conservative members of the Texas Board of Education, along with their consultants, could see more clearly the many ways religion has shaped American life and history.

By Mathew N. Schmalz  |  September 1, 2009; 9:46 AM ET
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