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What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in Education?
Toppling Dominos
Anti-Christians don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of Secularism
"Don't Impose Your Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death Warrant?
Court Ordered Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
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"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for Catholics in this Election
Christians Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay Marriage
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Vouchers Revisited
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Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
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More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way, Baby
The Incarnational Approach
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Things Your Media Never Told You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them.  How Else Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of Nullity?
Dutch Treats
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Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality, and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
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"These are the Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few are Married
"...Prepare him for additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a Person?
The Point of a Point of View
Politically Correct, Morally Depraved
Population Controllers out of Control
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Social Progress through Immorality
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Reason and Faith
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Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal if...
Get Rid of that Worthless Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues Prior to Voting

by Monsignor James C. Brunner

Faith Points

Since so many court decisions and other efforts have tried to remove all vestiges of religious sectarianism from our schools (e.g., no student-led prayers are allowed before athletic contests), is it true that public schools are now religiously neutral? That depends on how one defines religion.

Does religion require ministers, a church, ritual, ceremonies, and the worship of a deity? It would seem not because Buddhism, Unitarian Universalism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, and others have no need for a deity in their systems and they are still recognized as religions. One definition of religion by Steven Schafersman is an all-encompassing system of belief. It deals with the universe insofar as it can be seen or imagined. It constitutes one’s worldview from which all other beliefs flow. Thus if one believes in a personal God who is creator the result is one sort of religion that tries to establish a relationship with him and an ethical system that takes God into account. On the other hand if one is an atheist it does not follow that he has no religion. For that person religion is a conviction that all that exists is nature and ethics has no relationship to supernatural Being, but is something that is worked out in various ways by different societies. In this sense it is impossible for anyone to be nonreligious since everyone of necessity has a worldview on which he bases his system of morality.

We should not imagine that since public schools have been purged of all sectarian instruction, symbols, or rituals that they are now neutral or that instruction is being imparted in a religious vacuum. Instruction must be given from some point of view. Mathematics does not differ according to religion, but even here the point of view of the instructor influences the subject. For example, Mr. Thorndike, an educational psychologist, stated that everything that exists exists in some quantity and therefore it can be measured. This is rank materialism, the idea that matter is all there is. There are many things in this world alone that cannot be measured: quality, thoughts. There is no distinctively religious biology that differs from an unbeliever’s biology. But biology must be taught from a point of view. Is God the source of life or did life rise spontaneously from matter? Is mankind essentially different from beasts or is there only a qualitative difference? Sex functions are the same for believer and unbeliever but will sex education be given from a point of view that holds sexual expression in the young unmarried is normal and natural and homosexuality is permissible as well as contraception and abortion? There are no separate physical laws for believer and non-believer, but instruction in physics is influenced by a point of view. What does the instructor think is the origin of matter; is creation possible or is it even necessary? Can this be known? The teaching of literature is a function of the instructor’s point of view. What literature will be selected? If a hero’s suicide is presented as heroic, is it something to be admired or is it an immoral taking of life? History is more than a chronicle of events. History seeks causes, credit and blame, and interpretation and justification of acts. Do you think that teaching of the history of the Texas revolution will be the same in Texas as in Mexico? Alfred North Whitehead was right at least in this: "The essence of education is that it be religious."

In the absence of a Judaeo-Christian viewpoint in public schools what is the reigning religion or point of view? It is Secular Humanism. What is Secular Humanism and is it a religion in a genuine and legal sense? Do not let the word "secular" mislead you about the religious nature of Secular Humanism. The word only emphasizes that this religion admits nothing of the supernatural. If religion is a set of beliefs, which constitutes one’s worldview, then Secular Humanism is a religion. According to the Humanist Manifesto: "These affirmations [in the Manifestos] are not a final credo or dogma but an expression of a living and growing faith." Manifestos I and II declare that Humanism is "a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view." John Dewey said that Humanism is "our common faith." Julian Huxley said it is a religion without revelation.

And what does Secular Humanism believe? It believes that nature is all that exists (naturalism) and rejects a divine origin for the universe. It believes in a mechanical evolution without any divine initiation or direction. Secular humanism is atheistic and this leads logically to ethical relativism because morality is neither imposed by God, who does not exist, nor is it discovered; it is made by human beings in response to circumstances. So Secular Humanism can be defined as a religious worldview based on atheism, naturalism, mechanical evolution, and ethical relativism. This is the point of view that has supplanted the Judaeo-Christian worldview that used to prevail in public schools. The public schools are not religion-free or neutral.

Some may say, it is all very well to define religion as a worldview and say that Secular Humanism fits the definition, but is it a religion in the legal sense? The answer of the Supreme Court is mixed. When the Humanists applied for tax exemption they wanted to be known as a religion and in 1961 the Court, resting its case on the "free exercise clause" of the First Amendment, agreed. But when Christians try to stop Secular Humanism from propagating their views in the public schools the Humanists say it is not a religion "for establishment clause purposes." So the rule is, When Secular Humanists want the benefits of religion it is a religion; when they are challenged for propagating their religion in public schools it is not a religion. Thus a teacher who wants to tell students about his religious beliefs is free to do so if his religion is Secular Humanism, but not if it is Christianity. We have a schizophrenic Court that allows Humanists to have their cake and eat it too.

The notion that public schools are religiously neutral is a cruel joke on Christians and other religious groups. Where is the neutrality that permits justifications of homosexuality, premarital sex (just be safe!), and abortion to be taught, but not the Christian viewpoint on these matters? How can it be neutral to allow a totally materialistic viewpoint of the origin of the universe in the classroom with full approval of school authorities, but Christians cannot discuss creation by God even during the lunch period? Can it be counted as neutrality to forbid prayer to protect the sensibilities of nonbelieving students while it is all right to affront the value system of believers? The prevailing viewpoint in public schools not neutral but is diametrically opposed to Christian religious principles. If that is neutrality it would be hard to recognize combat. Public schools are anything but neutral not necessarily because some may deliberately propagate views opposed to Christianity (with forced subsidy from Christians), but mainly because religious neutrality is a complete fiction and a philosophical impossibility. The Christian viewpoint has been expunged and is replaced by Secular Humanism, which has become the de facto established religion of the public schools. The only alternative to a forced indoctrination in Secular Humanism in government schools is to allow parents to select schools of their own choosing and have their tax funds collected for education allocated by the parents. This would respect the rights of parents not to have their children indoctrinated in a value system opposed to their own and at the same time produce an educated citizenry. Public school proponents and Secular Humanists will fight this to the death, but as long as the current system is maintained they should at least spare us the prattle of maintaining that public schools are religiously neutral.