Bianca Rosu

October 28, 2019

“All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way” (website – Epictetus, a Greek Stoic philosopher) is a quote that always caught my attention. In essence this quote is very powerful because religious tolerance is a necessity for individuals within a society to get along, especially when a variety of cultures and people with different religious beliefs live in one community or nation. When religious tolerance is practiced, unity and consistency exist in a society that respects religious freedom.

Is religion a controversial subject or we are just making it looking so? Every individual should question this and probably doing that the answer will be found.

I chose as a subject “teaching about religion in public schools” and during all this essay I will be elaborating rhetorical aspects of four sources chosen.

I got my inspiration from my first source, the article “Teaching about religion in public schools” from:’The Humanist’ written by Edd Doerr. Edd Doerr is a senior editor of Free Inquiry, he headed Americans for Religious Liberty for thirty-six years and is a past president of the American Humanist Association. The author writes in this article about the fact that “The Supreme court has ruled that religion can be taught in schools as long as it is done in an academic, impartial way” (Teaching about religion in public schools 42). This article is published in ‘The Humanist’ which is a magazine that has the function to educate those new to humanism and to challenge longtime humanists.

So by knowing this we can tell that the author’s purpose is to inform but also to challenge his readers (audience) with insightful ethical critique and commentary on the central issues of our time. His serious tone all along his writing can be identified when he says: ”as I see it from my standpoint as a former history teacher and full-time defender of church-state separation, if schools cannot teach about religion with sufficient objectivity, accuracy, and balance, they should not be teaching it at all”(Teaching about religion in public schools 42).

Edd Doerr uses as a medium a document type column in which he expresses his concerns about “the modest but growing campaign to get public schools to teach about religion”(Teaching about religion in public schools 42). He mentions the fact that the average American is very bad informed about religion and agrees with the fact that the Supreme Court has held that public schools probably should teach “about religion only if it is done in an academic, neutral, balanced way”(Teaching about religion in public schools 42). But he seems to be a little skeptical about how they will accomplish that because he doubts if the teachers are or are not adequately trained to teach appropriately about religion by saying that: ”there is an enormous potential for abuse, as not a few school districts have actually permitted in their schools instruction that is plainly sectarian indoctrination, as in a Sunday school class in a local church.” (Teaching about religion in public schools 42). During this article he also raises many questions for his audience, so I observed that he changes the genre as his stance changes all along the article.

Also Diane L. Moore, the founding director of the Religious Literacy Project, a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, and a lecturer on religion at Harvard Divinity School, agrees that religion should be taught in schools. In her article that is published in the ‘Education week’ website, which is the most respected voice in education journalism for the past 30 years, she points out student’s need to study religion. That “giving students the tools to better understand the complex and powerful roles that religions play in human experience has the potential to help mitigate bigotry based on misrepresentation, while simultaneously enhancing empathy and understanding across differences of all kinds” (Public Schools Can’t Ignore Religion). But the fact that actually in schools students they only have one “religion unit” in which are highlighted “facts” such as number of adherents, geographical location, founder or major figures, scripture, ritual practices, and beliefs and also where they only learn about the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, the Five Pillars of Islam, and the 10 Commandments of Judaism and Christianity etc, it can not be enough. So she agrees this aspect and she adds that: ”these facts can only help to highlight why teaching about religion through the isolated lens of rituals, beliefs, and practices it can be problematic” (Public Schools Can’t Ignore Religion). Her audience on this website is very vast and very different from Edd Doerr, because she addresses in general to teachers, students and parents and everyone interested in the educational system.  Her writing about teaching religion in schools has the purpose to promote a different way to teach about religion that focuses on giving students the tools to understand the complex roles that religions play in human experience. From this we can conclude that her attitude towards the topic is a positive one because she thinks that this aspect is very important and is very helpful in students education. The author’s genre is expressed by words and questions that makes the audience of this article to really reflect about the subject and about the student’s need to study religion in schools.

On the other hand, the author David Saperstein (a rabbi, a director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism) expresses a totally different opinion in his article published in ‘The New York Times’ which is a very well-known American newspaper based in New York City with worldwide influence and readership. The article “Banning Books Isn’t the Answer” is about the decision that the Judge Brevard Hand took a few months ago to ban 40 textbooks from Alabama’s public schools because they promoted a religion, ”secular humanism.” But “Secularists haven’t chased religion from our classrooms. The religious right has.” the author says (Banning Books Isn’t the Answer). And because of that many publishers have found it easier to remove any reference to religion from their textbooks, avoiding the topic of religion altogether rather than seeking to accommodate conflicting viewpoints.

If the previous authors, Edd Doerr and Diane L. Moore were convinced that religion should be taught in school and also considered that this actually may help shaping a student’s attitude towards cultural diversity, then David Saperstein’s stance in this article varies but mostly is neutral. He thinks that if this topic creates so much controversy, then the state should just remove religion as a subject of study. In this way, the education about religion becomes the responsibility of each parent at home. But then he also says that: “failing to cover religion in public schools, however, implies that it is not an important element of life. By learning about different religions, children receive a vital component of their education.” (Banning Books Isn’t the Answer).

Compared to other sources, the audience of this article is more general. The article addresses to all New York newspaper readers which can be from politicians, teachers or students to regular people that like to read their newspaper every morning. The design of the article that the author uses is the same that Diane L. Moore uses in her writing, an article document type in which he uses a very elaborate vocabulary with a content level of five that shows that the author is very known and that gives him more credibility.

My last source is an academic journal with a different perspective, written by the author William H. Jeynes which is one of the nation’s leading researchers on the influence of religiosity, Bible literacy and parental involvement. He writes this article on Sept. 22, 1998, “Are America’s public educational institutions anti-religious?” and his purpose is to point out that maybe the America’s public educational institutions are to blame for banning the religion as a subject of study in students curriculum. This article addresses the claim that America’s educational system is too frequently anti-religious. Examples are given, regarding why various people believe that anti-religious attitudes exist, especially in the public schools. One of the example is given by the NCAA that declared that it was illegal for a college football player to celebrate a touchdown by kneeling in the endzone. The author definitely disagree and says that “Nevertheless, everybody should respect and tolerate one’s religion not only because religious people are human beings, but because religion may possess some of the answers to the ills that face American society today” (Are america’s public educational institutions anti-religious? 172). So the author’s stance is pretty much in favor of allowing religion to be taught in public school because he also adds that “religion could make a major contribution to helping solve the problems of our society”(Are america’s public educational institutions anti-religious? 172).

The audience of this article is clearly different from my other sources and is actually formed of academic peers which can be professors from elementary school. The medium of this writing is an article type document, well written and organised with a high vocabulary.

Works Cited

Doerr, Edd. “Teaching About Religion.” The Humanist, Nov. 1998, p. 42. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A57388736/OVIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=OVIC&xid=3cfded27. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

Moore, Diane L. “Public School Students Need to Study Religion”. “Public Schools Can’t Ignore Religion” found in Education Week website, October 10, 2018. Accessed 29 Oct. 2019

Saperstein, David. “Banning Books Isn’t the Answer.” The New York Times, 10 Mar. 1987. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A176186700/OVIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=OVIC&xid=18b8aff7. Accessed 29 Oct. 2019.

William, Jeynes H. “Are America’s public educational institutions anti-religious?” Education, 1998, p. 172. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A53257934/OVIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=OVIC&xid=bb18d46a. Accessed 29 Oct. 2019.