Should Religion be Allowed in Public Schools?

About this sermon

We’ve all heard the arguments. Religion does not belong in publicly funded schools. That would be a violation of the separation of Church and state. Right? Where I live, in Canada, there are 3 provinces that give constitutional status to separate schools which are schools that reflect the doctrines of a faith, usually Catholic. This state of things is strongly opposed by long standing organized groups who want to promote a single secular school system. Even though our family homeschools, I’m a big supporter of the existence of religious options in public education.The fact is, not all people are the same. We come with different instincts, different learning goals, different values, and different spiritual beliefs. Wouldn’t it make sense to have different options that could better reflect the priorities of parents and families for their children? Freedom of religion exists to ensure that the state doesn’t establish or impose any official religion. That doesn’t mean that a sitting government can’t show support for certain religious practices or beliefs. We seem to have a deeply ingrained double standard when it comes to freedom of religion. Think about what that means. A freedom is something that should be as unrestricted as possible. The law, the government, and other citizens have no right to restrict its use. Imagine if we treated other freedoms the way we do religion. "Yea, you have freedom of speech, but not in public places. That’s for private use only. No freedom of speech at schools either. That would imply that the government somehow favours a particular expression of speech. And Absolutely no freedom of speech in the government." Those are clearly examples of restricting a freedom, not protecting it. So, when secularists insist on imposing those kinds of restrictions on Freedom of Religion in the name of tolerance and diversity, I kind of scratch my head. That doesn’t make any sense. You’re not protecting freedom of religion, you’re suppressing it while promoting some kind of oppressive atheistic political correctness. True diversity and true multiculturalism is one in which we offer opportunities for different cultural and religious persuasions to be seen, heard, and even celebrated as fundamental fixtures of society. So why should the Catholic Church be given so much freedom when it comes to education? Well, there are a lot of reasons I could point to but for starters: The Catholic Church, as an institution, has been educating people longer than anyone else.That makes it something of an expert in education. It should also make us reflect on why they were so eager to sacrifice resources for that cause when nobody else would. Perhaps something in the Catholic belief system is intrinsically focused on education, thereby making it a natural ally in the pursuit of public education. If you read about the history of Alberta, which is the province I live in, you’ll hear about fur traders, bison hunters, ranchers, whisky traders, and the struggle to take whatever could be found in the new frontier. What you hear less of is the people who came here with different intentions. They were the ones who had no ambitions on the region’s resources, no aspiration towards wealth or glory. They were the Oblate missionaries and the Grey Nuns. They came here with little resources and traveled through the harsh and hostile wilderness to set themselves to the work of establishing missions, hospitals, schools, and orphanages. While everyone else was spellbound by the prospects of wealth and opportunity, they were doing the hard work of building up the necessary pillars of civilization. They were doing the hard work nobody else wanted to because there was no payoff in it. They did it purely out of their spiritual and moral convictions.Think about that. Something in Catholicism compels its adherents to establish schools and hospitals when there are none to be found. So when aggressive secularists show up and say that the Catholic Church should be expelled from the education system they helped establish, I tend to disagree.Anybody can show up after the hard work is done and inherit it without saying thank you, but to go a step further and try to expel the religious convictions that were the very reason that anybody thought educating the public was a worthy calling in the first place; that’s out of line and frankly… it’s just ignorant. We as a society should show appreciation for the things we have by honoring the institutions and people who thought to give them to us when we hadn’t even thought to seek them for ourselves. Please comment with your thoughts about the video and if you find it interesting, please share it and subscribe. Twitter: https://twitter.com/briankeepsworth Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brianholdsworthmedia/ Business: https://www.holdsworthdesign.com