Parents v. schools
What to do when parents don’t want their children exposed to certain material?
Charles’ post yesterday raised some critical questions as to when “parents should have the power to ban school texts.” While there are obviously difficult cases, I think most people would balk at the idea of pulling Catcher in the Rye or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn off of the shelves of school libraries. But, what about parents who don’t want the book removed from the library or classroom altogether, but instead simply object to their child having to read the work as part of a class assignment? How far should schools go to accommodate the wishes of the parents of individual students? Read more
“I consider myself a spiritual person”
Does it matter that many don’t understand their own religion?
A recent Pew poll reveals that Americans have a serious lack of knowledge regarding religion. Knowledge of Buddhism could be categorized with the location of Iraq on a map as knowledge that would be nice for the public to have; what seems disturbing is that many don’t understand quite basic tenants of their own religions.
Most shocking to me: “Forty-five percent of Catholics did not know that their church teaches that the consecrated bread and wine in holy communion are not merely symbols, but actually become the body and blood of Christ.” My memory of Catholic school was that this is an incredibly central tenet of Catholicism, at the very core of the religion, and one of the key theological beliefs distinguishing Catholicism from much of Protestantism.
Should we care?
The loss of innocence is more than a literary trope
In response to debates over public school library blacklists, the BBC poses the question, “should parents have the power to ban school texts?” The complaints the BBC article addresses are mostly about children’s exposure to sexuality. Some of the books in question are literary classics, though most are staples of pop culture like the Twilight series.
Who is responsible for the development of children, moral and otherwise? A short list of candidates would include parents and community organizations alongside schools. Parents have a great deal of latitude over their children, and can usually choose what activities in the community they engage in. But only the relatively privileged can choose what schools to send their children to, and when questions of sex and morality are concerned there is rarely consensus in the school boards. Someone is bound to be offended.
But in some ways the debate over public school blacklists misses the point. The fact remains that public school libraries are only one of many different ways for children to access information. By hook or by crook children will whet their curiosities. Concerned parents must surely acknowledge the existence of libraries outside of school, bookstores, and the internet.
The issue of public school library blacklists is only a distraction from the more general question of how children should be raised, and whether any one set of preferences should ever prevail against the wishes of some.
-Charles
Image from Flickr user Robert Dumas used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Honesty is the best policy
Sexual taboos lead the way to hypocrisy and tragedy
CNN reports that Bishop Eddie Long, Baptist church leader and staunch opponent of gay marriage, will defend himself from allegations of sexual assault on younger men. If the allegations prove true, then Bishop Long’s case will be the latest in a succession of gay sex scandals involving publicly anti-gay crusaders.
Of course, people who bill themselves as defenders of traditional sexual mores and values do not have any exclusive claim to scandalous sexual misconduct (although it is possible they have a slight edge). But when scandals involving those who profess such beliefs do arise, what really distinguishes their cases is less the severity of the transgressions and more the depths of their hypocrisy. They rightfully attract condemnation, for sexual hypocrisy, more than other kinds, ruins lives.
God Save the Queen (or President?)
Politics, religion, and “public reason”
Writing for The Washington Post, Damon Linker proposes a norm of questioning politicians about their religious beliefs.
Every religion is radically particular, with its own distinctive beliefs about God, human history and the world. These are specific, concrete claims — about the status of the religious community in relation to other groups and to the nation as a whole, about the character of political and divine authority, about the place of prophecy in religious and political life, about the scope of human knowledge, about the providential role of God in human history, and about the moral and legal status of sex. Depending on where believers come down on such issues, their faith may or may not clash with the requirements of democratic politics.
This is an interesting point I will not tackle directly. Instead, I want to examine a related question: if candidates are asked these questions, how should they respond? Or put another way, how can a religious candidate fail to pass this proposed religious test? Read more
Should identity and politics ever mix?
The BBC reports that France’s Senate has overwhelmingly approved banning Islamic full-body coverings. The heart of the issue is the integration of Muslim immigrants, who have been arriving in France and other European countries in large numbers for the last three decades but have often visibly failed to assimilate. Undoubtedly, the Paris riots of 2005 and the terror attacks in Madrid and London weigh heavily on the minds of French voters and parliamentarians.
France is not the only European country to move in this direction. Belgium and Spain are considering similar laws, and Switzerland recently outlawed minarets.
It is not surprising that secular Europeans react with visceral hostility and disgust to what they see as trappings of archaic, patriarchal and oppressive religiosity. The values that Muslim immigrants bring to Europe are often at odds with those of the modern Western human rights culture. But is it appropriate for the heavy hand of the law to secularize by force?
Forcible secularization as a form of social engineering has a mixed record. In Turkey, the fervently nationalist and secular governments since the time of Ataturk have outlawed headscarves and generally repressed religious expression. Islamic radicalism was forcibly stamped out (although the ruling AKP bills itself as a moderate Islamist party). But many rights that Americans would take for granted were trampled in the process. And religious identity politics in Turkey have by no means been resolved for good.
Banning articles of clothing might give the illusion of assimilation, while violating basic rights to religious expression. If Europeans want to address the challenges posed by immigrants from radically different cultures, they should probably think of other ways to bring their immigrants into the economic and social mainstream. Assimilation and religious freedom need not butt heads.
-Charles
Image by Flickr user BBC World Service used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Moderate or “moderate” Islam?
Who’s liberal enough?
Ross Douthat writes a thoughtful piece at the NYT Blog on how to understand and engage with Muslim critics of radical Islamism. He rejects those Western thinkers who limit the category of “moderate Muslims” to those, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Irshad Manji, who endorse Western liberalism absolutely and without qualification. He writes:
This school of thought strikes me as misguided. Manji and Hirsi Ali are brave and admirable, but what they’re offering (Hirsi Ali especially) is ultimately a straightforward critique of Muslim traditions and belief, not a bridge between Islam and the liberal West that devout Muslims can cross with their religious faith intact. If such bridges are going to be built, much of the work will necessarily be done by figures who sometimes seem ambiguous and even two-faced, who have illiberal conversation partners and influences, and whose ideas are tailored to audiences in Cairo or Beirut or Baghdad as well as audiences in Europe and America. That’s how change — religious, ideological, whatever — nearly always works.
On the other side, Douthat is clear that making “these kind of distinctions doesn’t require us to suspend all judgment where would-be Islamic moderates are concerned” and that ” forays into more dubious territory should be greeted with swift pushback, rather than simply being accepted as a necessary part of the moderate Muslim package.”
I discussed similar issues here.
-Jake
Image by Flickr user Paul Lowry used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Ground Zero mosque
Morality vs. legality?
The debate over the Muslim mosque and community center near Ground Zero has resulted in a number of different, passionate reactions. Once the media took up the subject, politicians and leaders from all over the US weighed in rather quickly.
On Friday, even President Obama shared his view in favor of the mosque, stating “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.”
Not surprisingly, critics of the mosque pounced. And their response was strong enough to push the President and his staff to “recalibrate” his comments from Friday evening more than once. Although his remarks were initially received as a deliberate endorsement of the mosque construction, President Obama apparently meant only to speak in favor of the project’s legality—not in favor of “the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque [near Ground Zero].”
Regardless of how you interpret the President’s statements this weekend, his clarification here suggests a crucial distinction underlying this Ground Zero mosque debate: even in a society that emphasizes personal liberty and freedom of religion, there may be a difference between what is legally permissible and what is morally permissible. Read more
Mayor on the mosque
In his bold speech yesterday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the mosque construction near Ground Zero:
Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question – should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another.
The World Trade Centre Site will forever hold a special place in our City, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves – and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans – if we said ‘no’ to a mosque in lower Manhattan.
Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure – and there is no neighborhood in this city that is off limits to God’s love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with us today can attest.
-Jake
Photo by Flikr user J.O.H.N. Walker under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
God only knows
A church in Gainesville, Florida, plans to host an “International Burn the Quran Day” on the ninth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Their reasons for the book burning are pretty straightforward:
We believe that Islam is of the devil, that it’s causing billions of people to go to hell, it is a deceptive religion, it is a violent religion and that is proven many, many times,” Pastor Terry Jones told CNN’s Rick Sanchez earlier this week […]“Eternal fire is the only destination the Quran can lead people to, so we want to put the Quran in it’s [sic] place — the fire!
I suspect most Americans would immediately find such sentiments revolting because of the value of freedom of religion promised by the Constitution. Yet, this is not so much a question of freedom of religion as much as a question of respect for other religions – and this respect is of course not guaranteed by law.
Still, I can think of two arguments for why we owe this respect to religions other than our own. The first is a type of epistemic modesty – knowledge of the inherent fallibility of your beliefs. Because you might be wrong and others might be correct, you should respect what others believe.
However, men such as Pastor Jones obviously do not believe in this fallibility, so here a consequentialist argument may do better. Since religions are often held as deep, passionate, metaphysical convictions that are unlikely to be changed through argumentation, the diversity of religions is simply a fact of life for the foreseeable future. So even if Jones is correct and Islam is “of the devil,” Muslims are never going to be convinced. Still, since intolerance and lack of respect for religions often leads to violence, strife, or at least unhappiness, adhering to a general rule of respect for all religions would have the best consequences for all.
I believe either of these two arguments would show that a Quran burning event is unethical.
-Han
Photo by Flickr user SarahWynee used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
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