Religious formation belongs to families and congregations, not to compulsory schooling

The argument

The second argument turns on who holds the authority to pass on a faith. Proponents of this position argue that this authority belongs to parents and to the religious communities they choose, and that it is not a power a school may exercise on their behalf. On this account the transmission of belief is not merely a subject that happens to be sensitive; it is the central business of families and congregations, and a compulsory institution taking it up displaces them rather than assisting them. Proponents argue that schools are poorly suited to the task besides. A faith is passed on through practice, worship, ritual and the example of a community over years, none of which a timetabled lesson can supply. What a school can deliver is a summary, taught by whoever is available, examined and graded, and proponents argue that this converts a living commitment into material to be revised and forgotten, which serves neither believers nor anyone else. They add that believing families frequently say so, objecting that the account their children bring home is thin or distorted, which indicates that the school is not doing for them what the case for religious education claims. The argument concludes with the question of consent. Because attendance is compulsory and the pupils are children, proponents argue, a school should restrict itself to what families across a plural society can reasonably be asked to accept, and instruction touching religion does not meet that standard. Everything genuinely needed for shared life, including the duty to treat believers fairly and the laws protecting freedom of belief, can be taught without the school teaching religion at all, and what remains is properly left to the mosque, church, temple, synagogue or home.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics answer that the argument is aimed at a target its opponents have abandoned, since almost nobody now defends state schools inducting children into a faith; what is defended is teaching about religions, which no more displaces a congregation than teaching about elections displaces a political party. They add that the consent point cuts the other way, because a plural society is exactly the condition in which children need to learn what their neighbours believe, and leaving that to families guarantees that each child learns only one account. Critics also note that a child from a non-religious household gets no instruction at all under this proposal, which is not neutrality but a gap.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Teaching about religions is not formation in a faith, so it displaces no congregation, any more than teaching about elections displaces a political party. [Rejecting P2] That a lesson cannot transmit a faith is an objection to religious instruction rather than to religious education, which does not aim to transmit one. [Rejecting P3] A plural society is precisely the condition in which pupils need to know what their neighbours believe, and leaving that to families guarantees each child learns one account only, including none at all for pupils from non-religious homes. [Rejecting C] At most it follows that schools should not induct pupils into a faith, which is not what teaching religion as a subject involves.