Secularists Opening up a Can of Their Own Worms?

Post 23—

We are still on the issue of why some secularists want to effect changes in the Public Schools of BC. The secularists under discussion are, of course, good friends of mine and fellow members of World Views Collaborative (WVC). So, I am talking here about and even to these friends. They are three and I could name them for you. Their initials are E and K and E. Well, you know that bit about privacy that’s in the BC air.

They invited me to join them in a “crusade” to have Public School authorities in BC agree to a new high school course that would teach about all major BC world views. That would include the various religions as well as Humanism, their own world view. I joined them because I agreed this would be a good thing and I am glad I did, for I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know my WVC friends in a setting where everyone is very definite about their own world view but also very open, respectful and courteous about that of others.

I have tried to warn E, K and E that they could be opening up a can of their own worms. As it is, their world view is actually the reigning one in the Public Schools. There is no course teaching their world view, but theirs is the entire basis of the system and all courses are based on the secular world view. Now, of course, like other religions/world view, secularists are also divided amongst themselves, so that many of them will have some critique of the Public School system. However, by and large it is theirs that is the very atmosphere that the students and teachers breathe in these schools as the assumed truth that is hardly ever subject to scrutiny in those schools. The entire world view is simply assumed and considered neutral enough that everyone can subscribe to it. ‘t Ain’t so. Many do not subscribe to it and hence have transferred to schools more amenable to their own world view—after they have been forced to pay the taxes to have the establishment world view of Secularism taught.

E, K and E, do you not realize how privileged your world view is in the Public School? Without anyone overtly teaching it, students just soak it in effortlessly without realizing it. I know, for I have been through it and did indeed soak it up without realizing how I slowly veered away from my own Christian world view. Oh, I did not lose my faith, but my views of the world and events and scientific discoveries, etc. all became increasingly secularized. It was not until I began taking courses in Christian philosophy at university level that I began to realize that I had been secularized in much of my thinking. The secular world view of the system almost achieved its purpose with me.

But no one seems to realize that secularism is really the establishment faith or world view. It is exactly that. Now, if the schools are going to teach that course, including Secularism, students are going to question that world view that previously they simply imbibed unconsciously. Students and parents may suddenly begin to realize that there is nothing neutral about this perspective and that it is as subjective as all the other world views taught in the course. It, too, can be questioned and rejected like all the others or accepted. Its privileged status in the schools will be questioned. That is the can of worms I am talking about.

And with its privileged status now being questioned, people will begin to ask why the Public School only supports this one particular world view and not any of these others. Canadians have long ago rejected the notion of an establishment worldview, at least, when it was a Christian one. Catholics long had that dubious privilege in Quebec and they still enjoy the financial residue of that in Ontario. Anglicans have been the establishment in Ontario and, if my BC history is not completely off the track, even enjoyed a minor version of it on Vancouver Island. People have revolted against such arrangements and many take it ill of these churches for the establishmentarian roles they have played. E, K and E, is that what you are looking for? You really want those worms out of the can? Having an annual Christmas tree in these schools or one or two other tokens of our Christian past is a small price to pay for having your world view presented as unquestioned gospel truth.

Why Christian Opt out of Public Schools

Post 21

I promised you in the previous blog that I would explain why many Christians have opted out of the Public School system, the system that was supposed to make everyone feel comfortable but, in fact, seems not to do that.

By Christians I mean Protestants and Roman Catholics. I make a point of that, for I get the impression that at least some Catholics apply the term “Christian” only to Protestants. Catholics, we may have our differences, but when it comes to the public school system, we’re in the same boat. In fact, in BC, Protestants and Catholics, along with some other groups for reasons of their own, have banded together in an organization called Federation of Independent Schools Associations of BC (FISA).

Not all Christians attend these independent schools. Some cannot afford it, even after their faith community will often subsidize them. Others prefer the Public Schools; they are committed to them for a variety of reasons. I am not discussing these Christians and I am not casting doubt on their status as Christians.

This Federation has its secretariat in downtown Vancouver. Since 1966, it has fought a long and hard battle on behalf of the various independent schools in the province, both religious and secular. While it educates 11% of BC’s primary and secondary students, it receives only 5% support from the BC government school budget. The maximum grant to an independent school is 1/2 the per pupil grant to a public school. The rest has to be coughed up by the parents, who are already paying the same hard cash for the Public Schools that everyone else is paying. Good deal for the province and public school supporters. Should these schools close down, it would be a financial catastrophe for the Ministry of Education, especially in these days of dollar shortages and school closures.

I urge you to explore their website and then follow especially the links to the websites of the Christian members of the FISA, for they will give you more of the Christian rationale. I also highly recommend their major publication: Victoria Cunningham, Justice Achieved: The Political Struggle of Independent Schools in British Columbia. This is a very enlightening history of the work of the FISA in obtaining legal recognition and partial funding for independent schools in British Columbia, 2002 (311 pages).

Why do these parents choose private schooling? Speaking for Christians, it is that matter of worldview or belief or faith. Christians want to see God and His Word penetrate every subject that children are taught. Of course, there are different types of Christians and I cannot represent them all in these blogs. So, I will restrict myself to my own Calvinist tradition. These Christians—I should say “we,” for I am one of them—do not accept the secular definition of religion, at least, not of the Christian religion. The Christian religion is a wholistic world view that covers all of life. The idea that Christianity is personal, for private and church matters, is the idea of secularists, not ours. We do not accept their limiting religion to a small slice of life, while the rest of life is supposedly based on a neutral platform that is rational and that everyone has in common. We do not accept that education or politics or any other sphere of life can be conducted without reference to God and His revelation, which is found both in the Bible and in nature, history or human experience. We do not want our children to get the impression that God can be left out of our daily affairs and therefore do not want Him ignored during the many hours and years our children spend in school. As if He is of little or no account.

We are rational like everyone else, but not rationalistic. Our rationality, both Christian and secular, is not a neutral objective entity where we work with what we have in common. The neutrality of reason is itself a belief. Belief in the ability of human reason to find all truth and to solve all our problems amounts to an exaggeration of our rational abilities. That belief has never been proven by anyone; it is an article of faith. Christians believe in reason, but not in an independent reason. Human reasoning is imperfect and limited. There are many areas where it cannot reach or where it is liable to going astray. Thus, while secularists believe in the ability of independent or autonomous reason to find our way in this world, Christians, along with some other religions, believe in the need for divine revelation to correct our reasoning processes that have been affected by the fall. We all believe! We are all believers. We are all in a boat, but not in the same boat, since our beliefs differ. But it is all belief! You cannot get around that.

Public School System--A Discrimination Factory?

Post 20

In the last blog or so I have referred to Humanists cum Atheists—from here on I will refer to them all simply as “Humanists”-- in the Public Schools. They tell me they feel excluded. The schools may celebrate some religious holidays, especially Christian, but no one ever pays attention to or singles out Humanism. As if they do not exist. That’s the complaint I keep hearing from my Humanist friends of World Views Collaborative (WVC).

Humanists are not the only ones to complain. In fact, it seems almost everyone complains. Almost everyone feels excluded in one way or another or at one time or another. Jews and many others feel excluded during Christian celebrations like Christmas. Almost every year, some people will take their Public School or their Public School Board to task for being so pro-Christian and, thus, discriminating.

So you would think that of all the various groups, Christians would be the happiest with the Public School system. After all, according to some, the system reflects their values more than that of any other group.

But this raises the question why it is that Christians in BC have established so many private schools of their own and have opted out of the public system. Humanists haven’t opted out and neither have Jews, but Christians have, by the thousands. Christians of all stripes, with the Catholics and the Reformed family of churches in the forefront, but also Evangelicals. Do Humanists, Jews or others who complain about the Christian culture in the Public Schools ever wonder about that? Christians are so unhappy with these schools that they spend fortunes of their own money on these alternative schools, money that others spend on luxuries and travels. Christians also feel discriminated against in the Public Schools.

So, now we appear to have a system no one is happy with and everybody feels it discriminates against them. I have not even mentioned the complaints of the gay community. Why does the public put up with a school system no one seems to like and everyone experiences as discriminatory? That’s not the way it was supposed to be. Everyone was supposed to feel at home in this system because of its alleged neutrality when it comes to religion or worldview. We all were expected to be happy with the common platform provided by secularism, but, it seems, many are not.

In the next blog I will explain why so many Christians have opted out. Good night.