Religious public schools

In 1926, J. Gresham Machen, professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, was called to testify before Congress on the proposed Department of Education. Machen had, undoubtedly, drawn attention to himself because of his role of protesting certain changes in the Presbyterian Church (USA), of which he was a member.

But in this case it was his views on government from various letters to the editor and, quite possibly, sections from his book Christianity & Liberalism that drew the attention of members of congress to call him to give his statement on the proposal to create a federal Department of Education.

There are many "golden" parts of this testimony that show Machen's depth of thought on the nature of education, the role of the state, the function of the family, and how laws should be applied and who should apply them. Some of the committee members tried to use the "so you'd be against the use of" argument (aka the "all or nothing" argument), but Machen didn't bite and did his best to focus on the topic at hand.

It's not that the federal government does not do and cannot do good in many areas. Machen was just concerned that once the Feds intervene, it is a hard train to stop, or even slow down. The federal government simply isn't a good middleman.

The focus for this blog post is a series of questions asked of Machen at the end of the testimony regarding moral instruction in the public schools. It is worth quoting at length. I pick up the quote after Machen gives his basis for morality in his background as a member of the Presbyterian Church. Underlined portions are my doing.

DR. MACHEN: To proclaim in our public schools that morality is only the result of human experimentation -- 'this is the conduct which Uncle Sam has found in the course of American history to be right' -- that, I think, is subversive of morality; and I do not believe that anyone can encourage moral conduct in others unless he has first in his own mind the notion of an absolute distinction and not a merely relative distinction between right and wrong.

SENATOR FERRIS: I am just wondering whether there is any such thing as moral conduct in the United States Congress or among the citizens of the United States apart from a distinctively religious basis. I am just wondering whether the public schools have any function in the way of teaching morality which is not distinctively religious in its basic idea.

DR. MACHEN: I think that the solution lies not in a theoretic teaching in the public schools as to the basis of morality, because I do not think you can keep that free from religious questions; but I do hold that a teacher who himself or herself is imbued with the absolute distinction between right and wrong can maintain the moral standing, the moral temper of a public school.

SENATOR FERRIS: Is the ethical culturist ruled out from the consideration of morality in his views and conduct?

DR. MACHEN: I am not ruling out anybody at all, sir -- the ethical culturist or anyone else.

SENATOR FERRIS: No; but if religion is the basic element in all morality, then can we have a morality that is not founded on a religious idea?

DR. MACHEN: I myself do not believe that you can have such a morality permanently, and that is exactly what I am interested in trying to get other people to believe; but I am not at all interested in trying to proclaim that view of mine by any measures that involve compulsion, and I am not interested in making the public school an agency for the proclamation of such a view; but I am interested in diminishing rather than increasing the function of the public school, in order to leave room for the opportunity of a propagation of the view that I hold in free conflict with all other views which may be held, in order that in that way the truth finally may prevail.

At bottom Machen is saying, as many others have said, that public schools cannot be neutral in regards to teaching morality, as though there was some lowest common denominator that everyone would agree on (i.e. his statement "the conduct which Uncle Sam has found in the course of American history to be right").

It was for similar reasons Machen found wanting the desire to teach the Bible and have public prayers in public schools.  People today cry "Separation of church and state!" because any call for a return to these practices is an interference of the church into the realm of the state. Machen's reasons were the opposite: it would be the state interfering with the church. We would just have lowest common denominator Christianity and it would become more of an American civic religion that would detract from the historic Christian faith.

The pressures to conform to an "American ideal" in order to have a unified nation was something Roman Catholics, in the era of 1880-1930,  felt very strongly. Today that pressure has simply expanded to include all branches of Christianity and religion in general.  There is a form of what I call "Left-wing nationalism" that is just as threatening to religion as some aspects of the Right.  It asks questions such as "What kind of nation does that make us if we have people that believe [insert said doctrine here]?"

It is a pressure to conform and makes stronger the case that we are really pilgrims on a journey and not permanent dwellers in a particular land.