Post 133—Public Funds for Private Schools

My intention for this post was to finish my mini-series in prostitution. Alas, it’s been almost two weeks since I did the second in the series. The reason for this long gap is that I’ve had a rough time, what with a surgical procedure topped up with a simultaneous bad cold. Since I am not exactly at home in the world of prostitution and need to do some serious thinking before I write the 3^rd in the series, I just don’t have the mental stamina for that. Instead, I will write a post on a subject matter more familiar to me and get back to that series when my mental stamina is up to it, hopefully next week.

The other day, one of my favourite Vancouver Sun columnists, Pete McMartin, blew it as far as I am concerned. He inveighed against private schools. His main emphasis was on the private elite schools but also referred to religious schools. Here’s the URL for the article, in case you want to read it yourself: http://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/pete-mcmartin-this-is-egalitarian-canada-so-why-should-private-schools-get-public-money.

I am going to focus on the religious schools. I sent the following letter to the editor, but doubt it will be published, since they have already published three others on the subject. So, you are invited to read a rejected letter!  Sorry. Here goes, two paragraphs in all:

“Oh, no, not again! More secular dribble about private vs public schools!  McMartin’s (22-10-2016) is a sorry case of secular blindness. Canada is a multi-cultural/religious country, where every religion is supposed to have the freedom to express itself. However secularism insists on defining these religions as private/personal affairs, which they are not and never have been. Secularism thinks it has a monopoly on reason and operates from a neutral platform, both of which are delusions. Religious people want their kind of school as much as McMartin wants his. Imposing his kind on the rest of us is nothing short of discrimination and oppression. We’ve rejected the de facto Anglican monopoly on education in BC long ago and have replaced it with secular monopoly, exchanged one public worldview monopoly for another. Secularism is now the de facto establishment worldview, while it pretends we have no favourite establishment! Nice try!

“The only neutral arrangement is for disestablishment of secular schools in favour of equal funding for all schools that meet the basic provincial educational standards. But that would require secularists to open their eyes, know themselves and admit to the belief system underlying their faith in naked reason—a far cry!” 

Now that letter contains nothing new. The same sentiments have been expressed thousands of times in defence of Christian schools. A hefty book has even been written about the struggle for public funding and the purpose of such schools in BC, but my secular friends, including Pete, seem to have deaf ears. The arguments for such schools are clear, rational, cogent, fair, etc. etc., but they run up against the rationalistic wall secularists have built around themselves. Trump could learn a lesson or two from them about effective walls; they are not brick and mortar; they are ways of thinking in which people imprison themselves.

As Christians, we know the core of our belief. It centers on Christ and then goes on from there. You take out Christ, and the whole thing collapses. Something similar is true for secularists. Among their core beliefs—and it is a belief, not an established or proven fact—is that their perspective is the only rational and neutral one; all others, whether religious or not, are subjective and irrational. That being the case, the only rational and neutral thing to do is to educate our kids within that framework. The objective and rational argument against that position is that, since it has not ever been proved and never will, it, too, is a belief system at the same level as that of the religious. So what is so neutral about it? There ain’t—and Pete and his cohorts better begin to realize that and quit living by their mythical delusion.

But that would exact a heavy price. You take Jesus out of Christianity and you’re left with a blank. You take the sense of a neutral and objective rationalism out of secularism, and they’r stranded, also left with a blank, without any further arguments. That price may be too difficult to pay.

Religious people do not demand that secularists give up their faith; they have a right to it. They just demand that secularism recognize the same right for believers without imposing theirs on the latter.

 Believers, did I say? Yes. We’re all believers, secularists as well as the rest of us.  We all believe in the core of our worldview or philosophy or belief, whatever you want to call it. Secularists, including Pete, you’re welcome into the company of believers!  You are one of us—you believe!  Now quit pestering us and acknowledge our equal right!

Post 103--The Bible in Abbotsford Public Schools

Bible Belt, Right and Left

Today (March 31 2016) the local CBC news programme featured an item about Bibles in the Public Schools in Abbotsford, a city some 70 km east of Vancouver, nestled in the centre of BC’s so-called “Bible Belt.”  To me, I hasten to add, that is a title of honour even when the BC secular media use it largely with scorn, though I do sometimes cringe at the right-wing orientation of the place. I do not understand how Christians, let alone a Christian community as a whole, can be right wing, even when that is a rather common occurrence in much of North America. Which is not to say, I prefer left wing. In no way. That’s often worse than right. I want Christians to be independent of both of these orientations and just be themselves, be Christian. This means that sometimes they will sound right, at another, left, but usually creatively different and free from both. I am tempted to shout, “The plague on both of your houses!”  But that would neither be very kind nor Christian. Christians don’t wish a plague on anyone.

Bibles in Public Schools

So, what is the issue according to CBC?  The Abbotsford School Board is promoting the distribution of Bibles among its students. These Bibles are offered free of charge by the Gideons, a business people’s organization that distributes free Bible, all over the world, especially in hotels. If you use hotels, you must have seen them tucked away in a drawer.  The Board does not force them on the students. The latter are given consent forms for their parents to sign. The students of those parents who approve are given the Bible in the principal’s office—nothing public; all very private.

Objections to Bibles in Public Schools

Some members of the public are voicing objections. These include notions such as Bibles not having a place in Public Schools or the system should not use up public funds for religious purposes. The Bible may be free, but the progamme’s administration takes time and money, public time and money. According to the programme’s anchor,  Andrew Chen, the complaint was initially delivered by the Humanist Association. 

Secular "Neutrality"

These objections are exactly what I expected, for they are the classic reaction of secular minds to religion; in BC, especially to the Christian religion. The general attitude is that to be neutral one must leave religion out of public affairs, including education. To be neutral means, well, simply to be secular!  And to be secular means to exclude religion, exclude belief systems. 

Secularism Just Another Belief System

The problem is, of course, that secularism itself is a belief system that is based on a view of reason that constitutes faith in reason’s ability to know all and to fix all. The truth of that has never been proved but is simply accepted as “common sense” that is beyond questioning or doubt. So, when secularists want to push out what they consider religion, we really have a case of one belief system (secularism) ousting other belief systems. It would be exactly the same if Roman Catholics or any other faith system were to demand the ouster of all others, including secularism. The Humanist Association is actually demanding the status of establishment state religion at the expense of every one else, something that, I would have thought, our insistence today on pluralism would never even allow us to think about.   

Secular Establishment

Pluralism leaves room for everyone and resists any group seeking establishment rights and privileges. Unfortunately, the earlier Anglican establishment of BC has been replaced by a Secular one with many government privileges, especially in the educational sector. Secular says: Everyone clear the deck; we take over. We are the only rational neutral people around!  What a myth. What blindness.  The blindness? Inability and/or refusal to recognize their own faith-based orientation towards autonomous reason. Every religion in BC, to the best of my knowledge, is open about its being based on faith. It is only the Secular faith that will or cannot acknowledge its base. It is simply blind to it. Closed minded. It is caught in a narrow tunnel vision.

Poser--An Exceptional Pluralistic Humanist

However, not all Humanists think this way. I was once member of a multi-faith group that included three Humanists, one of whom was a former leader of the Vancouver Humanist Association, the late Ernest Poser. In fact, he was the founder of this group and Chairman till he became terminally ill. His idea was to encourage the teaching about all major worldviews in BC’s public schools, including Humanism!  Not proselytism or “evangelism,” but to help students understand each other and, later in their adult years, as neighbours. Why do my neighbours behave as they do? The answer is often found in religion. So, Poser reasoned, let’s teach that stuff in the public schools to enhance mutual understanding among the citizenry. However, he did admit that he did not find much support among his fellow Humanists, but still enough for them to provide our low-level budget for a few years, however grudgingly. Poser and I became very close friends; I loved him dearly, though we deeply disagreed with each other.

My All-inclusive Pluralistic Solution

My solution to the Abbotsford “crisis” is, like Poser’s, not to ban religion from the schools. That’s impossible; it is already there in the form of Secularism. And Secularism occupies all the space,  every square inch,  to indoctrinate students in its worldview. That space needs to be shared with everyone—Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Humanists, Atheists, Animists, etc. That’s the only way to be pluralistic, but it will require Secularists to open their eyes to their own belief system and admit it for what it is. Of all the religions, they are probably the most blind to themselves.