We Must Teach about Religion in High Schools

In September, Hendersonville High School in Hendersonville, Tennessee, made national news when it suspended field trips to religious sites as part of an elective class in world studies. The elective, which has been taught at Hendersonville for a decade, includes a unit on world religion covering five traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the past, students have visited a mosque, a Hindu temple, and a synagogue without incident. 

This year, parent Mike Conner objected to his stepdaughter visiting the mosque, claiming that, “The teacher was pushing Islamic tolerance.” The complaint started a chain of events that culminated in the school cancelling the traditional field trips indefinitely. Similar controversies have arisen in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Britain where schools have incorporated field trips to mosques into their social studies curricula. At Hendersonville the objection was framed as one of equality among religious traditions. The school capitulated to Conner’s argument that if the school could not afford five field trips, it should not take any. This is a frustrating case that demonstrates ongoing confusion about the nature and purpose of public education as well as jurisprudence about religion in pubic schools––all at a time when young Americans need religious literacy more than ever. 

Despite being such a religiously diverse nation, America has levels of religious literacy that are abysmal. In a 2010 survey, the Pew Forum asked more than 3,000 Americans some simple questions about the world’s religions. Most respondents could answer only half of them correctly. In a 2005 study conducted for the Bible Literacy Project, only 10 percent of American teenagers could even name the five world religions covered in the Hendersonville world religions unit. This does not bode well. Religious literacy is necessary to the health of a democratic, pluralistic society. Religion is not a discrete and ahistorical phenomenon; instead, it is embedded in the very fabric of human history and culture. Without some understanding the world’s religious traditions, students are ill equipped to understand literature, history, art, or the current political landscape. Religious illiteracy not only deprives students of the cultural richness that is their birthright as human beings, it makes for an uninformed electorate and produces students who are less equipped to compete in a global marketplace. Finally, examining other religions allows students to cultivate moral agency. Empowering students to ask “big questions” facilitates a higher quality of life. One Hendersonville alumnus remarked that the world studies class “was really the one and only class that allowed for such an open dialogue of faith and religion.” Unfortunately, this sort of agency is exactly what some parents object to.

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