Judy Gill’s article, “The Blurring of State and Religion in NZ Education”, does an excellent job of calling attention to the issue of state schools and ECE introducing Māori beliefs and religious practices under the guise of ‘culture’ or ‘spirituality’. I do not wish to attack his views, but rather to explore further the question of whether or not the state schools can actually be, as they are required to be by law, secular. The accepted understanding of the word secular in this context is ‘without any religious instruction or observance’. I understand that teaching can be without religious observance, but I question whether it can be without religion.
It’s a very widely held belief that the state schools should just teach ‘facts’, and that people can add their own personal beliefs, rather as if facts were something like unflavoured jelly, and the people learning the facts could add their preferred religious flavouring as they wish. It’s a nice idea; it seems to solve the problem of religious disagreement in a multicultural society. And it’s a good thing to want to solve such problems.
But there are two fundamental problems with this solution. The first is that there is a limited supply of absolute and indisputable facts. Most of what we ‘know’ is opinion, belief, conjecture, theory or best guess. Which guesses we consider best, of course, depends on our beliefs and principles, including religious ones. Our ‘facts’, then, are, at least to some extent, religious beliefs.
And even prior to such considerations is the question why facts are important. That, after all, is an opinion. I think facts are important because I’m a Christian, and Christianity is deeply concerned with whether or not things are fact: “if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). On the other hand, if facts are not important, then it is fine to teach pagan mysticism, pseudoscience, revisionist history, Marxist dogma, gender plurality, transspeciesism, or whatever. Whether fact or fiction is important is a question of your beliefs (including your religious beliefs). What you teach, therefore, is inseparable from your religion.
The second problem is that religious neutrality is only possible if there is no God. If, as I believe, there is a God who requires faith, worship and obedience, then ignoring him is not a solution. It isn’t even safe. Nor does it simply leave the question open. To teach children about life without mentioning God is to teach practical atheism. That is, it is to teach that theistic religion may be all very well in one’s private thought life, but the existence of God has no practical relevance to the world of everyday activity. It is to teach the religion of humanism, the religion of man: Man his own god and saviour, Man the measure of all things, Man the one who must solve all the problems of the world. The sky is closed: no answers will come from above. Every challenge, every problem, every field of endeavour must be tackled with nothing but man’s abilities and knowledge to apply to them.
This is not a neutral position. It is not religious neutrality. There can be no neutrality, because religion is inherently polarising, and man is inescapably religious. We have to believe in something if we are to function at all. State schools can be non-religious, in the sense of observing no rituals of religious worship, but they can never be a-religious. They will, in the nature of the case, operate on the basis of some belief system. And they will, in the nature of the case, promote whatever system of belief the state wishes to be advanced.
Until recently, that has been secular humanism. If you thought that it was neutral and unbiased, that may be because you’re a secular humanist. Now someone has decided that the enforced religion will be Māori spirituality. Maybe you don’t like that. But if you’re going to say that the schools shouldn’t ‘indoctrinate’ children or ‘force a religious view’ on them, allow me to point out to you that the schools have been indoctrinating children with secular humanism and forcing its religious views on them for decades and generations. Now the shoe is on the other foot (or another foot, as there are, I suppose, a number of other feet.) You can call for a return to secular humanism, scientism and practical atheism, if you want to. But you can’t have just secularism, if by that you mean neutrality.
