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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
May, 1940
Views and Reviews of Current News By DAN GILBERT Washington, D. C , and San Diego, California
“ Extraordinary” Chapel Talk Dan Gilbert spoke at the chapel period at a great Eastern univer sity about a year ago. Attendance there was compulsory. When he told the university President his subject—which was “ God in Our Generation”—the educator ex pressed amazement. He said, “Why, I presumed you would be speaking on some outstanding po litical or social issue of the day.” Later he added, “While it was interesting, your address was quite out of the or dinary; in fact, rather irregular. To my knowledge, it has been at least two years since any one dealt with the idea of God in such a way as to convey the impression that our thinking regarding Deity should be dictated by Biblical teachings. Generally, we regard religion as a private matter, and one man’s concept of God is as good as another’s. We do not think the students should be in doctrinated with * ‘authoritarian’ principles of religion.” attitude toward the various denomina tions. In the first place, it was not recognized that neutrality c o u l d be based on a fair presentation of religious truth in a manner compatible with all creeds. It simply was assumed that the only basis for. neutrality was equal an tagonism to all faiths.x By ruling out religion completely, all faiths are of fended against in equal measure! In the second place, while the Bible teaching on a l l major subjects was banned in many states, often no bar rier was raised against atheist indoc trination. Agnostics and atheists soon found that they were relatively free to use the public schools as “recruit ing stations.” Evolution, the corner stone of all materialistic philosophy, was taught in leading textbooks. The situation today is that many ed ucational circles are dominated by an anti-Bible philosophy, an anti-Bible mor ality, an anti-Bible view of man, of life, and of government. Merely to tack a certain number of minutes of religious instruction on to the school program will not alter this situation. Like an individual, a school system cannot be truly neutral. It must be against Christ—if it is not for Him. So it is with a democracy or a nation; it must be positively committed to God, or it will operate against Him qnd His purposes. No democracy can en dure under an attitude of indifferentism to Deity.
“So deeply have certain religious groups felt the need of bringing up their children under the influence of religion that they have attempt ed to carry the entire responsibility of education in parochial schools at their own expense, in addition to the public taxation for educa tion. . . . “In some instances, religions in struction is given in the public schools as a regular part of their programs. Despite t h e s e various types of church and school response, the religious needs of the children are very imperfectly met in the case of many . . . The Committee can envision no ade quate solution. They, seem to overlook the lesson of experience. In early Amer ican history, the religious needs of the children were fairly and fully met. Re ligious instruction was not something tacked on to the regular curriculum. Religion w a s n o t isolated from life. Rather, religious training was made an Integral part of all phases of education. The Bible was central in the curriculum. It was not taught separately. The Bib lical view was brought to bear on all subjects. It is folly to argue that the Bible cannot be taught in the schools be cause of “sectarianism.” This would be equivalent to saying t h a t economics could not be taught because one school of thought favors a high tariff and an other school believes in free trade! Or, that political science could not be taught because some teachers might favor one political system and some another! All teaching presupposes t h a t the teachers will fairly present the subject matter under consideration, and will not color it with their own private opinions or interpretations. Of course, there will be abuses. But one assumes the ethical bankruptcy of the teaching profession if he presumes that teachers would necessarily abuse their academic free dom to support sectarian positions. UN-NEUTRAL NEUTRALITY: When religion was generally banned from pub lic school education, it was under the pretext of “neutrality.” We were told that the school must be neutral in its
CHRISTIANITY AND CITIZENSHIP: One of the signs of a national awaken ing is found in the fact that social sci entists are recognizing increasingly that social problems cannot be solved with out reliance upon the resources of re ligion. A striking evidence along this line was supplied at the White House Con ference on Children in a Democracy, re cently held in the Nation’s capital. The importance of religious instruction was stressed heavily by a special committee which brought in a report on “Religion and Children in a Democracy.” Said the Committee: “The child needs to havé a con viction of his own intrinsic worth as a person and also a conviction that he has a significant and se cure place in a rational and moral universe. Whatever ^else we may help the child to achieve in the ful fillment of his needs, we have not met his greatest need until we have helped liim to build a practical phil osophy of life . . . Historically, man has achieved this end chiefly * through religion . . . " The Committee pointed out that re ligious instruction has lagged and has been neglected “while scientific discov ery, technology, and. material achieve ments h a v e shown phenomenal pro gress.” Teaching religion to children is one of our “great unsolved problems,” according to the Committee, which esti mates that no form of religious instruc tion is being received by 16,000,000 of the 30,000,000 children b e t w e e n the ages of five and seventeen.- The Committee emphasizes, “Histor ically, it was never intended that the separation of Church and State should deprive children of the resources of religion.” Yet the problem is “how to utilize the resources of religion in meet ing the needs of children without in any way violating f r e e d o m of con science.” The Committee feels that pri mary responsibility must rest upon the individual home and the Sunday-school, but there must be some form of co operation afforded by the public school. It reviews the various methods being employed to care for the religious needs of the child:
This issue emphasizes Youth Evangelism
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