Food for Thought: Religion

"The great end in religious instruction...is not to stamp our minds irresistibly on the young but to stir up their own; not to make them see with our eyes but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own; not to give them a definite amount of knowledge but to inspire a fervent love of truth; not to form an outward regularity but to touch inward springs..."

Rev. William Ellery Channing at the 1837 annual meeting of the Boston Sunday School Society, quoted in The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide, William F. Schulz, ed.

This quote struck me as the ideal definition of what religious education should be. Perhaps because of my experiences in the Philadelphia Catholic school system, at institutions such as Northeast Catholic High School, I strongly distrust dogmatic approaches to religious instruction. Catechisms seem fitted mainly to making children into slaves, not thinking worshippers and citizens. I feel the Unitarian approach is much better, teaching children to think for themselves even at the risk that they may later change or depart from their parents' faith.

Romney Gives His Spiel

Andrew Sullivan has an interesting commentary about Mitt Romney's new speech regarding his Mormonism. He has some interesting points.

First, although Romney wants to make his Mormonism a non-issue, he still uses a religious rhetoric, which will naturally bring religion into the race as an issue. For instance, in today's speech, he claims, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." Uh Mitt, if you want to keep your religion out of it, you shouldn't constantly bring up religion.

Also, as Sullivan correctly points out, Romney does not acknowledge the right not to have a religion, to be an aetheist or a secularist. If people are allowed not to vote for aetheists, then they can not vote for Mormons, either.

I do think that Sullivan goes too easy on Romney. For instance, while Sullivan claims that Mormonism should not be a factor at all, I do think it should be a matter of concern to voters if a candidate is a devout Mormon. Let's face it, Mormonism is Christianity's answer to Scientology (i.e. an outright, easily seen through scam.) If a candidate is willing to swallow that, who knows what else he might swallow. (For more on this, see this Slate article by Jacob Weisburg.)

Furthermore, the religious rhetoric itself disturbs me. Previous candidates who have had to deal with religious intolerance, such as JFK, maintained a steadfastly secular approach to their campaigns. They did not sell themselves as God or the Pope's candidate. NPR had a great segment about this on Morning Edition.