Education, politics and religion: reconciling the civil and the sacred in education

Education, Politics and Religion

In recent years, a number of popular books have savaged religion, arguing it is a dangerous delusion that poisons human societies and relationships. This is but the most recent manifestation of a secularizing agenda that has been sweeping contemporary democratic societies since the Enlightenment. This book pushes back against that agenda, examining its key assumptions and arguing that the exclusion of religious people and ideas from education and the public square is both undemocratic and unwise. For the most part, this book draws arguments and examples from Christianity, the religious tradition of the authors, but it recognizes that many religions share the concerns and possibilities examined. The book examines contemporary expressions of the secularizing agenda in Western democracies, with particular focus on how it is played out in education. It demonstrates how republican theory understood within a faith perspective provides a shared understanding and substantive basis for education within a Western democracy. It explores the historical connections and disconnections between religion and civic life in the West, from ancient to contemporary times, and examines religiously based civic action and pedagogical approaches, contending both have the potential to contribute greatly to democracy. This book will be of value to those interested in exploring how democracies can include the voices of all their citizens: the religious and the secular. James Arthur is Professor of Education and Civic Engagement at the University of Birmingham, UK. Liam Gearon is a Professor of Education at the University of Plymouth, UK. Alan Sears is Professor of Education at the University of New Brunswick, Canada.

Education, Politics and Religion Reconciling the civil and the sacred in education

James Arthur, Liam Gearon and Alan Sears

First edition published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 James Arthur, Liam Gearon and Alan Sears All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN 0-203-84657-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN: 978-0-415-56548-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-56549-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-84657-5 (ebk)

Contents

Acknowledgements

vi

Introduction: an argument for enchantment

1

PART I

Educational, political and theological theory

9

1

Christianity, citizenship and identity

11

2

Republican theory, citizenship education and religion

33

PART II

Challenges of historical and philosophical interpretation 3 4

51

Christianity, citizenship and education: from antiquity to Enlightenment and its aftermath

53

Religion, education and extremism: from totalitarian democracy to liberal autocracy

72

PART III

Religious approaches to civic engagement and education for citizenship

95

5

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square

97

6

Citizenship education as transformation: the possibilities of religious approaches to education

118

Afterword Bibliography Index

139 141 161

Acknowledgements

In addition to his co-authors, Alan Sears expresses appreciation to Theodore Christou, Lindsay Maxwell, Jane Ann Sears and Rebekah Sears who read and responded to earlier drafts of his chapters. James Arthur would like to thank Ian Davies for reading through his chapters. We would also like to thank Aidan Thompson for reading through the final version of this text and helping prepare it for publication. Liam Gearon gratefully acknowledges the peer-review guidance and comments by fellow authors. He also wishes to acknowledge all those who have helped develop ideas originally delivered in germinal form at a presentation given at the Nobel Institute, Oslo, Norway, and through a working consultation on UNESCO Guidelines on Intercultural Education, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris.

Introduction An argument for enchantment

In a lecture given at Munich University in 1918, Max Weber (1989: 29) argued ‘the fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the “disenchantment of the world”’. He was describing the phenomenon some have characterized as the ‘Secularization Thesis, the idea that the rise of modernity necessitates the decline of religion’ (Bottum 2010: 63). Bottum argues that this thesis ‘remained a fundamental postulate of European intellectual life and, in truth, of its American imitation from early in the nineteenth century through the entire twentieth century’. We concur, and in this book examine the working out of the Secularization Thesis in contemporary educational discourses related to religion and its role in shaping meanings of civic duty and citizenship. We argue that following on from the Enlightenment, these discourses have been aggressively secularized and this ‘disenchantment’ has not served education generally, or civic education in particular, well. It is our contention that substantial attention to religion and religious forms in civic education has the potential to make the field both more democratic and effective in its mission of shaping thoughtful and engaged citizens. Early exponents of the Secularization Thesis, such as Edward Gibbon, through thoroughly secular rationalists, often acknowledge the immense contribution of Christianity to Western culture. More recently, however, there has been an expunging of religion and religious thinkers from the record ‘as the “canon” of Western political thought got “normalized”’ (Elshtain 2008: xv). A significant example is the fact that the politicians that worked on the European Constitution refused to reflect explicitly the fact that Europe has been overwhelmingly Christian for the last two millennia. The traditions of a particular European culture are often linked with the Christian faith that has shaped that culture in an enduring fashion. It builds on the premise that the predominant religious beliefs, values and practices in any society are rooted in long-standing cultural traditions and histories. The theory suggests that religious traditions shape the values and practices of people whether or not they express or practise Christian beliefs. Another example is that religious symbols in public schools have become problematic in modern Europe, particularly Islamic symbols, and have, as a consequence, given rise to widespread public debate on the scope of religious freedom. Questions have been raised about the relationship of constitutional courts when

2

Introduction

they consider human rights to the specific historical cultures within which they are embedded, and whose values they may be properly said to represent and are supposed to protect. There appears to be a relationship between religion, even if secularized, and constitutional identity. Religion as a belief emphasizes doctrine, while religion as identity emphasizes affiliation with a group. Thus, religion as identity is less likely to emphasize shared theological beliefs and is more likely to emphasize shared histories, culture and traditions. One result of this secularization is that little attention is given in modern educational discourses to religion and its role in shaping meanings of civic duty and citizenship. This is due, in part, to the fact that many of the organizations that seek to promote a discourse between politics and religion are secular bodies that present issues of religious identity and faith in the language of community, equality, diversity and values. This language does not fully recognize the significance of faith and belief for the intersection of religious beliefs and political action. Such organizations also fail to take seriously the re-emergence of religion as a potent force in politics; modern notions of citizenship, whether liberal, communitarian or civic republican, are almost wholly founded on secular constructs. There is an assumption that the rise of secular citizenship requires the erosion of the authority of institutional religion. These observations minimize the importance of religion in the political context, denying religion a legitimate role. Consequently, accounts of politics in educational studies generally omit references to religion. Many of the works of key intellectual shapers of civic education in Britain, such as Dawn Oliver, Derek Heater and Bernard Crick, make no reference to the Judaeo–Christian tradition in what they believe to be the foundations of Western citizenship. Crick made his position explicit when he declared at a British Humanist Association conference at the University of London in October 2006 that ‘Citizenship is secular, on historical and philosophical grounds’. Even when explicit reference is made to religion it is generally negative. There is also an absence of historical as well as theological perspective in debates about pluralism, diversity and community cohesion. The virtual elimination of religion and religious ideas from the discourses of civic life in the West is not simply a matter of benign neglect. Secularity, or a commitment to a non-sectarian public square, has often given way to secularism, an ideology that fiercely sets out to eliminate religion from public, and in some cases even private, life. Increasingly, educationalists are defining the public space to mean ‘in the open’ where all can see, such as a public school, and defining religion as in the home or within one’s mind where no one can see. This comes to mean the ‘visible’ and the ‘hidden’. Religion is relegated to the private sphere and must therefore be hidden. For example, the phenomenon Noddings (2008: 369) describes as ‘the new outspoken atheism’ often uses polemic laced with ridicule and scorn in an attempt to extinguish religion or push it to the margins. Guinness (2008: 13) calls this ‘secular fundamentalism’ and argues that it ‘matches the rise of religious fundamentalism and creates one of the two poles of today’s extremism in religion and public life’.

Introduction 3 In the face of this aggressive intolerance, religious people and institutions have reacted in a number of ways, including retreat and retaliation. Retreat takes one of two forms, the first being compromise with the secular world so religion looses any distinctive presence. In 1976, concern about this kind of capitulation to the secular Zeitgeist moved a group of American Christian thinkers from a range of traditions to issue the Hartford Appeal. The appeal was a call to American Christians to affirm their traditions, emphasize transcendence and challenge the assumptions of modernity (Berger and Neuhaus 1976). The second manifestation of religious retreat is the restricting of religion to a private affair concerned with the edification and salvation of individuals and religious communities but with nothing to contribute to the wider society and civic discourse. This is the view of religion often propagated by secularists (and the overt policy of the state in some places, including France) but is also adopted by some faith groups. As we show later in the book, this is not consistent with Judaeo–Christian tradition which has a history from ancient times of engagement with civic life, even in hostile or ambivalent contexts. The prophet Jeremiah exhorted the Hebrew exiles in Babylon to ‘seek the peace and prosperity of the city’ where they found themselves. That sentiment is further worked out in the Christian theology of Augustine, Aquinas and many who followed them. Religious groups who choose not to retreat in the face of secularism often resort to retaliation. They respond in kind to the invective sometimes used against them, resulting in what some have described, particularly in the American context, as the culture wars. In these wars ‘name-calling, insult, ridicule, guilt by association, caricature, innuendo, accusation, denunciation, negative ads, and deceptive and manipulative videos have replaced deliberation and debate’ (Guinness 2008: 84). More serious still, in terms of retaliation, is religiously inspired intimidation and violence as a response to secularism. This book is a response to the dominance of secularism in the field of educational discourses around citizenship and civic education that eschews both retreat and retaliation. We intend to push back firmly against those who would exclude religious ideas and people of faith from civic life, setting the record straight where we believe it has been distorted. With Neuhaus (1976: 138), we are ‘calling a halt to retreat’ in both senses used above. In our response we are also committed to civility, which means much more than simply being nice or polite. It includes a commitment to deliberation, even through very tough issues, and to persuasion. As Guinness (2008: 151) points out, ‘genuine civility is more than decorous public manners, or squeamishness about differences, or a form of freshman sensitivity training. It is substantive before it is formal … It is a style of public discourse shaped by respect for the humanity and dignity of individuals, as well as for truth and the common good’. This book is divided into three parts, each addressing particular aspects of the issue of the role of religion in discourses about citizenship and citizenship education, but there are some overriding themes that permeate the book. These include:

4

Introduction

1

A firm belief that the Secularization Thesis has proven to be false. For better or worse (and it has been both) religion is, has been, and will be an important factor not only in the lives of individuals but in the common life of societies, nations and the world. Despite challenges raised by modernity and postmodernity, religion remains a core element of the identity of many people around the world – including in the most ‘advanced’ societies – and if we expect students to come to understand the world in a deep sense, they will have to wrestle with understanding their own and others’ identities. A number of scholars around the world are calling for citizenship education that fosters a sense of cosmopolitanism, including an understanding of the animating role that faith plays in the civic engagement of individuals and communities (Hébert 2010; Osler 2010). Osler and Starkey (2003) demonstrate that young people have both multiple identities and can come to understand the identities of others in quite sophisticated ways. We believe it is a mistake not to acknowledge the power of religion in people’s lives as part of civic education. There has been an essentializing of religion and religious practice as un- or anti-democratic, while secularity is characterized as politically and socially neutral and absolutely compatible with democracy. Dawkins’ (2006) book The God Delusion is one of the most egregious examples of the former. Religion is described as anti-rational, oppressive and violent, and responsible for almost every ill facing the world; in the words of Hitchens (2007), ‘religion poisons everything’. Secularity, on the other hand, is portrayed as neutral and the natural context for democracy. We contend that both these positions are simplistic and inaccurate. In some cases, religion has been, and is, all of the things Dawkins, Hitchens and others claim it to be, but that is neither necessarily nor always true. As we show throughout this book, democracy has often flourished in religious contexts (including in Ancient Athens, widely acknowledged as the birthplace of Western democracy) and, in some cases, it has burgeoned because of religious influences. The flip side of this is that secular societies are often not democratic at all. The great totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century are the most obvious examples, but just as dangerous is a liberal autocracy that fosters a totalizing discourse of secularism and abides no dissent from that position. The public square in democracies around the world includes both religious issues and religious people. In 2009, a referendum in Switzerland approved a constitutional amendment banning the construction of minarets on mosques in that country, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the removal of crucifixes from Italian schools, and senior French politicians proposed banning the wearing of the burqa in public. These are just a few of the religiously based issues circulating in the public discourse of Western democracies and they illustrate the often complex and contentious nature of forging a sense of the common good in contemporary, pluralist democracies. Studies in Canada (Peck and Sears 2005; Peck et al. 2008) indicate that young people in that country are so ignorant

2

3

Introduction 5

4

5

of religious motivation in the lives of adherents that they would be illequipped to engage in substantial dialogue around any of these issues or ones like them. We know that most democracies either ignore religious education or treat it very superficially (Sweet 1997; Gates 2007; Noddings 2008) and so it is reasonable to assume that ignorance of religion and religious issues and poor preparation for deliberating on them extend well beyond Canada. As Guinness (2008: 5) points out, ‘living with our deepest differences has become one of the world’s greatest issues’, and citizens have to be well prepared to engage in figuring out how to do this. Religious people and communities, as well as religious ideas and forms, have much to offer democratic societies. Engagement is critical to democratic societies and evidence of declining levels of engagement underlies a deep and pervasive sense of crisis across the democratic world. This sense of crisis is driving reform initiatives in citizenship education in many jurisdictions. We demonstrate that religion has often been a motivator for very positive and democratic forms of engagement. From arguments about limits on the absolute power of monarchs made by Augustine and Aquinas through the movement to end the slave trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to public advocacy to forgive the international debt of the world’s poorest countries at the turn of the millennium, religious people and groups have often helped to build democracy and extend human rights. A central argument through this work is that a Judaeo–Christian world view was critical in laying the foundation for Western democracies. It strikes us as ironic that some would seek to exclude religious people from civic life at the very time there is growing concern about widespread civic disengagement. It is not only unjust, but also unwise to exclude religious voices from public deliberation. Religious world views offer an important counterpoint and check to the dominant secular ideology. While we contend that religious systems and religion can operate in harmony with democracy, they are not the same thing, and sometimes they are in conflict. We argue that the conflict itself is important and valuable for democracy. The framers for the Hartford Appeal characterized their stand as being ‘against the world, for the world’ (Berger and Neuhaus 1976). In other words, they saw their questioning of aspects of modernity, such as its lack of concern for transcendence and its overweening focus on material gain and scientific advancement, as a potentially important corrective to public life. We and others (Samons 2004) argue that current manifestations of democracy have often attained iconic status that does not allow for questioning of its forms or the proposition of substantial alternatives. These expressions of totalitarian democracy or autocratic liberalism would benefit from critique, and religious ideas can be an important source for that.

6

Introduction

Overview of the book This book is organized into three parts: Educational, political and theological theory; Challenges of historical and philosophical interpretation; Religious approaches to civic engagement and education for citizenship. Each author brings his own expertise and perspective to a particular section of the book – Arthur in Part I, Gearon in Part II and Sears in Part III. Part I considers a number of theoretical positions arising from educational, political and theological discourses. Chapter 1 focuses on Christianity, citizenship and identity, and relates this to education in state schools, recognizing that identity is a controversial and contested theme, but it has been a neglected theme in relation to religion. We believe that the role of religion in the formation of a person’s identity can have significant educational and political implications. Chapter 1 considers how ‘secular’ and ‘secularism’ are conceived and applied, and argues that religious believers who are motivated by religious faith can legitimately seek change in society for the common good of all. Chapter 2 examines republican theory and religion together with the implications for education. It looks at the central commitments of the republican idea within the context of religious faith by exploring: first, that citizens possess and should recognize certain civic obligations; second, that citizens must develop an awareness of the common good, which exists over and above their private self-interests; third, that citizens must possess and act in accordance with civic virtue; and fourth, that civic engagement in democracy should incorporate a deliberative aspect. The chapter will show how republican theory, understood within a faith perspective, provides a shared understanding and substantive basis for education within a Western democracy. Ambitious in scope, Part II of the book critically engages with some of the challenges of historical and philosophical interpretation on the interface of religion, politics and education. It aims to provoke discussion amongst theorists and practitioners of citizenship and religious education, but also debate amongst educators in general on the foundations of education in liberal democratic contexts today. Taking a long historical view, Chapter 3 begins with the Enlightenment narration of a golden classical past, Gibbon’s (2004) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon’s vast historical perspective opens a review of interweaving classical sources from Greek, Roman and Christian antiquity. Articulating the complexities of the relationship between the civil and the sacred, Chapter 3 shows how many of the intellectual currents in the ancient world have been subsequently replayed, from the early centuries of Christian persecution to Renaissance and Reformation through to the Enlightenment, and beyond. From antiquity to Enlightenment it is thus shown that Christianity held a significant and defining role in the forming of Western identity. Chapter 3 argues, however, that Christian tradition continues to be neglected by those citizenship educators who draw from a narrow, confining and ultimately distorting range of secular sources in order to define their subject.

Introduction 7 Chapter 4 takes up the historical narrative, critically engaging with the many religious, political and educational repercussions of Enlightenment. Framing the discussion with close textual reading of Dewey’s (1916) Democracy and Education, Chapter 4 highlights four critical contexts in the interaction of religion, politics and education since the Enlightenment: religion and politics; religion and the United Nations; religion in citizenship education; and citizenship in religious education. On the basis of an empirically self-evident growth of religion in the public sphere, Chapter 4 presents a contentious thesis. Part III explores applied examples of religious engagement in democratic life and the possibilities for transformative learning offered by religiously inspired pedagogies. Chapter 5 examines the intersection of faith and the public square, examining debates about the place of religion in civic life. American writer Gary Wills (2007) argues that while the genius of the American constitution is the disestablishment of religion, various manifestations of Christianity have played key, and often positive, roles in American civic life. Drawing on this and other work on democratic systems around the world, Chapter 5 argues that people of faith have every right to participate in public life as Christians, Muslims, Jews, and so forth, and that religious systems and ontologies have particular insights that can be beneficial to the development of democracy. Chapter 5 also explores examples of religiously motivated civic activism, in particular Christian, and its contribution to both the historic and contemporary development of democracy. Examples include William Wilberforce and the fight to end the slave trade, Gandhi and the struggle for independence and democracy in India, Martin Luther King and the fight for civil rights in the USA, Desmond Tutu and truth and reconciliation in South Africa, and East European churches as incubators of democracy during the communist era. These individuals and groups not only fostered significant changes in public policy, but provide examples of forceful yet positive religious engagement with civic matters. Chapter 6 focuses on the contribution religion and religious models of pedagogy might make to citizenship education. Contemporary approaches to secular public education are often overly reductionist in their focus on rationality. Religion offers pedagogical forms with great potential to challenge this and enhance the quality of children’s educational experiences. British writer Brian Gates (2007), for example, argues that religions use story, ritual and community as pedagogical forms that have great potential to enhance public education in general and, Chapter 6 argues, citizenship education in particular. Specific examples, such as the use of ‘subversive stories’ as vehicles for opening up and reconsidering world views and the potential of structured reflection for transformational learning, are also explored. Our examples throughout the book are drawn primarily from Christianity because that is the tradition we know best, but we believe that many of the approaches outlined here are common to a number of religious traditions.

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Introduction

Conclusion Enchantment can mean being bewitched or put under a spell or, in other words, to lose one’s capacity for independent and critical thought. To the extent that religion has sought to propagate this kind of enchantment, to be, as Marx put it, ‘the opiate of the masses’, we are in sympathy with ‘the disenchantment of the world’ described by Weber in his 1918 lecture. Our contention is, however, that religion is not always or necessarily a force for closing the mind. It has been, is and can be just the opposite, a force that opens up new possibilities. Enchantment can also mean consideration of and engagement with something new, extraordinary and exciting. We believe religion has the possibility to be enchanting for democratic societies in this more positive sense. In his reflection on the Hartford Appeal, American sociologist Peter Berger (1976: 10) argues that ‘both social institutions and individual lives are increasingly explained as well as justified in terms devoid of transcendent referents. Put differently: the reality of ordinary life is increasingly posited as the only reality. Or, if you will, the common sense world becomes a world without windows’. He contends that religion offers an important critique to that view allowing for the consideration of transcendence, that there is meaning beyond what we can touch and see. It is in that spirit of critique we offer this book, not as a polemic about the evils of secularity, but as a point of departure for an ongoing discussion about the civic life we share as religious and non-religious citizens.

Part I

Educational, political and theological theory

1

Christianity, citizenship and identity

We would none of us today be what we are if a handful of Jews nearly two thousand years ago had not believed that they had known a great teacher, seen him crucified, dead, and buried, and then rise again. J. M. Roberts (1986: 37)

Introduction Identity and religion are controversial and contested themes in relation to an academic consideration of citizenship, but they are both unavoidable in any serious-minded account of the origins and operation of citizenship in the West. Indeed, religion and, in a certain sense of the term, identity can be interpreted as negative words in discussions of democratic citizenship as they are often associated in the media with intolerance, prejudice and even violence against those who are different. Identity is normally viewed as a set of behavioural or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognisable as a member of a group. Religion is a system of thoughts, feelings and actions that are shared by a group and provide the individual with a frame of reference for understanding the world and their place within it. Against this backdrop it is constitutionally acknowledged in most European states that legal citizenship is not dependent on adherence to any religious beliefs, and therefore religion is not, it would seem, a constitutive element of citizenship. A sense of identity can provide the very reasons for being citizens in a democracy, by linking us with others in such a way that life is given greater meaning and purpose. Moreover, identity can take the ‘us’ beyond ourselves by providing an individual with a life of commitment which helps fulfil the basic human need to become part of something greater than oneself. Those educationalists who are reluctant to entertain the idea of a single substantive identity, as opposed to only multiple identities, in discussions of citizenship often make the mistake of failing to acknowledge the power of religion in people’s lives. People develop a sense of commitment and way of life when they share a religious faith, and like identity, faith often manifests itself in strong links to others, links that have implications for the exercise of citizenship and education. Identity is something that encompasses the totality

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Christianity, citizenship and identity

of social experience and is not always easy to determine or define given all the differences in the way individuals are socialized during the course of their lives. It has been widely considered from a variety of perspectives in the social sciences and history, but these have been chiefly political and cultural perspectives (Checkel and Kazenst 2009). Christian religious identification has been largely neglected in the social science literature; though more recently it has begun to be recognized as an important dimension of culture and civil society (Casanova 2004). Some of the urgent questions being raised in academia and by the public today concern European identity and the role of religion in that identity. Religious identity situates people within particular communities and these communities can have a public presence which entails a relationship between religious identity and citizenship. However, the recent incorporation of immigrants, principally Muslims, into Europe has raised the question of religion in the public sphere. There is also a growing feeling within Islamic religious communities that the value of their particular religious world view goes unrecognized in secular societies (Sweet 1997). There is simultaneously a mounting conviction among Christians that the secularizing of European culture and education is not inconsequential either for the health of society or for individuals. Many European states have for a long time developed explicit secular schools, secular customs and secular laws whose fundamental values appear to be in tension with religion. Despite Europe’s long Christian heritage, the majority of Europeans live in secular societies and are governed by secular authorities – in fact they are predominantly all ex posteriori secular. Some would say Europeans are children of the Enlightenment and that religious faith is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the important choices they make about who they are in their public identity. This chapter argues that this is a largely negative process that limits our understanding of citizenship.

European identity and citizenship The role of religion in the formation of a person’s identity can have significant educational and political implications. Religion, despite the distinctly secular orientation of European societies, remains a particularly strong source of identity and plays an important role in the communal lives of some young people. A person’s identity as a citizen can coexist with their religious identity. Religion does not necessarily undermine democratic citizenship, but rather can support it. However, if the historic religion of a people is discarded, what values, ideals, beliefs will provide them with an identity and unify them as citizens of a country? This is the question increasingly being asked by some Americans about Europeans (Thornton 2007; Weigel 2008; Mickelthwait and Wooldridge 2009). Thornton (2007: 134) sums up what he sees as the basic issues that are raised, thus ‘the lack of a unifying belief and set of values that can substitute for an abandoned Christianity, and a corrosive doubt about the greatness of the achievements of the West’. The claim being made by these

Christianity, citizenship and identity

13

critics is that Europeans have largely abandoned the Judaeo–Christian religion, and secularized their civic institutions and democratic processes to such an extent that they must find a surrogate for religion in order to strengthen their sense of cultural and political identity. Europe, these American critics claim, requires a common set of values to ensure coherence and to guide its actions in order to be viable in the modern world and that the inheritance from Greco– Roman philosophy is not sufficient by itself. Their claim is premised on the belief that European societies are not only largely secularized, but that they are now pluralist and fragmented and have no common sense of shared values which leads them to assert that these societies are parasitic in that they are still living off their Christian past while being in denial about much of the source of their current modus operandi as citizens. These American critics would no doubt agree with Dawson (1998: 128) who concluded that the accumulated capital of Europe’s Christian past is responsible for the moral and social idealism that inspired the humanitarian and liberal democratic movements of the past two centuries. Thornton’s title for his book takes the argument to a new level – Decline and Fall: Europe’s Slow Motion Suicide. These American critics are accusing European citizens of having little sense of a clear identity and of living day-to-day in pursuit of purely materialist goals which renders them unable to sacrifice themselves for a cause bigger than themselves. These critics are, in many respects, rather narrow and simplistic in their interpretation, but there is sufficient concern expressed in these criticisms for Europeans to seriously examine them. It is true, for example, that while in the majority of the world there appears to be a major revitalization in religious belief and practice, Europe continues on the road of secularization with increasingly low levels of measured religious practice (Bruce 2003). It is also clear that in Western Europe, the influence of religious institutions in society has weakened and, to a greater or lesser degree, Europeans are largely secular citizens. This is true to such an extent that some believe that the secularization process is not only irreversible, but normal and progressive – something to be welcomed. The result has been the privileging of European secular identities and secularist self-understandings which has resulted in religion being viewed by European political elites as fundamentally irrelevant to political activity or to the identity of the European citizen. For example, during the debates in 2003 over acknowledging the Christian roots of Europe in the Preamble to the abandoned European Constitution, hostility emerged to Christianity’s presence in the European public sphere. Many of the European politicians who constructed the proposed Constitution were Catholics, and yet they refused to reflect explicitly the fact that Europe has been overwhelmingly Christian for the last two millennia. In the same year, the European Court of Human Rights, in a landmark case, supported the Turkish government’s decision to dissolve an Islamic party by affirming the view that ‘the principle of secularism’ was a necessary presupposition of democracy (ECHR 2003). The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly in Recommendation 1804 on the state, religion, secularity and human rights

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Christianity, citizenship and identity

recognizes that religion is an important feature in European history, but also asserts and attempts to maintain a strict separation of church and state in the political process. However, both the council and the court fail to recognize the differing views of member states on issues such as the role of religion in state education. The question of the crucifix or signs and images of Christianity in public places has increasingly become a legal issue in the European Court of Human Rights. The crucifix has, for centuries, been displayed on and in public buildings throughout southern and eastern Europe, particularly on classroom walls in public schools. Icons of Christ even sit above the Judge’s bench in Greece, as a crucifix does in Italian and Austrian courtrooms. Two cases give an indication of the complexity of the situation. First, an individual objected to the Bavarian law which requires public schools to display a crucifix in every classroom. Both the lower court and the Bavarian State Court rejected the case. The case was subsequently taken to the German Federal Constitutional Court, Germany’s ultimate legal authority, in 1995. Using the European Convention on Human Rights, this court upheld the case that no one can be forced to be educated under the dominant symbol of the crucifix. The Bavarian State Government simply passed another law in response to this ruling, confirming the obligation on all schools to display the crucifix. Second, a Finnish-born individual objected to the crucifix in Italian classrooms, but again the lower court ruled against the individual, as did the Italian Constitutional Court on the basis that the crucifix was both a symbol of Italian history and culture and subsequently of national identity. The individual took the case to the European Court of Human Rights and won as the court ordered that Italy must ‘observe confessional neutrality’ in education and ruled that it was a violation of educational and religious freedom to display the crucifix in public schools. It is unlikely that popular opinion will allow the crucifixes to be removed, as Italian politicians have already ruled this out, but both cases illustrate how individual citizens of the European Union can challenge the will of the overwhelming majority in any given territorial community anywhere in the Union. However, these human rights rulings have set a precedent that may yet be implemented. The courts’ failure to acknowledge the differing views on the role of religion among politicians and the public appears strange when one considers the current and well established constitutional arrangements and relationships between religion, predominantly Christianity, and the individual states that comprise the European Union. There is wide variation among European democracies in the way that these relationships are institutionalized and practised. While state laws have impacted on religious matters and often generate potential conflicts in such matters as education and the family, there are, it appears, well established opportunities for the Christian Churches to influence politically inspired legislation. There are at least four different models of contemporary state involvement with religion in Europe that can be categorized as (a) state religion, (b) state church, (c) state sponsorship, and (d) separation of state and church. The Roman Catholic Church has been involved in the politics of

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Europe for two thousand years, and while its claims to a privileged position in politics and society continues to be questioned, it has maintained a series of relationships with European states secured through concordats – formal agreements between the Vatican and a particular country, often including both recognition and privileges for the Catholic Church, particularly in the field of education. There is also an extensive diplomatic system between the Vatican and individual states, which represents the interests of the Catholic Church in formal discussions with governments. There is only one state in Europe that officially declares Catholicism as the state religion and that is Malta. However, other European states, such as Spain and Poland, informally recognize the overwhelming presence of Catholicism in society and therefore in practice treat Catholicism as the state religion. In Spain, the Constitution is secular, but the state is required to take into account the religious beliefs of Spanish society and maintain the appropriate relations of cooperation with the Catholic Church and other denominations. Catholicism cannot operate as a state church because it is a universal religion not tied to a particular nation, race or country. The Catholic Church also claims to have largely withdrawn from attempting to act as a direct political agent in democracies and to have accepted the distinction between church and state. In Gaudium et Spes, the Vatican stated that the church ‘is inspired by no earthly ambition’ (3) and that it favours no political system (76). Nevertheless, the church makes clear that democracy is only a means to human flourishing rather than the end of social life. It continues to maintain that democracies ought to be open to theological evaluations and the church claims spiritual authority with the right and duty to speak out on political, moral and social issues. This is not surprising for a church that claims its principles are universally applicable, including its moral authority. State churches in Europe are either Protestant or Orthodox and the list is a long one. There are national churches in Denmark, England, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Norway, Scotland and Sweden and there are ‘marginally’ national churches in Finland, Holland and Wales. In Eastern Europe, there are national Orthodox Churches in Albania, Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Georgia. The Orthodoxy of Greece, for example, has traditionally been coextensive with citizenship and identity. In each of these countries, the law provides for the support of a church by the state and in all of these countries the state exerts various controls over the church, but national identity can become almost identical with ethnic identity in which religion becomes a constitutive element. In England, the House of Lords Select Committee on Religious Offences (2004: 38) boldly stated that ‘the constitution of the UK is rooted in faith – specifically the Christian faith, exemplified by the established status of the Church of England’ and they affirmed that the UK ‘is not a secular state’. There are considerable differences between countries in Europe, but the ‘Christianity’ expressed in countries with national churches is usually one which is submerged, diluted and implicit – often summed up as belonging without believing (Sandberg 2008: 349–50). There are obviously

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many institutional links between religion and secular governments in Europe, and most states commit their secular society to religious pluralism – but it is a pluralism that is increasingly associated in the popular mind with immigration. Some states also financially support Christian churches and, in this category, the state recognizes the church as defined in law and the church is seen as legitimate within society. The state cooperates with the churches and, in the case of Germany and Austria, raises taxes from the population to maintain the Christian Churches. In Italy, there is also an agreement between the state and the Catholic Church about financing the maintenance of the church. The fourth category applies to France alone, which is unique in that it is the only country in Europe that upholds a ‘neutrality’ in its constitution between religion and the state. In 1905, the government passed a law that separated religion from the state which barred it from officially recognizing, funding or endorsing religious groups. In this sense it is similar to the separation of church and state in the USA, but there are significant differences. For example, there are nearly 9,000 Catholic schools in France, many enjoying government subsidy to educate two million children. One in three French children, at some stage in their school career, are admitted as students to Catholic schools. Indeed, the church controls 95 per cent of all private schools in France and is prepared to compromise with the state in order to ensure its continued existence as a provider of Catholic education (Judge 2002). A number of public schools have Catholic chaplains and religious education can be offered on a voluntary basis in some public schools (the Loi Debré of 1959). Public schools are closed on Catholic All Saints Day as well as on Christmas and Easter holidays. In all of these European countries, the churches activily run faith-based schools and hospitals, and engage in welfare and charitable activities funded by the state. There is a complex, but often direct, financial and legal relationship between almost all European states and Christian Churches that does not exist in the USA. These relationships invariably involve a public presence for Christianity, if not always within the state, certainly within civil society. Many European states regard faith groups as having a positive value which can contribute to the wider needs of society. The reason why the abortive European Constitution excluded mention of Christianity was because it was strongly influenced by the secular tradition of some key members of the drafting committee. The proposed European Constitution certainly had a very French rationalist stamp upon it, but the secular posture of government and the law in France suggests an indifference to religion, which appears more theoretical than is always honoured in reality. The ironic fact is that in French secular society there is a growing religious discourse, while the Catholic Church in France finds positive value in French secularism (Barbier 1995). France does not exclude religion from the public space, as religion exists outside of the state in civil society, where it can be freely practised and organized. As Barbier (1993) says, ‘Secularism is the negation of religion only in the state; and this allows for its expression outside of the state’. Barbier is one of many who concludes that

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religion is seeing its domain expand and its role increase in French society. The contemporary situation in Europe does not entail the separation of church from society, as Christianity and the multiple institutions it generates are an integral part of European community life and society. It does not mean the separation of church from politics as Christians, within a democracy, contribute to what is meant by the goods that we have in common, and it does not mean that the church is excluded from public life, as all Christians are called to be exemplary citizens and to seek the welfare of whatever society they belong to. There are no strictly confessional states in Europe, as intimate interactions between religion and politics are only part of Europe’s legacy. There are states, such as England and Sweden, with government appointed religious leaders, but these leaders are clearly subordinate to the interests of the state. However, simply because individual states have a national church does not imply that levels of Christian practice are high. Indeed, it often simply means that it is the national church that the overwhelming majority of citizens choose not to attend. American commentators on Europe claim that secularization has largely severed European identity from its roots, from the ideals that created the West. Instead, the ideals preferred by Europeans today are equality, tolerance, democracy and human rights, but these are culturally contingent alternatives that compete against other visions of the human good, such as religions, that claim transcendent authority. Dawson (1998) commented that we are living off Christian ideals without contributing anything to them. George Orwell (1940) saw this in 1940. Although a secularist himself, he observed, ‘for two hundred years we have sawed and sawed and sawed at the branch we were sitting on. And in the end, much more suddenly than anyone had foreseen, our efforts were rewarded, and down we came. But unfortunately there had been a little mistake. The thing at the bottom was not a bed of roses after all, it was a cesspool full of barbed wire’. He identified early on some of the malign consequences of the secularization process. T. S. Eliot (1938), writing at the same time as Orwell, in The Idea of a Christian Society, made a strong defence of the religious beliefs and values that he believed nourished European societies. However, it may be that secular self-understandings in Europe are inextricably linked with different versions of Christianity, and these relationships serve to shape and encode individual secular identities. While most European states give some limited public recognition to Christian Churches, it is always the secular state that defines religion and decides to exclude it from real influence over government and society when the message from the church is considered inappropriate. There is a wide variation among democracies in the way that this exclusion is institutionalized. While many European states subsidize Christian Churches and give them privileged access to government offices, the people seem to lack religious zeal and have disregarded Christian teaching in a range of social and moral issues. In most Western inspired democracies and modern states, there is a strong assumption that political sovereignty originates with the people, that those who govern are subject to the people and that citizenship is an entirely secular

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affair. A tension often results in believing that a government’s accountability to citizens can be sustained only if both government and citizens disconnect themselves from God. This is a notion of secular jurisdiction that has always been rejected by Christianity. The invention of the modern nation-state has resulted in political authority being located in a single institution, and within its own territorial borders such authority is often viewed as unlimited. Religious people certainly see the world differently from non-religious people and for many it is a ‘total experience’ to be religious. The only notion of citizenship and democracy that these Christians accept is one that distinguishes the responsibilities of citizenship without imagining that it must be disconnected from the all-embracing allegiance owed to God. Yet, the Christian Churches have largely accepted European bourgeois liberal democracy and the plural values that pertain within these societies. It is religion that has become a completely optional and dispensable part of human life. The Christian Churches in Europe have played a vacillating and contradictory part in this secularizing process. Sometimes, they have been vocal in resisting secular intrusions, but more often than not they have welcomed secular thought and practice into the very heart of their faith and practices. Churches are often informed by a secular moral authority and frequently publicly subscribe to it, giving it a thin religious gloss. The Christian Churches’ membership seems to have declined at the same rate as other voluntary organizations in European societies. They have become adjuncts to state welfare bureaucracies, delivering the government’s secular agendas. It is not surprising they have imported professional standards of management into their structures and eroded their distinctive religious ethos and mission. As they become more responsible, through state encouragement and financing, for the care to which people are legally entitled, the public are becoming more alienated from them, more secularized and more distant from the Christian virtues that some consider are essential for the future of European democracy. This institutional secularization potentially makes individuals conceive of citizenship in exclusively secular terms.

Sources of identity and citizenship The history of citizenship is regularly told by many academics in Europe first and foremost as a discussion of their identity as secular citizens (Crick 2000). The story they tell is of citizenship as the primary principle of identity which transcends any identities built on religion. Further, they argue that this European secular identity of the citizen requires nothing but ‘reason’ to ensure progress and liberation. These are, of course, identities that must embrace an exclusive and exclusionary form of ‘reason’ disconnected from other ways of thinking. Thus, they seek to develop a legal minimum for citizenship whose principles are not derived from faith. These secular self-understandings go on to establish exclusively secular lineages between themselves and the ancient Greeks who, they claim, originated the concept of citizenship. However, claims of affinity between modern secular concepts and practices of citizenship and those of

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historical forms should always be approached with caution, for the concept of citizenship has been an unstable one through history. Religious and secular identities are also intertwined in complex ways and have been inextricably linked throughout European history. Theology and politics became fused in early European society. Nevertheless, in contemporary Europe, in contrast to North America, there is little academic discussion within education of religion and its role in shaping meanings of citizenship. While religion appears on a list of differences in discussions of multicultural education, it rarely receives any substantial discussion. Religious identity, it appears, is purely a matter of choice which is seemingly given equal weight to other elements of identity such as gender, hobbies, favourite football teams, eye colour, etc. In educational terms, teachers rarely engage pupils in discussion of the substantive nature and differences between different aspects of one’s identity. It should also be stated that the conception of a secular society existing without reference to any transcendent idea is an entirely modern phenomenon. Oliver and Heater (1994: 12–13) in their The Foundations of Citizenship make absolutely no reference to the Judaeo–Christian tradition or history, in what they believe to be the foundations of Western citizenship. Crick in Essays on Citizenship (2000: 4) begins his brief introduction to the origins of citizenship with ‘Although both the Greek city-state and the Roman Republic were destroyed, the meaning and the ideal of free citizenship endured’. The next sentence begins ‘In the seventeenth century …’ and Crick makes his position explicit when he said that ‘Citizenship is secular, on historical and philosophical grounds’ (University of London, 18 October 2006, BHA). Heater (2004) in his A History of Education for Citizenship begins with a chapter entitled ‘Classical Origins’, which is immediately followed by a chapter on ‘The ages of rebellions and revolutions’. Modern European publications also generally fail to engage with religious themes in discussing the foundations of European government and society as can be seen in Balibar’s (2004) We, the People of Europe. Europeans appear to share a collective homogeneity in employing the resources of what they believed to be the secular thought of antiquity to address citizenship today. These authors appear to be blind to the vision from which their notion of citizenship sprang. How did the ideal of ‘free’ citizenship ‘endure’ through the 1,500 years of Christian history that these authors completely omit in their accounts? With this lack of historical treatment, together with the underlying secular assumptions behind such an absence, it is not surprising that religious faith and citizenship are not seen in Europe as complementary concepts; indeed, some would claim that there are inherent, and perhaps dangerous, contradictions between them. Modern citizenship educators appear to have a myopic vision of the historical origins of contemporary ideas of citizenship. They portray Christianity as a reactionary force that blocked the progress of citizenship and freedom, but this is a gross misreading of history. In contrast, North American academics such as Michael Sandel, Robert Audi, Richard Dagger, Will Kymlicka, Jeff Spinner-Halev and Paul Weithman all substantially address the relationships between religion,

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identity and citizenship. One exception, in Britain, is a recent major text on Democracy by Keane (2009: 207–9), which is untypical in that it traces the extensive Christian origins of representative democracy, for example voting, legally defined office holders, representative assemblies and councils, etc. in the West, and argues that liberal accounts cannot adequately explain the political and cultural presuppositions necessary for democratic citizenship. Secularist thinkers in Europe, such as Kant and Hume, have generally assumed that religious behaviour is a result of religious belief and that such ‘irrational behaviour’ would cease if the religious belief was refuted. This secular approach was predicated on the understanding that political freedom and the responsibility of citizens would be impossible to achieve as long as people appealed to God or the church for help. Many Enlightenment thinkers therefore adopted a strongly critical and sceptical attitude towards religion, and this is a fundamental feature of its approach to citizenship. Secular thinkers can undervalue the power of religion among the mass of people in the past, and instead concentrate their attention upon the politics of the secular elites in society, past and present, in an attempt to free their historical understanding from what they believe to be theological notions, beliefs or bias. The result is a highly selective and abstract idea of citizenship secured by pre-selecting concepts that they believe shape citizenship while ignoring others. In short, they are so influenced by contemporary political debates and a secular mentality that their accounts of citizenship are simply insufficiently embedded in the wider historical context. As Turner (2007: 259) says, there is a false assumption that the rise of secular citizenship requires the ‘erosion of the authority of institutional religion’. These observations minimize the importance of religion in the political context, denying religion a legitimate role. Consequently, some accounts of citizenship generally omit positive references to religion and fail to appreciate the complex interaction of politics, religion and the multidimensionality of the historical record in relation to citizenship and religion. One could say that there is a secularist bias in current political theory which easily judges citizens as too religious, but never too secular. Barber (2003: 183) calls this attitude ‘intolerant secularism’. While the idea of citizenship holds a prominent place in the history of European political thought, the relationship between religion, specifically Christianity, and notions of citizenship has been historically problematic. There is no doubt that religion is, and has been, a key factor in determining a person’s character, moral norms and idea of duty, and has provided many with a sense of national identity. We are well acquainted with the idea that the practice of political citizenship originated in ancient Greece, but are perhaps less aware that biblical religion also had an important influence on the development of the meaning of citizenship in Europe. The citizen in Greek city-states lived in an age when religion and the state were coterminous, and when civic duty became nearly identical with religious obligation. The temple was the civic centre, priests were public officials, and religious festivals were public events which meant that participation in the religious community was an essential

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aspect of citizenship. Citizenship meant having the responsibility and privileges of membership in the political community, but this smaller political community of active male citizens was also an integral and leading part of the larger religious community. So, democracy in ancient Athens was in no sense a secular activity since it was rooted in a polytheistic universe which infused citizenship with a strong sense of sacred standards for daily conduct. Religion gave meaning to life and provided guidance to citizens and non-citizens alike in order that they could deal with the contingencies of life. It reminded them of their mortality and gave credence to the practical decisions reached, making such decisions more acceptable to the people. As Sagan (1991) says, ‘the classical reality was that the Athenians regarded the divine and democracy not as enemies, but as close friends’. The idea of the divine and secular separated made no sense in the Greco–Roman world. In contrast to that world, the Jewish people in Israel structured themselves not as a city-state but as the covenanted people of God, living under a legal order handed down by God to a nation made up of many family clans. All Jews were members of God’s people and the community of which they were a part was more profound and historically far-reaching than a Greek city-state. The Jewish tradition was based on the idea that all are equal in the eyes of God and their scriptures instructed them to ‘work for the good of the country’ (Jer 29: 7) even within a pagan society. This tradition was incorporated into the teachings of Christianity in the first century, when Christians were taught to positively enhance and sustain the cities in which they lived. Christians were called upon to do good works while at the same time avoiding anything in their daily lives that ‘would be unworthy of the gospel’ (Philippians 1: 27). In fact, the New Testament encouraged Christians to take part in everything as citizens, and discussed in some detail the ethical conduct of the contribution that Christians ought to make to the common good (Hebrews 11: 10; 1 Peter 2: 11–13, 17; Romans 13: 1–7). All Christians were to do good works and meet the needs of all. This religious tradition sustained people in times of crisis and empowered them to hope for a better future. It encouraged acts of kindness, love and generosity, and gave hope when there were no rational grounds to believe that good would happen. An important principle of this developing Christian tradition was St Augustine’s conception of the world, outlined in his City of God, as divided into the metaphorical City of God and City of Man. Augustine believed that his two cities were distinct but not separate. So, while their ultimate citizenship is in the next world, Christians should not withdraw from the City of Man, but ought rather to work within it. They had to engage in the political community, not because politics is ultimate, but because Christians are commended to love both God and their neighbour or, in other words, they had important responsibilities to both Cities. Augustine presented a case for Christian citizenship that entailed that you could be a good Roman citizen as well as a good Christian by working for the good of society. So, whereas for Augustine civic citizenship is a subordinate end, it is ordered to a higher end; but this did not mean that this

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subordinate end could not be pursued. In fact it was unavoidable. He raised the classic notion of civic citizenship to the level of a religious duty and admonished Christians to assume the obligations of civic citizenship. Christians were to give themselves completely in two directions: the ‘upward’ (vertical relationship with God) and the ‘forward’ (horizontal relationship with their neighbour), and each direction should not hinder the other but, on the contrary, further it. Christianity therefore did not disable civic virtues, but provided a force to realise these virtues through public engagement. While this Christian theory explicitly recognizes public jurisdiction, it limits the power of the state over the individual. The state is not the individual ‘writ large’, for the state concerns only part of the individual. The function of a government was to promote the virtues of the citizens. Therefore, it is a mistake, he believed, to approach the issue of Christianity and public life as if they were two realms that we have to relate to each other. According to Aquinas and Augustine, the public realm for the conduct of one’s civic citizenship was already related to faith because it was created by God. Commenting on Aristotle’s Politics (ST: Q105 reply to objection 2), Aquinas provides a definition of citizenship which he divides into two kinds: ‘simple’ and ‘restricted’. The ‘simple’ citizenship is the full exercise of political rights, while the ‘restricted’ does not include any active citizenship. However, the ‘restricted’ citizenship includes almost all the population residing in the territory of the city or state including women and children. It is an ‘anagraphical’ citizenship defined on a simple territorial basis. Simple citizenship is attributed by the city or state while ‘restricted’ citizenship is a more inclusive form of belonging conferred on the basis of residence and the minimal territorial unit which attributed it was the parish and the parish priest through compulsory baptism. Racial or ethnic considerations were not considered relevant, but religion was, and Jews were therefore excluded. Records of baptism in the parish register antedated civil administration and conferred a form of citizenship in Christendom. Aquinas, strongly influenced by the thoughts of Aristotle, saw each sphere of human activity as enjoying its own autonomy. In matters regarding the civic goods, it was better to obey the secular authority even when it was controlled by nonChristians. Aquinas also believed that the common good was more important than the private good. Like Augustine, the idea of balance runs through all his works and he is sometimes credited with the division of powers into the executive, judicial and legislative. In the modern state, citizenship can be defined as a secular legal status, but only in a narrow way; as consisting of certain reciprocal rights, duties and privileges, e.g. the right to own land, to hold public office, to vote, to pay taxes and to serve on a jury. Citizenship clearly arises between the state and the individual when each is fully accountable to the other. The rights and duties of each citizen are upheld by the state and indeed the state has the right, according to Christian teaching, to enforce these duties. However, liberal citizenship overplays the nature of citizenship in terms of the relationship between citizen and state, and underplays the nature of citizenship in terms of the relationship

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between citizens. Legal citizenship is not dependent on religious affiliation but, in the secular project of the European Union, secular liberalism is deeply engrained in the self-understanding of most European elites, and especially in the interpretations of most scholars of European politics. These exclusively secular notions of citizenship separate religion from other legitimate and important spheres of life and tend, ideologically, to favour naturalistic world views, while at the same time refusing to grant any validity to religious world views. Many secular European liberal states do this, of course, by purporting to be impartial in relation to particular world views and in so doing, demonstrate that the secular state is in fact not neutral between competing claims. And yet citizenship that encourages active public engagement and responsibility in a democracy cannot be a wholly secular concept for it involves social attachments and allegiances to other citizens as well as the nurturing of certain civil virtues which, in turn, may involve prior religious motivations and reasons. In a state which actively promotes ‘secularity’ among its citizens, a religious believer could find that their deepest convictions and most comprehensive world views are legally divorced from the political life of society and replaced with a undefined or unstated secular humanism. The implications of adopting liberal notions of ‘secular’ result in citizens experiencing prolonged habituation to a kind of enforced ‘democratic neutralism’ which, despite its supposed neutral stance, eschews any religious foundation and results in religious indifference and apathy, first in the public square and then in the private domain. In the most extreme form, this secularist approach is positively antagonistic to religious belief. At one end of the spectrum there are secular fundamentalists, few in number, who distance themselves from religion through hostility and disdain; at the other end there are religious fundamentalists, growing in numbers, who are anti-secularist and oppose secular ways of living. In between, there are many people who are secular in their everyday lives but may be drawn to a sense of the unknown or even some idea of a God. Also situated within this middle ground are religious believers. Both these groups represent the majority in any European society. Habermas (2006b: 51), an atheist and Marxist, warns secular citizens that ‘When secularized citizens act in their role as citizens of the state, they must not deny in principle that religious images of the world have the potential to express truth. Nor must they refuse their believing fellow citizens the right to make contributions in a religious language to public debates’. Liberal secular arguments generally believe that religion and politics are two distinct activities and that religion has little contribution to make to politics. Consequently, the liberal argument goes, those who have religious beliefs should keep them private and they should not allow their religious beliefs to shape their conduct or judgements as citizens in the public realm. Citizenship, they argue, is a political and secular status and religious people should therefore ‘bracket’ out their religious beliefs if they want to participate in society’s political order. Rawls (1997: 781) has asked the question ‘How is it possible for those of faith, as well as the non-religious, to endorse a secular regime even when their comprehensive doctrines may not prosper under it,

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and indeed may decline’. He answers that religious people should only argue for particular policies or laws by providing secular reasons for them. Rawls modifies his view in subsequent writings and accepts that religious arguments can be involved as long as proper political reasons ‘in due course’ are given for them. Audi (2005: 217) has gone even further by advocating the ‘principle of secular jurisdiction’ in which a religious person should exclusively think in secular terms when they vote in democratic elections. This is a secular definition of the role of religion in politics and it has many critics, both secular and religious, who believe it to be a fallacy. If accepted as a principle, it would entail that each religious tradition would have to accept a restrictive definition of the use of reason in order to participate in political associations. A person of faith would therefore presumably have to think in two different realms – the secular and the religious, which are seen as unconnected and their minds would presumably have to use different ‘reasoning’ powers. In effect, religious citizens would be expected to identify with a conception of citizenship that would deprive them of their religious world view. Habermas (2006b) believes that this mental dualism would be impossible for any human being and that it denotes a ‘narrow secular consciousness’. Secular thinkers assume that religion is essentially a question of private beliefs and doctrines, but religion necessarily has public manifestations. Habermas (2006a: 113) agrees that a shared public language is needed between citizens who are religious and those who are not, but while he also agrees that this public language should be open to justification on secular grounds, he explicitly states that all citizens should be open to the rational context of religious contributions. Habermas recognizes that it is not legitimate for the modern secular liberal state to exclude religious reasoning from the public sphere and he argues that there is a need for religious and secular rationalities to engage with each other in a mutual process. Habermas proposes a revised concept of citizenship which restores freedom of religious speech and reasoning to the European public sphere. Secular elites have represented themselves as almost the sole defenders of ‘reason’ against irrational religious believers who they claim rely on arguments that turn out to be unsound. This kind of secular thinking inevitably assumes that there is something deeply wrong with the reasoning processes of religious citizens. Rougeau (2008) puts the case that religious believers can offer thoughtful arguments in public debates that are rooted in reason and a commitment to democracy; arguments that are accessible to and capable of being engaged by all of the members of a democratic society. There is still a dominant view that only a secular state, in which public decision making processes are based exclusively on secular arguments, is compatible with the principles of a liberal European democracy (ECHR 2003). This is simply a form of secularism: an ideology which seeks to exclude the influence of religion. Christianity makes the distinction between political rule and social life, with the latter counterbalancing the former. Many states make no such distinction. Habermas (2006b: 17) has commented that

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As long as secular citizens are convinced that religious traditions and religious communities are to a certain extent archaic relics of pre-modern societies that continue to exist in the present … religion no longer has any intrinsic justification to exist … In the secularist reading, we can envisage that, in the long run, religious views will inevitably melt under the sun of scientific criticism and that religious communities will not be able to withstand the pressures of some unstoppable cultural and social modernization. Habermas believes that those who adopt such a view of religion cannot take religion seriously in the public realm and are guilty of adopting a ‘narrow secularist consciousness’. Habermas recognizes that the restrictions that Rawls (1997) and Audi (2005) place on the role of religion in public discourse would not work in practice because they place an intolerable psychological burden on religious citizens. The separation of the private sphere from the public sphere or the separation of knowing and doing is not tenable. Habermas (1984; 1987) suggests that secular minded citizens should adopt a more self-critical attitude towards the limits of secular rationality and be more open to the power of religious reasons. However, it is unlikely that secular rationalists will abandon the belief that secular ‘reason’ should take precedence over other means of acquiring understanding. Habermas appears to be supporting the place of religion in the public realm, but on closer examination he argues that only secular reasons have justificatory weight by office holders within democratic institutions. Therefore, his ‘support’ for religion is highly qualified and constrained, and indeed resembles much of what Rawls says which raises the question whether a public space can be neutral while restricting the participation of religion. Religion is a major factor in human life and is expected by sociologists to remain so for the foreseeable future. Religion creates powerful symbols of social life and human experiences, and conveys to individuals a powerful experience of social membership. It produces community as a consequence of sharing belief and community practices and it binds people together. It also provides a framework and system for considering moral and social issues and for making sense of these together with a structure for moral and social development. Religions hold a common belief in the possibility of authoritative knowledge and guidance that transcends and constrains the individual. Bruce (2003) argues that religion is intimately implicated in the identity of people, for religion is a profoundly social matter. It is a collective enterprise and acts as a kind of social cement. There are strong ties between virtue and religion, but this has been traditionally rooted in the church’s monopoly on disseminating knowledge through schooling. With no public schools and no television or radio, churches were the principal and almost only institution promoting public virtue in the past. A common theme of the Christian religion is the condemnation of selfishness and so the social values promoted by Christianity fit well with public virtue as self-sacrifice. Religion therefore does have, and always has had, a public dimension. Most of the time, religious influence is exerted primarily in the private sphere, within the walls of churches, synagogues and mosques, and

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within families of religious believers. But as religion shapes individual character and moral development, it thereby influences public affairs, albeit in an indirect way. Through moral instruction, religion informs the values, priorities and decisions of citizens. The danger for the religious believer is that they could find themselves anaesthetized into accepting that liberal secular society alone provides the objective and superior intellectual vantage point, and therefore become effectively coerced into accepting secularism as providing the basis for the values in citizenship. The Christian can accept the ‘secular’ when it is still open to being Christian in ethos – in other words, a doctor has a secular vocation, but this does not mean that his or her vocation is not influenced by his or her faith. In the same way voters can decide on secular grounds, but this does not mean they seek to promote ‘secularism’. Indeed, religious forms of identification can and do represent legitimate motives for political action. This raises the question of what the implications are of a secular society, and in particular a secular identity.

Secular identities Secular is derived from the Latin word sæculum, meaning ‘the present age’. The purely secular dealt with this-worldly objects of space and time, but the eternal was not unrelated to this temporal time. In fact, the supernatural, spiritual and religious were everywhere and were perceived to be completely interwoven with everything. It was Augustine in the fourth century who floated a certain new meaning on how we came to understand the ‘secular’. For Augustine, as we have observed, the world was divided into the secular realm and the religious realm. While he maintained that both these realms related to each other, there is, nevertheless, a sharp distinction, at least in theory, between the secular, concerned with the affairs of the world, and the religious, concerned with the affairs of the next world. Aquinas accepted the validity of the ‘secular’ as part of God’s creation, but insisted that the purpose of life transcended this world. The origins of our current understanding of ‘secular’ consequently lay within the Christian religion and the secular came to mean the opposite of sacred. This dualism became a keynote of European culture and thinking. However, Casanova (1994: 14–15) believes that we fundamentally misunderstand this dualism, as these two spheres both relate to ‘this world’ which must be distinguished from ‘the other world’. In other words, there is the eternal age of God and the temporal–historical age, which is, itself, divided into the sacred–spiritual and the secular age proper. There is not a dualism, but a tripartite distinction. The theoretical ground was thus prepared early, for a divorce between the secular and the religious in ‘this world’. The unity of Christianity was called into question by the Reformation and then during the historical period known as the Enlightenment. Some prominent intellectuals, such as Hume, Kant, Spinoza and Voltaire, began to actively seek a position that would neutralize the

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opposition of Christian groups to each other by attempting to reduce them to the level of rational criteria. Reason alone thus became the adjudicator between Christian denominations. So, in a great part the Enlightenment was brought about by the quarrelling among Christians and arose and took place within rather than against Christianity. This gave rise to the more secular notion that simply the absence of religion from society in itself would make the world and the individual more enlightened. The assumption was that the very absence of religion encourages critical reflection and a more harmonious way of solving differences. In this sense, the word ‘secular’ is no longer either benign or neutral, for it now becomes part of a broader process which encourages a belief that human beings ought to embrace their secular condition as ultimate. A secular mentality is slowly promoted which may comprehend a latent indifference or hostility toward religion and is understood as the transition from ultimate to proximate concerns. This inevitably leads to the rise of a post-religious and postmetaphysical justification for society itself. In such a modern and progressive society, the ‘secular’ is bound up with rationalist understandings of life, and looks to the world alone to explain human existence. The shifting web of ideas stemming from the Enlightenment, including political liberalism, pragmatism, relativism, materialism, logical positivism, naturalism and even nihilism, have become entwined with this secular ethos forming the political doctrine known as ‘secularism’. The danger here is to attribute a more substantial content to ‘secularism’ by assimilating it to various notions that are connected with it, but are unquestionably different from it. Secularism remains an extremely difficult concept to define, and one that is easy to misinterpret. Nevertheless, ‘secularism’ has increasingly acquired a somewhat wider series of meanings and has become largely intertwined with a range of progressive sociopolitical philosophies that were not totally coherent or clearly bounded, but their combined aim was unmistakably the creation of a secular public consciousness. Secular thinking certainly gave birth to a range of hard and soft modern ‘isms’ and ‘ologies’. In their more extreme form, belief in God is excised from public culture and life and replaced with a belief in the efficacy of human reason and scientific knowledge. Chadwick’s (1976: 17) gentle definition of secularization as ‘the growing tendency of humanity to do without religion’ is clearly an understatement. There is a clash between world views that presuppose God and those that do not. It is a process by which religious thought loses social and political significance and religious practice progressively declines over a period of time. It can be seen as the marginalization of religion to the private sphere. It can also be seen as ‘practical atheism’; to act as if God does not exist. ‘Secularism’ is often equated with ‘modern thought’, but while it is true that there have always been some who sought to eliminate religion from the public realm, there was no serious, organized or conscious plan by anti-religious conspirators in Europe until the rise of communism and National Socialism. Taylor (2007: 2) says we have moved from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and unproblematic to one in which it is merely one option among many others. Taylor believes that what makes this ‘secularism’ different

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from previous understandings is the fact that it is marked by an unprecedented pluralism of outlook, both religious and non-religious, in which the proportion of religious belief is smaller than ever before. Belief in God is no longer axiomatic and religion first retreats from the public space and second declines among the populace in terms of belief and practice. A series of secularization theories arose to explain this process, but they overwhelmingly perceived the tide of secularism as both universal and inevitable, with some protagonists even announcing the triumph of secularisation itself. It is perhaps too easy to accept, even in Europe, that a pious past has given way to a Godless present, especially as the belief that the world is becoming more secular has proved to be a myth (Berger 1999). Today, there are clearly two trends: the spread of secularism in some regions, particularly in Western Europe, Canada and Australia; and the resurgence of religion practically everywhere else. Europe has largely become a secular region in which Christianity has a residual presence and in which many aspects of public life, political, legal, economic, education and moral have been secularized in the midst of a religiously mobilized world. Hauerwas (2007: 173) has observed that ‘the habits that constitute the secular imagination are so embedded in how Christians understand the world we no longer have the ability to recognize the power they have over us’. Modern secular currents of thought function to undercut religious belief and practice, and indeed make it hard to sustain faith and belief among modern Christians. Almost all Europeans live in a secular liberal democracy with a strong rhetoric of freedom, personal autonomy and a belief in continued progress. All of this potentially separates Christianity from the communal base that renders it viable. As Budde and Wright (2004: 19, 21, 258) say, ‘liberal commitments have become more deterministic for Christians than their commitments arising out of baptism’. So there is a sense in which the church is secularizing itself – what Newman called secularizing conscience with the ‘right of thinking, speaking, writing and acting’ as one sees fit. It is about the development of a secularized mentality into which the notion of the falseness of the Christian message slowly seeps into our assumptions, perceptions and actions. It is much more than simply the separation of religion from secular government, which is essentially a political issue. Philosophically, the ‘secular’ can be considered as conceptually prior to the political doctrine of ‘secularism’. However, a secular world or society is not necessarily a society without God, as the separation of religion from various aspects of life is compatible with high levels of religious belief and practice as is the case in the USA. Different manifestations and degrees of secularity may result in positive (pro-secular) and negative (anti-religious) outcomes. In the positive dimension, a kind of secular mentality has the theoretical potential to be neutral – we all engage in secular tasks; working, eating, looking after others and all are essential and necessary to human life – none of these require to be imbued with any explicit religious meaning. Nevertheless, each of these activities or functions may be understood or point to something eternal, but many people living fully secular lives do not recognize this. Nevertheless,

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positive and full engagement with the secular world is essential, including those who are religious, as it can lead to the improvement of society which is a good in itself. ‘Secular’ can shift in meaning from the pro-secular to the second sense, in which it becomes anti-religious. In this second sense, it may build a non-theistic belief system which can either be indifferent to religion, or antireligious. So secularity can lead to secularism, which has a strong impulse and polemic within it to be anti-religious. Secularism is an ideology that seeks to complete and enforce secularization. Indeed, the European idea of the ‘secular’, as held by many academics, has shifted over time and now judges religion as irrational and meaningless. In this reading of secularity, human beings are reduced to biological and material forces. A view emerges that considers religion as a private matter; it views religion as an individual’s religion. Religion is simply something you may have, if you will. This highly individualistic meaning of expressing a religious faith in turn leads to relativism, since it is based on the assumption that the autonomous individual is the ultimate judge or sole authority of what is true. Since it is merely what one individual thinks, it must remain private and must not intrude into public space. So, whereas the secular state and its institutions seem to accommodate religious belief, they nevertheless treat the propositional truth claims of religion as ultimately false. It follows that all religions ought to be treated equally because all are equally untrue. It could be said that no religious or philosophical truth claims are considered or held to be true in a liberal secular society. This is not to say that secular government is necessarily neutral, or even-handed, with regard to competing world views. As MacIntyre (in Knight 1998: 238) clearly argues, the activities of government are such that they are not neutral in their effect between ways of life because they undermine some and promote others. He believes that liberal democracies adopt incoherent and inconsistent stances on a range of issues because they appeal to ‘different and sometimes incompatible values, here giving market considerations an overriding value, there denying them this weight, here accepting governmental responsibility for this or that aspect of social life, there disowning it, here expressing respect for custom and tradition, there flouting them in the name of modernization’ (Knight 1998: 245). He calls this approach the ‘ragbag of assorted values’ which are selected by politicians in an ad hoc way based on shifting conditions of interest. MacIntyre is clear that the moral presuppositions of the liberal state are hostile to Christianity. It is not the case, therefore, that a secular person is without belief, nor is it true that the divide between the religious and secular person is between belief and unbelief. It is between transcendent and the imminent belief. Secular belief is in the absolute reality of the concrete; the immediate moment. It is a belief in the exclusive power of empirical observation to determine what is true, and it can often lead to the adoption of scientism; the belief that nothing in the world is real that cannot be measured or observed. In turn,

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secular belief can assume that the public space in a democracy is a tabula rasa. The common understanding generally derived from inherited cultural tradition is set aside as love, the difference between right and wrong, and why life is important; such things that cannot be measured through empirical observation. And, in fact, can society be a tabula rasa when it has its own history, assumptions and norms that go beyond appeals to rationality?

Civic society and citizenship Secular states are dependent upon a degree of solidarity among their citizens since the operation of citizenship is embedded in civil society. Active citizens in a democratic state are supposed to make effective use of their participation rights, not simply to pursue their own private purposes, but promote the public good. Since the liberal secular state cannot legally enact virtue in its citizens, it is clear that the virtues and, above all, the motivations required to sustain and promote a democratic polity often draw on religious sources or what Habermas and Ratzinger (2007: 101) calls ‘pre-political foundations’. Religion can have a functional contribution to the reproduction of desirable motives and attitudes since the modern state is not the only repository of civic virtues and moral authority. The long history of Christianity in Europe has moulded our thoughts and feelings and these ideas have so deeply penetrated our very being that we no longer recognize the origin of certain secular ideas in relation to citizenship as stemming from fundamental Christian concepts. For example, distinctly Western ideas of human equality, dignity and rights are partly founded in Christian doctrine. This is why some secularists welcome religion’s role in fostering public virtues, especially when such announcements are restricted to the general welfare and common good of all in society. In this process, the Christian goal becomes identical with the secular goal: the process is one of secularizing original Christian values and practices. Today, notions of citizenship are being discussed at a time of uncertainty and doubt within European societies. These notions of citizenship are often variously defined because citizenship itself is contested and is often reduced to a basic language of rights. There are two main views of citizenship that have emerged in the educational contexts of modern Europe. These views have arisen as a solution to political apathy and disengagement among the young and the growing number of moral problems in schools. First, a ‘passive citizenship’ in which, beyond voting, citizens are not involved in any democratic process and do not involve themselves in civic society beyond their friends and family. The second is a ‘participative citizenship’, in which citizens are actively involved in fostering community interests. In this view, citizens have a duty to get involved and to offer some kind of public service. The aim of the school curriculum in this view is to provide the skills that produce citizens more concerned about public life. Citizenship can therefore be narrowly or broadly conceived. In the broad view, active citizens are encouraged to take responsibility, not simply be informed about democracy. But the question

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arises over what these responsibilities and commitments are – what can schools legitimately encourage and support, since not all want to participate in politics? In the West, recent research by Putman and Campbell (forthcoming 2010) found that religious (meaning Christian) Americans are better citizens than nonreligious ones. They found that they give more to secular causes and volunteer more for secular projects, to mention but a few markers of good citizenship. These Christians appear to unite their self-identity with the faith group identity. Religion, they claim, can make someone a better person, filling a void in their sense of being and making them more altruistic, generous and concerned with the needs of others. Their religion provides social values that transcend social divisions and can even enhance collaboration over and across social status and religious divides. However, Putman and Campbell found that it is not particular theology that predicts good citizenship, but the extent to which believers are embedded in a network of religious friends. It is social networks and not theological teachings that make religious communities three to four times more generous than other secular Americans. Higher levels of self-understanding and commitment are found among religious communities, making them, they claim, better citizens and better neighbours. It is not faith but faith communities that account for these higher levels of commitment and they talk about ‘supercharged friends’, friends who are highly committed, and the more of them you have the more likely you will participate in civic events. There is a growing body of evidence in the USA that suggests that religious institutions and organizations generate social capital and make available opportunities for citizens to participate in politics (Putnam 2000; Weithman 2002). In Britain, Sacks (2001) and Gill (1999) argue that religious communities play a significant role in cultivating virtue, generating social capital and helping people engage with democratic processes. By social capital, Putnam (2000: 19) means ‘features of social life – networks, norms and trust that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives’. Friends and neighbours, together with other social networks, can encourage mutual obligations and responsibilities. Involvement in faith organizations or other non-political organizations can be a powerful predictor of political participation in such areas as voting, campaigning, party membership, contacting public officials and protesting. However, more research is needed to determine whether belonging to religious organizations has an influence on broader social attitudes. Do members cooperate, collaborate and coordinate better together? There is a long tradition of faith-based organizations serving civic life directly by providing social support for members and services to the local area. Indirectly they might inculcate moral values and encourage altruism. However, we need to be cautious of drawing conclusions about the political consequences of religion especially where a common religious heritage and a national identity interact with each other. Research in Bristol and Birmingham in the UK (Arthur et al. 2007; 2009) found that religious students were more likely to be involved in civic and political activity, but so were others with an ‘ideological stance’. This research found that religion may give them an

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‘other-regarding disposition’ and allows them to love and sacrifice for the common good. Schools that are inspired by religion often initiate students into volunteering activity – it can sustain them and provide more opportunities in a supportive social milieu. An identity of social responsibility is developed. There appears to be some evidence that religious believers constitute a disproportionate number of those citizens who are constructively engaged in both volunteering and political action at many levels. While religion is a significant source of this, it is important to state that it is not the sole source.

Conclusion MacIntyre (1981: 2) makes the observation about contemporary moral vocabulary, that ‘we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have, very largely, if not entirely, lost our comprehension both theoretical and practical, of morality’. Moral language has broken down, he argues, but the words survive – the beliefs that once gave them meaning have long gone. We have lost our moral consensus in society. The family is a principal source of civic virtues – love, loyalty, responsibility, forgiveness, trust, cooperation, friendships, toleration, fairness, self-sacrifice and much more are all learned early, particularly via the mother. These virtues are necessary for civil society and for democracy. Civic society is that zone of social activity existing apart from the state. It consists of private interactions that prevent the state from undermining individual freedom. It involves voluntary or private arrangements between individuals and groups in areas of social life that are outside the control of the state. Civic identity as an extension of citizenship and participation in civic society and democratic processes may be strengthened by the identity and community people derive from their private affiliations – such as religion. For some people, living in a pluralist or multicultural society is simply living in a context where you recognize that a lot of people have peculiar private habits, including religion. Nevertheless, religion is a key factor in determining someone’s identity, and it is not simply concerned with abstract ideas, but is basically concerned with action. It can be a powerful determining factor in shaping a nation’s politics and religious values, with significant public consequences. The fact remains that the religious dimension is a vital part of everyday existence for a significant part of the population of Europe. While citizens are bound by reciprocal obligations to all regardless of faith and must participate in civil society; in the civil and social life of the community, there remains a multiplicity of ways in which secular governments and their agencies relate to religious groups. When the secular state becomes excessively secular in its orientation, secularism becomes the dominant paradigm within which political debate is conducted and religion becomes completely invisible. It has been the argument in this chapter that religion can sustain a society’s democratic energies and that religious believers may legitimately be motivated by and appeal to their religious faith in seeking to effect change in society for the common good of all.

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Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love … To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk. Habermas (2006a: 150ff)

Introduction There are a number of theoretical traditions of citizenship that have been addressed from a variety of perspectives. Within these traditions are three main theoretical perspectives that are associated with discussions about citizenship education, and all three have implications for religion and identity. The liberal perspective stresses the autonomy of the individual, the communitarian perspective focuses on the solidarity within cultural or ethnic groupings, while the republican perspective emphasizes ‘civic’ bonds. Republicanism, or at least republican theory, requires a demanding idea of what it means to be a citizen, and calls for a public discourse on the duties of citizenship. It is the theory that often underpins notions of education for citizenship and, because of the high demands it places upon citizens, it is worth exploring in relation to its implications for religion and identity in a democracy.

Republican virtue The word Respublica is normally interpreted as a general word for all free governments. Republicanism can be defined as the process of governing a nation as a republic, and it views the key notion of virtue and the pursuit of the common good as central to good government. Republican government, therefore, presupposes the existence of certain virtues, or at least recognizes the need for civic virtues in citizens. Citizens in such a republic do not simply hold a defined legal

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status that conveys rights upon them, but are expected to demonstrate certain commitments within a civic republican model of citizenship. Republicanism understands citizenship as a practice and usually incorporates a commitment to four interrelated elements. First, that the citizens possess and recognize civic obligation to each other through some kind of self-sacrifice; second, that citizens are aware of the existence of the common good and help promote it; third, that citizens not only possess, but act in accordance with, civic virtues; and finally, that a citizen’s engagement in democratic affairs should incorporate a deliberative aspect. Republicanism clearly places a set of high demands on citizens (Peterson 2009). However, republican theorists do not share the same understandings of either the basis or substantive nature of these demands. Dagger (1997: 196), for example, lists six liberal republican virtues for a citizen: respects human rights, values autonomy, tolerates different opinions and beliefs, plays fair, cherishes civic memory and takes an active part in the community. It could be asked whether these so called virtues are any different from a liberal approach to government and citizenship. Kymlicka (2002: 296) and others produce their own lists of democratic virtues that ought to be cultivated in the young, but all these lists are very similar. In fact, they are largely behaviours, not virtues, which are desired within citizens in order to maintain a democratic political system and a participative form of citizenship. In liberal democracies, people are generally allowed to pursue their own goals in life as long as, in doing so, they do not arbitrarily dominate the interests of others. Republican theorists offer critiques of modern utilitarian individualism and reveal its tendency to reduce the public interest to the aggregation of individual private interests or to private morality. There are two main issues which arise from this republican idea of citizenship. First, some forms of republican government appear to require an extraordinary degree of public virtue while others have a certain minimum which is considered sufficient. Second, there is the question of whether religion is necessary, or at least highly conducive, to the formation of public virtue. It should be remembered that republican thought only emphasizes civic virtue; not the totality of virtues, but only certain public virtues of the citizen. The problem is how to define these virtues and how the state can promote certain commitments in and among its citizens. In addition, it is necessary to decide whether or not there is a disassociation of religion and virtue. As seen in Chapter 1, some believe that religion has no public relevance and believe that while it may serve in the background of a person’s publicly declared positions on issues, it cannot, because they deem it irrational, intolerant and private, serve as the basis of public reason and it ought not therefore to become explicit in discussions about government, society or citizenship. The conventional argument is that the creation of a liberal democratic order requires, or at least presupposes, the secularization of the civic culture and the separation of church and state, which is intended to protect the private practice of religion from government, but also, it is said, protect government from the influence of religion. It is necessary, according to this view, to base

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public policy and public affairs on the neutral grounds of reason rather than on what some would deem to be superstitious nonsense. For many, religious intrusion into politics is an offence against their ideal of a secular public sphere (Haught 1996). Historically, in a largely Christian European context, it was virtually inconceivable for most to imagine that virtue could be sustained on any other basis other than through the Judaeo–Christian tradition. Without the Christian religion, the inculcation of virtue would require the creation of alternative institutions and it was hard to imagine what they would be. Yet in contemporary Europe, Christianity has a largely marginal status in public life and rarely questions the legitimacy of the secular sphere (Westerlund 1995). Republican democracy needs not only political institutions, but fundamental moral convictions, or what is often referred to as ‘habits of the heart’. A kind of shared civil discussion is needed which presumes that human life has a proper end, and that for individuals to realize their human nature in all its fullness, they must involve themselves in the affairs of civic life. Nevertheless, an excessive emphasis upon secular forms of republicanism may exaggerate the role of citizenship and diminish the role of religion in the inculcation and perpetuation of virtue. The historical claim of the Judaeo–Christian heritage of values and virtues is deeply built into our moral culture, but values are now increasingly free-standing and no longer seen within this Christian context. These theological principles are no longer anchored in society. While many still believe that we have some kind of a duty to our fellow human beings and that not everything in public life is political, there is a difficulty in both defining theses duties and justifying them. Some argue that a republican government has to be neutral about the definition of virtue, but it is surely necessary to define it before it can be promoted. Particular conceptions of the good society (Sandel 1998a: 325) in contemporary societies have multiple meanings. Republicanism seeks to promote and cultivate certain virtues, but it is often claimed that it does not in itself have a standard of human excellence, but rather leaves it up to the political community to judge. Does it therefore have some kind of vision of a good society, but not a total one? The republican citizen is one who engages directly with moral questions in seeking to build a common life and cultivate a common citizenship, as well as developing a sense of shared life based on altruism, civic spirit and fellow feeling. There is no fixed supply of these virtues for they need to be recreated in every generation and they need to be constantly exercised in civic society if they are to survive into the next generation. Republican virtue approaches see the public realm in terms of political community and citizenship. The role of citizens is to act to improve their communities. Miller (1995: 447) observes that the deliberative process ‘requires of citizens a willingness to give reasons for what they are claiming, but not that they should divest themselves of everything that is particular to them before setting foot in the arena of politics’. This will naturally include their particular religious beliefs and practices. Active citizenship in its fullest sense involves both political participation and engagement in civil society. The idea of the common good in republican theory stands in opposition to the

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prevailing culture of individualism and to the over reliance on both expediency and efficiency in public affairs. People who do not participate in society or politics may prefer to stay at home as long as their government produces the means to their consumerism and their satisfactions. Individualism makes us less concerned with others or with society. Taylor’s (1991: 5) description of ‘instrumental reason’ is a kind of rationality in which ‘we calculate the most economical application of means to a given end’ and look for the maximum efficiency, and the best cost output ratio becomes the only measure of success. Where people accept a rather facile relativism in which they do not challenge one another’s values, new modes of conformity arise in people as they strive to be themselves, to be ‘free’. The common good ought to have a higher claim on citizens than their private interests, one that affords them a specific opportunity to develop virtues. It is a shared responsibility that ensures both individual and material advantages of the engaged in common public activity. This common good is rooted in relationships with others as we cannot understand our own good without reference to others. Most religions stress human interdependence and are aware that individual autonomy can be hostile to claims of community. In this context, human freedom is only meaningful within a network of communal relationships that promote both rights and duties. In addition, Sandel (2005: 24) has commented that liberal politicians resolve that government be neutral on moral and religious questions and that matters of policy and law be debated and decided without reference to any particular conception of the good life. But we are beginning to find that a politics that brackets morality and religion too completely soon generates its own disenchantment. A procedural republic cannot contain the moral energies of a vital democratic life. It creates a moral void that opens the way for narrow, intolerant moralisms, and it fails to cultivate the qualities of character that equip citizens for self-rule. For Sandel (1996: 117), citizenship is more than a legal condition, as it ‘requires certain habits and dispositions, a concern for the whole, an orientation to the common good’. Some of these ‘habits and dispositions’, Sandel concludes, are cultivated through attachments to religion that partly orientate citizens to shared values and common interests. The republican tradition emphasizes the need to cultivate citizenship through particular ties and attachments and consequently seeks to educate people for informed participation in public affairs. In other words, an education for the common good, or an education that provides the necessary dispositions and resources for public deliberation. Sandel insists that it is best for a pluralist society to discuss religious ideas and be open to religious arguments. He believes that religious arguments are no more sectarian than secular arguments. Consequently, he claims that bracketing-out controversial conceptions of the good that are born from religious traditions only results in eroding the health of society. Sandel believes there is a place for

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religion in nurturing good citizens and that those who simply avoid discussing religion are generally fearful of offending anyone. Indeed, in reality, those who claim to respect religious views usually ignore them. What is Sandel’s justification for encouraging a ‘new citizenship’ in which religion plays an increasing role? First, he believes that religion cannot be removed from public discourse so it is better to have it out in the open. Second, he believes that individual interests are constituted by antecedently established values and commitments that civic life and participatory citizenship should operate within the moral– political consensus of the tradition already shared by citizens. Sandel is not saying that a person is completely dependent on the way their social context defines them because the person also needs room to question and challenge the role and values offered by their communal tradition. He is arguing that all are implicated in roles given them by the communities to which they belong and these communities are partly constitutive of the person. Therefore, religious identification partly shapes a person’s identity and life goals. This appears to fit with a republican interpretation of government activity rooted in a particular place, citizens loyal to that place and the way of life it embodies. The UK government has shown considerable interest in ‘faith communities’, and has given them special access to ministers and an enhanced role in the delivery of public services as well as particular attention in public consultations. The range of faith schools has been widened, but over 98 per cent of faith schools in Britain still have Christian foundations. Secularism, of course, rejects this privileged place for religion in the public life of society. As we have seen, secularists view the world and life as entirely based on non-religious beliefs and values. They claim that individuals may still believe in God, but that their belief must not play any significant role in how they interpret the world or how they live their lives in the public domain. What role, therefore, can moral and religious arguments play in political discourse and in justifying the laws of a nation? Historically, the major radical objection levelled against the church was the link between civil and spiritual tyranny as many believed that a hierocratic society entailed a tyrannical one. There was a powerful Enlightenment tradition of objections to clerical influence in affairs of state, epitomized in the thought of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes (1996: 218ff) attacked the ‘ghostly’ authority for challenging the civil power, ‘working on men’s minds, with words and distinctions, that of them selves signifies nothing’. Hobbes is careful to affirm the existence of God, but he explains that the threat to the body politic came from claims by churches to have powers over and above those of the civil sovereign. The logic of sovereignty entailed that all authority, both civil and sacerdotal, extended solely from the fount of civil power producing, what is commonly called in Europe, an Erastian system where the secular authorities exercise supremacy over religion. In this view the ‘clergy’ are merely state servants selected by merit rather than sacerdotal vocation. The hierocratic form of religion is rejected: ritual and dogma are replaced by injunctions to virtue. Liberalism emerges as the solution to the problems of creedal religion and a clear distinction is made between church religion and civil religion, but there

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is still an acknowledged need for virtuous citizens and that virtue requires public morality. Civil religion exists when large segments of a population share common religious characteristics or civil religious beliefs. This may include the use of religious symbolism in public places, religious gatherings called by political leaders, the invocation of God in political speeches or on public monuments, but all of this is somewhat less than the establishment of religion. Nevertheless, it raises the question of whether or not civil religion is a separate and independent religion? There is a huge literature on ‘civil religion’ and there are as many definitions as there are interpreters.

Civil religion Rousseau (1968) defined civil religion as ‘a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject’. He believed that the civic health and morality of society cannot be achieved without a citizen’s wholehearted devotion to the common good. Divided loyalties will dilute this devotion and so he argued that doctrinal religion would dilute a citizen’s loyalty to the state. Civil religion gives sacred meaning to national life by allying the political with the transcendent which recognizes God over the nation without getting involved in theological differences. Religious symbols and practices are used politically to foster national integration and, in turn, celebration of national values can be understood and shared by all citizens. This gives society a religious dimension, or at least an alternative mode of believing for those whose traditional faith had been shattered by the scepticism of the Enlightenment. Rousseau had a deep antipathy towards doctrinal religion, and as part of the liberal tradition viewed religion as sectarian; he saw the need to overcome the intolerance of religion by having a civil religion as the common possession of all members of society. Public religion, morals and rituals were seen as a kind of department of the secular state. Rousseau was not content that citizens should be good: they must be taught to be so through laws, civic education and civil religion which he believed provided the social cohesion for society. In his Social Contract (1968), he rejects the neutrality of the state and urges that it should promote a particular form of living for all citizens through developing a non-denominational civil religion. This non-denominational religion was not based on dogmas, but on ‘social sentiments’ and was a civil profession of faith which treats the good of all as having priority over an individual’s own exclusive good. He described four types of relations between religion and the state or civic authorities. First, religious commitment is unregulated by the state and is free to function independently of any other authority; second, religious commitment is marginalized by the state and has no public presence; third, religious commitment is completely regulated by the state; and last, religious commitment is linked to sustaining the requirements of the civil order. He favoured the last, and attaches religious sentiments to the

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requirements of mutual respect and care that he believed were essential for the good of society. He believed that this civil religion invests civil obedience with deeper significance and gave the law greater authority. He even suggests that those who do not believe in this civil religion should be excommunicated from society or even put to death. He believed Christianity to be subversive of society and loyalty to the community. But was this notion of a civil religion merely an illusion and a distortion of traditional religion? After all, there is no such thing as religion-in-general, only specific religions that differ from each other and even have important divisions within them. It is important that we know which religion or which understanding of religion we are talking about. Rousseau’s idea was that each citizen would be in a direct relationship with the state through this civil religion, obviating the need for a doctrinal religion. It was a generalized religion or way of life which sought to provide a common national purpose for all and it provided for a public manifestation of religion. In the USA, the crucial point for Alexis de Tocqueville was the distinction between laws and customs. The Americans legally separated church and state; but in their customs and mores, they insisted on a prominent role for religion in public and private life. While promoting the freedom of religion, de Tocqueville observed that in America, religion had a public role in promoting republican virtue. de Tocqueville claimed that Christianity was the vital basis of democratic politics in America. Religion provided a base line of beliefs and manners so that ‘by regulating domestic life it regulates the state’ (1805-59). Hence, for nearly 200 years, this civil religion prevented a totally secular democracy from arising in America. However, American academics, such as the influential John Dewey, called for a religion that had little to do with traditional religion; a ‘religious humanism’. He wanted a religion (Christianity) that was more open and liberal, based on reason rather than revelation. Effectively, he wanted to recruit a liberal Christianity to help the state solve the problems of society. Political pluralism understands human life as consisting in a multiplicity of spheres, some overlapping, but ultimately the state determines allowable belief. Liberals can be blind to the way in which their conception of liberal principles and values poses a threat to genuine diversity. The classical view is that the end of government is the human good, understood as virtue and the perfection of human nature. Politics in this classical view is considered superior to all subordinate activities and aims at the most comprehensive good for human beings. The Enlightenment view was that no entity, individual or collective, can assert rights over the public authority, which must have undivided sovereign authority with unlimited power; public morality is based on rationality and science. In both these views, individuals possessed no rights of association other than those defined by the state. Intermediate associations were political constructions and tolerated only to the extent that they served the state. According to MacIntyre (1981: 117), the failure of the Enlightenment view to secure a rational foundation for moral consensus and political life means that the liberal tradition that it spurned cannot defend against challenges to the public authority and a disintegration of individual life into self-absorption and

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private gratification: if everything is permitted, then anything goes. MacIntyre, therefore, seeks to replace liberal theory with ‘something like Aristotle’s ethics’, but others have attempted to modify liberalism in the direction of Aristotle’s ethics (Sandel 1990; Galston 1991). No specific religious tradition plays a unifying role in modern Western society, and therefore the need to substitute a system based on secularism and pluralism arose. Christianity declined, and civil religion’s ability to shape civic virtue within a democracy has also fragmented. This civil theology has been reduced to an entirely secularized and immanent version of the Christian sense of mission, and yet the influence of religion on the world stage seems to have increased. In Africa, religion is a major provider of education and welfare and it retains a strong cultural resonance and symbolic power. In Europe, by contrast, it is often disembedded from historical institutions. Religious identity can be akin to cultural identity in emphasizing belonging without believing. People have their children baptized or circumcized to be a member of the group rather than for religious reasons. Since modern times, the motivations of the Europeans, and even some of their policies and laws, are radically different from the church’s teaching as they are no longer motivated by Catholic natural law or Christian charity. They are principally motivated by the secular materialism of the social welfare state that seeks safety and security in this world at all costs.

Secular education for citizenship The dominant contemporary world view in European education is underpinned by a secular ideology of education. Twenty-first century world views presented in most common or public schools are secular, with religious world views excluded, criticized or ridiculed. It is in this context that we must understand secular education. Broadly, it includes the total education that an individual is exposed to over a lifetime in a secular society. In the original political sense of a ‘secular education’, it simply meant that public schooling did not advantage any particular faith group. The ideal of neutrality for secular education is something that is advocated at a philosophical level by educationalists who wish to see a neutral learning framework or a philosophy of education that is neutral about a student’s ultimate beliefs. Theoretically, they seek neutrality between varied religious and non-religious world views; an education that neither promotes nor inhibits religion, and schools that are not institutionally biased. The aims of secular education became premised on the belief that there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world; no soul, no mystery and no supernatural. Ultimate values exclusively reside in human beings and possess no supernatural origins. If something appears to exist or lie beyond the natural world, then this is simply something that is imperfectly understood in the present – it will, the argument goes, eventually be understood and fall within the natural. This is the argument of Dawkins (2007) in his book The God Delusion, and many other militant atheists agree. Religious beliefs and practices are themselves considered nothing more than natural phenomena to be accounted for by human causes.

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The aims of learning and the school curriculum come to be understood within a framework of pragmatism and rationality with students taught to interpret the world in terms of human outcomes and results – a scientific explanation of the world. In this sense, state education tends to nurture a secular mentality that marginalizes religion from culture and intellectual life and contributes to the secularization of society. It can impose a secular world view that challenges the religious commitment of believing children. Martin (2005) calls it the ‘secularist indoctrination by the state’, but Dawkins (2007: 315) counters with the assertion that religious education is a form of ‘child abuse’. Wolf (2009: 179), a political theorist, has cautioned us against many of these atheist attacks on religion when he warns that ‘These critics do the cause of reason no favour when they ignore serious argument advanced on behalf of religion or dismiss them with theologically amateurish rebuttals’. Secular education is clearly intended to socialize children into a powerful set of naturalistic political assumptions, affections and practices. It uncritically initiates children into secular ways of thinking by using secular categories of explanation that exclude or ignore alternatives. In particular, it deliberately ignores religious ways of thinking about the world. As Budde and Wright (2004: 19, 21, 258) says, compulsory mass education in a liberal secular society is used to ‘diminish and dilute’ the integrity of particularistic Christian communities. It functions to undercut religious loyalties and advances nontheistic belief systems. It is no surprise that mass public education can aid the decline in personal religious practice and commitment and may also reinforce the impression that being secular and being young is synonymous. This secular education is popular with many young people because it offers them no guidance on lifestyles or morality, other than procedural and technical advice. Everything is merely about consuming, and the young become concerned solely with their material belongings, comfort and health as the only things that count; indeed the purpose of life is the pursuit of happiness in the here and now, interpreted in material terms. The secular person educated within this system has no other end than their own chosen desires. This renders the ‘secular’ synonymous with arbitrariness and informs modern consumerism and its attendant liberalism. This consumerism is largely an unconscious orientation of life and thought and clearly lacks any articulated or systematic philosophical representation. Secular education is informed by an ideology that privileges impersonal, deterministic forces at the expense of moral agency. It can leave the young feeling hollow and leading atomised lives. This secular education is not neutral because it shows partiality to a non-religious outlook and should therefore actually be recognized to be illiberal. The error of modern secularism, therefore, is not in affirming the political distinction between church and state, but rather in trying to disconnect philosophically ordinary life and education from God. It divorces religion from personal existence in society and removes religion’s social functions in educational institutions. In more extreme forms, it becomes a militant ideology and attempts to take the place of religion itself on the basis that we do not need God. While secularists claim that they are not

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against individuals having a religious faith, just religious faith per se, in educational practice this distinction is rarely upheld. Nurturing a secular mentality through publicly funded common or public schools tempts children to focus a great deal of their time and energy on matters that are merely accidental to their true selves – material consumption, pragmatic decision making and relativist thinking. The school curriculum is narrowed to job skills and the main standard that is taught is ‘personal interest’. Secular educational theory has turned away from religion to science, as the standard by which the nature of a human being is defined, and has become preoccupied with measurable, quantifiable, observable and replicable behaviour, effectively divorcing the physical from the spiritual. Efficiency and therapy become the two key words that dominate educational procedures. The religious beliefs of children are deliberately opened up to unending contestation which nurtures a belief in uncertainty. Naturalism may not be fully acknowledged or articulated but it is the closest thing to a philosophy of education that students find in a purely secular education. An alternative response is one in which the church translates its religiously rooted positions into language and arguments appropriate for the public realm, in a religiously pluralistic society. Education is seen by Christians as a fundamentally religious enterprise because it must be built on the foundations of belief, since there are no self-validating rational principles. Education is also seen as a conversation between generations. This conversation of ideas is embodied within a community – a community of memory which links people to their fellow human beings. However, Sacks (2007: 143) observes that The less liberal people become in their moral and religious beliefs, the more they need liberal democracy … While many are drifting into libertarian culture in which they find it hard to articulate any non-relativistic values, others are turning to highly non-liberal religious identities. They want to be chosen, not to choose. They seek meaning, not just explanation. They prefer community to autonomy, commitment to shifting allegiances … they seek something worth dedicating a life to. Some young people seek commitment and want to live for something higher than mere consumerism. They want to be inspired, but instead even the religious education they experience in school fails to take seriously the religious differences between faiths, and in so doing fails to respect the students who belong to religious traditions. As Barnes (2009: 13) says Many adherents of the major religions believe that their religion is uniquely true. Consequently, they feel that their religious beliefs and values are misrepresented by educational aims and methods that imply the equal truth of all religions. They conclude that there is no true respect for religious difference, for true respect acknowledges the right of religious believers and traditions to define themselves and not to have imposed on them the kind of fluid relativist identities that follow from liberal theological commitments.

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Education for citizenship Democratic societies have an interest in transmitting certain political values, attitudes and modes of behaviour to future citizens. In other words, it is in their interest to provide an education that strengthens the democratic process. The republican idea of citizenship education is essentially a community activity that promotes participation in a democracy. Aristotle wanted to make citizens ‘noble and good’ and so virtue was to be inculcated by the authoritative education of the political community. The intention was to promote the common good and moral perfection of the individual and make the person not only do good things, but become a good person. It is a broadened concept of citizenship education which seeks to make young people socially aware and responsible and emphasizes the importance of a citizen’s obligations to the general well-being of society through the encouragement of volunteering and active citizenship. At the heart of republicanism is the belief that the citizen should possess certain attitudes and dispositions and so civic republicanism cannot be neutral toward the preferential character traits of citizens as these virtues are essential for operation in the political community. You could argue that the qualities of moral character are a requisite of democratic citizenship. Consequently, there needs to be a formal education in these virtues within schools which develops the formative role of the state by promoting the virtues and values that it considers are beneficial to individuals and the community. Both the English and French citizenship education programmes in secondary schools were introduced at the same time in 1999, and both clearly emphasize human rights. Both programmes talk of values, but this is not the principal basis or content of citizenship education in these countries. The content of the curriculum in England is largely focused on political literacy for a diverse society, whereas in France the focus is on human rights. In both curricula, religion is neglected or completely absent. In England, pupils have to understand about religious identities, but this in effect makes different religions topics of study rather than religion informing the content and values of the curriculum. It does not involve pupils being helped to understand their own religious identities in relation to citizenship. The outcomes of teaching built on this kind of content are largely based on a world view of humanity as a marketplace of autonomous and competing individuals. Such notions of citizenship may refer to ideas of community involvement, solidarity, belonging and other forms of fraternity, grounded in a discourse of freedom and equality, a combination of which form the basis of an understanding of a rights-orientated model of citizenship, but this fails to describe the richness of human cooperation and obligation. It fails to persuade people that they ought to trust and love each other. This secular world view fails to provide adequate descriptions that are compelling for people to be moved to action, indeed, it fails to reach the heart. As Neuhaus (2009: 21) says

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Republican theory, citizenship education and religion a good citizen does more than abide by the laws. A good citizen is able to give an account, a morally compelling account, of the regime of which he is part. He is able to justify its defence against its enemies, and to convincingly recommend its virtues to the next generation so that they in turn can transmit the regime to citizens yet unborn. The regime of liberal democracy, of republican self-governance, is not self-evidently good and just. An account must be given. Reasons must be given. They must be reasons that draw authority from that which is higher than the self, from that which is external to the self, from that to which the self is ultimately obliged.

Ignatieff (2000: 23) recognizes the limited nature of rights language for defining citizenship. He writes Codes of rights cannot be expected to define what the good life is, what love and faithfulness and honour are. Codes of rights are about defining the minimum conditions for any life at all. So in the case of the family, they are about defining the negatives: abuse and violence. Rights can’t define the positives: love, forbearance, humour, charity and endurance. We need other words to do that, and we need to make sure that rights talk doesn’t end up crowding out all the other ways we express our deepest and most enduring needs. The idea that we are all, more or less, becoming modern and that as we become modern we will become more alike, and at the same time more homogenous and more reasonable, is a product of the secularisation of citizenship. It is merely part of a secular ideology of progress that has faith in humanity’s ability to evolve towards a universal civilization based on liberal democracy. Citizenship programmes in England and France make explicit appeals to inclusiveness, tolerance and equal rights in an attempt to foster unity and even a collective identification. If we understand citizenship as a legal status within a particular territory, in which the state enforces legal requirements and bestows entitlement to certain services and basic rights, then this ‘minimal’ or ‘formal’ citizenship may be seen as a secular construct. However, if we expand this definition to include the public practice; engagement of the responsible citizens, or public-spirited citizenship, and seek to promote this, then we are promoting a ‘maximal’ or ‘substantive’ definition of active citizenship which makes it more problematic to recognize as a wholly secular conception. Such a formative role for the state moves beyond simple citizen participation and sees its purpose as forming the moral character of its citizens. If, therefore, behaving and acting like a citizen involves acquiring a range of dispositions and virtues which help us to actively seek justice and promote human rights, then the more we ask of the citizen, the more religion impacts on the exercise of their citizenship. Weithman (2002), drawing on empirical research, shows how Christianity functions in politics and how Christians contribute to democracy by being good democratic citizens. Weithman argues that religion enriches

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political debate and aids political participation through developing political skills, especially among the poor and minorities. Christianity can certainly motivate people to get involved in their communities and many Christian values are, at the operational level, compatible with the secular values of the liberal state. It could even be said that in the very identity and virtues of the Christian, there is a stress on citizen action. Christianity can, and does, provide the motivational force for much active citizenship in practice, and we return to concrete examples to illustrate this important point in Chapter 3. However, should the state celebrate one set of values over another while assuming the rhetoric and symbols of the neutral public sphere? If we take one example from outside Europe we can see an alternative form of state involvement in providing citizenship education. In Pakistan, Islam is an explicit prerequisite for good citizenship. The aim of the school curriculum in Pakistan is the Islamisation of society; to encourage practising religious members of society, not democratic citizens. The reasoning is that only a good Muslim can be a good citizen. Strict Islamic teaching recognizes no division between the Christian concepts of secular and religious. A study by Nayyar and Salim (2003) found that many school textbooks contain statements that seek to create hate against Hindus. There was also an emphasis on Jihad, wars and military heroes. The study reported that the textbooks were full of gender-biased stereotypes. Some of the problems in Pakistani textbooks cited in the report were ‘insensitivity to the existing religious diversity of the nation’; ‘incitement to militancy and violence, including encouragement of Jehad and Shahadat’; a ‘glorification of war and the use of force’; ‘inaccuracies of fact and omissions that serve to substantially distort the nature and significance of actual events in our history’; ‘perspectives that encourage prejudice, bigotry and discrimination towards fellow citizens, especially women and religious minorities, and other towards nations’ and ‘omission of concepts … that could encourage critical self awareness among students’. The Pakistani Federal Ministry of Education rejected a textbook in December 2003 because it contained the text of a letter of a non-Muslim, and it contained the story of a family where both husband and wife worked and were sharing their household chores. The bias in Pakistani textbooks was also documented by Rosser (2004) who wrote that ‘in the past few decades, social studies textbooks in Pakistan have been used as locations to articulate the hatred that Pakistani policy makers have attempted to inculcate towards their Hindu neighbours’, and that as a result ‘in the minds of generations of Pakistanis, indoctrinated by the “Ideology of Pakistan” are lodged fragments of hatred and suspicion’. Pannah (2009) has concluded that the prevailing discourse and practice in Pakistani schools reflects authoritarian and exclusion-based approaches which hinder democracy. The Ministry of Education requires that students should be able to Acknowledge and identify forces that may be working against Pakistan; demonstrate by actions a belief in the fear of Allah; make speeches on Jehad; understand Hindu–Muslim differences and the resultant need for

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Little of this is compatible with European concepts of identity or citizenship because it is the Christian tradition and heritage that has both created the secular/religious division and encouraged a view of limited government. The large Muslim population in Europe is living in exile where it cannot establish Muslim law or an Islamic state and so remains a permanent minority within the liberal Western body politic. Consistent with Muslim law and tradition, it is a religious obligation for each Muslim to pursue the establishment of an Islamic Republic based upon Sharia Law. There are, of course, disputes within the Muslim community itself about the exact nature of this kind of republic – whether it should be ‘democratic’, or whether it upholds certain rights. However, it is the presence of Muslims within the body politic in Europe that has largely fuelled the debate about religion and identity and about citizenship within modern Europe. It has helped Christians recognize that citizenship education is not a wholly secular process, for it must also address and understand the significance of religious beliefs for an individual citizen’s participation in society. As Gates (2006: 589) says ‘… citizenship depends upon beliefs and values, and these are both religious and moral. Therefore, citizenship education which pays scant attention to the process and content of both religous and moral, warns us that the nation state does not provide us with our identity and that most people look elsewhere for that’. He warns that a politics that invades the totality of public life, destroys civil society. It is religion, he says, that best creates communities; what we need is a conversation between different groups. He argues that in our first language of citizenship we share an overarching identity, but that there is a second language – one of faith – that allows a respectful coexistence and that is bound by our commonalities to form a common space for common purposes that we seek together. However, in a plural society, religion can encourage rival identities and can even produce exclusive identities, such as the example from Pakistan whose education system stresses religious identity over national and civic identity.

Citizenship education in England Maynor (2003: 186), commenting on the English citizenship education curriculum, says that it is a ‘robust form of citizenship education that is consistent with the theoretical goals of modern republicanism’. An examination of the citizenship curriculum in England does not entirely justify Maynor’s remarks. Although the Crick Report (Advisory Group on Citizenship) (1998) argued that citizenship education in England ought to be underpinned by what it described as a hybrid ‘republican–communitarian’ model of citizenship (the model incidentally promoted by Robert Putnam in his work on social capital), it did not follow that the new citizenship curriculum incorporated this republican approach. The model advocated by Crick emphasizes the value of political participation by citizens

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and the extent to which this participation is reliant on community membership. However, the new citizenship curriculum is principally a liberal conception of citizenship education, emphasizing skills and understanding the adoption of a largely instrumental and procedural approach. The curriculum does offer hints of a formative element, but these hints are never seriously articulated. The purpose of the curriculum is described as developing ‘responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society’, but what ‘responsible’ and ‘positive contribution’ means are at no time described. It states that ‘citizenship encourages respect for different national, religious and ethnic identities’, and ‘equips pupils to engage critically with … diverse … beliefs … and identities’ and ‘explores religious cultures’. This liberal approach of outlining the purpose of citizenship education certainly defines religious identification apart from and in advance of communal attachments. In addition, a person’s religious convictions are worthy of respect and protection because it is identity-determining – not because they are born out of their particular religious tradition. The value of free choice of religion trumps the value of religion itself and this leads to a reductionist view of religion. Indeed, freedom of religion is now a right that is relative in the sense that it must make way for newer ‘cultural’ and even ‘lifestyle’ rights. In other words, it is gradually ceasing to be a right at all. A republican model of citizenship has the potential to incorporate elements of the religious formation of a community, particularly the high demand it posits for public service. The Judaeo–Christian tradition certainly provides the justification and motivation for an individual to care about the public good more than their private interests. Religious values and practices can be a source of inspiration for the state and therefore to exclude religious issues from citizenship education is unrealistic in the contemporary world. It is desirable that students learn about the experiences, ideas and practices of other students’ religious backgrounds. A religious dimension to citizenship education can foster mutual respect and understanding. This English citizenship curriculum also includes within it moral education or a moral component that seeks to justify deliberation in public life. This kind of promotion of civic moral behaviour generally isolates specifically civic principles from other characteristics of the pupils, such as any religious faith they may have. The state engages in compulsory religious education, but is careful not to attempt to inculcate the norms that give sense to the dogmas of any particular religion. Moral decisions are grounded purely in the choices people make for themselves. Children have no option but to perform a good deed, because the school has insisted they become involved in ‘volunteering’, but their action can hardly be seen as ‘moral’, moral actions must be voluntary. Children can be forced by their schools to engage in good works, but they cannot be forced to be good. The practice of citizenship does not grow because teachers wish it; it must be moulded and shaped for their role as citizens. This calls for a deeper form of learning and experience in which pupils are supported in developing their own sense of moral action and agency within communities. Kymlicka (2002: 345), while allowing that the state should be neutral between religions, says that the state can promote a particular religion

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on the same terms that it does a particular language – as long as it does so for some ‘neutral reason’, such as facilitating social cohesion or harmony or communication – and not for any claim of intrinsic worth or truth. This is the kind of civic religion that Kymlicka is speaking. He says liberals have adopted a stronger separation between religion and democracy through ‘benign neglect’. State schools in Europe have largely abandoned the Judaeo–Christian tradition in which they previously operated as there is no common acceptance of the values of any particular tradition. The nationalization of mass education has been inseparable from its secularism, but the secularization of schools in Europe has not been completed even if the various states have successfully relegated competing beliefs to the private sphere. Those who are still brought up as Muslims or Christians and are active adherents of their religions are most exposed to the teachings of religious leaders and their interpretation of moral standards in holy texts. They may, therefore, be more resistant to some educational aims and practices within the state system of schooling. The aims of mass education are largely governed by bureaucratic criteria that leave very limited scope for the prudential operation of the students’ faculties of judgment. Students are encouraged to follow procedures, not their conscience. Another important aspect of citizenship education is the question of how cultivating individual autonomy and cultivating virtue may conflict as educational aims in state schools. Autonomy is often understood as representing no other considerations beyond a person’s wants, coupled with an exaggerated emphasis on human rights, stripped of the responsibilities that go with them. Autonomy continues to be one of the main goals that justify a liberal notion of education intended as freeing people from the authority of others. A strong conception of autonomy entails the student deciding on both the means and ends of their life in society. However, young people are often incapable of making fully rational choices about desirable societal means and ends and so children might justifiably be steered towards approved ends with the option of a wider choice available in adulthood. In other words a weak autonomy is pursued with the emphasis on informed choice later. Dagger (1997: 118) explores the competing demands placed on schools in promoting both a critical autonomy and civic virtue and he recognizes the many tensions within these competing demands. Within state education systems, schools claim to seek to promote individual freedom and personal autonomy and generally support the right of the individual to decide for themselves which aspects of their cultural heritage, including religious faith, are worth retaining into adulthood. This is a kind of autonomy that Kymlicka says some religious groups may not value, but he offers no comment on whether they are wrong not to do so. Sandel (1990) observes that people’s religious affiliations are so profoundly constitutive of how they are that their overriding interest is in protecting and advancing their particular identity, to the extent that they have no interest in being able to stand back and assess that identity. In attempting to promote autonomy as a liberal educational aim, Rawls (1985: 246; 1987: 24) warns that it runs the

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danger of becoming ‘but another sectarian doctrine’ as it imposes its educational principles on religious groups that do not share them. He accepts that the personal identity nurtured by some religious groups is bound to particular ends in such a way as to preclude rational revision. Religious groups do not see their ends as potentially revisable. This is a view that Kymlicka (1995: 163) does not accept. Rawls and Sandel may only be speaking of minority religious groups, such as the Amish and Christian fundamentalists, as mainstream Christian Churches appear to have very little trouble with personal autonomy as a school aim as they have largely accepted the secular agenda in education. Weithman (2002: 41) shows how religion can be consistent with liberal democracy with the churches actually encouraging active citizenship and fostering civic skills among its members, thereby contributing to American democracy. Most Christian Churches accept democratic procedures and liberal educational aims, together with the legitimacy of political institutions. Nevertheless, mainstream Christian Churches are often portrayed as preventing their members from fostering individuality or examining their lives critically. Liberal commentators argue for the state to intervene and stop (what they consider to be) illiberal groups from passing on undemocratic attitudes and practices to the young. Liberals who argue this case often seek to persuade citizens to opt for common schools and a common secular language in order for children to learn and engage in an inclusive citizenship. They too easily dismiss religious people as illiberal and do not understand their need to shield their children from specific aspects of mainstream Western culture. Galston’s (1991: 221–4) account of civic education is particularly worth examining. He argues that responsible citizenship requires four types of civic virtues: first, general virtues such as courage and loyalty; second, social virtues, such as independence and open-mindedness; third, economic virtues such as the work ethic, and being able to adapt to changing economic circumstances; and finally, political virtues, such as the capacity to discern and respect the rights of others and a willingness to engage in public discourse. He also lists the need to teach children the ability to evaluate the performance of politicians, but adds that this ‘does not warrant the conclusion that the state must (or may) structure public education to foster in children sceptical reflection on ways of life inherited from parents or local communities’ (1991: 253). Galston (1991: 249) is clear that there are limits that education conducted or required by the state must not breach. While he argues that the state cannot legitimately compel someone to believe something, he insists that it can present arguments for and instruction in that belief. The distinction is not entirely clear, but it is inevitable that citizenship education, like any kind of education, promotes critical reflection and perhaps even critical attitudes towards all authority – including religious authority.

Conclusion Europeans live in pluralist societies within frameworks of understanding that serve to explain and accept the diversity evident in public life. Christians

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recognize different structures of authority that operate within different spheres of social life, and this provides them with a basis for opposing both totalitarianism and individualism in political life. The state is a social structure possessing legitimate authority within a particular domain of life, and it ought to acknowledge other social structures as possessing legitimate authority within other domains of human and social life. The ‘pluralist citizen’, as Walzer (1970: 225ff) calls him, is only a citizen because of his plural membership of other groups within the state. The state may remain the largest or most inclusive group, but must make room for other groups, including religious groups, and these groups, in a democracy, may make claims against the state. In this sense, citizenship is a moral choice, as opposed to a legal status, and is partly constituted by religious attitudes and behaviour. Human beings are not ‘independent selves’, independent in the sense that their identity is never tied to their aims and attachments. As Sandel (1998a: 179) says, while our identity will in some ways be open and subject to revision, we continue to value enduring attachments – attachments that are constitutive of the self. The separation of the ‘self’ between our identity as citizens and our identity as persons is simply designed to prevent citizens from discussing political questions with reference to their religious ideals. Sandel rejects this ‘dualism’ as an unduly severe restriction and believes it does effectively impoverish political discourse. As Sandel (1998b: xii) rightly asserts What makes a religious belief worthy of respect is not its mode of acquisition – be it choice, revelation, persuasion, or habitation – but its place in the good life, or the qualities of character it promotes, or (from a political point of view) its tendency to cultivate the habits and dispositions that make good citizens. It is simply not enough to remind children of the Christian faith in religious education lessons. Children need to know the literature, history and philosophy that made the West the civilization it is today. They need to understand the distinctive contribution of Athens, Rome and Jerusalem in that process, together with the role of the Judaeo–Christian tradition in developing and shaping the political institutions of democracy. They need to consider how citizenship and democracy will develop, in the future, without these influences. There are growing demands for public recognition of religion and persuasive cases being made for the benefits religion can make to producing good citizens (Marty 2000: 43ff, 71ff). There is an appropriate place in the state for religiously motivated attempts by citizens acting individually or collectively, to shape the agenda of political debate in a democracy. Education in schools should not, therefore, inhibit or discourage students who are self-consciously motivated by religious faith from exercising their right to participate in a democracy. Indeed, education should provide all students with opportunities to examine the origins of their beliefs, even test them against similar and competing beliefs but, above all, help them strive to act in the public realm according to their core beliefs and values.

Part II

Challenges of historical and philosophical interpretation

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Christianity, citizenship and education From antiquity to Enlightenment and its aftermath

Introduction Edward Gibbon’s Enlightenment treatise The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire set the tone for the eighteenth-century ideas of social and political progress through the faded glories of a classical imperial past. Decline and Fall is thus as much an Enlightenment vision of humanity’s future as it is a historical study: looking back on the fall of Rome and the emergence of Christianity from its ruins; and, with the optimism of Enlightenment looking forward to a time when religious obscurantism is abandoned, where the lost glories of Rome, republic and rationalism are resurgent. The initial volume of Gibbon’s work was published in 1776, the year of the Declaration of American Independence. Decline and Fall, many years in the writing, was a book of its time, seeming auspiciously to serve the needs of its enlightened audience at the dawn of a new age. Gibbon’s staggering accomplishment remains his breadth, depth and – even in days of Enlightenment – courageously original historical analysis. Writing the foreword to Hume’s atheistically leaning and posthumously published Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion made Gibbon few friends, but it marked his religiously sceptical credentials. If, therefore, a thoroughgoing son of the Enlightenment, sceptical of religion as any rationalist, Decline and Fall never fails to acknowledge Christianity’s immense contribution to Western culture, even to the foundations of Enlightenment itself. Gibbon’s perspective remains critically important in recognizing that the fissures between civil and sacred can be traced to the origins of Christianity and its distinctive emergence from antiquity. By contrast, contemporary citizenship educators have tended to neglect Christianity’s religious, political and wider intellectual discourse, consciously and conveniently neglecting Christianity’s integral contribution to the formation of Western civilization (Crick 2004; Heater 2004; Osler and Starkey 2006; Kerr 2010). Yet, without some rudimentary grasp of this contribution, any understanding of the acuities of education, politics and religion permeating the contemporary world will be an impoverished one. With a paucity of historical vision, the re-emergence of religious world views in the midst of modernity has thus posed explanatory as well as pedagogical problems for those citizenship educators who are ideologically committed to a secular world view, often framing

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the Christian contribution to Western identity in negative, even pejorative terms (Crick 1998; 2004; Heater 2004; 2010). While less concerned with formal education and schooling, this chapter nevertheless challenges the secularist view shared amongst such citizen educators, providing a corrective to any intellectual history which forms a narrow discourse of Western identity from the secular traditions drawn largely from antiquity, Enlightenment and eighteenth-century revolutionary democracy. Outlining the contribution of Christianity to Western intellectual and political identity from antiquity to Enlightenment, out of necessity, just a sketch, the chapter sets forth and challenges the secular perspective on religion and education inherited from the age of revolution which still, it is argued, dominates citizenship education today. It might seem anathema to ideological secularists amongst citizenship educators that the story of Western identity, even political identity, begins at the heart of the Christian narrative itself. It is anathema for a number of reasons, partly, for instance, because citizen educators tend towards a secular view of history and see little value in the delusions of religion, historical or otherwise; and partly, perhaps above all, because the Christian narrative itself has, and in ultimate terms must continue, to hold political doctrine in relative, in some cases undeniable disdain. Secular political thinkers, including many citizenship educators, hold that besides the fundamental delusional nature of religion itself, this Christian disdain for worldly citizenship has been and continues to be the reason for a lack of political progress in the establishment of such ideals as democracy, equality and human rights. To what extent, though, have the civil and sacred stood historically opposed, as domains of political, religious or intellectual activity? In contemporary context, to what extent can or should the civil and the sacred be reconciled in education, and other related contexts? This chapter will provide some investigation into the historical aspects of this question (from antiquity to Enlightenment), while Chapter 4 deals with the question as it applies to contemporary context.

Christianity, citizenship and education in antiquity The New Testament abounds with numerous instances where the ‘Good News’ or Gospel clashes with the most powerful traditions in the midst of which Jesus and his disciples find themselves, the Jews and the Romans, symbolized by Jerusalem and Rome. The most famous incident surrounding questions of religious and political authority in the New Testament occurs when, in the last week of his life, in Jerusalem, Jesus is questioned by his enemies about paying taxes to the emperor (Matthew 22: 15–22; Mark 12: 13–19; Luke 20: 20–6). Arguably it is this exchange which has provided, and continues to provide, the parameters for the debate between politics and religion. Jesus’ response is to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to render unto God what is God’s. It is not hard to see that this is the heart of the debate about religion, politics and education today: for what are the jurisdictions of the civil and the sacred and how are they to be determined, and by whom? The answer to this question has

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met with many responses across two millennia, but the question, alive today, is rooted in this moment of antiquity: differing historical answers have shaped the societies in which we live today, though the ancient roots are becoming dangerously concealed in the rewriting of the present in ways which downplay, ignore or even write out the religious elements of that history. Questions of the relationship between the authority of Jesus and the Pharisees or Scribes or the Sadducees are familiar, and nowhere more bitterly expressed than in Matthew 23, where Matthew refers to the Jews and ‘their synagogues’, clearly showing Christian exclusion from them. This exclusion from the synagogue was the beginning of independent Christian identity which had begun with the trial, crucifixion and death of Jesus. The conflict between the early Christian community and the religious authority of Judaism and the political authority of Rome is nowhere more forcefully illustrated than through the two trials of Jesus, one before the Jewish Sanhedrin and the other before Pilate and/or Herod the Roman political authority (Matthew 26: 57–64; 27: 1–30; Mark 14: 53–65; 15: 1–19; Luke 22: 66–72; 23: 1–25; Harrison 2008). From the crucifixion of this Galilean by Roman authorities, within three centuries Christianity emerged to provide the foundations for a new Western civilization. Christianity was shaped by the intellectual, political and religious contexts of three prominent cities of first-century antiquity, their individual cultural contributions providing critical material for a distinctively Christian synthesis that would provide the intellectual contours of the West through Renaissance and Reformation to Enlightenment. First, Athens, the source of so much history, literature, philosophy and a political system of democracy that continues in all its imperfections to dominate modernity and postmodernity. Second, Rome, which came to dominate, combining the semblance of democratic republicanism with an imperialism that would become the inspiration to later empires. Third, Jerusalem, the Roman occupied Jewish capital, destroyed in the 70s AD, and abiding symbol of Abrahamic monotheism. Christianity’s synthesis of these three cultures – Athens, Rome, Jerusalem – their educational philosophy, politics and religious life, was constructed from elements of each but transcending them all. (Of a wide literature see: Boardman 1991; Chadwick 2000; Bowman 2005; Bowman et al. 2005a; Bowman et al. 2005b; Walbank 2005a; Walbank 2005b; Humphries 2006; Matthews 2007; Harrison 2008; Joyal et al. 2009; MacIntyre 2009; Sartre 2009). The Acts of the Apostles provides further evidence of the emergence of Christianity in opposition to Jewish religious and Roman political authority, notably through the missionary activity of a Roman citizen, Paul, a Jew who had taken a leading role in persecuting Jewish apostates, most notably the Christians. The conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus was one of the turning points not only of Christianity but also of Western and, as a result, world history. The post-conversion and subsequent Christian missionary zeal of Paul (Acts 9) was also indicative of a wider transformation of the Gospel across the Roman Empire, including explicit discourses with the philosophers of Athens (Acts 17: 16–31). After his conversion, Paul appeals to, but transcends Jewish, Greek and Roman

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cultures with a message of Christian universality (Acts 14: 1–2). As Christianity increasingly appealed to Gentiles, the question of whether an initial conversion to Judaism became paramount, including central issues of circumcision and food laws (see the account of Cornelius in Acts 10). The Council of Jerusalem highlights the division between Judaizers, who favoured or at least sympathized with conversion to Judaism (Acts 15: 1–2), and those supported by Peter, Paul and James, who did not (Acts 15: 6–35). Though this does not prevent him being subject to the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts 22), in the face of charges by the Jews, Paul’s defence of Roman citizenship and his appeal to the Emperor is significant for showing how far the Christians saw themselves as separate from Judaism (Acts 22: 22–9). However, Paul’s imprisonment in Rome in the last years of his life showed Christianity had no ally within the Empire, a fact born out the intense Roman persecution of Christians through the remainder of the century (Acts 28: 30–1). In terms of Christian identity, it was (significantly) in the Greek city of Antioch where the followers of Jesus first came to be known as Christians (Acts 11: 19–26) (Ehrensperger 2007). Christians separate from Judaism were now subject to claims of being subversive of Rome. And Christians were frequently the subject of malign allegations in this regard. As Christianity spread, the religion became, then, less a Jewish and more a Roman problem. There was a variety of responses evident in the New Testament of early Christians to Roman authority. Thus, the First Letter of Peter entreats Christians to be obedient to the civil authorities (1 Peter 2: 13–17). By contrast, the author of Revelations had no concerns about offending Roman authority, portraying apocalyptic visions of Rome as Satan through covert references to Babylon (Sordi 1998; Storkey 2005; see also Schaffer 2003; Katz 2005; Rives 2007). In what would be a three-century-long age of persecution, early Christians could take comfort that the Gospel message spoke of the relative insignificance of worldly authority, and offer strength to those suffering. A notorious example was the Neronian persecution, recorded in The Annals of Tacitus. Suetonius also records Nero inflicting punishment ‘on the Christians’, describing ‘a set of men adhering to a novel and mischievous superstition’ (Vita Neronis xvi; Bettenson 1979: 2). Persecutions were particularly intense in the reigns of Aurelius, Decius, Domitian and Valerian. In the reign of the comparatively moderate Claudius (and few compared to Nero would not seem moderate), Suetonius narrates the exasperation of the emperor at the constant complaints against the Christians, expelling not the latter from Rome but the Jews of the city who were making the complaints ‘Since the Jews were continually making disturbance at the instigation of Chrestus, he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome’. Pliny the Younger (62–c. 113) attests, however, that Christianity itself was under interdict by Roman statute from its early years. Thus, regarding the Christians of Bithynia, Pliny asks advice of the Emperor Trajan. [T]his is the course that I have adopted in the case of those brought before me as Christians. I ask them if they are Christians. If they admit it I repeat

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the question a second time and a third time, threatening capital punishment; if they persist I sentence them to death. For I do not doubt that whatever kind of crime it may be to which they have confessed, their pertinacity and obstinacy should certainly be punished. In a situation not dissimilar to that in which Saint Paul found himself (Acts 18), Pliny comments ‘There were others who displayed a like madness and whom I reserved to be sent to Rome, since they were Roman citizens’ (Bettenson 1979: 3; see also Goosen and Tomlinson 1999; Mosse 2007; Harrison 2008). The most often cited reasons for Christian persecution were curiously those of impiety. The refusal of the Christians to offer sacrifices to Roman gods was often both a way of identifying their guilt and a means of justifying their indictment. Thus, in Trajan’s approving reply to Pliny, the emperor comments You have taken the right line, my dear Pliny, in examining the cases of those denounced to you as Christians, for no hard and fast rule can be laid down, of universal application. They are not to be sought out; if they are informed against, and the charge is proved, they are to be punished, with this reservation – that if any one denies that he is a Christian, and actually proves it, that is by worshipping our gods, he shall be pardoned as a result of his recantation, however suspect he may have been with respect to the past. No doubt in recognition of the perceived liberality of Rome, he comments ‘Pamphlets published anonymously should carry no weight whatsoever. They constitute a very bad precedent, and are also out of keeping with this age’ (Bettenson, 1979: 4; see also Pocock 1999; Chadwick 2001; Cameron et al. 2005; Rives 2007). If the age of persecution demonstrated a fundamental conflict between religious and political authority, the mid-first century until the early second century was pivotal to the foundational New Testament texts; the canon of the Christian Church, distinguishing between Jewish ‘Old Testament’ and Christian ‘New Testament’, establishing the Christian Bible – the book which, more than any other, shaped the Christian West, religiously, politically and educationally across an entire sway of intellectual history. Bearing in mind that the Bible was regarded as the guide to Christian life, in the fraught and violent centuries of persecution, there were understandably intense debates about the nature and extent of what learning Christians might take from Athens or Rome, in other words, what should be the basis of Christianity’s wider intellectual formation? There were those who took a liberal view of such learning, as Justin in his Apology (c. 150) suggests that ‘the teachings of Plato are not contrary to those of Christ’ (Apology II: xiii). Clement of Alexandria expresses a similarly positive view about the potential of Greek learning declaring ‘philosophy was a preparation, paving the way towards perfection in Christ’ (Stromatis I: v, 28; Bettenson 1979: 6). Marked by sadistic persecution, imminent eschatological expectations and a resultant disdain for the world, by far the more common

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were Christians revolted by the learning of Athens and Rome, or who at least saw only pagan vanity. This view was powerfully expressed (c. 200) by Tertullian’s De praescripitone haereticorum (vii; Bettenson 1979: 5–6). After three centuries, however, the troubled relationship between church and state was radically transformed by Emperor Galerius’ deathbed Edict of Toleration (311) (Lactantius De mortibus persecutorum XXXIV), followed closely by his successor Constantine’s Edict of Milan (312/3) (Lactantius De mortibus persecutorum XLVIII). According to Eusebius, Constantine’s battlefield meditations convinced him of the need for ‘more powerful aid than his military forces could afford’ and led him to seek divine assistance. Constantine’s conversion marked Christianity’s de facto status as religion of empire. An age of theocracy had begun. Christianity and Roman citizenship were effectively unified. The structures and organization of ancient seats of learning – the schools and universities, about which we have little knowledge – did not, however, suddenly become Christian. Indeed, as attested to by Augustine’s Confessions, secular Roman schools and universities carried on in parallel with Christian institutions for the century between Constantine’s conversion and the fall of Rome. Still, by 325 the Emperor Constantine was chairing the first ecumenical council of the church at Nicaea, and the transformation from persecuted religion to religion of the state was almost complete, the first ecumenical council of the church demonstrating unified political and ecclesiastical authority within the Empire (Lenski 2006; see also Bleckman 2006). The forces of theocracy could, and would, combine ecclesiastical with political censure. To be heretical in this period was to be against Rome as political and ecclesiastical authority. But the implications would be far reaching in terms of what could be taught and what could not. If early debates (Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and so forth) centred on what Christians should take from classical, that is pagan learning in a church now supported by political as well as ecclesiastical authority, change in the structure, manner and direction of formal education would in the postConstantinian period gradually shift towards the exclusion of classical learning in favour of works more suited to salvation (see, for example, Green 2008). The implications for education were enormous; for the age of theocracy was also the age of heresy (McGrath 2009). Each ecumenical council of the church marked new strictures in the definition of Christian belief (the divinity of Christ, the nature of the Mother of God, the doctrine of the Trinity) and, as a consequence, teaching more conservatively Christian (McGrath 2009). Where orthodoxy became a critical mark of belonging, and heresy or apostasy often meant exclusion and or exile, classical learning would inevitably become suspect, eventually atrophy, and for several hundred years become lost to the West. Thus, through this educational impetus, and despite the seeming harmony between religious and political power at the time, Christianity would increasingly be defined in opposition to ‘the world’, and this fundamental opposition would pervade the political theology of the first thousand years of Christianity and beyond. These towering ascetical, scholarly, and above all, saintly individuals imitated the retreat of Jesus into the wilderness (Matthew 4; Luke 4), and were those compelled

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to engage neither with the politics of church or state, retreating from this world in order to engage with the fundamental questions of human existence rather than in the transient management of human affairs. In the last of the three temptations, Jesus is taken to the pinnacle of a very high mountain from which to observe ‘all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them’, and offered them all if he would bow down before his temper. Citing the first commandment in refusing this temptation, Jesus’ rejection of world power, authority and riches was a fundamental inspiration to the desert fathers, and underpinned an eschatological concern with the ‘last things’: death, judgement, heaven and hell. If this pinnacle of otherworldly, early Christian spirituality was to be found in ascetical experimentation in the deserts of Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Syria, then this other-worldly attitude would help shape the medieval monastic traditions of Christendom. It meant that early Christendom, even as its churches spread across the Mediterranean region (even from the first century the letters of Paul address Corinth, Ephesus, Rome, and so forth), maintained an attachment to the desert while operating, out of the necessity of circumstance, in the everyday world of politics and worldly affairs, where Christianity could demonstrate in practical ways the cardinal Christian virtues of faith, hope and love, the ultimate of its virtues (Green 2008). With its cultivated indifference to political authority, the desert tradition provided a foundation for the enduring ambivalence of Christianity to secular political power. Yet, it is incorrect when citizenship educators suggest that this early (and subsequent) history of Christianity has nothing to contribute to the political history of the West or the development of political ideas which could be of value to citizenship or a political education. There was undoubtedly, then, as noted, ambivalence to civil authority when regarded from the perspective of the sacred. Part of this ambivalence to political authority was heightened in the post-Constantinian period which signalled the beginning of the fall of Rome as a political power, and its rise as an ecclesiastical one, including the emergence of the bishop of Rome as the heart of this authority. Duffy’s (1997) history of the papacy over two millennia demonstrates quite clearly the many and diverse interactions of religious and political power. Yet, the longest surviving and most enduring human institution, the Catholic Christian church, with in excess of one billion followers today, is rarely credited within citizenship education as having any role of particular significance to civil society over those twenty centuries, as empires have risen and fallen, and revolutions have come and gone. Rome’s fall was also the time Saint Augustine, one of the great philosophical and theological influences on Western civilization, and the thinker par excellence, wrote on the fissures which exist between the civil and the sacred. A university professor of philosophy and rhetoric, later bishop of Hippo in a remote North African corner of the collapsing Roman Empire, Saint Augustine might but for the special pleading of high episcopal authority, have followed the path of the desert. Of Saint Augustine’s prodigious output, three works merit particular attention: Confessions, On Christian Learning and City of God. By far the most influential of all remains his Confessions. Confessions gives an account of Augustine’s early life, showing an awareness of the importance of

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childhood and youth in the formation of the adult common in classical works such as Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics. Confessions records Augustine’s schooling and his love of drama and literary competitions. Revealed, too, is his deep experience of classical learning through various professorships of philosophy and rhetoric. His conversion experience changes his perspective entirely. Written in the fervent early years of conversion, throughout Confessions Augustine strives to distance himself from his pagan past, and the sum of his considerable intellectual achievements at all stages of his education as pupil, student and professor are compared poorly to the wealth he finds in religious experience. Around 395, the time of Confessions, Augustine began another, shorter and lesser known work, On Christian Teaching, which was not finished for another thirty years. Scholars have often wondered why Augustine interrupted or took so long to complete this work. From the evidence of Confessions, it is possible to argue that Augustine at the start of On Christian Learning was too close to conversion, too averse to what he had left behind to see how pagan learning could be used in his new Christian life. However, thirty years later, the mature Augustine, confident in his episcopal authority returns to complete the unfinished work. A scholarly manual guiding Christians as to what might be taken from ‘pagan’ tradition and what should be strongly resisted (such as the superstitious and vain), Augustine argues that rhetoric, when used for salvation, is useful, and even to be encouraged. ‘Since rhetoric is used to give conviction to both truth and falsehood, who could dare to maintain that truth, which depends on us for its defence, should stand unarmed in the fight against falsehood?’ (Augustine 2008: 101). On Christian Learning shows a profound Christian orthodoxy and a philosophy of education driven by overriding theological purpose, driven by and symptomatic of a Christian ecclesiastical order guide by the sole aim of salvation, against which worldly achievement pales into insignificance. Yet, Augustine was also a pragmatic thinker, aware of pastoral responsibilities. Recognizing that while Christians were in the world, though not of it, they needed to live lives in accordance to those principles set down within the Gospels. And here, though there is a strict and unbridgeable chasm between the fallen world and the world of salvation, there were nevertheless moral, social and political obligations placed upon all Christians, which would indeed decide their fate in the wider eschatological context of the last things, death, judgment, heaven and hell (Matthew 25). Augustine’s Confessions and On Christian Learning date from the late fourth and early fifth centuries, the time of Rome’s decline as a world power. Both works provide an enduring spiritual testimony to the ultimate limitations of political authority. Augustine’s magisterial City of God provides the theological principles for governance pragmatically necessary within transitory human existence. An account of two cities, the earthly city and the city of God, the one passing, the other eternal, his greatest concern is theological and not political. As in Confessions and On Christian Learning salvation, his own and those placed into his pastoral care remained his prime concern throughout his life as a Christian and as Christian pastor. In City of God, Augustine’s political theology

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responds to specific contemporary insecurities and dangers. In 410, Alaric had already entered Rome, and North Africa was not that distant from the heart of the Empire – distances were easily and safely travelled then, a woman travelling alone such as Monica, Augustine’s mother, could easily travel from Hippo to Milan. This gave Augustine’s meditations enhanced acuity. City of God is thus underpinned by awareness of temporality in all political institutions. Never in doubt that the secular world is no abiding city, Augustine delineates the purpose of the City of God through ‘the proper ends of the two cities – namely the earthy and the heavenly’, ‘not only through divine authority, but also, for the sake of unbelievers, through reason’ (442). If Augustine accepts the limited worldly power of political authority, and if he accepts that for the sake of those who not believe, appeals to reason as much as revelation are necessary for the sake of those without faith, then the gulf which separates church and state is made clear in unambiguous metaphysical terms Those, however, who have held that the final good and evil are in this life, whether they place the supreme good in the body, or in the soul, or in both – and indeed, to express it more explicitly, whether they place it in pleasure or in virtue or both; whether in rest or virtue or both; whether in pleasure and rest simultaneously or in virtue or in all of these; whether in the primary things of nature or in virtue or in all of these – they wanted to be happy here and now and, through an astonishing vanity, they wanted to be made happy by their own actions. (Augustine 2005: 443) True human happiness in this vision will ultimately only be found in the City of God. If Augustine’s vision of transient political power had a sharp perspicuity during the closing years of the Roman Empire, above all it provided a great theological viewpoint with which to regard secular power, in which the institution of the church, the earthly manifestation of the City of God, in which the temporal could be seen in terms of the eternal. It was an intellectual and theological vision which guided not only the church to survive in the turmoil of the post-Roman era, but where Christianity became the dominant factor in the formation and shaping of Western civilization for the next thousand years (Green 2008; see also Pollmann and Otten 2008; Stump and Kretzmann 2001). In the post-Roman centuries, one of the remarkable European figures to make a material and intellectual contribution to the shape of Western civilization was Benedict of Subiaco, now patron of Europe. Benedict’s simple and short Rule for monastic life was destined to have the profoundest effects on the preservation of learning through the worst barbarities of the Dark Ages to the highest achievements of the late Middle Ages, the reforming Carthusians and Cistercians, and the teaching orders of Dominicans and Franciscans. In this context we see flourishing the wider intellectual and scholastic influence of the desert fathers in European monasticism, the mysticism of Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, and other medieval Christian mystics, and the unified

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intellectual, political, theological achievements of Christianity in the architectural glories of European cathedrals, universities and the provision of schools. In terms of the shaping of Europe in the post-Roman period, the creation of the nation states unified by the singular purposes of a common Christian belief, and an eschatological vision of life in this world as but a small part in infinity, but a life which would determine a Christian’s place in eternity. Popular consciousness was focused on the religious and not political (Murphy 1971; Morrish 2007; Zufiarurre 2007). It could not, therefore, be described as a progressive age politically, and the Reformation thinkers would argue the medieval period was not progressive theologically. But the determining factors of the world were always sacred rather than civil and, up to the Renaissance, Christian theology and the study of the Bible dominated the limited education which could be said to exist in a time of general illiteracy amongst most sections of the population. To what extent here have the civil and sacred stood historically opposed, as domains of political, religious or intellectual activity? Clearly, the civil and the sacred were reconciled, but pragmatically – people lived their lives under royal or feudal authority – but the ultimate gulf between the concerns of this world and the world to come remained, and cannot be understated. In terms of secular modernity, the height of Christian belief across European society was also politically and educationally backward, with feudal inequality, the privilege of birth and patronage the only means of social advancement. In secular political and invariably citizenship education terms, the subsequent centuries could only mean progress, with the further distance societies could make from religious domination the better. Where progress was and continues to be defined in these terms, the tendency of citizenship educators is to see the civil as irreconcilable with the sacred, and even incompatible with political progress. The coming centuries would witness a reversal of the fortunes of the civil and the sacred. The beginning of this shift in balance would begin with the replaying of conflict of antiquity, between Christianity and pagan or classical learning, in a period which came to be known as the Renaissance. This rebirth of the Greek and Roman traditions would impact upon the study of classical languages, history, philosophy, politics, and also theology, in figures as diverse as Aquinas and Bacon to Machiavelli, More and Montaigne. In so doing, the Renaissance would provide the intellectual foundations of both Reformation and, in turn, Enlightenment, and those movements of political change known as revolutionary democracy, and after a millennia and a half of Christian hegemony, the ascendancy of the civil over the sacred (for example, Chadwick 1999; see also Kristeller 1980; Chadwick 1999; Coleman 2000; Chadwick 2001; Bagchi and Steinmetz 2004; Charlton 2007; Burkhardt 2008; Gordon and White 2009).

Christianity, citizenship and education in Enlightenment and its aftermath On Immanuel Kant’s gravestone friends chose words from the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) for his epitaph ‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and

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increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me’ (5: 161 33–6). Kant continues I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence. The first starts at the place that I occupy in the external world of the senses, and extends the connection in which I stand into the limitless magnitude of worlds upon worlds, systems upon systems, as well as into the boundless times of their periodic motion, their beginning and continuation. The second begins with my invisible self, my personality, and displays to me a world that has true infinity, but which can only be detected through the understanding, and with which … I know myself to be in not, as in the first case, merely contingent, but universal and necessary connection. The first perspective of a countless multitude of worlds as it were annihilates my importance as an animal creature, which must give the matter out of which it has grown back to the planet (a mere speck in the cosmos) after it has been (one knows not how) furnished with life-force for a short time. (Kant [1788]; Guyer 1992; 2006) Kant’s awe and wonder were the epitome of a new enchantment brought by the light of reason. Kantian reason was the pinnacle of Enlightenment. As Schönfeld (2007) comments ‘Modern thought begins with Kant … the appearance of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 marks the beginning of modern philosophy’. Though in his 1784 essay, ‘Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?’ Kant helped define an era, Kant was a creature and not founder of the age of reason (Guyer 2006). He was one amongst many Enlightenment influences whose key legacy were the ideals of autonomy, rationalism and the perfectibility of autonomous human beings, influences which ushered in the intellectual and political revolutions that characterize the world as modern (Cragg 1990). From a theocratic era, where it was often difficult to separate the ecclesiastical authority of church from the political power of kings and princes, came the Renaissance rebirth of classical learning. If the fall of the Roman Empire was a matter of regret to Enlightenment historians, the Renaissance was its redemption. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were transformed by the great teaching orders of the Dominicans and the Franciscans, by the foundations of the great European universities. But the new ‘humanism’ which emerged from the Renaissance rebirth of classical learning and in its wake the printing press would revolutionize knowledge, learning and intellectual history. As with early church debates about Christian attitudes to classical learning, there was now intense debate on how the new humanism might be interpreted, ordered and integrated into Christian learning. The outcomes would undermine the intellectual hegemony within the church on a variety of levels – politically, theologically and intellectually – and provide the foundations for the Reformation.

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Without the Renaissance, the Reformation would have been unthinkable, the new humanism providing the fractures that would divide Europe politically and ecclesiastically as well as intellectually, and thus without Renaissance and Reformation, movements within Christianity, the Enlightenment would also have been unthinkable. The sixteenth-century Reformation did more than express dissatisfaction with the ecclesiastical politics of the Roman Catholic Church, and created a fissure in Christianity more devastating than the Schism (of 1054) with the church in the East. Yet this fracture can be observed as early as 395 when the unified East and West of the Roman Empire separated formally into two centres of authority, in Rome and Constantinople. Incidentally, Gibbon provides in the later volumes of Decline and Fall some gruesome accounts of the sack of Constantinople in the pre-Reformation period of the late fifteenth century, and effectively the decline of large portions of the Christian East, notably in present-day Turkey, a legacy which remains incredibly relevant to present-day debates about European identity and expansion, and though it is often denied or submerged, questions about Europe’s religious heritage. Shaped by many intellectual innovations, such as those by Erasmus (encouraging the translation of the Bible into the vernacular) or Machiavelli (the influential Prince encouraging modes of political thinking questioning rather than deferring to authority), these secular, humanistic thinkers would provide the basis for a religious revolt by the great figures of the early sixteenth-century Reformation – Luther, Calvin, Zwingli. Politically, in order to control the church, the monarch took control of it. At the height of its power, the church could trump political authority through interdict and excommunication. The Reformation began the process of reversing this, raising the supremacy of the state over religion through national churches – in England, in Germany, in Scandinavia. Across Europe, the relationship between throne and altar would fracture politically as well as ecclesiastically, the changes sustained through education. The church ceased to exist as a separate entity within the state. Its connection with Rome was broken, much of its property including that of the religious orders was confiscated. A national church, with sovereign at its head, a new prayer book in English and a summary of doctrine set forth in thirty-nine articles, became the official guardian of education. (Aldrich 1982: 26) Formal education for most of the populace of Europe was not yet widespread, and remained the province of the political and religious elites, but for these select few, education in the post-Reformation period would facilitate a blend of secular humanist and theological education, Bible and Christian doctrine unevenly synthesized with classical learning. It was a creative mix, the epitome of its creativity observable in the age of Shakespeare, Donne and Pope, Descartes, Newton and Leibniz, Locke, Hume and Kant. The hold of the church upon this education was gradually being lost, particularly after the violent suppression

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of the monasteries; and the pedagogy of modernity was born: rationalist, instrumental and scientific. It was an age of discovery and exploration as well as dissent, and the skills produced would serve the administrative and bureaucratic needs when discovery and exploration would lead to the conquest of new lands. As the Renaissance had rediscovered the philosophy and politics of Greece and Rome, it had recovered too the classical sense of imperialism (though the Crusades could be argued for as imperialist, see Riley-Smith 2008). The consequences would be far reaching in forming the contours of the modern world which across Europe and America emerge in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and the strange phenomenon of revolutionary democracy. If Enlightenment history set the decisive responsibility for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire squarely with its adoption of Christianity, then Enlightenment hopes were a future away from the religious obscurantism of the past, but it took a century and even longer to make the beginnings of national education systems to reflect this. The Enlightenment can, in this regard, be seen as the restaging of the battle between Christianity and secular (political, philosophical) authority in antiquity, one in which, following in the wake of a now divided and weakened post-Reformation Christianity, the victory of religion would be finally reversed and reason could reign. Indeed, even an outline analysis of the Enlightenment demonstrates a dramatic intellectual balance of power between secular reason and theology, especially any theology which still countenanced divine revelation, biblical or otherwise. A frighteningly confident view of human knowledge emerged, and from this a notion of human perfectibility. From knowledge of our physical place in the universe (from the astronomical observations of Galileo to the laws of gravity discovered by Newton) and the extrapolation of experimental science to wider rationalistic and empirical methods in philosophy and science (from Bacon, to Hume and Kant, to Comte), to emergent models of democratic polity and accountable government (from Grotius and Hobbes, to Locke and Paine), the age of reason and science was also the age of utopia. If Enlightenment reason opened new frontiers in human knowledge, confidence in human capacities was seemingly unlimited. Thus, Newton’s importance was wider than his astounding formulation of the laws of gravity, perhaps not even for the notion that the world could be understood in terms of universal laws, but arguably that such laws could be understood by human beings. And if human reason could penetrate to the farthest limits of the universe there should logically be no limit to the bounds of human reason. If the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia put a supposed end to the post-Reformation wars of religion, at the same time it showed the extent to which Christendom had lost political authority. The intellectual implications for theology were immense, again particularly so for a Christianity divided since the Reformation. The new knowledge that flowed from the Renaissance and the explosion of humanistic learning which would lead to modern philosophy and science would confound weakened Christianity by further questioning the significance and authenticity of truth based upon revelation, and particularly the Bible, which arguably would reach its peak with Darwin’s (1859) On the Origin of Species. (Scientific developments matched political ones, with 1859 also the year of John

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Stuart Mill’s On Liberty.) The Enlightenment thus furthered the epistemological distance between reason and theology, setting severe restrictions on theology’s contribution to human knowledge, restricting religion to the development of moral character and distancing reason from metaphysics and theology. The Enlightenment was marked as much by political impatience as by intellectual excitement. Discontent that the rapid pace of rationalism and scientific knowledge was not matched by social, political and economic change resulted in the French Revolution, and arguably intensified the violence which accompanied its challenges to aristocratic and ecclesiastical hegemony. All eighteenth-century political change, from enlightened despots such as Joseph II of Austria, Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia to the revolutionary democracies of America and France, through Western Europe, and in the East to the borders of Russia, were founded upon an insurgency of reason. Though there are undoubted differences in attitude to the relationship between civil and sacred between American and French Revolutionary contexts (the former at least more overtly sympathetic to religion), the most notable impact of the ferment of the eighteenth century was in dramatic political change. This was nowhere better encapsulated than by revolutionary democracy, defined as the coercive, often violent establishment of government by the people for the people, drawing upon classical, pre-Christian sources of antiquity, a polity based upon democracy, citizenship and human rights. An age of revolution guided by the Enlightenment made claims that when obstacles to reason and autonomy – respectively the obscurantism of religion and the oppression of both church and crown – were removed, then societies could be guided on the path of relentless utopian perfectibility. Thus, it is plain that in the context of the French Revolution, if Condoret, Diderot, Rousseau and the French philosophes were the educational inspiration behind the amassing of human knowledge represented by the experiment in encyclopedia, then Robespierre was its politically revolutionary equivalent. Intellectual and political activists alike shared a dismal Enlightenment view of religion as a darkness out of which the light of reason would guide humankind. In this vein of thinking, unifying political power to enforce a new era of social and political perfectibility and, thus, human happiness, is best illustrated by contrasting two famous experiments of the French and American Revolutions. Thus, the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was made by the French National Assembly ‘in the presence of the Supreme Being’. The language is formally Deist but the emphasis remains on the ‘sacred rights of men and of citizens’. In historical terms, it is from both France and the USA that in modern times, we derive not only the language of citizenship and rights but models for their political implementation, including the fundamental right of the people to overturn despotic governments. Thus, the newly formed (then but thirteen) United States of America, in Congress on 4 July 1776 declared ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’.

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An Enlightenment vision of political perfectibility which retains a formal attachment to the terms of religion is intolerant of unwarranted privilege by tradition or inheritance, and vouchsafes the possibility of revolution against either political or religious despotism. Himmelfarb’s (2007) distinction between the American, English and French Enlightenments is important here. England, she argues, was an intellectual and moral Enlightenment which tended towards the revision and refinement of religious and political life while avoiding the American and French extremes of revolution. If the compromise left England with the fuzzy edges of an established church and constitutional monarchy, we need still to distinguish between the American and French revolutions in regard to religion. The motivation in France was based on the scepticism of religion, whereas the American separation was based on the genuine committed search for religious freedom. The French separation of church and state still embodies a faith in the state and conceals scepticism of religion, while the American separation of church and state still embodies a faith in God while concealing scepticism in the state. Thomas Paine here defined the political features of the age of reason as Kant had defined them philosophically. Written much in the manner of contemporary pamphleteers, Paine’s Rights of Man (1985 [1791/2]) provides a defence of the French Revolution against prominent attacks upon it, notably from Edmund Burke (2009 [1790]) Reflections on the Revolution in France, delineating the dividing lines between religion and politics symptomatic of that Revolution. Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason (1987) would settle explicitly the author’s sceptical views on religion – an attack on Christianity, the churches, the Old Testament and the New – on education, Paine was resolutely secular, stripping it of all prior religious influence. The correlation between Paine’s political faith and his religious scepticism is most succinctly evident in his famous classification of the origins and forms of governments through history. He distinguishes between those ‘which have arisen out of society or out of the social compact, from those which have not; but to place this in a clearer light than what a single glance may afford, it will be proper to take a review of the several sources from which governments have arisen, and on which they have been founded. They may be all comprehended under three heads. First, Superstition. Secondly, Power. Thirdly, The common interest of society, and the common rights of man’ (Paine 1985 [1791]: 69). By superstition Paine refers to Christianity in all its institutional forms; by power he refers to despotism and tyranny, the shared oppressive heritage of church and aristocracy; by the common interest in society he refers to the democratic government for the people by the people based upon rights and citizenship. The era of mass democratic politics was also the era of mass education. And from the late eighteenth century onwards, democratic governments would increasingly seek means of supporting political policy through educational means. It was thus one of the unexpected outcomes of democratic revolution that a mass education would become necessary in order to sustain the polity of the masses by the masses. Rousseau had realized this in publishing both Emile and The Social Contract in the same year (Rousseau 1968 [1762]; 2007 [1762]):

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in the latter, Rousseau is concerned with the social order, in the former, with a pedagogy based upon democratic principles. For if the church had dominated intellectual and political matters, it had also dominated education, and the Enlightenment’s marginalization of its influence in intellectual and political spheres would inevitably mean new forms of education, that new sets of pedagogical principles would have to be engendered for this new age. The principles, however, would take some considerable time to become established during the nineteenth century despite the revolutionary forces of the eighteenth century. And the only country where this intellectual or political liberty was successfully established was in the ‘New World’ – in France, Napoleon’s ascendancy formally ended the French Revolution – and here, despite constitutional separation of church and state, religion seemed to have retained a stronghold in both public life and public education. A young Frenchman called Alexis de Tocqueville took it upon himself to investigate, visiting the country where the republican ideals of democracy and citizenship had seemed to succeed, where in his own country they had seemed so palpably to have failed. de Tocqueville, when visiting newly independent United States in the early 1830s, set himself the task of examining the reasons for the apparent success of the new republic not by philosophical speculation but by methods we would call sociological. de Tocqueville made his way around America talking to the populace, his notebooks filled with observations from all strata of society, from north and south, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, clerical and political. Democracy in America, first published in 1835, made de Tocqueville his name. The work is of considerable historical importance for what it tells us of the political realities of the time, but also of critical significance for its enduring insights about the relationship of politics to religion. Despite the First Amendment, de Tocqueville perceives that the heart and success of the American experiment, so unlike the French, was a move toward freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, in which politics was a means of securing that freedom a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than by styling it a democratic and republican religion. This contributed powerfully to the establishment of a republic and a democracy in public affairs; and from the beginning politics and religion contracted an alliance; which has never been dissolved. (de Tocqueville 2003 [1835]: 120) de Tocqueville’s observations in the sphere of learning were that ‘education and liberty’ were ‘the daughters of morality and religion’. Here, writing at least of New England it is by the mandates relating to public education that the original character of American civilization is at once placed in the clearest light … Schools of a superior kind were founded in the same manner in the more populous districts. The municipal authorities were bound to enforce the sending of

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children to school by their parents; they were empowered to inflict fines upon all who refused compliance; and in cases of continued resistance, society assumed the place of the parent, took possession of the child, and deprived the father of those natural rights which he used to so bad a purpose … in America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom. (de Tocqueville 2003 [1835]: 84) To de Tocqueville, then, there is a separation of the powers of the civil and the sacred but a respect for them both, operationally the state could function according to the dictates of the Constitution, and the churches could exercise religious freedom without interference from the state. There is, therefore, no fundamental fissure between the civil and the sacred, only a practical need to separate powers. But the Enlightenment, in effect, marked the ascendancy of the civil over the sacred, and the freedoms allowed for the latter are, and remain today, within the gift of the state, and politically within the discourse of citizenship, democracy and human rights. To the citizenship educator, then, sceptical of the religious heritage of Christianity as no more than a heritage of obscurantism and centuries long obstacle to social and political advancement, the Enlightenment, this seeming victory of the civil over the sacred, was progress. In schools across the world in open societies, these principles of citizenship, democracy and human rights are promoted as if they were ideologically neutral, as truths ‘self-evident’. Three aspects of the aftermath of Enlightenment and revolutionary democracy are worth noting. First, politically, there were tensions, on the one hand, between those broadly satisfied with the theorization of democracy that could be refined and improved – de Tocqueville’s (2003 [1836]) Democracy in America or Mill’s (2008 [1859]) On Liberty – and, on the other, radical theorists who considered the eighteenth-century revolutions had not gone far enough. For Marx, for example, these revolutions were bourgeois revolutions, removing royalty and religion from power, merely replacing them with the rule of a new capitalist, property owning class. Second, religiously, both Enlightenment and revolutionary democracy ushered in an era of increasingly, feverishly militant attacks upon religion per se: from Feuerbach and Nietzsche to Freud, from Marx to Durkheim, the truths of religion and theology were deemed illusory, a human projection of unfulfilled desires upon an indifferent universe, the work of a primitive stage in the human imagination, and the surpassing of which was the mark of all things progressive. Third, there are the educational implications of Enlightenment and revolutionary democracy. Aldrich (1982) remarks that they did not produce the expected educational transformation, at least not in England, where ‘[r]ecognition was given to the wealth, respectability and social and political aspirations of the middling classes’.

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Christianity, citizenship and education The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts of 1828, Catholic Emancipation in 1829, the reform of parliamentary and municipal government from 1832 and 1835, and abolition of the Corn Laws in 1846 gave substance to this new ideal. In consequence its supporters were numerous and powerful enough to withstand, even in 1848, the assault of Chartism, that complex, syncretic, political, economic and educational protest movement which flourished in the 1830s and 1840s. Indeed, potentially radical educational institutions like the mechanics’ institutes, were often the means whereby ambitious members of the lower middle and artisan classes first became associated with the existing local social and political order. (Aldrich 1982: 25)

An indirect consequence of democratic political revolutions in the eighteenth century would, however, eventually be national education systems in the nineteenth century. Idealistically building on foundations of political revolution and religious scepticism, national education was, however, built on the more pragmatic needs prompted by unexpected effects of Enlightenment: scientific revolution engendered by industrial revolution, a working class that increasingly needed at least the rudiments of an elementary education which in England was provided by the Education Act of 1870. The liberal and progressive Europeans were able to use the advances of their societies to dominate other, less enlightened societies. A globally expanding market created by European colonial empires created, too, a burgeoning need for administrators, bureaucrats and a worldwide civil service for the more advanced education of the middle classes. Thus, only by the nineteenth century would ‘the rationalism of the enlightenment, a belief in progress in all things material and moral, the ideas of nationalism and liberalism and the increasing reality of collectivism, combined to produce the ideal of national education’ (Aldrich 1982: 26). But this education rarely mirrored the equitable ideals of the revolutions which had brought it into being National education, as seen from above, was to encompass the various strata of society, ranging from the great public and proprietary schools at one end of the spectrum, through three grades of endowed schools and a variety of private and elementary establishments to ragged and workhouse schools at the other. The education of males of the upper classes still looked back to the ideal or idealised societies of the Ancient World; in particular Athens and Rome. Public schools, Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the classical traditions surrounding them played a key role in preserving the aristocratic nature of English government and society; an oligarchy masquerading in the guise of a democracy. (Aldrich 1982: 26–7; see also Aldrich 2006)

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Conclusion As stated from the outset, this chapter has been less concerned with formal education and schooling, but has been keen to examine the religious and secular intellectual forces which have helped shape the education system we see as an integral part of modern societies. In examining these sources from antiquity to Enlightenment, this chapter has provided some considerable evidence that Western identity, not just Western secular identity, has not been shaped by purely secular sources but, in a complex pattern of interaction between the civil and the sacred, by a multiplicity of influences. A corrective to any narrow secularist view shared amongst many citizenship educators, it has been argued that any intellectual history which forms a narrow discourse of Western identity from secular traditions alone – from antiquity, Enlightenment and eighteenth-century revolutionary democracy – is culpable of neglecting Christianity in this history. More dangerously, as we shall see in Chapter 4, when this is uncorrected, a narrowly secular view applied within citizenship education risks becoming ideologically biased and pedagogically suspect. This is not to suggest that there are any easy, theoretical answers in terms of either the philosophical and or historical contexts themselves, let alone how these might be applied in contemporary context to the practical concerns of teaching and learning. However, without some fairness in the fundamental portrayal of political, philosophical and theological contexts from history, then we have little sound intellectual ground upon which to build our educational practice. What of the answer posed in the introduction to this chapter: To what extent, though, have the civil and sacred stood historically opposed, as domains of political, religious or intellectual activity? We have seen that history is fraught with tension, from the age of persecution early in the Christian era to the French and American evolutionary contexts in the era of Enlightenment, we know that the outcome of such tension was often violence. As we shall see in the coming chapter, subsequent history has not shown this violence to be lessened. Rather, history records an intensification of violence, often accentuated at the interface of the civil and the sacred, with education often being used by both sides to address wider issues of political and religious concern. Pertinent too are the often nihilistic consequences of downplaying Christian heritage and religious traditions more generally. For, as will be argued, in freeing the civil from the sacred, the Enlightenment itself also allowed for the seemingly limitless possibilities for ideological and political experimentation. Thus, one of the ultimate and unexpected consequences of the Enlightenment ideals of reason and autonomy – freeing the civil from the sacred – was quite unconsciously to set the intellectual antecedence for a political phenomenon, so without precedent that a new word was coined to express it, a lexicon of totalitarianism that would dominate political theory for much of the twentieth century. The theological, political and (in the widest sense) educational movements from antiquity to Enlightenment, with an intellectual gestation of centuries, would therefore provide the ground for mass democracy, but also the totalitarian experiments unleashed upon the twentieth century; new, more subtle formulations of which may be gestating unbeknownst and overlooked by citizenship educators in the twenty-first century.

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Religion, education and extremism From totalitarian democracy to liberal autocracy

Introduction In the twentieth century, key theorists of education have continued the process of marginalizing the contribution of the sacred to the civil, evident since the Enlightenment, and specifically Christianity’s contribution to Western education. In the early twentieth century, this is nowhere better illustrated than by Dewey’s immensely influential Democracy and Education. Published in 1916 – just over a hundred years after the American and French Revolutions, but a mere twelve months before the 1917 Russian Revolution, within a decade of Mein Kampf – it was a time when across Europe, militarily robust and expansionist states provided strong national identities for their citizens. And here, religion, in the public sphere at least, was increasingly becoming seen as largely irrelevant to these nation-states and their education systems. The early part of the twentieth century also witnessed – nowhere better exemplified than in 1917 and 1933 – the rise of autocratic and totalitarian movements, which provided a direct challenge to the presumptions of democracy. Dewey’s great work was thus published at the beginning of a century that would present massive challenges to democracy, and presents many other challenges for education to this day. The Second World War was arguably a victory for democracy, and the founding principles of the United Nations were centred on notions of democracy, citizenship and universal rights from eighteenth-century Enlightenment principles of autonomously reasoned moral imperative and the discourse of revolutionary democracy. Here, at least in principle, education, schooling and teaching were stated as integral to political change – as in documents such as the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights – where politics and pedagogy together were seen as the tools to create a new world order. The Cold War, however, reflected a continuation of the ideological battle between democracy and totalitarianism. The end of the Cold War looked like ideological victory. The end of the Cold War saw this process of reiterating the importance of education for ingraining ideas of democracy, citizenship and universal rights, notably in the 1990s through the UN’s International Decade for Human Rights Education and the subsequent World Programme for Human Rights Education.

Religion, education and extremism 73 Chapter 3 examined how the civil and sacred have stood in historical terms. This chapter examines contemporary contexts, asking to what extent can or should the civil and the sacred be reconciled in education, and related settings. If divisions between the civil and the sacred are of great antiquity – evident in early Western tradition in City of God, the great work of political theology by Saint Augustine – it is argued here that long historical perspectives can help deepen analysis of the contemporary relationships between religion, politics and education. Moreover, the battle lines between the sacred and the civil are drawn today most visibly and sharply in educational context. With historical perspective in mind, however, we are able to see these as contemporary signs of the re-emergence of a war fought in antiquity. Nevertheless, our analysis will demonstrate that some of the manifestations of the interaction of the civil and the sacred are different and distinctive of the modernity from which they have emerged. This chapter presents a contentious thesis. In phenomena that obscure the distinction between totalitarianism and democracy, it is argued that contemporary interactions between religion, politics and education manifest religious and citizenship education increasingly utilized as the pedagogical means to achieve political ends. Often, these ends are directed to ensuring social and community cohesion and countering terrorism. Most notable is the use of religion in education as a weapon in the war against extremism. Where these recent developments demonstrate the blurring by the state and intergovernmental agencies of the boundaries between the public and the private, these ideological moves subtly invade the sacred for the political advantage of the civil. Following an analysis of the democratic and totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, it is argued that the more twenty-first century states and intergovernmental agencies break down these boundaries, the more they begin to replicate the very totalitarian structures they supposedly oppose, here defined as a subtle liberal autocracy.

Democracy, totalitarianism and education The proximity of democracy to despotism was predicted in de Tocqueville’s warnings on the ‘tyranny of the majority’. A century later, in 1916, a mere year before the Russian Revolution ushered in the reign of totalitarianism, Dewey also highlighted the applicability of his two key principles of society – commonly held aims of coherence and shared aims of polity and governance – to ‘a despotically governed state’. It is not true there is no common interest in such an organization between governed and governors. The authorities in command must make some appeal to the native activities of the subjects, must call some of their powers into play. Talleyrand said that a government could do everything with bayonets except sit on them. This cynical declaration is at least a recognition that the bond of union is not merely one of coercive force. (Dewey 1916)

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For Dewey, then, while the terms ‘society’ and ‘community’ are ‘ambiguous’ since they can be applied to all manner of political arrangements, ‘Society is one word, but many things’. The early chapters of Dewey’s Democracy and Education deal with these commonalities on the centrality of education for social life (Education as a Necessity of Life, Education as a Social Function, Education as Direction, Education as Growth). However, for Dewey, the ‘devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact’. And, thus, his argument builds from the general role of education in society to education in specifically democratic societies. In Chapter 6 he discusses education as either ‘conservative’ or ‘progressive’, and in Chapter 7, the ‘Democratic Conception in Education’. In democratic context, Dewey accepts the educationally and politically intertwining ‘area of shared concerns and the liberation of a greater diversity of personal capacities which characterize a democracy’. The role of Dewey’s Introduction to the Philosophy of Education concerning ‘greater individualization on one hand’ and ensuring ‘a broader community of interest on the other have come into existence’ becomes, politically and pedagogically ‘a matter of deliberate effort to sustain and extend them’. Once his political credentials are established, the rest (from Chapter 8 on, ‘The Aims of Education’) follows. In the key chapter on ‘The Democratic Conception in Education’ a footnote acknowledges Rousseau. There is a much neglected strain in Rousseau tending intellectually in this direction. He opposed the existing state of affairs on the ground that it formed neither the citizen nor the man. Under existing conditions, he preferred to try for the latter rather than for the former. But there are many sayings of his which point to the formation of the citizen as ideally the higher, and which indicate that his own endeavour, as embodied in the Emile, was simply the best makeshift the corruption of the times permitted him to sketch. (http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/Publications/dewey.html, and all other citations, accessed 22 January 2010) Dewey, like Rousseau, is integrally connected with the shifts from the theological deference to divine authority and revelation towards the Enlightenment ideals of reason and individual autonomy. As with Rousseau, where the political ideals of The Social Contract are mirrored in the educational treatise of Emile, with Dewey there is, to repeat, an integral connection between politics and pedagogy. Dewey’s three-fold political history of education in relation to the democratic ideal demonstrates this; in no one of which is there any acknowledgment of the contribution of religion or Christian tradition in the two and a half millennia of political and education theory he surveys. First, then, he presents a reading of Plato where the ‘starting point is the organization of society’ that ‘depends ultimately upon knowledge of the end of existence’; ‘Unless we know the end, the good, we shall have no criterion for rationally deciding what the possibilities are which should be promoted,

Religion, education and extremism 75 nor how social arrangements are to be ordered. We shall have no conception of the proper limits and distribution of activities – what he called justice – as a trait of both individual and social organization.’ Education is therefore driven to and will depend upon the definition of ends. Education, as Dewey suggests, ‘proceeds ultimately from the patterns furnished by institutions, customs, and laws. Only in a just state will these be such as to give the right education; and only those who have rightly trained minds will be able to recognize the end, and ordering principle of things. We seem to be caught in a hopeless circle’. Plato’s solution was that a few philosophers or lovers of wisdom – or truth – may by study learn at least in outline the proper patterns of true existence. If a powerful ruler should form a state after these patterns, then its regulations could be preserved. An education could be given which would sift individuals, discovering what they were good for, and supplying a method of assigning each to the work in life for which his nature fits him. Each doing his own part, and never transgressing, the order and unity of the whole would be maintained. It is Plato restated to match Dewey’s pragmatism. Second, in mapping the ‘individualistic’ and cosmopolitan ideal of the eighteenth century, Dewey leaps two millennia to the Enlightenment, and it presents humanistic citizenship as an educational ideal. Here, though ‘[n] ature still means something antithetical to existing social organization … But the voice of nature now speaks for the diversity of individual talent and for the need of free development of individuality in all its variety’. In this context education ‘in accord with nature furnishes the goal and the method of instruction and discipline’. Dewey, primarily following Rousseau’s political and educational philosophies, shares the latter’s optimistic faith in human capabilities, where, as for Kant, the end of humanity is its fulfilment as humanity, and human perfectibility, where the ‘emancipated individual was to become the organ and agent of a comprehensive and progressive society’ (Dewey 1916). If eighteenth-century inquiry ‘freed from prejudice and artificial restraints of church and state had revealed that the world is a scene of law’, this ‘wonderful harmony’ would ‘accomplish the same result in human relations, if men would only get rid of the artificial man-imposed coercive restrictions’. Thus, as Rousseau’s ‘Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains’ – by which he means the chains of church and kingship – became a rallying call of the French revolution, as much as liberty, fraternity, equality, Dewey saw these as being achieved by the dual movements of democracy and education, one supporting the other. ‘Education in accord with nature was thought to be the first step in insuring this more social society … And since the natural world of objects is a scene of harmonious truth, this education would infallibly produce minds filled with the truth’ (Dewey 1916). Third, Dewey assesses the nineteenth-century tensions between Enlightenment ideals of autonomy and the control of national education.

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Religion, education and extremism As soon as the first enthusiasm for freedom waned, the weakness of the theory upon the constructive side became obvious. Merely to leave everything to nature was, after all, but to negate the very idea of education; it was to trust to the accidents of circumstance. Not only was some method required but also some positive organ, some administrative agency for carrying on the process of instruction … The realization of the new education destined to produce a new society was, after all, dependent upon the activities of existing states. So far as Europe was concerned, the historic situation identified the movement for a state-supported education with the nationalistic movement in political life … education became a civic function and the civic function was identified with the realization of the ideal of the national state. The ‘state’ was substituted for humanity; cosmopolitanism gave way to nationalism. To form the citizen, not the ‘man’, became the aim of education. (Dewey 1916)

Ever the optimist, Dewey shared the Enlightenment ideal of political progress, of democracy ultimately establishing rational and autonomous individuals who would assist in a march to human perfectibility. In this, and many other regards, Dewey’s pedagogy, like his political philosophy, is remarkably similar to Rousseau’s. Both are based on experiential learning, centring on the life of the child and not simply the imposition of knowledge. Dewey’s pedagogical–political perspective has been immensely influential in the twentieth century, notably in the critical pedagogy movement from Paola Freire onwards (Freire 2006; see also Darder et al. 2008). Dewey’s political and pedagogical rationalism has expunged all reference to religion. The historical leap in analysis from Plato to Enlightenment shows a secular future for education. In this, Dewey’s Democracy and Education represents the culmination of a political and pedagogical movement whose heritage is with Enlightenment, revolutionary democracy and pre-Christian antiquity. The cornerstone of much subsequent theory, practice and policy, Dewey’s educational philosophy can, then, be simplified around three principles: politically, that education should reflect democratic ideals; educationally, that democratic ideals be reflected in pedagogy; and that both politics and education should be secular, the future role for any prospective religion is humanistic, conceived as serving the pragmatic concerns of democratic politics. If postEnlightenment religion essentially lost much philosophical, political and wider educational influence, Dewey is prime evidence of this within the early twentieth century. Dewey hereby represents the sacralization of secular politics through the educational deification of democracy. Yet, the Enlightenment provided new opportunities for utopian experimentation in the century of Dewey and democracy. The totalitarian experiments witnessed by the twentieth century would be exercises in even greater freedom from religion. If eighteenth-century revolutionaries sought

Religion, education and extremism 77 to create utopias by force, the twentieth-century totalitarians took violence to even greater extremes (Gearon 2010a). No century in human history exceeds the twentieth century in the production of full-scale political dystopias. And if the eighteenth century came to be aptly, if crudely, captured under phrases such as the age of reason, the age of revolution, or the age of Enlightenment, then the twentieth century came equally aptly to be characterized as the age of extremes (Hobsbawn 1994), but it might also be declared as the age of dictators or despotism or dystopia. For even by the political anthropology of Hobbes’ (1996) Leviathan – a view of humankind as addicted to viciousness and war – the twentieth century exceeded even Hobbes’ pessimistic view of human nature. For it was the very highest values of the Enlightenment, autonomy, that ultimately brought the terror. There were no longer any limits. Power’s (2007) A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide traces this through the origins of Raphael Lemkin’s notion of ‘race killing’ or genocide – like totalitarianism, a new word to describe a new horror – from the Armenian massacres around the First World War, through Nazi atrocities to modernday dictators such as Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein, her book is a series of case studies in those new depths of horror. The totalitarian experiments of the twentieth century were free to construct, to imagine, from first principles, a new world, not simply as a utopian idea, an ideal but as something that could be created on earth. So, after the trial for treason, following the failed putsch, Hitler sits in a prison cell in Landsberg and dictates to Hess his vision of a world in which the Jews are eradicated from German life and Lebensraum, space, is created for the Germanic peoples, the Nordic Volk, in the East. And the dream, however dystopian, came to near reality. Barely a decade later, Hitler’s armies moved into Czechoslovakia and Poland. Sunker and Otto’s (2001) exemplary study of Education and Fascism details how educational strategies were, and continue to be needed by dictatorial regimes. Indeed, education and/or propaganda have always been absolutely essential to maintaining such regimes in power, not only by force of arms, but so often by force of popularity. Dictators, we should recall, often have at least the semblance of democratic mandate. In educational terms, and here we risk generalization, dictatorial regimes do blur the distinction between education and propaganda. Read Hitler’s Mein Kampf and you will see National Socialist propaganda much celebrated as a means of achieving Nazi Party goals. Mein Kampf is thus as much a work of education for the Party faithful as a work of political theory, a textbook of extremism. And, as the contributors to Sunker and Otto (2001) outline, in Nazi Germany, apart from the actual accession of Hitler and the Third Reich to power in 1933, the first actions visible to the outside world in the early months of that year emanated not from the Nazi party itself, but from one of the heartlands of the European Enlightenment, the German universities. The students at the University of Berlin were not directly instructed by the Nazis to burn books by Jewish and other ideologically suspect authors. Scholars working in, for example, Holocaust education puzzle still over a number of questions. How did this mindset occur? How were Nazi

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values inculcated in school children? What accounted for the enthusiasm of Nazi Youth? Were all the rallies compulsion? Recalling the impact of one man in the creation of the concentration camps of Europe between 1933 and 1945, we need to recognize that behind every statistic there was a human being who had once been at a German school or a German university. It was a process which resulted in trials and deNazification of public institutions, foremost of course, political institutions, but also education at all levels, and sadly, if to a lesser extent the churches (Sunker and Otto 2001). The term ‘totalitarianism’ itself arose within Mussolini’s Italy, when, in 1924, Gentile coined the expression uno stato totalitario (positively and not pejoratively) to define Mussolini’s efforts at statecraft within Fascist Italy (Schapiro 1972). Whether Fascist Italy was totalitarian, however, or simply autocratic, raises a multitude of other related questions in political philosophy. To what extent does totalitarianism differ from autocracy? Is totalitarianism or autocracy different from more ancient forms of repressive ‘governance’ such as ‘tyranny’ as in Xenophon’s Tyrannicus (Strauss 2000)? And what of the autocracy of Aristotle’s Politics or, as Popper early noted, the ‘totalitarian’ leanings of Plato’s Republic (Popper 1946)? Mid-twentieth-century political theory thus sought greater understanding of an age of ideological extremism – through Popper’s (1946) The Open Society; Arendt’s (2004 [1951]) Origins of Totalitarianism; Talmon’s (1961 [1952]) The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy; and Friedrich and Brzezinski’s [1957] (1967) Totalitarianism and Dictatorial Autocracy. Writing in the wake of the Second World War and all its horrors, J. L. Talmon was a political theorist who shared none of Dewey’s naïve optimism about democracy. Taking the violence and dictatorial tendencies of the French Revolution as a starting point, Talmon’s The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy lambasts the French Revolution as ‘political Messianism’, replicating theology to form a political religion. ‘The postulate of some ultimate, logical, exclusively valid social order is a matter of faith … Its significance to the believer, and the power it has to move men and mountains, can hardly be exaggerated … This religion emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century’ (Talmon 1961 [1952]: 12). Talmon’s notion of ‘political Messianism’ refers to the subverted theological terms of eighteenth-century revolution, but also the governing dictatorial premises of the Revolution which it shares with modern dictators and identified therefore as ‘totalitarian democracy’. Talmon, interrogating the totalitarian features of liberal democracy in the nature of revolution itself, examines in scholarly detail the key features of the French Revolution, its origins, its emergence, and above all, the violent imposition of its Enlightenment ideals (of autonomy, democracy, government by the people, liberty from ‘oppressive’ power of church and aristocracy), charting its catastrophic decline into the systematic barbarism and systemic violence against dissent. Talmon, drawing upon a critique of Enlightenment thinkers, such as Rousseau, uses those facets of revolutionary democracy to remind readers of those features recognizable within (then mid-) twentieth-century regimes. Eighteenth-century revolutionary democracy and twentieth-century totalitarianism shared remarkably

Religion, education and extremism 79 similar features not only in violent methods but more importantly a shared secular attitude of mind which was not neutrally secular but vehemently, militantly anti-religious, allowing for the creation of utopias where humanity was the end of humanity. As Alexander Pope suggests – in words which became symptomatic of the rationalistic and human-centred Enlightenment as much as Soviet or Nazi education’s flight away from religion – ‘Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man’. Talmon did not, therefore, look idealistically back upon eighteenth-century revolutionary democracy, nor did he view the democracy of the present with as much optimism as Dewey. He examined the critical notion of the Enlightenment’s political philosophers – key here is Rousseau’s notion in The Social Contract of the General Will to be universally enforced, if necessary by violence. Critical here is Talmon’s analysis of how classical (philosophical, Greek and Roman, notably pre-Christian) influences on eighteenth-century revolutionary democracy were shared by the totalitarians of the twentieth century, writing that the ‘strongest influence on the fathers of totalitarian democracy was that of antiquity, interpreted in their own way. Their myth of antiquity was the image of liberty equated with virtue. The citizen of Sparta or Rome was proudly free, yet a marvel of ascetic discipline. He was an equal member of the sovereign nation, and at the same time had no life or interests outside the collective tissue’ (Talmon 1961 [1952]: 13). Present-day educators cannot help but see parallels between historic and contemporary debates, for it is precisely this same subversion of eighteenthcentury ideology which has come to permeate citizenship education, the civil freed from the constraints of the sacred. Yet, with none of the self-critique of Western democracy we see in Talmon, the optimistic view of Dewey and democracy surfaces directly at the end of the Second World War and the formation of the United Nations. Dewey’s influence permeated the very foundation of the new world order after the defeat of Nazism. Formed within months of the fall of Nazism, the United Nations shared Dewey’s vision, inspired by the idealistic democratic spirit of eighteenth-century revolutionary Declarations. The creation of the United Nations at its core was an exercise in global change through education as well as politics. The formation of the United Nations might be defined as the beginning of an era seeking political moderation in an age of ideological extremism (Gearon 2010a). Thus, it is explicitly against a backdrop of totalitarianism that educational policies were developed with wider political goals (Schlesinger 2003; cf. Bailey 2000). So, the Preamble of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights presents an often overlooked correlation between politics and pedagogy, notably when the General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to

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In 1946, the formation of the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) renewed Enlightenment hopes of a new age in which science had made progress seem ever more possible. Though a vision tainted by genocide and mass death, and a war in which civilian populations were not the incidental target but key military objectives, UNESCO was able to declare in its founding slogan its aims of transformation of world culture in a new era of peace. ‘Since wars are created in the minds of men it is in the minds of men that they must be fought.’ And Dewey was there from the outset to address the opening meeting. The terms and context of totalitarianism remained important during the Cold War. From it would emerge the assertion of the primacy of a discourse on citizenship, democracy and human rights which had its origins in the Enlightenment and the eighteenth-century revolutions of America and France. Totalitarianism here became an assertion of the moral superiority of democracy over despotism while often conveniently ignoring the tyrannical aspects of supposedly democratic geo-politics (Schapiro 1972; Zizek 2004). Gleason (1998) argues, for example, that the term totalitarianism was of critical use in the last years of the Cold War, and perhaps even influential in winning the ideological battle that defined it. Particularly notable was Reagan’s description in the 1980s of the Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire’. As Gleason notes, (but see also Power 2007), Jean Kirkpatrick, Reagan’s Secretary of State, further refined American foreign policy debate by distinguishing between autocratic and totalitarian regimes, to justify US realpolitik support for the former (often in Latin America) but not the latter. Post-Cold War Western hubris was encapsulated by Fukuyama’s ‘end of history thesis’ (Fukuyama 2006). The ideological battle between citizenship, democracy, human rights against dictatorship, despotism and totalitarianism had seemingly been won. Educationally, victory was nowhere better made manifest than in the United Nations’ International Decade for Human Rights Education (1995–2004), and (2004 and ongoing) World Programme for Human Rights Education. In England, the secularity of this approach to citizenship has been largely unchallenged, as a cursory review of the many working definitions of citizenship in education attest: ●

Audigier (1998) – emphasizes the necessity of citizenship education to be socially and politically all inclusive, nothing of what is experienced in society should be foreign to democratic citizenship.

Religion, education and extremism 81 ●

●

●

●

Crick (2000) – emphasizes the all-importance in citizenship of political knowledge. Davies (2007) – emphasizes the need for pedagogical pragmatism, on enabling pupils to become citizens. Heater (2004) – emphasizes the educational–political aspects of citizenship in historical contexts through the ages, from the Greek city state onwards. Osler and Starkey (2006) – emphasize the need to move away from narrow national perspectives to a global and cosmopolitan citizenship. (Adapted from Davies 2007: 1–8)

Crick (2004) above all shows the exclusively secular distinctiveness of citizenship with regard to the meaning of citizenship at four levels. Firstly, it can refer simply to a subject’s rights and duties to be recognized as a legally permanent inhabitant of a state – irrespective of the system of government of that state; but the principles behind such recognition can vary greatly, especially in relation to migrants. Secondly, it can refer to the more specific belief (often called ‘civic republicanism’ …) that countries that enjoy constitutional government, representative government or democracy depend upon a high degree of active participation by inhabitants who themselves are active citizens, not simply good subjects. Thirdly, it can refer to an ideal (once held by the Stoics of antiquity, now often called ‘global citizenship’) that we should all act as citizens of one world: that for the sake of peace, justice and human rights there must be limitations of international law on the sovereignty and power of individual states’ powers. And fourthly, ‘citizenship’ can refer to an educational process; learning and teaching in schools and colleges show how to improve or achieve the aims inherent in the second and third meanings. (Crick 2004: 2) Often cited is the sentence within the Crick Report which indicates this wider public role of citizenship education, ‘We aim at no less than a change in the political culture of this country both nationally and locally: for people to think of themselves as active citizens, willing, able and equipped to have an influence in public life’ (Crick 1998: 7). Citizenship education is, then, not only a reaction to public and political life in the widest sense but an attempt to provide pupils themselves with the knowledge, skills and understanding to undertake active engagement within public and especially life. However, this and the range of global (for example, United Nations) educational initiatives are evidence of religion’s historical neglect within citizenship education.

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In a post-9/11 world in the USA, and in the UK a post-7/7 world, however, there have been moves to review the role of religion in citizenship. Thus, a few years after Crick, events prompted more urgent initiatives in relation to cultural and especially religious diversity. Thus, the UK Government Commission on Integration and Cohesion was established in 2006 to consider issues of diversity following, amongst other factors, the shock that the 7/7 bombers were British born, while the 2006 Education and Inspections Act made it a legal requirement for schools in England to promote community cohesion and for Ofsted to report on this aspect of educational provision (DCSF/QCA 2007). The Commission on Integration and Cohesion established a working notion of community cohesion defining a society in which ‘there is a common vision and sense of belonging by all communities; the diversity of people’s backgrounds is appreciated and valued; similar life opportunities are available to all; strong and positive relationships exist and are developed in the workplace, schools and the wider community’ (CIC 2007). Such initiatives have, in turn, been coordinated with attempts to enhance community cohesion through specific curriculum areas, notably citizenship. Arguably, this was a second effort, since Crick and the introduction of national curriculum citizenship (from 1999) was supposed to enhance community and political participation, but had a manifestly limited effect in transforming the sociopolitical climate of Britain as initially hoped for (Keast and Craft 2010; Kerr 2010). Thus the Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review (DCSF/QCA 2007), authored by Sir Keith Ajegbo, a former secondary-school head teacher, was commissioned to ‘review the teaching specifically of ethnic, religious and cultural diversity across the curriculum, exploring particularly whether or not “modern British social and cultural history” should be a fourth pillar of the Citizenship curriculum’. The Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review provided schools with principles and practical guidelines for facilitating community cohesion in respect to diversity and difference within citizenship. In its own terms, the Review was ‘commissioned in response to a growing debate about whether UK society engages with issues around race, religion, culture, identity and values in the UK today, in a way that meets the needs of all pupils’. As with the CIC’s final report Our Shared Future (2007), the Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review underlines the obligations from the 2006 Education and Inspections Act to promote social and community cohesion in law, and as a means of countering extremism within the classroom. A key recommendation of the Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review was that a fourth strand be added to national curriculum citizenship, entitled Identity and Diversity: Living Together in the UK, bringing together three conceptual components: ● ● ●

critical thinking about ethnicity, religion and ‘race’ an explicit link to political issues and values the use of contemporary history in teachers’ pedagogy to illuminate thinking about contemporary issues relating to citizenship.

These recommendations were included in the new citizenship order, a strong incursion into territory formerly that of religious educators (Gearon 2010b).

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Religion, education and extremism At an international level, Huntington’s (2002) Clash of Civilizations responded to the ideological complacency of Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ thesis by arguing that inter-cultural tensions between civilizations of the future would be based not on ideology but theology and religion. If criticized for introducing a lexicon of conflict into the post-Cold War world, for many, 11 September 2001 confirmed Huntington’s thesis. The clash of civilizations thesis was countered in the wake of the Madrid bombings in 2005, by the United Nations’ initiative of the ‘Alliance of Civilizations’. The persistence of religion in the context of global governance continues to confound and challenge the secularizing assumptions of modernity. Educational responses to the political resurgence of religion have been uncertain and faltering. Bearing in mind the historical antecedence of this narrative in classical and Christian antiquity, in the West at least, the complex interrelationship between religion, politics and education from the eighteenth century to the present can be summarized simply through four critical contexts. Critical context 1: Religion and politics Bearing in mind the long historical sketch presented in Chapter 3, in more than political terms, the post-Enlightenment separation of church and state presented the groundwork for a wider marginalization of religion in public life, often defined as secularization. The secularization thesis presented, in varying forms, an expectation of the decline in the public role of religion, and predicted its marginalization to the private sphere. When this intellectual tradition has been combined with totalitarian political power, such states have tended towards a militant atheism. Against the expectations of until recently uncontested secularization, religion seems to have retained a role in public governance, something noted earlier and elaborated by scholars in subsequent decades to the extent that some claim we now inhabit a ‘post-secular world’ (de Vries and Sullivan 2007). Indeed, long before 11 September 2001, religion had increasingly served as a wider political barometer. For example, in the United States the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act made it a requirement for the US Secretary of State to publish an annual report on religious freedom worldwide, freedom of religion seen to be indicative of a country’s respect for other fundamental rights. If, then, the role of religion in public and political life has been historically underplayed since the European Enlightenment, there is now increasing evidence of the importance of religion in post-Cold War public and political life, reflecting in a burgeoning and diverse literature on religion and global politics. Casanova (1994) was arguably the first explicitly to challenge the prevalent secularization thesis, a product of Enlightenment expectations that religion would increasingly become relegated to the margins of political and public life, and where it persisted it would exist in private only. Casanova used a diverse range of geopolitical contexts to challenge this thesis and, bearing in

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mind a Cold War context, argued that religion (in these instances Christianity) in Soviet Eastern Europe and Roman Catholic Latin America exerted strong influences upon social and political change (Casanova 1994). The extant range of contexts and traditions where, post-9/11, religion now exerts considerable sway upon global governance is one of the features of a new and emergent geopolitics in the early twenty-first century (see, for instance only, Marshall 2000; Gearon 2002; Woodhead et al. 2002; Himmelfarb 2004; Scott and Cavanaugh 2004; Davis et al. 2005; Juergensmeyer 2005; de Vries and Sullivan 2006; Fox and Sandler 2006; Hanson 2006; Haynes 2006; Hoelzl and Ward 2006; James 2006; Habermas and Ratzinger 2007; Trigg 2007). Critical context 2: Religion and the United Nations The United Nations incorporated and defined freedom of religion or belief since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but the early history of the United Nations tended to downplay religious and ideological diversity. Thus, Universal Declaration does include a number of articles of relevance to freedom of religion or belief: Article 2 (‘Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status’); Article 26 (on the rights to a particular religious education); Article 18 (‘Everyone has the right to freedom of: thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his [sic] religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance’). And here, Article 18 was influential in regional treaties (the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights) and integral to several international instruments, notably: ● ● ● ●

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) the Arcot Krishnaswami Study (1959) the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights (1966).

However, as noted, the early history of the United Nations is one which had tended to downplay difference in favour of universal or common values. So, although religion featured in numerous general covenants and declarations, it was not until 1981, and the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (1981), that religion received attention in its own right. The fact that after nearly three decades this remains a declaration and not, therefore, possessing the binding legal obligations of covenant, indicates that religion is still a highly sensitive matter within the United Nations.

Religion, education and extremism 85 Nevertheless, in a post-Cold War and post-9/11 world of newly emergent nationalisms and struggles over religious, cultural and ethnic identities, religion has increasingly gained prominence within the United Nations system. For instance: ●

● ●

Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (18 December 1992) Oslo Declaration on Freedom of Religion or Belief (1998) World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Discrimination (September 2001).

The notion of freedom of religion was itself extended to freedom of nonreligious (for example, humanistic) world views in the 1981 and 1998 Declarations, the ‘or belief’ in both being significant. This, in turn, has had the effect of linking in a fairly direct way rights of ‘freedom of thought, conscience and religion’ to ‘later generation’ or ‘third generation’ rights of ‘human solidarity’, concerned with specific groups – women, children, indigenous peoples, religious traditions – rather than ‘civic and political’ (‘first generation’) or ‘cultural and economic’ (‘second generation’) rights (Wellman 2000). Most notable is the linking of religious intolerance to the ending of racism, xenophobia and discrimination more broadly. For example, the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief was followed just over a decade later by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious, and Linguistic Minorities (1992). While a post-9/11 context has further highlighted the issue of potential violence in and over conflicts in (religious and/or ideological) world views, this potential fissure between universal rights and particular cultural, especially religious traditions, has been a live one for many years. There is, thus, no denying that issues of religion have increasingly come to the fore in the United Nations, previously cautious about explicit reference to religion, reiterated by the 25th Anniversary of the 1981 Declaration, commemorated by a major United Nations sponsored event in post-Soviet Prague in 2006. In short, the United Nations incorporated and defined freedom of religion or belief since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (notably in article 18), but the early history of the United Nations tended to downplay religious and ideological diversity. After a long neglect (or low level treatment) of religion explicitly, but from the late 1970s, specifically with the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (1981), the United Nations began to recognize the international significance of religion for a stable world order (see, for example, Lerner 2000; Gearon 2002; Bennett and Finnemore 2004; Boulden and Weiss 2004; Bowles 2004).

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Critical context 3: Religion in citizenship education As we have already noted, in contemporary times, the impetus for citizenship in education came from the foundation of the United Nations in the aftermath of the Second World War. It was a direct reaction to totalitarianism which led the United Nations to try to forge international agreement on democratic polity and governance based largely around universal human rights. If the Second World War seemed like a victory of democracy over totalitarianism, the founding principles of the United Nations rested on those of democracy, citizenship and universal rights, and derived from eighteenth-century Enlightenment, revolutionary democracy, and principles of reasoned moral imperative autonomous from the religious traditions which had guided Western society for two millennia (Bird 2006; Burleigh 2006; Himmelfarb 2007). Here, at least in principle – under the philosophical and educational influence of Dewey (1916) – the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, politics and pedagogy together were seen as the combined tools to create a new world order (Cahn 2009). However, the Cold War reflected a continuation of the ideological battle between democracy and totalitarianism. The end of the Cold War also looked like ideological victory (Fukuyama 2006). A political process ensued which reiterated the importance of education for socially ingraining ideas of democracy, citizenship and universal rights. This was notable, as stated, throughout the 1990s with the UN’s International Decade for Human Rights Education and (from 2004 onwards) the World Programme for Human Rights Education. Global reviews of what these programmes involve, however, rarely show religion referenced in citizenship and human rights education. Into this post-Cold War world came the resurgence of religion in public governance and a new lexicon of conflict epitomized by the clash of civilizations (Huntington 2002), and though religion was emergent as a new power in the post-Cold War world (Casanova 1994), post-9/11 religion seemed to have emerged as a new and violent factor in world politics (Boulden and Weiss 2004; Burleigh 2006). Given the secular ideological roots of citizenship education within the eighteenth century, the role of religion in citizenship education has perhaps understandably been underplayed, for reasons which, as argued in Chapter 3, reach back from the Enlightenment into antiquity. The view persists, for example, writing in the aftermath of 9/11, one prominent researcher in citizenship education details the challenges of recent decades of defining citizenship, and consciously, or otherwise, fails to mention religion. The last [few] decades have witnessed a fundamental review of the concept of citizenship and what it involves in communities across the world. This review has been brought about by the impact of the rapid pace of change in modern societies in the realms of political, economic and social life and the need to respond to this impact. The pace of change is having significant influence on the nature of relationships in modern society at a number of levels, including within, between and across individuals, community groups,

Religion, education and extremism 87 states, nations, regions and economic and political blocs. This period of unprecedented and seemingly relentless change has succeeded in shifting and straining the traditional, stable boundaries of citizenship in many societies. There has been particular pressure on the nature of relationships between differing groups in society as well as those between the individual and the state. The pressure has triggered a fundamental review across societies of the concepts and practices that underpin citizenship. (Kerr 2003: 9) International reviews of citizenship education (Kerr, 2003; 2010) reveal national education systems subject to similar challenges, and these are listed without the explicit reference to religious life or religious traditions: ● ● ●

● ●

●

●

The rapid movement of people within and across national boundaries. A growing recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities. The collapse of existing political structures and the fledgling growth of new ones. The changing role and status of women in society. The impact of the global economy and changing patterns of work and trade on social, economic and political ties. The effects of the revolution in information and communications technologies. An increasing global population and the consequences for the environment; the emergence of new forms of community and protest. (Kerr 2003: 9)

If citizenship education can be said to be a conscious response to the challenges of social and political change, in England, the Crick Report (1998), heavily influenced by Marshall (1950), provided the framework for the National Curriculum, its three core strands being most often cited: Social and moral responsibility; Community involvement; Political Literacy. It too downplayed religion, barely mentioning the topic. In England, as noted, following concerns over community cohesion after riots in Northern English cities in late 2001 and the 2005 bombings in London on 7 July, the Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review (Ajegbo et al. 2007) introduced a new strand to citizenship education – ‘Identities and diversity: living together in the UK’ – and raised the profile of religion within citizenship. This has been combined with a ‘Prevent Agenda’ from the UK Government Department of the Home Office (2009) which has encouraged the use of education in the struggle of counter terrorism. Thus, it was not until the Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review (DCSF/QCA 2007) when a new strand – ‘Identities and diversity: living together in the UK’ – raised the profile of religion within citizenship. Nevertheless, as even systematic reviews of citizenship education research literature shows (Osler and Starkey 2006), there remains limited consideration of religion within citizenship education beyond issues of community cohesion

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and as a tool of counter terrorism in the classroom and in the wider war on extremism. In terms of the broad focus of this book, then, the secular world of citizenship education has barely resolved the issues arising from the sudden prominence of sacred tradition in a modernity whose public face has been dominated for so many recent centuries by the civil. Critical context 4: Citizenship in religious education If religion has been neglected within the secular political preoccupations of citizenship, the political and contentious historical contexts of religion have undoubtedly been underplayed in religious education. A survey of influential theorists within the UK and international religious education revealed very little attention to political aspects of their pedagogies (Grimmit 2000), with some exceptions (Jackson 2002; 2004; Gearon 2004). In short, and this may not do justice to the nuanced complexities of religious education pedagogy – and the subject varies immensely depending upon arrangements of church and state – in multicultural and multi-faith contexts where religious education is taught, it is often underpinned by values of tolerance and understanding. Such a laudable approach to teaching religious education has historically meant, however (and has already been noted in another chapter), that differences between religious traditions are often underplayed or even ignored (Barnes et al. 2008). Yet, the exponential growth of religion at all levels – local, national and global, as indicated in critical contexts 1, 2 and 3 – has forced religious education increasingly to consider the political and historical within the subject. The matter is made more complex by the fact that in a contemporary milieu, that is, often in secular liberal democratic settings, religion is portrayed as a negative force within social, cultural and political contexts. We only have to look at critical context 3 of community cohesion and the use of citizenship in countering terrorism and combating extremism to see this, and that the same pressures have come to bear upon religious educators as they have on citizenship educators. Beyond the political responses, without doubt, the events of 9/11 provoked a fairly immediate and ongoing reaction, as for example, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion of Belief and Abdelfattah Amor’s keynote paper (2001) ‘The Role of Religious Education in the Pursuit of Tolerance and Non-Discrimination’ to the International Consultative Conference on School Education in Relation with Freedom of Religion and Belief. The subsequent diversity of international responses has been wide, from the official accommodation (Ofsted 2007a) to ones which regard religious education as a means of resisting secular indoctrination (Copley 2005; 2008). There is an increasingly mainstream reaction within religious education across the world to reflect the views of the traditions across the inter-religious divides (Engebretson et al. 2010). Important work in Europe, explicitly questioning whether religion is a source of conflict or, in fact harmony, offers bridges between the secular democratic and human rights framework with religious traditions (Jackson et al. 2007; for a comparative study of Europe and America,

Religion, education and extremism 89 see Osmer 2003; and on theoretical issues of a secular Europe and religious America, see Berger et al. 2008). There is an evident dividing line between those who suggest the differences of politics and culture are an irresolvable clash of civilizations, and pluralists, often under the banner of the United Nations, who adopt the more conciliatory tone of an alliance of civilizations. This divide is also arguably reflected within and between citizenship education, particularly in critical contexts 3 and 4, where we see tensions in the role of religion in citizenship, and the role of political and citizenship issues in religious education. Debates around the resolution of potential and actual political conflicts through education, though, remain unresolved. Arguably too, the great struggle here is in the need to reconcile the secular (citizenship/human rights) values of international law and the traditional moral teaching of religions. Ultimately, this is a matter of continuing debate, particularly around issues of secular and religious authority, the civil and the sacred at the heart of this book, which citizenship and religious educators have considerable opportunities to influence.

Religion, education and liberal autocracy It was de Tocqueville who presaged a cynical future world in which ‘if the unbeliever does not admit religion to be true, he still considers it useful’. de Tocqueville delineates the pragmatic view of the secular Enlightenment philosopher where [r]egarding religious institutions in a human point of view, he acknowledges their influence upon manner and legislation. He admits that they may serve to make men live in peace and prepare them gently for the hour of death. He regrets the faith he has lost; and as he is deprived of a treasure of which he knows the value, he fears to take it away from those who still possess it … (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/TocDem2.html accessed 22 January 2010) de Tocqueville’s historical observations remain pertinent, as we shall see, wherever modern liberal democracies mask control of religion under the guise of religious freedom, or conceal subjection of church by state through apparent separation: for in all of the four critical contexts, it is the self-interest of the state, either through politics or education, which is being used to integrate religion which had formerly marginalized, and most often as a means of community cohesion or a tool in classroom counter-terrorism in the war on extremism. New interest in a religion across political and educational spheres, it is thus argued, is empirically obvious but ideologically suspect. In furthering our analysis we are not likely to get very far by trying to fit these within the framework of a revolutionary democracy or totalitarianism. Europe in the early twenty-first century is not beset by either revolutionary democracies

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or totalitarianism. That said, beyond Europe, there might be some religious communities in Iraq and Afghanistan who would argue this, who would say that Western aggression in their countries is precisely the assertion of democracy by force of violence, and the imposition of liberal cultural and political norms, even those of democracy, citizenship, and equality. A number of Western theorists, such as Chomsky (2003; 2006; 2007), might share such a view. As radical secularists themselves, however, such theorists always have difficulty with the religious aspects of such dissent. Undeniable here, though, is the resurgent significance of religion in public life and global governance, marking a reversal of religion’s former marginalization. How do we account for it? Berlin’s (1969) contention in Two Concepts of Liberty is that ‘politics has remained indissolubly intertwined with every other form of philosophical enquiry’. Berlin distinguishes between two forms of freedom, positive and negative to explain the difference between two (not, he acknowledged, the only two) different ways of thinking about political liberty which had run through modern thought … Negative liberty Berlin initially defined as freedom from, that is, the absence of constraints on the agent imposed by other people. Positive liberty he defined both as freedom to, that is, the ability (not just the opportunity) to pursue and achieve willed goals; and also as autonomy or self-rule, as opposed to dependence on others. Berlin’s account was … complicated by combining conceptual analysis with history. He associated negative liberty with the classical liberal tradition as it had emerged and developed in Britain and France from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Berlin later regretted that he had not made more of the evils that negative liberty had been used to justify, such as exploitation under laissez-faire capitalism; in Two Concepts itself, however, negative liberty is portrayed favourably, and briefly. It is on positive liberty that Berlin focuses, since it is, he claims, both a more ambiguous concept, and one which has been subject to greater and more sinister transformation, and ultimately perversion. (Cherniss and Hardy 2008) The new interest of liberal democracies in religion, and notable even in discussions of freedom of religion (as our four critical contexts highlight), can be viewed as a form of positive liberty whose implications have not yet been considered in a negative light; for what is perceived as an increase in liberty is quite the reverse. For it is this, the involvement of liberal democracies in the control, shaping and determination of religious and cultural matters along the lines of a philosophical and political movement identified with Enlightenment and eighteenth-century revolutionary democracy, that is here determined as a form, subtle and often appearing in benevolent guise, of liberal autocracy. The implications of a growing domination of this emergent liberal autocracy are significant politically, theologically and educationally. One of

Religion, education and extremism 91 the critical markers of current political policy and educational practice is thus the use of religion in and through education as a means of furthering liberal democratic political principles. Given the antipathy towards religion in eighteenth-century revolutionary democracies, there are certain ironies here. In England, for example, this is evident where religious and citizenship education is placed in the service of social and community cohesion, or in preventing violent extremism, part of a wider enlisting of educators in the war against extremism. Liberal autocracy as a term has had some if limited political currency (see, for example, Zakaria 2003). It is reflected in the espousal of democracy by (illiberal, rights-neglecting) regimes which claim democratic status but patently lack characteristics of democracy understood by many Western nations. As Held (1989; 2007) argues, however, there are many models of democracy. Urged here is the need for a new and wider usage of liberal autocracy to reflect new patterns in the political use of culture, and in regard to our present discussions, the political manipulation of religion in and through education. In this regard, there are four key features pertinent to the definition of an emergent ‘liberal autocracy’. First, through mass democracies in the nineteenth century and totalitarianism in the twentieth century, the origins of liberal autocracy are traceable back to the European Enlightenment and eighteenth-century revolutionary democracy, historical contexts sceptical of, and often antagonistic to, religion. In historical antecedence, however, twentieth-century secular liberal democracies are inheritors of a tradition based upon the violent, repressive forces not only of revolutionary democracy in the eighteenth century, but totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century. This historical causality between Enlightenment, totalitarianism and present-day politics is now gaining ground. Baumann’s (2000) reflections on modernity and the holocaust are notable (cf. Talmon 1961; also Gray 2007). Second, liberal autocracy is characterized by the formation of alternative overarching (‘totalizing’) frameworks which are secular and political, emphasizing (in varying degrees) citizenship, democracy and human rights. Here, only exceptional theorists such as Wolin (2008) have given much attention to this ‘totalizing’ influence of liberal democracies. In historical context, the age of revolutionary democracy and its aftermath was increasingly sceptical of religion. If separation of church from state limited the political influence of religion, its philosophical power was weakened by the intellectual triumphs of the Enlightenment, we have suggested – and indeed this is plain – the age of reason and revolution ushered in an era of more militant attack upon religion per se: from Feuerbach and Nietzsche to Freud, from Marx to Durkheim. And as the mind of man was to replace the mind of God, these philosophical and political developments provided the ground for the totalitarian experiments unleashed upon the twentieth century. Again, relevant studies here are those which highlight the rise of ‘political religion’ – from French and Russian Revolutions to the rise of Nazism (Burleigh 2006; 2007). Like Talmon’s

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‘Political Messianism’, take Gray’s (2007) consideration of Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia which details how even avowedly secular, militantly atheistic, revolutionary movements replicate the structures of the theological systems they seek to replace (Gearon 2010a). Third, liberal autocracy is characterized by the development of ideological replication through cultural and educational means, and the autocratic disavowal of discourse beyond the foundational terms of (for example) citizenship, democracy and human rights, flowing from Rousseau to Dewey to Darder et al. (2008), while denying their moral and metaphysical origins within the religious traditions which have preceded them (Habermas and Ratzinger 2007). One of the most overlooked modern sources rightly attributing the Christian foundation to contemporary Britain is Winston’s Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, a collation of Anglo-Saxon and other early sources, unambiguously detailing the foundational role of Christianity in forging the identity of England. In 1951 it won Churchill the Nobel Prize for Literature. In the War Coalition Government’s Education Act of 1944, the role of education in pupils’ spiritual, moral, physical and intellectual development was underpinned through the teaching of Christianity, and it is this ‘Christian concept of [a] supreme being, God, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, and of an afterlife in Heaven or Hell, has predominated in England and Wales throughout most of their recorded history’ (Aldrich 1982: 23). In contemporary times, optimism about the prospects of democracy and education thus often conceals, forecloses, and seals up the very openness which it espouses. Fourth, liberal autocracy advances cultural and educational strategies for dealing with challenges to its totalizing democratic and secular frameworks, especially through the unexpected renewal in the influence of religion in public life. It is not difficult in this to see a reversal in religion’s marginalization since the Enlightenment across a number of political and educational spheres. It is not what Dewey would have wanted or expected. The question to ask here, somewhat ironically, is whether religion is in danger of becoming no longer marginalized by politics but subsumed by it, over-politicized and overintegrated, even reduced to secular public life? Liberal autocrats no longer ignore or overlook but manipulate religion. This is what Milbank (2006) in Theology and Social Theory called ‘policing the sublime’. Such developments appear inherently benevolent: who could actually be against an agenda trying to prevent religious extremism, or against communities getting on better, cohering, and, internationally, who could be against an UN agency which promotes freedom of religion and belief? Yet, the more states intervene in and breakdown the boundaries between public and private, the more they replicate the very totalitarian structures they supposedly oppose. Dewey’s political and educational philosophy we could say has had unexpected consequences.

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Conclusion One of the unforeseen consequences, then, of eighteenth-century Enlightenment in the founding of the political blueprint for this modern secular, liberal democratic state has been the loss of a theological ground and, as a consequence, metaphysical direction, certainly compared, for example, to the unifying vision of civil and sacred presented by Augustine’s City of God. If, as Dewey suggested, education is dependent upon the recognition of ends, then the crisis of contemporary and secular civil society arises from the failed notion of progress in which ‘faith’ (used advisedly) can no longer be invested. Liberal democratic systems of education in and of themselves have thus revealed that they have few answers to ultimate questions of direction, purpose, teleology. Civil discourse is too limited to be considered a source of fundamental meaning. In short, Western liberal democracies can no longer believe in their founding ideas of perfectibility. And in the context where civil societies across the West have largely rid themselves of the sacred heritage upon which they are founded, what remains – even the often laudable ideals of citizenship, democracy and human rights – tends to seem rather limited, rather earth-bound, compared to the riches of eternity offered by religious traditions. And when the civil discourse fails to provide adequate sources of meaning, it is here that people will seek alternatives. As Fukuyama (2007) has himself now accepted, this might mean a fresh discovery of the sacred that civil and sacred traditions over past centuries have sought to disregard; or, as twentieth-century history attests to the emergence of totalitarianism, the possible emergence of new forms of autocracy and extremism. If totalitarianism has a lineage worryingly close to revolutionary democracy, then the more contemporary democracies seek control of such developments, seeking manipulation of cultural and religious life, for example, through education, the more they resemble the tyranny they claim to defend against. If the most effective forms of totalitarian governance are those which make thinking outside of the system barely conceivable, and difficult therefore to resist, then a system where political control is sought over cultural meaning and religious self-definition is one which has begun to break down the barriers between the public and the private. This is becoming increasingly apparent in subtle moves to counter extremism in citizenship and other related subjects like religious education. Here this often means an increasing subjugation of both religion and education to secular politics, making both an adjunct of what Wolin (2008) has called the ‘specter of managed democracy and inverted totalitarianism’, what can pessimistically be termed, by way of warning, an emergent liberal autocracy. For citizenship and religious educators, this will present new, and likely to be unpredictable, future challenges for the relationship between the civil and the sacred.

Part III

Religious approaches to civic engagement and education for citizenship

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In July 2009, US president Barak Obama nominated Dr Francis Collins to be director of the National Institutes of Health, the primary government agency for conducting and supporting medical research in the USA. Particular sectors of the field of medical research are, of course, matters of highly contentious civic debate. Worldwide public and political concern about embryonic stem cell research is a recent and obvious example, but certainly not the only one. Writing about the appointment in the New York Times, Harris (2009) acknowledges ‘Dr Collins’s credentials are impeccable: he is a physical chemist, a medical geneticist and the former head of the Human Genome Project’. Nevertheless, Harris argues that Collins is a poor choice because he is a Christian who is on record as accepting that aspects of human existence are wrapped up in the mystery of God and, consequently, beyond the understanding of science. ‘Must we’, Harris asks, ‘really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?’ Similarly, during the Canadian federal election campaign in the autumn of 2000, the conservative Christian beliefs of the leader of the official opposition and candidate for Prime Minister, Stockwell Day, came under attack. Earlier in the year, MacLeans magazine (the largest circulation weekly news magazine in the country) published an issue featuring Day’s face on the cover over the caption ‘How Scary?’ While the story included a discussion of other aspects of his conservatism, Day’s faith was certainly seen as a key issue in the ‘scare factor’ (Geddes 2000). During the election campaign, the mocking of Day’s religious beliefs ran rampant, including the airing of a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television documentary ‘focusing on his endorsement of the Genesis narrative of the Creation’ (O’Leary 2001). Day was not interviewed for the programme, nor was he invited to respond to its characterization of his views. On the campaign trail, members of an opposing party regularly showed up at events with ‘a purple Barney dinosaur doll as a prop that mocked Day’s views’ (O’Leary 2001). This is indicative of what O’Leary (2001) called ‘a velvet oppression’ designed to diminish the influence of conservative Christians in Canadian public life. Incidents like these are endemic in Western democratic societies. They are indicative of a working out in practice of the liberal philosophical objections

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to the presence of religious ideas or religious people engaging in democratic discourse discussed in Chapter 1. They are aggressive expressions of the European Court of Human Rights’ view that ‘the principle of secularism’ is a necessary presumption of democracy (ECHR 2003). This presumption, however, is not without its critics. Barber (2003), for example, argues that religious belief is not necessarily antithetical to democracy. In fact, he contends that a key reason Western attempts to export democracy to various parts of the developing world fail is that they largely ignore cultural and contextual factors in the regions targeted, including the influence of religious faith. On his view, Western secularists are often more intolerant than the religious groups they target for removal from the public square. ‘The West’, he writes, ‘speaks the grammar of pluralism but the idiomatic reality sounds to others more like Hollywood homogeneity’ (Barber 2003: 187). He goes on to argue, ‘the healthy liberal society is held together by common beliefs even as it makes room for plural opinions and conflicting ideologies. It does not make war on religion but makes way for religions’ (2003: 189). The debate about the place of religious faith in democratic societies is an important one for those societies and, in particular, for educational policy makers and practitioners. As Hughes et al. (2010: in press) point out, ‘Over the past decade there has been a move in countries across the democratic world to transform citizenship education from an unfunded mandate with little or no capacity for realization, to an actual priority supported by substantive policies and adequate resources’. A key area of consensus in these reforms is the focus on a basically civic republican approach to citizenship education emphasizing both agency and responsibility. Young people are to be taught that they can and should be effective agents of change in their communities, nations and beyond. The position taken on the place of religious faith in democratic life and civic engagement will have significant impact on the form and practice of citizenship education. We argue that the participation of religious adherents as people of faith in civic life is not a threat to democracy but a matter of simple justice. Democracies ignore the consideration of religion and religious questions in citizenship curricula at their peril. This chapter examines some of the myths foundational to the aggressive secularism common across Western democracies, explores areas of compatibility between religious faith and democracy, outlines positive examples of democratic activism motivated by religious faith, and suggests areas where religious critique might strengthen democracy. Chapter 6 will consider how both attention to religion and religious questions, as well as religiously informed pedagogical approaches, can enhance education for democratic citizenship. In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins (2006) claims that religion both expects and receives an extraordinary degree of deference in public discourse. He argues that in the name of tolerance and respect religious people expect themselves and their faiths to be treated with deference. That is not our expectation at all. Neither is it our intent to whitewash any sordid role that religion might have played historically in civic contexts. It is our intent, however,

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square 99 to push back against vast overgeneralizations, such as Dawkins’ polemic, that present religions and the civic activities of religious peoples in a wholly negative light. With Noll (2008: 180), we hold that religion has a mixed record in the public square. Writing about that record in the USA, Noll contends Throughout American history, what I have called the broad Calvinist tradition has been responsible for many of the achievements, but also many of the problems, that require a consideration of contradictions, antinomies, and paradoxes. Most obviously, reliance on the Bible has produced spectacular liberation alongside spectacular oppression. While religion is sometimes a force for repression and violence, the historical record demonstrates it is not necessarily so, and it often has and does act as a force for liberation and democracy. Our examination will focus on the latter while not forgetting the former (which has been well covered by Dawkins and others).

Aggressive secularism and myths about the relationship between religion and democracy We have already dealt in some depth with the pervasive secularism endemic to most Western societies, so will here focus on some of the reasons for it, particularly as it pertains to the exclusion of religious groups and individuals from participating in civic life. David Adams Richards (2009: 32), one of Canada’s best-known literary writers, explores the pervasiveness of cynicism about religion in Canada’s artistic community claiming, ‘It is as if a doctrine has been set in motion where not to demean religion is sacrilegious’. These critiques, he argues, are frequently gratuitous and based on simplistic and unexamined assumptions about religion. Nevertheless, they garner widespread assent and are often used as arguments for limiting the role of religion in public discourse and policy making. We will briefly explore three of those assumptions. Assumption 1: Religious belief is antithetical to thought and rationality That is essentially the argument made by philosophers like John Rawls and Richard Rorty who sought to exclude points of view emanating from comprehensive accounts from civic discourse because they were not grounded in secular rationality (Neuhaus 2009). The assumption underlying such exclusion is that those who situate themselves inside a tradition that claims to have a comprehensive account of the physical and moral world are indoctrinated and seek to indoctrinate others; that metaphysical claims and arguments are antirational and therefore unreasonable in a democracy. This assumption belies much of religious history. It is particularly curious when promoted by scholars who work in universities given that members of

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religious orders originally created Western universities as places of scholarly exploration. Lindberg (2006: 93), for example, traces the intellectual tradition of Saints Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Anselem through to the scholastic monks of the thirteenth century in the Dominican and Franciscan orders who ‘unleashed an intellectual energy that transformed universities from trade schools for training clerks into centres of intellectual ferment and creativity’. This heritage is often forgotten, even in places like Harvard University, itself founded by a religious community, where a distinguished professor recently argued that ‘universities are about reason, pure and simple. Faith – believing something without good reasons to do so – has no place in anything but a religious institution’ (Pinker 2006). Wilken (1989: 710) counters the characterization of faith as ‘believing something without good reasons to do so’ arguing that in Judaism, Christianity and Islam ‘conviction and rational justification have been complementary, seldom adversarial’. All, he contends, have a considerable history of engaging in open and public disputation and it is the ‘Enlightenment, and historiography since that time, that promoted the idea that “traditional” religion was based solely on “faith” independent of the claims of reason’. A key example of faith rooted in reason and exploration is the Jewish Talmud, which includes as marginal notes the discussion of the Rabbis about texts across time ‘so that the contemporary student can enter into a discussion that has been going on for centuries’. In more contemporary contexts, educators from a range of Christian traditions affirm the importance of reason to the development of the complete person. Groome (1980: 59), for example, outlines the long commitment to holding together faith and reason in Roman Catholicism, claiming that ‘when it is at its best, the tradition is to maintain a partnership between reason and revelation’. Writing from a Christian Reformed perspective, Wolterstorff (Wolterstorff et al. 2002) rejects a Christian education narrowly focused on catechisms and devotional life in favour of an approach that develops thoughtful study of and engagement with the world. Even the world of science, Collins (2006: 3) contends, is not antithetical to religious faith. He writes, ‘belief in God can be an entirely rational choice, and that the principles of faith are, in fact, complementary with the principles of science’. This is not to argue that religious faith is completely rational in the postEnlightenment sense of that term, but both that it is not antithetical to rationality and that modernist rationality is often more than a bit hubristic in its claims to absolute authority. As Wright (1996: 184) points out, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in post-Enlightenment philosophy’. Excluding religious people, unless they divest themselves of their religious identity and metaphysical discourse, civic deliberation is an injustice to both religious people and other citizens. In terms of the first, it places a burden on people of faith not asked of others who are not required to check their ideologies or interests at the door. In terms of the second, it infantilizes other citizens by assuming they will be easily duped by slick or logically incoherent religious claims. As Neuhaus (1993: 102) points out, ‘In a democracy that is

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square 101 free and robust, an opinion is no more disqualified for being “religious” than for being atheistic, or psychoanalytic, or Marxist, or just plain dumb’. Assumption 2: Religious belief, particularly that held in exclusivist religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is intolerant of difference This assumption is telegraphed in the widespread fear that religious citizens who engage in public life wish to impose their morality on non-believing citizens, thereby limiting their freedom. Indeed, the fear is not always without warrant. As Guinness (2008: 23) points out, American political life includes many ‘reimposers’ who wish to take the country back to a time when Judaeo–Christian consensus dominated its common life. In Europe, intolerant expressions of Islam have caused democratic societies great concern and fuelled calls for policy changes, including proposed bans on religious dress in public in a number of countries. Again, while the assumption is rooted in real experience, it is far too general and woefully one sided. It ignores many examples from the historical record where religious groups and individuals were leaders in opening space for liberty and the toleration of difference. Some of these will be explored in more detail later in this chapter. Interestingly, in British and American history it was the Puritans, whose name has often stereotypically been used to connote intolerance, who were among the first to propose religious freedom, indeed even the freedom to be non-religious, in civic life. In Britain, for example, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, ‘a growing number of Puritans came to agree with Cromwell that a limited degree of toleration was compatible with an orderly society’ (Noll 2003: 54). Sometime later, the great English evangelical reformer William Wilberforce responded to news of forced conversions in some British missions overseas by stating, ‘Compulsion and Christianity! Why the very terms are at variance with each other: the ideas are incompatible’ (quoted in Hague 2008: 41). In the early American colonies, the radical Puritan and later Baptist reformer Roger Williams ‘established the colony of Rhode Island in 1636. There he insisted upon complete religious freedom, extending this far beyond traditional Christian denominations to embrace Jews and other religious minorities. A degree of religious liberty unheard of previously’ (McGrath 2003: 154). Hatch (1989: 9) examines American Christianity between the Revolution and 1845 arguing that the explosion of new freedom in that context ‘permitted an unexpected and often explosive conjunction of evangelical fervour and popular sovereignty’. The American religious landscape included new, and often charismatic, Christian movements as well as reformed versions of European denominations. Far from being bastions of intolerance, ‘the fundamental impetus of these movements was to make Christianity a liberating force; people were given the right to think and act for themselves rather than depending on the mediations of an educated elite’ (Hatch 1989: 11). In medieval and modern times, the Ottoman Empire was often an exemplar of Islamic tolerance of difference. It was the place, for example, to which many

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Jews fled when expelled from Spain in 1491 and there they found sanctuary and relative freedom to practice their faith. As Lewis (2002: 33–4) points out, the Ottomans did not offer equal rights to their non-Muslim minorities – ‘a meaningless anachronism in the context of that time and place. They did however offer a degree of tolerance without precedent or parallel in Christian Europe’. Lewis goes on to argue that while some contemporary expressions of Islam are anti-democratic, the history of the religion demonstrates it is not inherently an obstacle to freedom. For the American civil rights activist Malcolm X (X and Haley 1965), it was not escape from his religion that caused him to be more tolerant of difference, but a journey to the very centre of it. In his autobiography, Mr X recounts his conversion to the xenophobic and separationist version of Islam propagated by Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. It was on a pilgrimage to Mecca, a central act of Islamic faith, that Mr X discovered the diverse racial, ethnic and cultural nature of his faith, and began his break with the politics of intolerance. It is not all religious people or all religions that are intolerant, but rather particular fundamentalist manifestations of them. These are what should be resisted in democratic societies and often are by religious adherents themselves. In 2005, for example, former US president and practising Christian, Jimmy Carter, published a book titled Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis. The book is a polemic against what Carter sees as a ‘disturbing trend toward fundamentalism in recent years, among political leaders and within major religious groups both abroad and in [the USA]’ (Carter 2005: 31). He argues, ‘there are three words that characterize this brand of fundamentalism: rigidity, domination, and exclusion’ (2005: 35). Carter concludes his argument by laying out the values he sees as consistent with both democracy and his religious faith including, ‘a demonstrable commitment to truth, justice, peace, freedom, humility, human rights, generosity, and the upholding of other moral values’ (2005: 199). Carter is hardly the only example of the critique of Christian intolerance and oppression from within the religion itself. The history of the American civil rights movement is full of other cases. In a masterful speech delivered at the 4 July celebrations in Rochester NY in 1852, Frederick Douglas (2006: 30) pillories Northern Christians and churches for their silence in the face of slavery generally, and the newly passed Fugitive Slave Law in particular. Among other things, Douglas said to his audience, ‘The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie’. For Douglas, the remedy would not be found in abandoning their Christianity, but in adopting the more vibrant faith of Christians in Britain where, Douglas (2006: 29) claims the question of emancipation was a high and religious question. It was demanded in the name of humanity and according to the law of the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, the Burchells, and the Knibbs were alike famous for their piety and for their philanthropy.

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square 103 Similarly, more than a century later when Dr Martin Luther King Jr criticized white Christians opposed to, or ambivalent about, the civil rights movement, he did not argue that they should become more secular but that they should live up to their espoused beliefs. ‘Dr King invoked the prophet Amos, who said, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream”’ (Keller 2008: 66). Indeed, Sommerville (2006) argues that the criteria used to critique Christianity’s intolerance and oppression most often comes from within Judaeo– Christian tradition, even when the points are made by those who are neither Jewish or Christian. The church is critiqued for being power-hungry, selfregarding and oppressive, but many cultures would regard these traits as virtues; so where does the moral basis for criticism lie? Sommerville contends that it arises straight out of the tradition of the biblical prophets and Jesus himself. The clear implication in the assumption that religion is intolerant of difference is that secularism never is. As we have demonstrated earlier in this book, there are many forms of ‘intolerant secularism’ (Barber 2003: 183) that manifest in democratic societies. As Richards points out, this intolerance is often most virulent among groups purporting to advocate openness and liberation. I have met bigots in the feminist movement as easily placed as I have in motorcycle gangs. I have sat with them in common rooms at university – so assured of their intellectual superiority that they were not only intolerant but self-congratulatory in their ignorance of others. (2009: 87) Marsden (1998: 4–5) makes the same point in a more academic way. ‘The fact is that, no matter what the subject, our dominant academic culture trains scholars to keep quiet about their faith as the price of full acceptance in that community.’ Fundamentally, democracy is not established by legal and constitutional frameworks, but by a commitment among citizens to act democratically, to embody democratic values or, as de Tocqueville called them, ‘habits of the heart’ (Bellah et al. 1986). Barber (2003: 138) argues that the central democratic value is humility. ‘After all’, he writes, ‘the recognition that I might be wrong and my opponent right is at the very heart of the democratic faith’. In writing about some of the fledgling democracies in Eastern Europe, Schöpflin (2001: 110) makes the point that it is possible to have the form of democracy without an underlying commitment to democratic values. He writes, ‘postcommunist systems were consensual, a consent that was expressed regularly in elections and through other institutions, but were not democratic in as much as democratic values were only sporadically to be observed’. Schöpflin argues that societies have what he calls first and second order rules. ‘First order rules include the formal regulation by which every system operates, like the constitution, laws governing elections, procedures for the settlement of conflict and the like’ – the form of democracy. ‘Second order rules are the informal tacit rules

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of the game that are internalized as part of the doxa’ – the spirit of democracy. In a democracy, these second order rules include ‘key democratic values of self-limitation, feedback, moderation, commitment, responsibility, [and] the recognition of the value of competing multiple rationalities’ (2001: 120). Clearly, many religions and religious people can and do operate consistently with these ‘second order rules’, and can make positive contributions to forging the common good. Assumption 3: The ‘separation of church and state’ necessitates keeping religion and religious expression out of the public square The concept of ‘separation of church and state’ is one of the major arguments employed to limit the place of religion in civic life. It is often rooted in several false assumptions about the American Constitution (where many believe the concept originated). As Samons (2004: 171) points out, ‘Neither the idea nor the phrase appears in the Constitution but many Americans’ belief that it does (or certainly should) demonstrates how important the idea of churchstate separation is in the American psyche’. The First Amendment to the US Constitution reads, in part, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’. What is restricted in terms of religion here is either the establishment of a state religion or limits on the religious freedom of citizens. It says nothing about the exclusion of religion from public life. The phrase ‘wall of separation between church and state’ actually comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association while he was president (and more than a decade after the First Amendment was adopted). Jefferson was answering a letter from the association asking him to help in their dispute with the state of Connecticut where the Congregational Church was the established church. His purpose was to reassure them of their freedom to practise their faith as full citizens and not to restrict their participation. That is not to say that church and state are not separate in the USA, but that the key purpose of that separation is to protect religion from state interference rather than the marginalization of people of faith from public life. As Guinness (2008: 40) points out, in the USA, religious liberty is the ‘first liberty’ in that it came first historically and underlies all other rights. Thomas Jefferson (and other American leaders of the period) certainly did not understand separation to mean exclusion; he both sponsored and attended religious services and events in the White House and the US Capitol (Samons 2004; Guinness 2008; Neuhaus 2009). Far from marginalizing religion in American public life, the First Amendment offered ‘a virtual guarantee that America would be a Christian nation whose churches would be free from political interference and manipulation’ (McGrath 2007a: 162; Noll 2008). How can a country claim to guarantee the ‘free exercise’ of religion if citizens

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square 105 like Dr Francis Collins are subjected to a religious test before being allowed to assume public office or participate in community affairs? Elshtain (2008) argues that rather than emerging in modern times as a restraint on religious excess, the idea of limits on state power embodied in the rule of law grew largely from the thinking of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and other Christian thinkers. They developed the idea of natural law and the limitations that implied for state power. ‘The heart of Thomas’s case for the good of earthly rule lies in his insistence that the only legitimate end of that rule is the common good, not the king’s “private good”’ (Elshtain 2008: 18). For thinkers in this legal tradition, she argues, a king’s power is not absolute but ‘derives from law’ (2008: 23). For Elshtain, it was the state pushing back against these religious restraints that led to the age of absolute monarchies. She argues We must remember, that the more ‘liberal’ features of the debate are the older, medieval ones deriving from the authority of law and its limits. (We would no doubt call this conservative now, as it embodied received tradition.) The ‘progressive’ view of the time endorsed aggrandizing sovereign power proffered by monarchists, many of them armed with absolutist doctrine and justification. (2008: 55) Echoing this argument, Lewis (2002: 96) contends that, rather than originating as an attack on religion, ‘secularism in the modern political meaning – the idea that religion and political authority should be separated – is, in a profound sense, Christian’. For Wills (2007: 176) and others (Guinness 2008; Noll 2008), ‘one of the greatest achievements of the Enlightenment was the disestablishment of religion’. The achievement was not great because it excluded religious people from civic engagement and religious ideas from public debate but because it created space for the open and equal consideration of all ideas – religious or otherwise. This was, in fact, the intent of many Enlightenment thinkers who are now often characterized as secularists. As Neuhaus (2009: 106) points out about one, ‘Locke is rightly tolerated as a champion of religious toleration, but not of irreligion’. The sense that the Enlightenment was, in part at least, a project in support of religious freedom has largely been cleansed from the record as the Western political canon became ‘normalized’ (Elshtain 2008: xv). In tracing the development of the concept of sovereignty in Western political thought, Elshtain (2008: xi) found the ‘religious thinkers, with few exceptions, were missing in action and the religious references in the works of nonreligious thinkers have been purged or significantly downplayed’. While religious institutions may not always act democratically, they are not inherently antidemocratic. Arguments for their exclusion from civic engagement are, on the contrary, premised on principles that belie democracy. As outlined earlier, religions and religious people have a mixed record in terms of positive contributions to public life and the common good. The truth is, however, that

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all ideological systems have the same kind of mixed record. Take, for example, the nominally communist systems of government witnessed in the twentieth century. On the one hand, they can be seen to have dragged Russia and China out of semi-feudalism, made them world powers, and provided Cuba with health and education systems the envy of Latin America; on the other hand, they also gave the world show trials, the Soviet Gulag, the Ukrainian famine, the Cultural Revolution and Castro’s prisons stocked with political prisoners. Liberalism has fostered the modern system of human rights and democracy rooted in individual liberty. It has also produced an economic system that has built unprecedented prosperity and technological innovation. A number of scholars (Bellah et al. 1986; Putnam 2000; Elshtain 2008) argue that it is also at least partly responsible for radical individualism and the breakdown of community and concern for the common good. A virulent expression of that individualism might be seen in the greed and consumerism that brought on the global economic crisis of 2008–9. It is clear that despite these mixed records, communists, liberals and those coming with other ideological frameworks, ought to be able to participate in civic life without checking their world views at the door, and the same should be true of people of faith.

Areas of compatibility between religion, religious faith and democracy As discussed in Chapter 1, many European scholars trace the history of democratic citizenship from ancient Athens to contemporary times with little or no attention to religious influences on its development. In fact, they argue strenuously that citizenship is a wholly secular idea and are overtly hostile to any positive connections being drawn between it and religion. This is extraordinarily ahistorical. As Kagan (2003) demonstrates, democratic Athens was a thoroughly religious place, and religion played a considerable role in shaping the thinking of citizens and was used by adroit politicians to further their particular causes. Similarly, in his close examination of Athenian democracy, Samons (2004: 26) concludes, ‘that for the ancient Greeks, religion pervaded society and government and was usually a corporate affair … every group or corporate action in which the Athenians engaged had a religious aspect’. The pervasive nature of Cult in Ancient Athens did not, in Samons’ view, create a society unwilling or unable to critically examine its own presuppositions. In fact, he argues, ‘Only in the treatment of sex can popular American culture rival the openness with which the Athenians publically examined their cherished beliefs, social conventions, and political practices’ (Samons 2004: 165). An appeal to the ancient roots of democracy, then, does not support the contention that citizenship is necessarily a secular idea. As Neuhaus (2009: 102) points out, ‘In the eyes of the ancients, to be a-theos was to be outside the civilizational circle of the civitas’. Wright (2005: 60) makes the same point about the first-century world of early Christianity. ‘The modern Western separation of theology and society, religion and politics, would have made

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square 107 no sense to Paul or to any of his contemporaries, whether Jewish, Greek or Roman.’ Religion, even a pervasive state religion, has often existed compatibly with democracy, in fact, has often fostered the development of democracy. We will turn to an examination of two features of that compatibility. Religion has been, and can be, a nurturer of democratic reform A full account of the history of democracy demonstrates that religion and religious ideas have often provided fertile contexts for democratizing trends and developments. In his compelling Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln is credited with articulating one of the most succinct and widely espoused definitions of democracy as ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’. The truth is, however, that Lincoln borrowed the phrase from the fourteenth-century English professor and religious reformer John Wycliffe. Wycliffe, sometimes called ‘The Morning Star of the Reformation’, directed the production of an English translation of the Bible in what he saw as a political as well as a religious project. As with the Ancients, the separation of the two was incomprehensible in that age. Wycliffe wrote that the Bible in the vernacular would lead not only to reform of the church but also give rise to ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’ (quoted in McGrath 2007b: 214). In other words, Wycliffe believed that his translation of the Bible, along with other religious reforms he was advocating, would lay the foundations for a social revolution that would shift power from elites toward ordinary people. In his comprehensive history of Protestantism, McGrath (2007b) demonstrates how this religious movement contributed to democratization in Europe and beyond. McGrath is careful not to claim that the Protestant Reformation caused the move to democracy, but clearly holds that its central ideas and outcomes were both consistent with emerging ideas of democracy and fostered political action in that direction. For McGrath, ‘the democratizing agenda of Protestantism’ (2007b: 200) included elements, such as access for every believer to the Bible, the absolute right of individual believers to interpret the Bible for themselves, and the consequent levelling of distinctions between the clergy and the laity. ‘In its formative phase’, he argues, ‘Protestantism was characterized by a belief – a radical, liberating, yet dangerous belief – that scripture is clear enough for ordinary Christians to understand and apply without the need for a classical education, philosophical or theological expertise, clerical guidance, or ecclesiastical traditions’ (2007b: 208, original emphasis). This ‘dangerous belief’ in the religious sphere aided and abetted analogous ideas about autonomy and the sources of authority in the civic realm. This phenomenon is nowhere more evident than in the political and social evolution of the USA, a country deeply rooted in Protestantism. We have already discussed some of the ways in which New England Puritanism laid the groundwork for democratic reform and Marsden (2003) takes that further in his examination of the life of American theologian and revivalist Jonathan Edwards. Marsden shows how the revivals of the so-called First Great

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Awakening of the 1730s and 40s laid the foundation, even if unintentionally, for the growth of individualism and civic agency in the USA. Marsden argues that the thousands who turned out across the colonies to hear the evangelists, particularly the English preacher George Whitefield, signaled ‘the dawn of a new age – the age of the people’ (Marsden 2003: 209). Similarly, Hatch (1989: 9) traces American Protestantism from the Revolution through the mid-nineteenth century, demonstrating that the religious movements of the early republic ‘articulated a profoundly democratic spirit’. He goes on to argue that ‘the fundamental impetus of these movements was to make Christianity a liberating force; people were given the right to think and act for themselves rather than depending on the mediations of an educated elite’ (1989: 11). Like McGrath, Hatch is careful not to root the causes for America’s democracy in its generally Protestant religious ethos but, also like McGrath, he makes a compelling case that this religious culture did help foster the democratic spirit and populist reform in the USA. Focusing on a more specific aspect of American democracy, Hatch (1989) and Noll (2008) both contend that the development of African–American churches and denominations in the period following the Civil War nurtured both a sense of agency in the black community as well as a cadre of leaders in religious and political affairs. This, they argue, laid the groundwork for black political activism and the civil rights movement of the twentieth century. ‘A key element in the emergence of black civil society’, Noll writes, ‘was the strengthening of a distinctly African–American religious voice’ (Noll 2008: 51). This voice, as it was articulated during the civil rights movement, contained distinctly religious elements and influences. As Noll (2008: 135) concludes, ‘No responsible political history can afford to neglect non-religious factors. Equally, no political account of the era that does not foreground black religion and ponder carefully the place of religion in the wider society can be considered historically responsible’. More recently, Christian influences have played a critical role in cultivating democratic reforms in both Eastern Europe and Africa. In the case of the former, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant church leaders acted as critics of totalitarian regimes while their churches became both safe havens for democratic reformers and, in some cases, schools of democracy. Huber (1993: 41) provides a rich description of some of this in the era leading up to the collapse of communism. There is no doubt that the churches – and in East Germany mainly the Protestant Churches – served as a shelter for democratic publics in a nondemocratic and authoritarian environment. At a decisive point in history the churches encouraged public manifestations which were centred around the demands for equal rights and political participation. It is, by the way, interesting to observe that in many cases members of church synods were the only persons available who were trained in democratic procedures

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square 109 and could serve on this basis as central figures in the new round tables and parliaments in the emerging democracies. In South Africa, the work of Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu was seminal in the transition from Apartheid to multiracial democracy. In particular, Tutu’s work in establishing, chairing and reporting for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission played a key role in preventing the country from falling into civil war and the cycles of revenge and retribution characteristic of many other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Tutu (1994; 2000) clearly and consistently sets both his work on the Commission and the liberation of the oppressed more generally in the tradition of the biblical prophets and Jesus himself. Jesus, he argues, came to deliver people from oppression and the church needs to continue that work. If we are to say that religion cannot be concerned with politics, then we are really saying that there is a substantial part of human life in which God’s writ does not run. If it is not God’s, then whose is it? Who is in charge if not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? (Tutu 1994: 67) His and others’ commitment to this faith helped set the conditions for democracy to begin in South Africa. Finally, the movement begun by Mahatma Gandhi for independence and democracy in India was not only influential, it was also profoundly religious. Gandhi rooted his work in the Hindu/Buddhist concept of ahimsa (to do no harm, or non-violence) and his own extension of that into satyagraha or truth-force (Jones 1948; Fischer 1962). Ghandi drew on a range of religious traditions in developing satyagraha, which ‘assumes constant beneficent interaction between contestants with a view to their ultimate reconciliation. Violence, insults, and superheated propaganda obstruct this end’ (quoted in Fischer 1954: 35). This philosophy is certainly consistent with the ‘second order’ rules of democracy described earlier, and had great influence on the transition to democracy in India as well as influencing democratic movements around the world including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference headed by Martin Luther King Jr (King and Carson 1998). Clearly, religious movements can provide explicit and tacit contexts facilitating the establishment and evolution of democratic life. They are indicative refutations of claims that religion and cultures of faith are antidemocratic. Indeed, democracy has often been directly enhanced by religious influences. It is also true that individual actors have been motivated by their religious beliefs to work for democratic reform.

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Religion has fostered commitment to social justice, care for the weak and democratic activism in pursuit of both People of faith are often criticized for engaging in politics with an agenda, but, as Levine (2007: 10) points out, ‘much of the energy in politics and civic life comes from people with agendas’. In essence, he argues that strong convictions are a necessary component of engaged civic life and, following from that, we contend that religious convictions have been and can be as good a starting point as any other. For example, Hague (2008: 508) writes about the English anti-slaver William Wilberforce that it was his Evangelical convictions which gave unity and coherence to his work. The arrival of those convictions did not change his character, but it did reinforce some of his best attributes, intensify his intellectual curiosity and readiness to apply himself to Parliament, while giving him a stubborn persistence in trying to reveal the truth and a pronounced ability to accept setbacks and overcome them. As Tutu (1993: 314) points out, Christian religious convictions have spurred many to democratic action. It was church stalwarts such as William Wilberforce who were in the forefront of the movement to abolish slavery. It was the likes of the Earl of Shaftsbury who laboured to soften the rigorous and evil consequences of the industrial revolution. It has been Christians who have been prominent in the Suffragette Movement, in the Civil Rights Movement in this country and in the struggle against apartheid. We are all proud that the courageous witness of the confessing church in Nazi Germany boasts stalwarts such as Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonheoffer. It is interesting to note how church leaders have been involved prominently in the transitions from authoritarian rule to democratic regimes in Africa and elsewhere. Arguably, the most significant influence of religious people in the furthering of democracy and human rights has been through their work to end slavery and discrimination based on race. Hague’s (2008) biography of Wilberforce documents the dogged perseverance of the parliamentarian in the fight against both the slave trade and slavery itself. While some present Wilberforce and his associates as sanctimonious, virtually all acknowledge that he was an effective campaigner able to build strategic alliances across parliamentary factions and to make pragmatic compromises in furthering his goal. Indeed, the decision to initially target the slave trade and not the institution of slavery itself was one such compromise (Miller 2001; Hague 2008). While Wilberforce was central to the anti-slavery movements of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this was not at all a one-person

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square 111 show but it was, at its core, a religious endeavour. In his history of East Africa, Miller (2001) traces the development of the anti-slavery movement as a religious enterprise. To be sure secular voices were heard, as when Adam Smith ‘pronounced human bondage to be unsound’ (Miller 2001: 39), the movement was led by religiously motivated people, such as the evangelist John Wesley, lawyer Granville Sharpe, and politicians like Wilberforce. It grew from a marginal movement to become a dominant political force. Miller contends that with the outlawing of slavery in the British Empire in 1833, ‘for the first time in history, an entire people had declared of their own free will that they were indeed their brother’s keeper. The loftiest achievement of Victorian England was the example she set in spearheading the world assault on the edifice of slavery’ (2001: 40). In the USA, the fight to end slavery and subsequent efforts to establish civil rights for African-Americans have been central to American history and largely driven by religious individuals and movements. Noll (2008: 105-6) argues that the ‘civil rights movement fundamentally altered the course of US political history’ and that, while there were many reasons for its success, ‘arguably the most important is that religious support for it was unusually strong while religious opposition to it was relatively weak’. Of course, not all campaigners for civil rights in the USA were driven by religious motives but many were. The work of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and others of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is well known. Less well known, but perhaps almost as influential, was the work of the Nashville Student Movement that emerged out of workshops organized by the Nashville Christian Leadership Council in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Halberstam (1998) documents how these workshops led by Reverend James Lawson trained a significant group of young African–American seminarians and college students in the principles of Gandhian non-violent civil resistance. Many of the students trained in these workshops went on to become significant leaders in the Civil Rights Movement and American politics more generally. The Civil Rights Movement had democratic ramifications well beyond the African–American community. Noll calls it ‘the fulcrum of recent political history’ and argues it led directly to the so-called ‘right revolution’ (2008: 141) with liberating impact on women, homosexuals and other groups. About the reforms flowing from the movement he writes, ‘Never in the nation’s history did government act so fast to remedy so many wrongs’ (2008: 145). There are countless examples of religiously motivated individuals and groups who have engaged, and do engage, in civic action to promote and foster democracy and social justice. During the 1930s in rural Atlantic Canada, for example, a young Roman Catholic priest began to organize the people from poor fishing and farming communities to resist both the ravages of the Great Depression and what he saw as the debilitating mandates of far off governments and industry to become ‘masters of their own destiny’ (Coady 1939). Father Moses Coady and his colleagues from St Francis Xavier University went into communities and formed study groups to indentify problems and issues and

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encourage collective organization and action to address them. The Antigonish Movement, named after the town where the university was based, became internationally known as ‘a means whereby people exercised increased influence over the forces that shaped their lives’ (Selman 1991: 127). General arguments that religious engagement in civic life undermines democratic principles are overly broad and cannot stand up in the light of these examples. Religious individuals and organizations acting on their religious convictions have played a key role in shaping democracy in positive ways and should be able to continue to do so. Despite the compatibility between liberal democracy and religion, it remains important not to conflate the two. In fact, there are areas where there are definite differences, and even tensions, between them. One of the services religion offers to democratic life is the critique of its harsher features and significant weaknesses.

Religion as an important critical friend to democracy The seventeenth-century arrest and muzzling of Galileo Galilei by the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church has become the iconic example of religious suppression of dissent in Western societies. Dissent, it is argued, is important for scientific and social progress, whereas religious restraints pose threats to the common good. Democracy does not simply tolerate dissent, it thrives on it and, in fact, most of those we celebrate as model democratic citizens were or are dissenters. It is our contention that contemporary Western democracies are largely secular societies where religious groups and ideas are more often marginalized than at the centre of things. The Roman Catholic Church and other religious groups continue to take public stands on social and civic issues, but lack the political power they once had to impose their views, and that is as it should be. As part of a vibrant civil society, however, religious institutions and individuals can and do contribute significantly to democracy as dissenters. The irony is, however, that some proponents of democracy now often find themselves in the position of the Catholic Church of the seventeenth century as the ones seeking to squelch dissent. Samons (2004: 177) argues that contemporary democracies have raised principles, such as individual freedom, choice and faith, in popular opinion to articles of faith that cannot be questioned. He writes, ‘In a land that continually praises “diversity” is it not somewhat odd that there is virtually no popular political opposition to the principle that whatever “the American people” want is an appropriate goal for our society’. ‘In essence,’ he writes, ‘we may already have enshrined democratic political ideals as the tenets of a new religion’ (2004: 14). Witte (1993: 13) concurs arguing, ‘Democracy has stored up many idols in its short political life – the proud cults of progress and freedom, the blind beliefs of materialism and techologism, the desperate faiths of agnosticism and nihilism’. These values of democracy have become so powerful, Samons contends, ‘in part because – note the supreme irony – they admit no philosophical opposition’ (2004: 184).

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square 113 For Samons, this is one of the key differences between modern democracies and that of ancient Athens. While Athenians could go to the theatre and places of public dispute and regularly hear the foundational premises and the resulting structures of their system of government questioned, that virtually never happens in contemporary democracies. We argue, to paraphrase Socrates (a key critic of some aspects of Athenian democracy), that the unexamined democracy is not worthy of its name and religious world views and systems of thought can provide a useful foil to promote continuous re-examination of the premises of democratic systems. Shutting down religious critiques is not democratic and does not serve democracy well. As Chaput (2009: 9) writes, ‘there is nothing more empty headed in a pluralist democracy than telling citizens to keep quiet about their beliefs. A healthy democracy requires exactly the opposite. Democracy requires a vigorous public struggle of convictions and ideas’. One of the ways that religions can promote a healthy re-examination of democracy is by reminding us that systems of government are not all there is to human existence – and may not even be the most important things. Samons (2004) argues that for the Athenians democracy was a means to an end, a way to provide public goods, and not an end in itself. It played an important role in Athenian society, but one that was balanced by other areas of life including religious and family commitments. Ignatieff (2000: 23) argues that the same limits ought to apply to contemporary democracies. There is more to the good life, he contends, than rights and laws. Codes of rights cannot be expected to define what the good life is, what love and faithfulness and honour are. Codes of rights are about defining the minimum conditions for any life at all. So in the case of the family they are about defining the negatives: abuse and violence. Rights can’t define the positives: love, forbearance, humour, charity and endurance. We need other words to do that, and we need to make sure that rights talk doesn’t end up crowding out all the other ways we express our deepest and most enduring needs. No matter how solid our constitutional frameworks, we will still depend to some degree on ‘extra political values’ (Samons 2004: 181) such as those outlined by Ignatieff to undergird important aspects of our common life. Many religions offer a wealth of resources for opening conversations about what those values mean and what acting on them might look like in the public square. Drawing on the work of C. S. Lewis, Neuhaus (2009: 82) provides an example of this in The Tao, or public philosophy that draws support from all religious and moral traditions in inculcating certain rules, such as general beneficence toward others, special beneficence toward one’s own community, duties to parents and ancestors, duties to children and posterity, and the laws of justice, honesty, mercy and magnanimity. Whether drawn from the Torah, Chinese Analects, Cicero, the

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The late Canadian economist and politician Eric Kierans provides a key example of a possible religious critique of contemporary liberal democratic capitalist systems. Kierans had impeccable democratic credentials, serving in senior cabinet positions in Liberal governments both in the province of Québec and federally. He also ran, unsuccessfully, for the leadership of the federal Liberal Party in 1968. But Kierans, a lifelong practising Roman Catholic, had some serious misgivings about the directions of contemporary Canadian democracy and particularly with what he saw as the triumph of instrumentalism in civic culture. He titled the last chapter of his memoir ‘The Cain Culture’ (Kierans and Stewart 2001) after the biblical character who famously asked, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ For Kierans, liberal democratic capitalism promoted a culture of selfishness and generally responded in the negative to that question. He wrote, ‘my sense of the contemporary is this: that we (men and women) no longer believe in ourselves, in our essential worth as humans, in the essential dignity of all human beings. The worst that can be said about the argument for corporate greed then, is that we are beginning to believe it. We believe in money’ (Kierans and Stewart 2001: 257). Kierans is hardly the only religious voice to raise questions about the inherent selfishness and self-centredness of modern liberal democracies. Witte (1993: 13), for example, contends that, ‘Democracy has done much to encourage a vulgar industrialization that reduces both human beings and natural resources to tangible and expendable economic units’. And Tutu (1993: 316) proposes a religiously informed alternative where We would not be dazzled by success per se – as seems to be the case far too universally – when the worst thing that could happen to anyone would be to fail, and so people are forced to win at all costs engaging in cutthroat competitions with no holds barred. It would be to try and develop an ethos, and environment where people would say that there are things more important than material prosperity and possessions. People would be valued not by what they did (as producers or consumers) but as who they are, being preceding doing temporally and in the scale of values. It would be the kind of social and political and economic environment which encouraged people to become fully human measured by nothing less than the fullness of the humanity of Christ Himself. Another area where religion might provide important dissenting insights is in the balancing of individualism and community. In their seminal study of individualism in American life, Bellah et al. (1986: 50) paint a bleak picture of ‘a society in which the individual can only rarely and with difficulty understand himself and his activities as interrelated in morally meaningful ways with those of other, different Americans’. Their work was followed by that of

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square 115 Putnam (2000), who documents the breakdown of social capital in the USA. Indeed, perceptions of widespread alienation of citizens from civic life are a key factor driving reforms to democratic citizenship education across the world (Hughes and Sears 2008). A recent collection of case studies of how nation states have responded to globalization in terms of their policies with regard to citizenship and citizenship education offers a number of relevant points for discussion. First, nations in Latin America and Asia have concerns about the pervasive individualism present in Western liberal democracy. Second, nations from all continents struggle with balancing individual autonomy and rights with social cohesion in their approach to citizenship education (Reid et al. 2010). Elshtain (1993: 67) asks the seminal question for all these societies, ‘is it possible to embrace a vision of community that opposes both radical individualism, on the one hand, and a flattened-out, homogeneous union that obliterates difference on the other?’ Bellah et al. (1986: 38) see potential in religious communities for addressing the more radical forms of individualism that threaten democratic community. They argue, ‘the habits and practices of religion and democratic participation educate the citizen to a larger view than his purely private world would allow’. It is not that religious communities have this balance all figured out, but it is that they have wrestled with these issues for centuries and have a wealth of knowledge, ideas and examples to contribute to the debate. Bellah (2000) contends, for example, that Roman Catholic sacramental tradition is clearly focused both on building both a sense of personal worth and service to others and the community. Elshtain (1993: 72) concurs, claiming that ‘the principle introduced by Christians is one in which persons are both irreducibly individuals, but this individuality is exquisitely social’. Of course, it is not only Christianity that has resources in this area. The Asian societies mentioned above which are struggling to implement democracy without a concomitant breakdown in communal life have a rich range of religious traditions to draw upon for ideas. A key area where religion might contribute to reinvigorating a deeper sense of community is in the concept of vocation – or calling – in terms of work. Boyte and Kari (1996: 202) call for democratic theorists and citizens to expand their ideas of democratic engagement to include the world of work – a world largely thought to be private. They advocate a conception of ‘public work’ that ‘means patterns of work that have public dimensions (that is, work with public purposes, work by a public, work in public settings), as well the “works” or products themselves’. In other words, they want citizens to consider their work as not simply a way to serve their needs for sustenance and personal fulfillment but also as a vehicle for contributing to the common good. Similarly, Kennedy (2005: 9) argues that teachers need to develop a sense of ‘civic professionalism’ that extends well beyond their lives in school to include the ways they operate in the wider community using their expertise and experience to inform their participation in community action and issues. ‘Civic professionalism’, he writes, ‘is the means to restore larger public purposes and civic meaning to professional lives’.

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While these secular expressions of the democratic possibilities of work are relatively recent and exceedingly sparse, there is a long religious tradition of seeing the liberating and community building possibilities of labour. This was central to Gandhi’s philosophy, for example. He advocated spinning for both personal spiritual edification (it promoted humility) but also for nation building (it emphasized the dignity of manual work and fostered community independence) (Fischer 1954; 1962). The idea of vocation has a long history in Christianity as well, and not just for those who would join a religious community. For Christians of a number of traditions, ‘every occupation is a vocation, a calling’ (Wolterstorff et al. 2002: 28) that should be focused on the common good. In 1976, a group of American Christian clergy, theologians and scholars of religion issued the Hartford Appeal (Berger and Neuhaus 1976). It was a call to the church to stop compromising with modernity, stand apart and be the different community it was. The sociologist Peter Berger (1976: 1), one of the key authors of the appeal, writes that it was ‘directed against the cultural or political accommodation of Christianity in any form, left as well as right’. Even so, it was not intended to be an act of isolation ‘but simply as a point of reference for continuing discussion’ (Berger and Neuhaus 1976: vii). The authors saw their religious communities as offering more by providing a contrast to the contemporary Zeitgeist, rather than by always attempting to fit in with it. The title of the book they produced to explain and contextualize the appeal summaries this message: ‘Against the World For the World’ (Berger and Neuhaus 1976). Just as the Roman Catholic Church was wrong, as it now acknowledges, to attempt to stifle alternative world views offered by Galileo and other scientists, it would be wrong to squelch alternative visions of society offered by religious communities. Grappling with dissent and dissonance is a key pathway to selfunderstanding for individuals and society.

Conclusion We began this chapter with examples of attempts to exclude religious people from participation in various aspects of civic life, and argued that phenomenon is common in contemporary, secular, democratic societies. In fact, that is only partly true. It seems to us that aggressive secularists seek not so much to exclude all people of religious conviction, but only those of conservative religious conviction who do not fit their own self-styled ‘progressive’ agendas. When the Dalai Lama (a theocrat and not democrat) is greeted as a ‘spiritual pop star’ (Burroughs 2009) as he tours the world advocating for his return to rule in Tibet, it appears that the exclusion of religion from the public square is a selective enterprise. Indeed, many ‘progressive’ people of faith, such as some of those profiled in this chapter (Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Desmond Tutu), are often celebrated as archetypal democrats. People with orientations to faith considered more conservative are often the ones targeted for exclusion.

Religious faith, citizenship education and the public square 117 This bifurcating can sometimes be applied to a single individual – accepting some aspects of their civic engagement, but rejecting others because of their more conservative nature. Neuhaus (2001), for example, recounts being asked to write an obituary on Mother Theresa by the publication USA Today. When the newspaper found he had included something on the nun’s public and persistent stand against abortion, they refused to publish the piece and asked Neuhaus to pull the offending material, which he refused to do. They did not want Mother Theresa, Neuhaus argues, but a sanitized version that fit tame and popular social and political agendas. ‘Mother Teresa’, Neuhaus (2001: 101) contends, was not tame; she ‘scandalized the world and she scandalized many in the church. The message she embodied, and the message of the thousands of sisters all over the world who joined her in the Missionaries of Charity, is disturbingly countercultural. It is disturbing because it demands a response not simply of admiration but of emulation’. We argue that democracy is advanced, not only by listening to popular voices, but also by carefully considering that counter cultural voices and religious people, even conservative ones, have an important place in that conversation.

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Citizenship education as transformation The possibilities of religious approaches to education

Introduction: citizenship education and transformation After the forging of the political union that created Italy in the early 1870s, Massimo D’Azeglio is reputed to have said ‘we have made Italy. Now we must make Italians’ (Haberman 1990). Italy was not, and is not, alone in this project of ‘public construction’ (Curtis 1988: 111). Throughout the era of nation-states, the creation of a ‘national’ public has been the central project of citizenship education. When Canada passed its first Citizenship Act in 1947 creating a legally recognized Canadian citizenship for the first time (prior to that Canadians had been British subjects), Kidd (1947: n.p.) echoed the sentiments of D’Azeglio, proclaiming ‘Canada is legally a nation, but the Canadians are scarcely yet a people’. Sears (2010a: 193) argues that ‘the search to discover, or create, some sense of shared national identity’ has been a central and persistent feature of citizenship education in Canada from even before that time. Some nations have come later than others to this endeavour. The London Underground bombings of 2005 provoked a considerable amount of soul searching in Britain, for example, particularly with the discovery that the bombers were not immigrants but native-born British citizens. Lord Goldsmith (2008: 13) argues that British identity has largely been taken for granted and schools and other social agencies have not fostered ‘a strong commitment to, and connection with, this country’. A number of reports since these bombings have called for increased attention to British citizenship and identity in a range of public institutions, including the teaching of ‘Britishness’ in the nation’s schools (Ajegbo et al. 2007; Ofsted 2007b). This focus on creating national citizens remains central even in the context of globalization. A recent book surveying policy and practice in citizenship and citizenship education in 12 jurisdictions around the world found that the nation-state remains the central location of civic identity, at least as far as official policy is concerned, and forging a sense of national identity is a key focus of citizenship education virtually everywhere (Reid et al. 2010). If anything, increasing diversity because of both internal advocacy by marginalized groups and greater international migration of peoples has escalated concern for fostering social cohesion through identity formation in citizenship education.

Citizenship education as transformation 119 Although the nation-state remains central in the policy and practice of civic education around the world, there are those who argue for a more cosmopolitan and global focus (Osler and Starkey 2003; Evans et al. 2009; Hébert 2010; Osler 2010). Even this, however, is not the abandoning of national identity, but a reframing of it. Osler (2010: 221) writes that global citizenship requires that we reimagine the nation as cosmopolitan, and that we reconceptualize education for national citizenship so that it meets more adequately the needs of contemporary nation-states and the global community. It demands we acknowledge there are many ways of being Australian, Brazilian, British, Canadian, Japanese, Mexican, Singaporean and so on. Citizenship education across the democratic world seeks not only to create national citizens but also civic agents; citizens disposed to engage actively in the common life of their communities and nations (Hughes and Sears 2008). The extensive focus given to citizenship education in places as diverse as Australia, Singapore, England, Hong Kong and the USA is largely driven by a sense of crisis about civic disengagement; a belief that young citizens in particular are alienated from conventional forms of participation (voting, running for office, joining political parties, etc.) and agnostic about the values of democratic citizenship (commitment to the common good, respect for and accommodation of difference, etc.). As Zukin et al. (2006: 3) point out about the USA, ‘A consistent theme of social and political analysis over the past four decades has been the gradual disengagement of the American citizenry from public life, and especially from traditional political participation’. Around the world, civic education is seen as a key component in reversing this trend toward disengagement, and curricula focus on developing young citizens who are ‘knowledgeable about contemporary society and the issues it faces; disposed to work toward the common good; supportive of pluralism; and skilled at taking action to make their communities, nation, and the world a better place’ (Sears and Hughes 1996: 134). McLaughlin (2000: 550) calls this a ‘maximal’ approach to citizenship in that citizens are expected to go far beyond minimal requirements of voting and obeying the law to be actively engaged in both the formal mechanisms of the political system and the grassroots community involvement of civil society. All of this is to say that citizenship education in democratic states is intended to be transformational in at least two important ways: it seeks to transform the disparate peoples within states into a national citizenry with at least some sense of common identity and affiliation; and it seeks to transform ambivalent or, worse, apathetic citizens into people committed to actively engaging to determine and work toward the common good. Citizenship education is not simply about learning how a bill is passed through the legislature, or what rights are accorded to citizens in particular places and situations, it is about being a different kind of person. The Spirit of Democracy Project (2004; see also Hughes and Sears 2007), a collaborative enterprise between citizenship educators in Canada and Russia, puts it this way:

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Citizenship education as transformation The project is committed to the view that democracy is considerably more than a form of government; that while the institutions and machinery of democracy may be important, the spirit of the enterprise is contained in its ideas; a complex network of ideas including freedom, consent and dissent, equality and equity, due process, toleration, privacy and the common good. The goal is to assist students to understand the ideas: to consider their origins and their evolution, the tensions between and among them, their relevance in the structuring and restructuring of civic life, their value in molding the principles of how we might live together, in neighbourhoods, in national states, in the global community.

The name of this project grew from a conversation in which a group of Argentine educators committed to helping that country emerge from military dictatorship made the point that what Argentine citizens needed was not knowledge of the structures of democracy, something they knew a lot about, but to develop the spirit of democracy. The Canadian members of the project team found the same sentiment echoed in the first meetings with their Russian colleagues. The collaboration grew from this interest in the spirit, the animating force that shapes democratic life (Sears et al. 2004). The transformation flowing from the spirit of democracy is rooted in two things: first, an understanding of and commitment to a set of ideas central to democracy; and, second, the disposition to operate in a democratic and collaborative way. When the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville (1956: 56–7) toured the new United States of America, it was clear to him what idea lay at the heart of American democracy. He observed, ‘From their origin, the sovereignty of the people was the fundamental principle of most of the British colonies in America’, and went on to write, ‘The people reign in the American political world as the Deity reigns in the universe’. Almost two hundred years later, the concept of popular sovereignty still lies at the heart of democracy but even though it may be the central democratic idea, it is not the only one. Kymlicka (2001: 13) points out that a number of related ideas ‘underlie the operation of Western liberal democracies’, including ‘the rule of law, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, habeas corpus, free elections, universal adult suffrage, etc.’. While the institutional frameworks that embody these concepts may vary across jurisdictions, the underlying ideas and principles are consistent. The collaborators in the Spirit of Democracy Project developed materials and a teaching approach designed to engage students and teachers in an exploration of these and other ideas central to democracy (Hughes and Sears 2004; 2007). These materials were not designed to transmit an established definition of the ideas, but rather to introduce students to the range of discussion and debate about how they have been understood and operationalized, both over time and across contexts, and to engage the students in consideration of the shape the ideas should take in their own time and place. Tsilevich (2001: 156) contends that one of the difficulties new democracies in Eastern Europe face is the importation of democratic ideas developed over many years in the West. He

Citizenship education as transformation 121 writes, ‘Post-Communist countries [are] consumers, rather than co-authors, of this modern and generally accepted liberal democratic political philosophy’. The spirit of democracy is fostered by students co-authoring democratic ideas and practices through wrestling with what they mean and how they should be manifest in particular times and contexts. The second aspect of the democratic spirit is the disposition to act in ways consistent with democratic values. Barber (2003: 138) argues that the central democratic value is humility. ‘After all’, he writes, ‘the recognition that I might be wrong and my opponent right is at the very heart of the democratic faith’. In Chapter 5 we discussed Schöpflin’s (2001) concepts of first and second order rules. First order rules consist of the structures of democracy, such as constitutions, legislatures, legal systems, and the like. Second order rules are the civic values like humility, commitment and respect for others, and the rule of law that make the first order rules work. Civic education seeks to address both: to develop citizens who understand democratic systems and are disposed to operate democratically. Drawing from Aristotle, Groome (1980: 157) argues, ‘The end of education’, then, ‘is not an abstract knowing, but a certain kind of moral character that will make a good citizen and promote the well being of the state’. While the end goals of citizenship education are rooted in the transformation of individuals and collectives into ‘good citizens’, educational systems in the contemporary world are often much more instrumentally focused. Almost 50 years ago, Ivan Illich (1971) wrote a scathing critique of the instrumental and anti-educational nature of schooling. Calling for the ‘deschooling’ of society, Illich argues that large-scale educational bureaucracies focused much more on credentialing than educating. More contemporary critiques of education in the context of the neo-liberal reforms of the past two decades have argued much the same thing (Hyslop-Margison and Sears 2006). A survey of goal statements from Departments of Education across Canada convinced Stewart (2004: 7) of the narrow and largely instrumental purposes of public education in that country. He found that ‘seldom if ever is the term education mentioned in their goal statements, and ironically, there seems to be no consciousness of the transformative sense of education’. It is in the quest for a transformational approach to developing citizens that we argue religion, and specifically religiously based approaches to education, has something to contribute to citizenship education. Religious communities have a long history of educating for transformation. As Roman Catholic educator Thomas Groome (1980: 35) points out, ‘A moment’s reflection brings the realization that education, at its best, molds the very being of people – both who they become and how they live in the world. It is ontological’. Writing in the Protestant tradition, Willard (1997: 112) makes the point that education might ‘require information transfer, but it is a peculiarly modern notion that the aim of teaching is to bring people to know things that may have no effect at all on their lives’. Throughout his substantial body of work, Willard (1988; 1997; 2006) calls Christians to account for having abandoned ancient traditions of transformational teaching, rooted in the pedagogy of Jesus himself and

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Christian communities across time, in favour of a more superficial Christian education. The result is Christians who ‘are not inwardly transformed and not committed to [living in new ways]’ (Willard 1997: 342). The rest of this chapter will set out a number of insights from religiously inspired approaches to transformational teaching that we believe have potential to enrich citizenship education. Our examples are drawn primarily from Christianity, because that is the tradition we know best, but many of the approaches outlined here are common to a number of religious traditions. We are not arguing either that religious education is always transformative (see the critiques of contemporary Christian education raised by Willard), or that religions have a corner on the market of transformational approaches to education. We do believe, however, the great religious traditions have much to offer citizenship educators willing to think in new ways about their pedagogy.

A focus on understanding ancient ideas in contemporary contexts Howard Gardner (2006: 135, 147) contends that much of contemporary education is centred around ‘the correct answer compromise’, where knowing is reduced to ‘a ritualistic memorization of meaningless facts and disembodied procedures’. In contrast to this, he calls for education focused on developing understanding of key concepts, ideas and processes with a view to being able to employ those in new situations in creative ways. For Gardner (2006: 134), understanding is ‘the capacity to take knowledge, skills, concepts, facts learned in one context, usually in the school context, and use that knowledge in a new context, in a place where you haven’t been forewarned to make use of that knowledge’. The ability to understand the essence of complicated ideas and figure out ways of acting on them consistently in the contemporary world is a key aspect of Christian religious education. In their book How to Read the Bible for all its Worth, Fee and Stuart (2003) set out principles for biblical interpretation and application. They argue there are two essential elements in these processes: exegesis and hermeneutics. The first addresses the question of what the texts meant to the original writers and readers, and the second asks what, then, do they mean to us today? The first is complicated by trying to understand the words in the context of very different historical and cultural times, and the second by attempting to figure out how practices and principles might be faithfully followed in relevant ways in the here and now. Groome (1980: 12) takes this further, arguing that Christians are ‘pilgrims in time’ rooted in the past, firmly in the present but intentionally heading somewhere. There is, therefore, a responsibility to think not only about how the principles shape our present but how they might shape our future as well. Groome (1980: 13) contends believers ‘are not helpless pawns fatefully determined by the inevitable flow of history. We live in history and are shaped by it. But we can also be shapers of it. We cannot totally control it, but neither should history totally determine us’. To do this well requires a deep understanding of the underlying principles of the relevant faith as well as the ways in which it might be worked out in the

Citizenship education as transformation 123 world. Stott (1992: 27) calls this ‘double listening. Listening both to the Word and to the world’. This working out of ancient principles in contemporary contexts is very relevant to democratic citizenship education, which, as we point out in Chapter 1, traces its roots to Ancient Athens. Woodruff (2005: 3) argues, for example, that it is a mistake to reduce democracy to its ‘doubles’, practices such as voting or majority rule. While these might be features of democracy, they can also be quite anti-democratic. ‘Dictators’, he writes, ‘allowed or even compelled voting; but because they controlled what was printed on the ballots, the voting was not democratic’ (2005: 11). Similarly, majority rule is often simply tyranny to those in the minority. For Woodruff (2005: 16), then, the essence of democracy is in seven key ideas that informed Athenian democracy: ‘freedom from tyranny, harmony, the rule of law, natural equality, citizen wisdom, reasoning without knowledge, and general education’. He goes on to contend, ‘If democracy can be translated across the ages, the essence must be in ideas. We cannot simply transplant the practices of one time and place to another’. Working out what those ideas meant to the Athenians, what they should mean to us and how they might take shape in contemporary society is exactly akin to the exegetical and hermeneutical projects set out by Fee and Stuart (2003). Citizenship educators might gain much by examining how religious communities have carried on that work as part of their programmes of education. That is precisely the approach applied in the Spirit of Democracy Project. It, too, is focused on understanding and applying core ideas related to democracy. The point is to give students the opportunity ‘to understand how contested democratic ideas have been understood and applied over time and across contexts, and reflect on how they should be worked out in their own context’ (Hughes and Sears 2007: 93). That is quite congruent with the processes of exegesis and hermeneutics that Fee and Stuart (2003) place at the heart of Christian praxis.

Using subversive stories to disrupt world views Over the course of the twentieth century, a ‘cognitive revolution’ (Ireson 2008: 13) transformed thinking about teaching and learning. A central tenet of that revolution is that people come to any learning situation with a set of cognitive structures that filter and shape new information in powerful ways. Gardner (2006: 76) calls these structures ‘mental representations’ and argues they underlie the fact that ‘individuals do not just react to or perform in the world; they possess minds and these minds contain images, schemes, pictures, frames, languages, ideas, and the like’. The literature uses a range of different terms, but generally refers to this phenomenon as prior knowledge; meaning the knowledge learners bring with them to the classroom or any other learning situation (see, for example, Ausubel 1968; Posner et al.1982; Peck and Sears 2005). These mental representations, or frameworks, are often incomplete, ‘naïve’, (Byrnes and Torney-Purta 1995), or just plain wrong. In the words of Gardner (2006: 227), ‘Many of the theories espoused by young children are wonderful;

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some are charming; some of them are dead wrong from the point of view of physics, biology, psychology, history’. It is clear that this applies equally to the frameworks of adults. Research demonstrates not only that learners bring mental frameworks or schemata with them to learning situations, but that these filter and shape new learning. Hughes and Sears (2004) develop an analogy comparing these schemata to a modular bookshelf. The supports and the shelves help to structure the pieces of knowledge that are represented by the books on the shelves. As the person acquires new knowledge – new books – a number of things might happen. The knowledge might fit well with what they already know so the new book slides neatly on the shelf beside others in the same area. The knowledge might be something almost completely new and require a new shelf to accommodate it. Another possibility, however, is that the knowledge is related to that on one of the shelves which already exists, but does not seem to fit. This is like getting an oversized book that will not slide neatly onto the shelf. In this case the learner has some options: he or she can do what many of us might do with the oversized book and set it aside for the time being, perhaps putting it on the coffee table, deciding not to deal with the new knowledge, at least not for now. Another possibility is to turn the book sideways and slide it on the shelf that way; in other words, not accept the knowledge in the way presented, but manipulate it so that it fits their already existing framework. This often means distorting the knowledge, creating or adding to misconceptions. Finally, the learner can chose to pull the pins and adjust the shelves to accommodate the new book. We know, however, that pulling the pins and changing the shelves is hard work and might cause further need for adjustment as books on other shelves are affected by the change. In the same way that it is much easier to throw the new book aside or turn it sideways to fit, learners often find it easier to either reject new knowledge or manipulate it to fit their current frames rather than to ‘pull the pins’ and do the difficult work of changing their minds. Research on prior knowledge consistently shows cognitive schema to be persistent and resistant to change. Barton and Levstik (2004) provide a clear example from their work on children’s understandings of history of how pre-existing frameworks shape new knowledge. A large body of work in this field demonstrates that American students have a conception of the history of the USA framed by the twin themes of freedom and progress. This view allows for slight deviations from the nation’s commitment to freedom or minor setbacks on the road to progress in the American story, but the overall direction of American history is towards greater freedom as well as social and economic progress. As part of their work, Barton and Levstik (2004: 170) exposed students to historical material that countered these preconceptions and found, ‘so powerful was the narrative of progress that it led students to distort the historical evidence to fit their preconceptions’. Barton and Levstik’s findings illustrate the central implication of research on prior knowledge; in order to be effective, curricula and teaching must take the cognitive schema of students into account and operate to create the cognitive

Citizenship education as transformation 125 dissonance necessary to foster the reframing of those schema in line with more accurate and sophisticated understandings of the concepts and/or process being studied. If this is not done, teaching all the right information in the world will be largely ineffective. As Gardner (2006: 77) writes, ‘If one wants to educate for genuine understanding, then, it is important to identify these early representations, appreciate their power, and confront them directly and repeatedly’. Here, we want to suggest that, as a teacher, Jesus understood this well and his teaching was designed to confront entrenched conceptions and world views with a view to significantly reframing them. Although religious teaching is often characterized more as indoctrination than education, Willard (1997: xii) argues that, in fact, ‘Jesus and his words have never belonged to the categories of dogma or law, and to read them as if they did is simply to miss them. They are essentially subversive of established arrangements and ways of thinking’. In fact, close examination might lead to the conclusion that Jesus, who is often characterized as in the words of one song ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’, was often a rather harsh teacher in some respects. He saw his disciples as trapped and limited by a particular world view that Wright (1992: 159) characterizes as the ‘Pluriform Judaism’ of the day. This world view included conceptions of issues such as who constituted the people of God, what their problems and issues were, and what the future held for them. Jesus used a number of jarring techniques to attempt to create the cognitive dissonance necessary to facilitate a reformation of this world view including: 1 2 3 4 5

Setting impossible standards for righteousness. Telling stories people found difficult to understand – and when they did understand found offensive. Using shocking illustrations and examples such as the plucking out of eyes or cutting off of hands. Acting out parables that called fundamental parts of the first-century Jewish story into question. Often reprimanding his disciples harshly.

The Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew contains many examples of these jarring techniques. Stott (1978: 89) refers to many of the sayings and stories in the sermon as ‘dramatic figures of speech’. In fact, they are often more than dramatic. Considering the context and the audience, Chambers (1848: 2, 9) calls them ‘spiritual torpedoes’, and goes on to argue ‘these statements are the most revolutionary statements human ears ever listened to, and it needs the Holy Spirit to interpret them to us. The shallow admiration for Jesus as teacher that is taught today is of no use’. Although Jesus used a number of pedagogical techniques to disrupt the cognitive frames of his listeners, Wright (1992; 1996) focuses particularly on his use of story. ‘Stories’, argues Wright (1992: 40), ‘are, actually, particularly good at modifying or subverting other stories and their world views. Where head-on attack would certainly fail, the parable hides the wisdom of the serpent

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behind the innocence of the dove’. In particular, Wright develops the idea of the ‘subversive story’, which emerges from the particular context and world view of the hearers but contains a twist that jolts the listener ‘and nothing will ever be quite the same again’. One example of this is the well-known parable of the Prodigal Son, which Wright (1996: 126) characterizes as ‘an explosive narrative, designed to blow apart the normal first-century reading of Jewish history and to replace it with a different one’. The story is rooted in the Jewish sense of exile and hopes for the restoration of an autonomous kingdom and, therefore, uses themes quite familiar to the listeners. It reframes the future hope, however, in uncharacteristic ways and is therefore subversive on several levels. The same kind of subversive action is seen in the parable of the Good Samaritan where Jesus radically extends the idea of neighbour and, by implication, those who are included in the people of God. Another example is Jesus’ consistent challenging of the norms of family relationships such as when his mother and brothers come for him and he seems to dismiss them as no more closely connected to him than his disciples. In one case he says that a potential follower should set aside his obligation to bury his father (meaning to take care of his elderly parents until they die) in order to follow him. Wright (1996: 401) argues that in that culture this behaviour is quite frankly, outrageous. Many scholars have pointed out that Jesus is here advocating behaviour that his contemporaries, both Jewish and nonJewish would have regarded as scandalous: the obligation to provide a proper burial for one’s immediate family was so great as to override almost all other considerations. As Wright (1996: 175, 176) points out, Jesus’ ultimate objective was not simply cognitive disruption but laying the groundwork for teaching something new. The stories were designed ‘within the world view of the Jewish village population of the time, as tools to break open the prevailing world view and replace it with one that was closely related but significantly adjusted at every point’. Jesus had ‘radicalized the tradition’ by presenting his followers with these subversive stories and leaving them largely to work out the meanings for themselves. In this working through of things both together and alone, new ways of thinking emerge. ‘The struggle to understand a parable is the struggle for a new world order to be born.’ Citizenship and civic education are rooted in a long tradition and established practices that cannot simply be poured into students’ heads. They come to the study of citizenship with cognitive frameworks securely in place and the tradition needs to be ‘radicalized’ or shaken up so that students can begin to engage in new ways with democratic ideas and principles. While research on the prior understandings among young people in the area of citizenship is fairly sparse, a number of studies indicate young citizens across the world have a very strong orientation away from conventional forms of political participation

Citizenship education as transformation 127 associated with formal political systems and toward more unconventional or grassroots engagement. We can say with confidence that a significant number of youth across democratic jurisdictions have a conception of participation that privileges forms of engagement other than those associated with formal political systems. Some have argued that this is not necessarily a problem for democratic societies, but we disagree for at least two reasons. First, disengagement from formal politics is a threat to the legitimacy and long-term health of democratic governments and, second, we concur with feminist scholars and others who raise important concerns about the depoliticizing or privatizing of certain kinds of participation. In other words, the fact that young people seem to both discount political involvement and too narrowly construe it should be addressed by civic education (Sears 2009). If the findings of the cognitive revolution are reliable, the first step will be to disrupt this pervasive framework and the use of subversive stories has potential to help in this regard. Hughes and Sears (2004; 2007) have been working to develop a method to foster cognitive dissonance about civic ideas largely rooted in using subversive stories. Drawing on the work of Vygotsky (1962; 1978) and others in anchored instruction and situated learning, they have used ill-structured, open-ended and controversial stories to launch students’ consideration of core democratic ideas. It is an approach consistent with the teaching style of Jesus and other religious teachers. As the current Pope (Benedict and Walker 2007: 184) points out, obscure stories have enduring educational potential. ‘The struggle to understand the parables correctly’, he writes, ‘is ever present throughout the history of the church’.

Learning in the context of community Living in an age and context where educational institutions are ubiquitous and central to state policy and the lives of people at all ages, it is hard to imagine a time without schooling. But widespread publicly available pre-schools, schools, colleges and universities are relatively recent phenomena and still limited to a number of relatively privileged nations. While universally accessible schooling, at least to the end of primary school, has been identified as a basic human right and has no doubt resulted in considerable benefits, it has also come at some cost. In particular, it has led to a way of thinking that conflates education and schooling. As well, the institutional and bureaucratic nature of schooling often results in a devaluing of the relational in education. When Illich (1971) calls for the ‘deschooling of society’ he is not arguing for the end of teaching or learning but for changing the ways in which these are carried out. He advocates the building of ‘learning webs’ (1971: 52) – really educational relationships – where people with common interests and goals come together to teach and learn from each other. Schools, Illich (1971: 22) argues, focus on institutional rather than personal relationships and this makes for sterile, non-transformational learning unrelated to anything really important for living. In this kind of system, he contends, ‘education becomes unworldly and the

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world becomes uneducational’. MacIntyre (2000) concurs, arguing we can only learn to live virtuous life in relationship to others struggling with the same quest. He writes that ‘we can only initially engage in good practice through putting ourselves into the hands of others who will be able to teach us what we need to learn’. We are not joining Illich in his call for the complete ‘deschooling’ of society, but we do call on schools to recognize the power of other educators in homes and communities in the fostering of citizenship. An important aspect of the cognitive revolution we have discussed has been the development of socio-cultural approaches to learning. Emerging largely from the work of Russian learning psychologist Lev Vygotsky, these approaches are rooted in the idea that ‘young people grow and develop in a social world that contributes to the development of their learning and thinking’ (Ireson 2008: 70). Learning, then, is in important ways culturally located and teaching must take this into account. For Vygotsky and other social learning theorists, ‘a child’s [in fact, any learners] mental functioning originates in social and cultural processes’ (Ireson 2008: 75) and they learn to function in and use these processes ‘through interaction with more capable members of the culture’ (2008: 20). A central implication of this work is that learning is not, and should not be, restricted to schooling. Rather, it should include attention to all kinds of other relational settings and to fostering of pedagogical relationships. As Ireson (2008: 2) points out, ‘it is now widely acknowledged that much learning takes place in contexts outside the education system. From a broad educational perspective, therefore, there is an important agenda to understand a variety of settings including homes and families as well as classrooms, schools and colleges that promote learning and how they encourage different learning outcomes’. Religious communities have long understood the culturally embedded nature of learning and the importance of relationship in the process. In many traditions of Jewish practice, for example, the home remains a central place for teaching, and parents key religious teachers. Much of this teaching is centred on the celebrations of Jewish life such as the Passover. The Seder meal is one vehicle for teaching the specific story of the Exodus and the general one of God’s redemptive reaching for His people. The meal is permeated with questions from the youngest child: Why is this night different from other nights? Why do we eat unleavened bread and bitter herbs? Why do we sit so comfortably on this night? The answers, provided by an elder of the household, are designed to teach key truths in the history of the community. Groome (1980; 2001) writes in depth about the centrality of both tradition (what Vygotsky would call culture) and community in Roman Catholic approaches to Christian education. He contends that approaches to education often make one of two mistakes with regard to tradition: one is to succumb to a stifling traditionalism, and the other to eschew tradition altogether. The first is indoctrination not education, while the second denies the culturally embedded nature of learning described above. Groome (1980: 108) contends

Citizenship education as transformation 129 that ‘a Christian faith community is necessary for becoming Christian but, in addition, religious education must promote a critical reflective activity in the midst of socializing’. Groome proposes a set of five movements in the educational process to lead participants towards Christian praxis. 1 2 3

4 5

The participants are invited to name their own activity concerning the topic for attention (present action). They are invited to reflect on why they do what they do, and what the likely or intended consequences of their actions are (critical reflection). The educator makes present to the group the Christian community Story concerning the topic at hand and the faith response it invites (Story and its Vision). The participants are invited to appropriate the Story to their lives in dialectic with their own stories (dialectic between Story and stories). There is an opportunity to choose a personal faith response for the future (dialectic between Vision and visions). (Groome 1980: 208)

The movements are designed to combine elements of learners’ own stories (contexts, cognitive frames, etc.) with the Christian story inviting them to reflect critically on what their faith response might be. The process goes on to have them think about the future implications of their working out of a synthesis between their story and the community’s story. In this process tradition is important but not stagnant. It shapes the learning but is also open for reinterpretation and reformation itself. This ‘self/society dialectic’ (Groome 1980: 113) is akin to what Engle and Ochoa (1988: 28, 29) argue is the ‘socialization and countersocialization’ project at the centre of citizenship education. They contend that the conservative process of socialization, ‘of learning the existing customs, traditions, rules, and practices of a society’, is a necessary but not sufficient aspect of civic education. That process must be balanced by countersocialization designed to create civic agents capable of engaging in social critique and reformation. Sears et al. (2008) make a similar case, arguing that contemporary approaches to citizenship education have been overly generic and have not paid enough attention to inducting students into the civic forms and processes of particular jurisdictions. They contend that this is not only desirable but also possible to do, while at the same time encouraging critical understanding and action related to those forms and processes. It is quite easy to see the potential for Groome’s model to be adapted for productive use in educating for democratic citizenship. It pays attention to the learners’ own background, the particular context and culture in which they live, and possibilities for actively shaping both present and future manifestations of that context and culture. Groome’s model is built around participation in a religious community of many individuals, but another manifestation of relation in education is that of the one-to-one relationship between mentor and student. Again, features of

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this emerge from recent work on human cognition. Vygotsky (1962; 1978) developed the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which he defined as ‘the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’ (Vygotsky 1978: 86). Ireson (2008: 79) refers to systematic, structured help to move a learner through the ZPD as ‘scaffolding’, and argues it is most effectively done in a one-to-one relationship. As in a construction project, scaffolds are supports that allow for progress but which will eventually be removed when the structures are ready to stand independently. There are a number of elements to the process of scaffolding including making judgements about where the learner is currently, identifying key elements of the task to be completed, breaking the task into manageable bits, keeping the learner focused on and working toward the goal, gaining their interest and controlling frustration. Central to the process is a gradual shift to the student taking more responsibility and being able to complete the task on their own. As Ireson (2008: 98) points out, ‘providing such sensibly calibrated support can be very demanding as it calls for the adult to pay careful attention to the learner and to remember details about their performance’. A religious model of this kind of relationship is found in the concept of spiritual direction which is common to many religious traditions. In Christianity this dates back to ‘the Desert Mothers and Fathers’ (O’Leary 2008: 9) of the first few centuries of the Common Era. In this relationship a person places himself or herself under the direction of a spiritual leader for the purpose of advancing in both the understanding and practice of their faith. This is a formal relationship with ‘clear presuppositions, specific aims, and a corresponding methodology; it is not something casual, sporadic or vague’ (O’Leary 2008: 12). The director’s role is to assess where the student is, discern where progress is necessary and possible in their spiritual lives, design a set of exercises to move them forward, and monitor that progress. As in all teaching relationships, the process includes the delicate balancing of affirmation and challenge. There is considerable potential in this kind of model for citizenship education. With increased attention to engaging students in community-based activities (sometimes called service learning) as an essential part of citizenship education, it would be quite possible to pair students with more experienced citizens in the particular realm of service or engagement to which they were assigned. Working with the teacher, the community-based mentor could assess the particular learning needs of the student, structure a set of activities designed to foster growth, and engage in reflective conversations with the student about that growth. One further model of how a mentoring relationship might work for civic education can be seen in the relationship between St Paul and Barnabas described in the biblical book of Acts. Paul began his relationship with Christianity as a vociferous persecutor of adherents of that faith and was, in fact, on a mission of persecution when converted. Understandably, church leaders in Jerusalem were suspicious of the motives for Paul’s conversion suspecting a trap. Barnabas

Citizenship education as transformation 131 acted as the interlocutor to bring Paul together with the other apostles. Later, after Paul had returned to his native Tarsus, Barnabas sought him out to join in a ministry to the new church at Antioch. A close examination of this relationship reveals a number of things the mentor (Barnabas) did for the student (Paul) that might be generalized for teaching purposes: 1 2 3

The mentor introduced the student to the community. The mentor introduced the community to the student (through vouching for his bona fides). The mentor introduced the student to particular aspects of the work of the community.

This model is seen most clearly in education systems in the relationship between professors and their graduate students. Professors introduce their students to the community of scholars through immersing them in the work of those who have, and are, producing scholarship in the field; they introduce the community to the student through having the student present their work in various fora (seminars, conferences, publications, etc.); they introduce the student to particular aspects of the work of the community by helping them find a focus for their own research. The model could also be used profitably in citizenship education where teachers and community-based mentors introduce students to those who engage in particular forms of citizenship; explain to those people what the student or students have to offer in terms of knowledge and skills; and engage the students in appropriate aspects of the work of that civic community. The title of a recent book, No Education Without Relation (Bingham and Sidorkin 2004) makes the point we want to emphasize here: that transformational citizenship education depends upon strong relationships at a number of levels. First, citizens are formed in the context of a civic community and students must have some sense of connection to the traditions and culture of that community while at the same time being able to stand apart from it and make judgments about it. Second, young citizens can be effectively mentored into a more effective practice of citizenship through well-structured pedagogical relationships with more experienced citizens.

Disciplined reflection In developing his approach to social learning theory, Vygotsky argues that people learn through two kinds of activity: interpsychological (among people) and intrapsychological (within ourselves) (Wink and Putney 2002). In other words, learners need to wrestle with the meaning of ideas in the context of what others have and do think about them, and then reflect on what meaning and form they will give to them in their own lives or contexts. Hughes and Sears (2004; 2007) apply this to democratic concepts and principles, arguing they are both fluid (they change in their application across time and contexts) and contested (people continually argue about what they mean and what shape

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they should take). A key purpose of citizenship education, they contend, is to immerse students in the ongoing contest around these ideas and their manifestations in practice by engaging them in considering other voices in the debates and reflecting deeply on their own views. One example might be the principle of democracy as rule by the consent of the governed. The principle itself begs several questions, including: Who are the governed that will give their consent? And, how will that consent be given? In Ancient Athens, the answer to the first was a very limited number of resident males who met stringent kinship requirements, and the answer to the second was largely by direct participation in the Assembly and other state institutions. While the principle of popular participation is still central to the practice of democracy, neither of these answers would be found suitable in most democratic states today. The first would be seen as discriminatory, the second as unworkable. But that is not to say the questions are any better settled in the contemporary world where there are a range of eligibility requirements for participation in political systems and a wide variety of ways in which citizens can and do participate. Virtually all of these are contested in some ways. Hughes and Sears (2004; 2007) advocate inducting students to the study of these questions by engaging them with points of views and examples extending from Athens to a range of contemporary contexts (interpsychological dialogue) and then having them reflect on the appropriate answers for their own time and place (intrapsychological dialogue). Education systems tend to focus more on, and do a better job with, the first of these activities – the interpsychological. Contemporary schooling is much more characterized by discussion, debate and consideration of alternative points of view than schools in the past (at least in terms of official policy and curricular expectations). Opportunities for quiet, structured reflection on learning with a view to personal application (intrapsychological dialogue) are not so common. Here again, religious systems may have important insights to offer flowing from their traditions of the practice of spiritual disciplines. As Willard (1988: 99) points out, the idea of disciplined reflection and practice as essential to growth and development is both ancient and ubiquitous across religious traditions. ‘Thoughtful and religiously devout people of the classical and Hellenistic world, from the Ganges to the Tiber, knew that the mind and body of the human being had to be rigorously disciplined to achieve a decent individual and social existence.’ For Willard (1988; 2006), the exercise of regular disciplines, such as solitude, silence, submissive service, fasting and prayer, are absolutely essential for anyone who wants to move their religious faith from head knowledge and intellectual assent to particular ways of living. The monastic mistake, he argues, was to see disciplines as ends in themselves rather than as vehicles for living a transformed life in the world. Sister Helen Prejean (1994; 2005) offers an example of how this kind of religious practice translates into civic life. Sister Prejean is the American Roman Catholic nun and anti-death penalty crusader who wrote Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents. In the course of her work, she regularly finds herself confronted by forceful, and sometimes very hostile, opponents of her point of

Citizenship education as transformation 133 view both in structured debates and unstructured situations of public protest. She writes powerfully both of the temptation to vilify her opponents and of how she employs the disciplines of her faith to keep her vow ‘to reverence every person, even those with whom I disagree most vehemently’ (Prejean 2005: 250). This spiritual commitment and discipline makes it possible for Prejean to engage in public debates both forcefully and respectfully. There are many religious models of disciplined reflection that have potential to inform citizenship education. They all focus on essentially the same two things: deep thinking about relevant ideas or principles with particular focus on how they might be embodied or lived out; and recursive practice (trying– reflecting–retrying) in living them out in real situations – what Gandhi called experimenting with truth (Gandhi and Desai 1949). One such model is the Ignatian practice of the Daily Examen or the Examen of Consciousness (see, for example, Ignatian Spirituality 2009). The Examen is a structured exercise practitioners work through at the end of each day. It takes them through a series of questions or assignments designed to bring to mind times and incidents during the day when they had an opportunity to encounter God or act Christianly. They then consider how they responded to the opportunities and seek to learn from those responses. The objective is to become more aware of self, God, and opportunities for faithful action that will become more a part of one’s everyday life. It is a process centred on personal transformation. Again, the potential for transformative learning beyond religious contexts is obvious. In terms of civic education, students could be asked to regularly consider a series of questions such as: Where have I had opportunities for civic action over the past day/week/month? How have I responded to those opportunities? How do my responses conform to what I say I believe about the issues involved and the way citizens should engage? What might I do in the future to bring more correspondence between my beliefs and actions in these areas? Students could then be encouraged to do some of their own experimenting with truth by trying the things they think of in response to the last question and then reflecting again on how those work. To be transformational, knowledge must not only move from outside the learner to inside, but it must also move back out again in intentional living based on what is known. The process does not stop there but continues as the learner takes in more information based on the effects of their actions and reflects on that, and so on. Those processes happen informally and unintentionally all the time, but religious practitioners of spiritual disciplines argue they can be made both more intentional and more effective. Insights from centuries of disciplined religious practice offer considerable potential to educators and students beyond religious contexts.

Moving towards deep pluralism In the classic Russian novel The Brothers Kamarazov, Ivan, the cynical elder brother, is trying to explain his lack of religious faith to his younger, very devout brother Alexi. Ivan is horrified by the awful ways people treat one

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another. ‘It may be conceivable’, he concludes, ‘to love one’s fellow man at a distance, but it is almost never possible to love him at close quarters’ (Dostoevsky 2003: 315). Ivan may be right, but if he is it is bad news for contemporary democracies which have decided it is quite possible for people of very different backgrounds and cultures to love each other – or at least respect each other – at close quarters. As Kymlicka (2003) points out, virtually every democracy has embraced multiculturalism and respect for difference as social goods and moved to implement policies and programs to foster wide acceptance of these. A central part of state policy initiatives in this area is to use citizenship education to develop understanding of and respect for political, social, cultural and religious difference (Reid et al. 2010). In the autumn of 2008, for example, England implemented a revised version of its national curriculum in citizenship, which included a much greater emphasis on diversity (this was a direct result of concerns raised after the London Underground bombings of 2005 discussed earlier). As part of that curriculum, students were to engage in considering ‘how democracy, justice, diversity, toleration, respect and freedom are valued by people with different beliefs, backgrounds and traditions within a changing democratic society’ (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority 2007: 28). This was with a view to them ‘appreciating that identities are complex, can change over time and are informed by different understandings of what it means to be a citizen in the UK’ and recognizing ‘the multiple identities that may be held by groups and communities in a diverse society’ (2007: 29). These curricular intentions are consistent with those found in democratic jurisdictions around the world. It is hard to see, however, how students can come to complex understandings of ‘the different beliefs, backgrounds and traditions’ of people without considering the role religion plays in informing and shaping those and Western liberal societies have been generally poor at doing that. When confronted with real difference and, in particular, religious difference, the response is often one of three things: to ignore it; to soften it through superficial examination and activities; or to engage in the so-called ‘culture wars’ and condemn it. The first of these is what schools most commonly do. Gates (2007: 165) points out that countries tend to deal with religion in schooling in a range of ways, including: relatively balanced, open treatment of world religions (UK); ‘established singularity’, or the teaching of one official religion (Pakistan); and ‘secular pluralism’, which basically bans or ignores the study of religion based on arguments about the separation of church and state (France, USA). For the most part, the secular pluralist approach seems to dominate in Western democracies. In a national examination of religious education in Canada, Sweet (1997: 235) found it was simply absent from most public school classrooms even when it was included or allowed in policy and curricula. This, she argues was largely due to fear on the part of educational leaders.

Citizenship education as transformation 135 Fear of indoctrination. Fear of offending. Fear of conflict. Fear of lawsuits. Fear of curriculum hassles, administrative hassles. Fear of dumping yet one more thing onto teachers who haven’t been educated in this area themselves. Fear of the unknown. Nash (2005) and Noddings (2008) argue that the same is true of the USA where in-depth, critical consideration of religion or religious ideas is almost non-existent in schools. Where religion and culture are dealt with in public schools, the treatment is often superficial using a food, fun and festivals method that Nash (2005: 94) describes as ‘a folkloric approach’ characterized by ‘superficial and ceremonial sharing’. This method of teaching about religion does avoid some of the potential conflicts that terrify policy makers and practitioners, but it does not do justice to the topic and leaves students ignorant and confused. It does little to achieve the outcomes outlined in the English national curriculum or the curricula of other jurisdictions around the world. Pragmatically, attention to diversity, particularly contentious aspects of it, often gets subverted because it is complex, difficult to deal with and has the potential to generate conflict. In studies of policy and practice in several Canadian provinces, Bickmore (2005a: 165) found that schools and teachers generally avoided difficult issues with high potential for conflict, including those involving ethnicity and identity. Instead, they focused on what she calls ‘harmony building’ and ‘individual skill building’ approaches rooted in conflict avoidance. The first includes attention to the ‘appreciation of diverse cultural heritages’ but does not explore the real difference between and among those heritages. Similarly, Kiwan (2008: 49) found that in England, ‘identity and diversity are being presented as something that pupils learn about, as opposed to actively engage with’. She calls this a ‘pedagogy of acceptance,’ which entails ‘being passive rather than active, engaging or challenging’. Bickmore (2005b: 3) argues that teachers largely avoid more difficult approaches to citizenship inherent in opening up and exploring identity, partly because their own background, preparation and opportunities for professional development have not provided them with the tools needed. ‘To teach for democratization, in the context of student diversity and globalization, requires more substantive knowledge, more skills, and more comfort with openness and uncertainty than to teach for unquestioned dominant “common sense”. This can feel overwhelming, especially for novice teachers.’ Finally, difference is sometimes dealt with by engaging in the culture wars. Fortunately, in schooling this approach almost never shows up directly at the classroom level but it certainly does in the so-called curriculum wars that fester at the level of policy and planning. Social education generally, and citizenship education in particular, have been central areas of conflict in these wars (Sears 2010b) which are often characterized by ‘name-calling, insult, ridicule, guilt by association, caricature, innuendo, accusation, denunciation, [and] negative ads (Guinness 2008: 84).

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The first two of these approaches (ignoring religion or trivialising it) do nothing to build the kind of deep understanding mandated in curricular outcomes, and the last (a culture wars approach) alienates and does nothing to build understanding. In terms of the latter, Noddings (2008: 78) reflects on the implications of the ‘new outspoken atheism’ (the works of writers such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens) for schooling. While she has definite sympathies for many of the points made in these works, she concludes that their polemical nature makes them unsuitable as vehicles for education. About Hitchens, for example, she writes, ‘his language is more likely to inflame than to persuade those with whom he disagrees. In that sense his book is unlikely to spread critical religious literacy among those who do not already possess it’ (Noddings 2008: 372). As a general technique, she argues, ‘approaching the topic of belief with scorn and ridicule is almost certainly a mistake’ (2008: 377). In reflecting on the culture wars around the scholarship and teaching of history in Australia, MacIntyre and Clark (2004: 243) contend that ‘the object of war is to vanquish the enemy. The duty of the scholar is to seek understanding’. In this observation, they point a way forward for citizenship education, which is, at least substantially, a scholarly activity. To develop the kind of inter-cultural understanding desired in virtually every democratic state around the world, educators must deal with religion and religious ideas in a substantial way: neither coddling religion nor vilifying it. Space does not allow for a full discussion of how this might be done, but it has been well articulated by a range of writers from a number of national contexts who all argue that the consideration of religion in schools should be open, scholarly and respectful (Sweet 1997; Nash 2005; Gates 2007; Noddings 2008). That is, it should allow for consideration of multiple points of view; claims emanating from those points of view should be subjected to investigation and critique; and students should feel safe in expressing their opinions and making arguments. Because we are dealing with people’s most cherished beliefs and traditions, and in an open society these will differ greatly, the process of balancing scholarly investigation with respect will be difficult. Nash (2005: 105) outlines principles for doing this rooted in ‘the supposition that a genuine attempt to understand another’s religious views must always be a prerequisite for critique and judgment of those views’. If social cohesion is an important outcome of education, and it is virtually everywhere (Reid et al. 2010), Ivan Kamarazov would suggest that one of the first two approaches for dealing with religious differences in schools – ignoring them or papering them over – might be best. For him, getting to know neighbours will almost certainly lead to distaining them. The promise and hope of democratic societies is very different from that. We have engaged in an experiment with pluralism premised on the idea that we can both learn from each other and learn to work with each other in a civic community even when we have important differences. A key purpose of civic education is to lay the groundwork for that enterprise. Dealing with the sensitive and

Citizenship education as transformation 137 nuanced issues around religion in the classroom will be difficult but if we cannot do it there, we probably cannot do it anywhere. As Gates (2007: 62) points out, ‘readiness to engage with religion in the context of publicly funded education is more than ever a necessary prerequisite for community cohesion and political health’.

Conclusion In October 2006, the village of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania was rocked by an unimaginable tragedy. Charles Roberts, a local milk truck driver, broke into the West Nickel Mines Amish School armed with guns, wire and material for constructing barricades, and took ten young girls hostage. Shortly after the police arrived and surrounded the building, Roberts shot all ten girls and then himself. Five of the girls died and several of the others were left with devastating injuries. As with other school shootings, the news reverberated widely with expressions of sympathy along with donations to support victims’ families pouring in from around the world. Those who wrote expressed horror, incomprehension and fear that such a thing could happen at all, and particularly to people so committed to living peacefully in the world (Amish Country News 2006). This tragedy grabbed headlines around the world, but as the coverage continued, the focus of the news changed from the killing of the girls to the response of the community. Even as men built rough wooden coffins and women made white dresses for the bodies of their dead girls, the Amish of Nickel Mines reached out to the wife and family of the man who had killed their daughters. They dedicated some of the money pouring in for their relief to Roberts’ wife and children, invited them to the funerals of their girls and attended Roberts’ funeral in a demonstration of forgiveness to him and a show of support to his family. As one member of a nearby community said, ‘I don’t think there’s anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts’ (CNN 2006). In reflecting on the tragedy, and particularly questions raised about the amazing forgiveness displayed by the Amish, Kraybill (2006) wrote, ‘Forgiveness is woven into the fabric of Amish faith. And that is why words of forgiveness were sent to the killer’s family before the blood had dried on the schoolhouse floor. It was just the natural thing to do, the Amish way of doing things’. By natural, however, Kraybill did not mean the Amish were born with a special forgiveness gene that the rest of us do not have. Like all other humans, their natural reaction to such violence is to respond in kind, to take revenge. But, as Kraybill points out, through years of personal and corporate struggle about what it means to be Christians in the world, they have learned another way. In fact, teaching ‘the Amish way’ was evident even in the midst of this tragedy. One visitor to the community related the story of a grandfather who, standing beside the body of his slain granddaughter, ‘was tutoring the young boys, he was making a point, just saying to the family, “We must not think evil of this man”’ (CNN 2006).

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The Amish have taken as central Jesus’ admonitions to ‘turn the other cheek’ and to love one’s enemies, and worked out ways to weave those teachings into their daily lives and social institutions in such a way that to respond to devastating and unprovoked aggression with grace and forgiveness is ‘natural’. Learning to do this does not begin with forgiving the man who murders your children or your playmates. It begins in the more ordinary frustrations of family and community life. It begins in learning to forgive the older brother who teases, or the playground snitch who tells the teacher about some indiscretion. It is taught by mothers and fathers, neighbours and teachers, who tell children and each other the words of Jesus, explain what they mean, talk about how Mennonites have understood them over centuries, practice them in their own lives and provide opportunities for younger people to practise them in theirs. It develops over time, not in a neat, straight line, but in fits and starts, in failures and new beginnings. Slowly, sometimes painstakingly, the Amish of Nickel Mines have been transformed by their Christian education. The argument presented here is that civic educators can learn valuable lessons about the nature and practice of transformative education from the Amish and other religious communities. The practice of democratic citizenship is no more ‘natural’ than the Amish practice of forgiving their enemies and it is no easier to learn. It will require a similar kind of comprehensive and structured approach. The field of citizenship education would do well to consider what it might learn from the well-tested practices of religious communities across time.

Afterword

In his book A Case for Civility and Why Our Future Depends on It, Os Guinness (2008) laments the so-called culture wars and their impact on civic discourse and practice. A particular component of those conflicts has to do with the role of faith in public life. Guinness (2008: 23, 24) worries about both ‘reimposers’ who wish to restore a ‘sacred public square’, and ‘removers’ who want a ‘naked public square’. Neither view, he argues, is consistent with either civility or pluralism. We concur. The purpose of this book has not been to argue that religion, and especially Christianity, be restored to its once dominant position in Western societies. We affirm the idea of a secular state in the sense that it is non-sectarian and does not attempt to impose a particular ideology on its citizens. We are not ‘reimposers’. We oppose, however, a secularist state that actively seeks to remove particular ideologies and world views from public life and discourse. We have argued that since the Enlightenment, just such a secularist agenda has dominated, and continues to dominate, political and civic life in Western democracies. Its proponents have worked both consciously and unconsciously to exclude religious institutions, ideas and people from full participation in public life, particularly in education. This book is a call for a re-examination of that secularist agenda and its underlying assumptions as well as a reconsideration of the possibilities for religion to contribute positively to education and civic life. Religious faith has been, and is, a central and animating force in the lives of many citizens. While we recognize it has sometimes animated people in very un- or antidemocratic ways, that is far from the whole story. Religious faith has also nurtured formidable thinking about the forms of civic life and the nature of the common good as well as spurred very positive action in support of the extension of human rights and democracies. Religious communities have thought deeply about how to educate for deep understanding and positive action, which are both key goals of education for democratic citizenship. We have a profound commitment to a democratic and pluralist polity and offer the ideas presented in this book as part of that commitment; as a springboard to a fuller and more inclusive discussion about what it means to live together in a society that truly respects difference.

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Part I of this book examined contemporary expressions of the secularising agenda in Western democracies, with particular focus on how that is played out in education. It demonstrated how republican theory, understood within a faith perspective, can provide a shared understanding and substantive basis for education within a Western democracy. Part II explored the historical connections and disconnections between religion and civic life in the West from ancient to contemporary times. Drawing on historical, philosophical and theological sources, this section has made some strident claims on and challenges to educators to re-examine afresh the histories, the philosophies, and the theologies of religious traditions without dismissing such histories, philosophies and theologies out of hand. Finally, Part III examined religiously based civic action and pedagogical approaches contending both have the potential to contribute greatly to democracy. We have argued that religion, and particularly the Judaeo–Christian religious tradition of the West, has played a substantial role in the development of contemporary ideas of human rights and democracy. We have subjected superficial and dismissive assumptions about religion and religious people to careful scrutiny and we reveal a much more nuanced and complex picture of faith and its role in politics, education and preparation for civic life. Our book has presented some critical balance to the wide and complex, multifaceted debate on religion, politics and education, where discourse has been largely dominated by an ideology of secularism, where all manner of claims of damage have been and continue to be made against religion. The most effective regimes of control are those whose influences are the most covert. Seeing the history of ideas and traditions as integrally the history of peoples, this book has presented reminders from both antiquity and modernity that some of the most dangerous ideologies are educationally masked by benevolence.

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Index

9/11 82, 83, 85, 88–9 active citizens 30–2, 35–6, 43, 44, 81, 119; religious encouragement of 31–2, 44–5, 49 The Acts of the Apostles 55–6 African-American churches 108 Against the World For the World 116 The Age of Reason 67 Aldrich, R. 64, 70, 92 American Constitution 104–5 American Revolution 66, 67 Amish community 137–8 The Annals 56 Antigonish Movement 112 Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia 92 Apology 57 Aquinas, T. 22, 26, 105 Argentina 120 Aristotle 40, 78 Athens, ancient 20–1, 55, 106–7, 113, 123, 132 Audi, R. 19, 24, 25 Australia 28, 135–6 Austria 16 autocracy: as distinct from totalitarianism 78; liberal 90–2, 93 autonomy, individual 33, 36, 48–9, 115; Enlightenment ideal of 63, 66, 74, 77 Balbar, E. 19 Barber, B. 20, 98, 103, 121 Barnes, P. 42–3, 88 Barton, K.C. 124 Bellah, R.N. 103, 106, 114, 115 Benedict of Subiaco 61 Berger, P.L. 3, 5, 8, 28, 89, 116 Berlin, I. 90

Bingham, C. 131 Budde, M. 28, 41 Burke, E. 67 Canada: cynicism towards religion 99; education system 121; Father Coady 111–12; ignorance of religions 5; legal recognition of citizenship 118; religious education in 134–5; Spirit of Democracy Project 119–21, 123; spread of secularization 28 Carter, J. 102 Casanova, J. 12, 26, 83, 84, 86 A Case for Civility and Why Our Future Depends on It 139 Chadwick, H. 55, 57 Chadwick, O. 27, 62 Cherniss, J. 90 Chomsky, N. 90 On Christian Learning 60 On Christian Teaching 60 Christianity: Amish community 137–8; attempts to exclude Christians from aspects of civic life 97–8, 116–17; Christian identity 56; and classical learning 58, 62, 63–4; and consistency with liberal democracy 18, 49, 50; decline in church membership in Europe 18; desert fathers 58–9, 61, 130; early history 54–62; encouraging active citizens 31–2, 44–5, 49; in Enlightenment 63–7; founding of Western civilization 18–20, 53–62, 69, 92; Jesus’ teachings 54–5, 59, 109, 125–6, 138; mentor and student relationships in 129–31; notions of citizenship and 18, 20–2, 26, 30; Paine’s attack on 67; persecutions 56–8; promoting religious freedom 101–4; Reformation 26, 62, 64, 65; schism

162

Index

between Rome and Constantinople 64; separation from Judaism 55–6; transformative religious education 121–2, 122–3, 125–6, 128–33, 137–8; underpinning of education 92; understanding of education 42; universities and 58, 63, 99–100; see also religion Churchill, W. 92 citizenship: active 30–2, 35–6, 43, 44–5, 49, 81, 119; American and French revolutions as models for 66; Christian notion of 18, 20–2, 26, 30; and civic society 30–2; European identity and 12–18; global 119; Judeo-Christian tradition in formation of 2, 18–20, 47; legal recognition in Canada 118; as a moral choice 50; passive 30; religious communities engagement in 31–2, 44–5, 49; in religious education 88–9; Republican virtue approaches 6, 33–8; restoring religion’s role in 11, 24–6, 36–7; secular identities and 18–20, 26–30; as a secular legal status 22–4; sources of identity 18–26; see also citizenship education Citizenship Act 1947 118 citizenship education: to create civic agents 119; Crick Report on 46–7, 81, 82, 87; cultivating autonomy and virtue 48–9; disciplined reflection informing 132–3; emphasis on diversity 82, 87, 134, 135; in England 43–4, 46–9, 80–1, 82, 87, 118, 134, 135; forging a national identity 92, 118; in France 43–4; human rights in 43, 44; mentor and student relationships 129–31; neglect of Christianity’s role in formation of Western civilization 53–4, 59, 62, 69; in Pakistan 45–6; religion in 4, 82, 86–8; Republican model of 43–7, 98; review of working definitions 80–1; secular 40–3; social cohesion in 82, 87, 91, 115; ‘socialization and countersocialization’ project in 129; transformational approach to 121–2, 123–37; using ‘subversive stories’ in 125–6 City of God 21–2, 60–1, 72, 93 civic professionalism 115 civic society and citizenship 30–2 civil religion 37, 38–40 civil rights movement 102, 103, 108, 109, 111

civilization, founding of Western 18–20, 53–62, 69, 92 Clash of Civilizations 83 clash of civilizations thesis 83, 86, 89 Coady, M. 111–12 Cold War: clash of civilizations thesis post 83; ideological battle 72, 80, 86; resurgence of religion post 83–4, 86; secular approach to citizenship post 80–1 Collins, F. 97, 100, 105 Commission on Integration and Cohesion 82 community learning 127–31 concordats 15 Confessions 58, 59–60 consumerism 41, 106 Crick, B. 2, 18, 19, 53, 54, 81 Crick Report 46–7, 81, 82, 87 Critique of Practical Reason 62–3 culture wars 34 Dagger, R. 48 Darwin, C. 65 Dawkins, R. 4, 40, 41, 98, 99 Dawson, C. 13, 17 Day, S. 97 de Tocqueville, A. 39, 68–9, 73, 89, 103, 120 Decline and Fall: Europe’s Slow Motion Suicide 13 Democracy 20 democracy: in Ancient Greece 20–1, 55, 106–7, 113, 123, 132; ancient principles in a contemporary context 123; attempts to exclude religious people from aspects of civic life 97–8; attempts to exclude religious people from civic life 116–17; Christian Churches and consistency with liberal 18, 49, 50; and Cold War ideological battle with totalitarianism 72, 80, 86; creation of a liberal 34–5; de Tocqueville on American 39, 68–9, 120; Dewey’s history of education and 72, 74–6; disengagement of young people 119, 127; in Eastern Europe 103–4, 108–9, 120; exporting Western 90, 98, 120; first and second order rules 103–4, 121; humility a central value 121; Judaeo–Christian view in development of Western 5, 35; myths of relationship between religion and 4, 99–106; religion a nurturer of reform 107–9; religion and democratic activism

Index 163 110–12; religion providing a critique of 5, 113–16; religious faith and compatibility with 5, 106–12; Republican 35; respect for difference 134; revolutionary 66, 69–70, 78–9; and ‘secular jurisdiction’ 18, 24; secularism a presupposition for 13; Spirit of Democracy Project 119–21, 123; totalitarian 4, 5, 73, 78–9, 92–3 Democracy and Education 72, 74, 76 Democracy in America 68, 69 desert fathers 58–9, 61, 130 Dewey, J. 39, 72, 73–4, 79, 92; similarities with Rousseau’s pedagogy 75 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion 53 disciplined reflection 131–3 Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review 82, 87 Douglas, F. 102–3

Enlightenment in 67; government appointed religious leaders 17; state church 15 Enlightenment 27, 39, 53; aftermath of 69–70; autonomy 63, 66, 74, 77; Christianity in 63–7; and disestablishment of religion 105; historical causality between totalitarianism, current politics and 91; objection to clerical influence in affairs of state 37; rationality 63, 70, 76; social and political perfectibility 63, 65, 66, 67, 76 Erasmus 64 European Constitution 13, 16 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) 13, 14, 24, 98 Examen of Consciousness 133 extremism, countering 73, 82, 87–8, 89, 91, 93

Eastern Europe: democracies in 103–4, 108–9, 120; religion in 14, 15, 84 Edict of Milan 58 Edict of Toleration 58 education: beginnings of mass 67–70, 75–6; Christian teachings underpinning 92; Christian understanding of 42; dealing with religious differences in schools 42–3, 134–6; and ‘deschooling of society’ 127–8; development of ancient universities 58, 63, 99–100; Dewey’s history of education in democratic societies 72, 74–6; in dictatorial regimes 77–8; in early Christian history 58; Gardner’s critique of contemporary 122; in medieval period 62; moral 47; in post-Reformation period 64; in Renaissance period 62, 63; Roman Catholic approaches to 128; secularization of 41, 48; a weapon against extremism 73, 82, 87–8, 89, 91, 93; see also citizenship education; learning; religious education Education Act 1870 70 Education Act 1944 92 Education and Fascism 77 Education and Inspections Act 2006 82 Eliot, T.S. 17 Elshtain, J.B. 1, 105, 106, 115 Emile 67, 74 end of history thesis 80, 83 England: citizenship education 43–4, 46–9, 80–1, 82, 87, 118, 134, 135;

faith communities 31–2, 37 faith schools 37 Fascism 77–8 Fee, G.D. 122, 123 The Foundations of Citizenship 19 France: Catholic schools 16; citizenship education 43–4; Constitution 16; Enlightenment in 67; French Revolution 66, 67, 68, 78; religion in 16–17 freedom, positive and negative 90 French Revolution 66, 67, 68, 78 Fukuyama, F. 80, 83, 86, 93 fundamentalism, religious and secular 2, 23, 49, 102 Galston, W. 40, 49 Gandhi, M. 109, 116, 133 Gardner, H. 122, 123, 125 Gates, B. 5, 7, 46, 124, 136, 137 Gaudium et Spes 15 genocide 77 Germany: democratic reforms in East 108–9, 110; national church 16; Nazi 77–8; religious symbols 14 Gibbon, E. 1, 6, 53, 64 global citizenship 119 The God Delusion 4, 40, 98 Gray, J. 91, 92 Groome, T. 100, 121, 122, 128–9 Guinness, O. 2, 3, 5, 101, 104, 105, 135, 139

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Habermas, J. 23, 24–5, 30, 33, 84, 92 Hague, W. 101, 110 Hardy, H. 90 Harris, S. 97 Hartford Appeal 3, 5, 116 Heater, D. 19, 53, 54, 81 heresy 58 Himmelfarb, G. 67, 84, 86 A History of Education for Citizenship 19 The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 53, 64 History of the English-Speaking People 92 Hitler, A. 77 Hobbes, T. 37, 77 How to Read the Bible for all its Worth 122 Huber, W. 108–9 Hughes, A.S. 98, 115, 119, 120, 123, 124, 127, 131, 132 human rights 2, 106; and autonomy 48; in citizenship education 43, 44; religious people’s actions to further 110–12, 139; Universal Declaration of Human Rights 72, 79–80, 84, 85, 86; World Programme for Human Rights Education 72, 80, 86 humanism 63, 64, 65 Hume, D. 20, 26, 53, 64, 65 Huntington, S. 83, 86 The Idea of a Christian Society 17 identity: Christian 56; citizenship and sources of 18–26; civic 32; European 12–18; forging of national 92, 118; religious 2, 4, 12, 19, 32; secular 26–30; and separation of ‘self’ 50 Identity and Diversity: Living Together in the UK 82, 87 Ignatieff, M. 44, 113 Illich, I. 121, 127–8 India 109 individualism 36, 106, 114–15 International Religious Freedom Act 1998 83 Introduction to the Philosophy of Education 74 Islam: creating an Islamic Republic 46; in Pakistani citizenship education 45–6; in secular societies 12, 46; symbols of 1; tolerance of difference 101, 102 Italy 14, 16, 78, 118 Jefferson, T. 104 Jerusalem 54, 55, 56 Jesus, teachings of 54–5, 59, 109, 125–6, 138

Judaism: community learning 128; separation from Christianity 55–6 Judeo-Christian heritage 2, 5, 18–20, 35, 47, 48 Kant, I. 20, 62–3, 75 Keane, J. 20 Kennedy, K.J. 115 Kerr, D. 53, 82, 87 Kierans, E. 114 King, M.L. 103, 109, 111 Kymlicka, W. 34, 47, 48, 49, 120, 134 learning: classical 58, 62, 63–4; in context of community 127–31; disrupting prior knowledge and transforming 123–7; interpsychological and intrapsychological 131–2 Leviathan 77 Levstik, L.S. 124 liberalism 23, 27, 37, 40, 41, 70, 106; autocratic 90–2, 93 On Liberty 69 Lincoln, A. 107 Machiavelli, N. 64 Malcolm X 102 Marsden, G.M. 103, 108 Maynor, J. 46 McGrath, A. 58, 101, 105, 107, 108 McIntyre 32, 39–40 medical research 97 Mein Kampf 77 ‘mental representations’ in learning 123–5 Milbank, C. 92 Mill, J.S. 69 Miller, C. 35, 111 Miller, D. 110 modernity 1, 4, 5, 55, 62, 65, 88 moral: authority 15, 18, 25, 28, 29, 30, 39, 86; consensus 32, 38; education 47; values 31, 32, 35, 36, 43, 46 morality, public 38, 39 Mother Theresa 117 multiculturalism 134 Mussolini, B. 78 National Institutes of Health 97 natural law 40, 105 Nazism 77–8 Neuhaus, R.J. 3, 5, 43–4, 99, 100, 104, 105, 107, 113–14, 116, 117 New Testament 21, 54–7, 114 Newton, I. 65

Index 165 No Education Without Relation 131 Noll, M.A. 99, 101, 105, 108, 111 O’Leary, B. 130 O’Leary, D. 97 Oliver, D. 19 Of the Origin of Species 65 Origins of Totalitarian Democracy 78 Orwell, G. 17 Osler, A. 4, 53, 81, 87, 119 Otto, H. 77, 78 Ottoman Empire 102 Our Endangered Values 102 Paine, T. 67 Pakistan 45–6 papacy 59 Plato 74–5, 78 Pliny the Younger 56–7 political sovereignty 17–18, 37, 81, 105, 120 politics: Catholic Church involvement in 14–15; causality between Enlightenment, totalitarianism and 91; classical view 39; disengagement from 5, 30, 119, 127; participation in 31, 44–5, 110, 127; and pedagogy 73, 74, 79, 86; and religion 83–4, 93; religious identity and shaping of 32; religious role in American 39, 68; remergence of religion as a violent factor in 86; ‘secular jurisdiction’ and 18, 24; separation of church and state 16–17, 34–5, 39, 67, 83, 104–6, 134 postmodernity 4, 55 Power, S. 77, 80 Prejean, H. 132–3 A Problem from Hell 77 Prodigal Son parable 126 Protestantism 15, 107–8 public virtue 25, 33, 34 Puritans 101, 108 rationality: Enlightenment ideal of 63, 70, 76; and religious belief 20, 24–5, 29, 99–101; secular 25, 27, 29, 36 Rawls, J. 23–4, 25, 48, 99 Reagan, R. 80 Reflections on the Revolution in France 67 Reformation 26, 62, 64, 65 religion: antithetical to thought and rationality myth 20, 24–5, 29, 99–101; attempts to exclude religious people from aspects of civic life 97–8,

116–17; in citizenship education 4, 82, 86–8; civil 37, 38–40; democracy and compatibility with 5, 106–12; and democratic activism 110–12; and democratic reform 107–9; disciplined reflection 132–3; in Eastern Europe 14, 15, 84; encouraging active citizens 31–2, 44–5, 49; Enlightenment disestablishment of 105; essentialized as un-democratic 4, 99–106; and fostering of public virtue 25, 33, 34; in France 16–17; fundamentalism 2, 23, 49, 102; intolerant of difference assumption 101–4; manipulation by liberal autocrats 92; and politics 83–4; in private sphere 2, 3, 23, 25–6, 27, 29, 83; promoting religious freedom 101–4; providing a critique of democracy 5; provinding a critique of democracy 113–16; in public sphere 2, 4–5, 12, 24, 25–6, 104–6; reactions to secularism 3, 26; restoring role in citizenship education 11, 24–6, 36–7; resurgence of 28, 83–4, 86, 90; right to freedom of 16, 47, 83, 84–5, 88, 90; schools dealing with differences in 42–3, 134–6; separation of church and state 16–17, 34–5, 39, 67, 83, 104–6, 134; state 14–15, 107; state churches 15–16; state financing of 16; and United Nations 84–5; and vocation 115–16 religious education: in Canada 134–5; citizenship in 88–9; countering extremism through 73, 88–9, 93; Dawkins on 41; experiences of children with a religious commitment 41, 42–3, 48; in French schools 16; mentor and student relationships 129–31; within religious communities 128–9; teaching in schools 5, 134–6; transformative 121–2, 122–3, 125–6, 128–33, 137–8; in USA 135 religious identity 2, 4, 12, 19, 32 religious symbols 1, 14, 38 Renaissance 62, 63–4, 65 Republican theory: citizenship education 43–7, 98; citizenship education in England 46–9; and virtue 6, 33–8 revolutionary democracy 66, 69–70, 78–9 Richards, D.A. 99, 103 Rights of Man 67 Roberts, J.M. 4 Roman Catholic Church: approaches to education 128; concordats 15; faith and reason 100; papacy 59; sacremental

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Index

tradition 115; and state religion 14–15; suppression of dissent 112 Rome 55, 56, 64; fall of 59, 65 Rousseau, J.-J. 38, 67, 74, 79; similarities with Dewey’s pedagogy 75 Rule 61 Russia 15, 106; Revolution 72, 73; Spirit of Democracy Project 119–21, 123 Sacks, J. 31, 42 Sagan, E. 21 Saint Augustine 21–2, 26, 58, 59–61, 93, 105 Saint Barnabas 130–1 Saint Paul 55–6, 130–1 Samons, L.J. 5, 104, 106, 112–13 Sandel, M.J. 36–7, 40, 48, 50 Schönfeld 63 Schöpflin, J. 103–4 Sears, A. 5, 115, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 127, 129, 131, 132, 135 secular: definitions of citizenship education 80–1; education for citizenship 40–3; fundamentalism 2, 23, 49, 102; identities 18–20, 26–30; legal status of citizenship 22–4; rationality 25, 27, 29, 36 ‘secular jurisdiction’ 18, 24 secularism 2, 24, 29, 32, 40; error of modern 41; French 16–17; ‘intolerant’ 20, 103; meaning of 27–8; myths about relationship between religion and democracy 99–106; a presupposition of democracy 13; as profoundly Christian 105; religious groups’ reactions to 3, 26; totalizing discourse on 4 secularity 2, 4, 23, 28–9 secularization 27, 28, 29, 34; of education 41, 48; in Europe 12, 13, 17 secularization thesis 1, 4, 83–4 Sermon on the Mount 125 Sidorkin, A.M. 131 slavery 102, 110–11 social capital 31, 115 social cohesion 82, 87, 91, 115 Social Contract 38, 67, 74, 79 Sommerville, C.J. 103 South Africa 109 Spirit of Democracy Project 119–21, 123 Starkey, H. 4, 53, 81, 87, 119 state: churches 15–16; financing of Christian churches 16; religion 14–15, 107; and separation from church 16–17, 34–5, 39, 67, 83, 104–6, 134

stories 125–6 Stuart, D. 122, 123 Sunker, H. 77, 78 Switzerland 4 Tacitus 56 Talmon, J.L. 78, 79, 91 The Tao 113 Taylor, C. 27–8, 36 Theology and Social Theory 92 Thornton, B. 12, 13 totalitarian democracy 4, 5, 73, 78–9, 92–3 totalitarianism 76–7, 93; autocracy as distinct from 78; Christian critics of 108–9; and Cold War ideology battle 72, 80, 86; historical causality between Enlightenment, current politics and 91; militant atheism 83; UN reaction to 86 Treaty of Westphalia 65 Turkey 13 Turner, B. 20 Tutu, Archbishop D. 109, 110, 114 ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ 90 United Nations: ‘Alliance of Civilizations’ 83; Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief 84, 85; Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities 85; founding of 72, 79, 86; and religion 84–5; United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) 80; Universal Declaration of Human Rights 72, 79–80, 84, 85, 86; World Programme for Human Rights Education 72, 80, 86 United States of America 16; AfricanAmerican churches 108; American Revolution 66, 67; Amish community 137–8; children’s understanding of history 124; civic disengagement 119; civil rights movement 102, 103, 108, 109, 111; Constitution 104–5; de Tocqueville on democracy in 39, 68–9, 120; First Great Awakening 108; religious education in 135; religious freedom 101; research on religious citizens 31; separation of church and state 39, 104; social capital 115 universities, development of ancient 58, 63, 99–100

Index 167 vocation, concept of 115–16 voluntary organisations 18 Vygotsky, L.S. 127, 128, 130, 131 We, the People of Europe 19 Weber, M. 1 Weithman, P. 31, 44–5, 49 Wilberforce, W. 101, 110 Willard, D. 121, 122, 125, 132 Wills, G. 7, 105 Witte, J. 112, 114 Wolf, A. 41 Wolin, S.S. 91, 93 Woodruff, P. 123 Wright, N.T. 100, 107, 125, 126 Wycliffe, J. 107 Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) 130