This is a follow-up and clarification of my two recent posts in which I talked about “soft Christendom” and especially values to be taught in public institutions, especially schools. I told a true story about a public school district that invited “community leaders” to create a list of “community values” to be taught in public schools. All the leaders gathered topped their lists with “love” as the highest value and virtue—to be taught in public schools in their district (something the US Supreme Court allows). The school district refused to include love in the official list, posted in all its public schools, because, they said, it is a religious value and not a secular one.
Now, some of you have misunderstood the point of the list of values. The values listed by the community leaders (I was among them) were to be TAUGHT to students—as values/virtues to be inculcated and lived by the students. This was NOT an exercise in “values clarification.”
Some of you, my valued readers and commenters, have said that love is not a religious value per se but can also be a secular value. I disagree—as did that large, Minnesota, suburban school district.
The point is—can love be consistently taught by a non-religious person? Of course a non-religious person, even an atheist, can teach love! No one denies that. The issue is whether there is a secular FOUNDATION for love that justifies seeking to inculcate it in students, not just encourage it but teach it as what they OUGHT to have and do? My argument is no, there is not.
The highest value and virtue secularism can teach—as an “ought”—is self-interest.
An adolescent asks the teacher “Why should I love my neighbor?” Both the teacher and the student understand that “love” means “seek the neighbor’s good alongside if not above my own.” What non-religious answer can be given that is purely secular and does not rest on belief in any transcendent reality?
What if the adolescent (or other) student says, “Okay, I get it that you, my teacher, believe that my own interest rests on the well-being of my neighbor. But why should I love my neighbor? Treat him or her decently, with respect, yes, but why love him or her? Tell me that.” What can the teacher say without appealing to any transcendent standard?
This is where I believe “soft Christendom” is essential, at least in America. Values and virtues that transcend self-interest have always rested on a Bible-based theistic, even (softly) Christian foundation. As that cracks and dissolves, values and virtues can only rest on self-interest. If a bright, inquisitive students keeps asking “Why? Why? Why?” About the reasons for values and virtues such as compassion and honesty, the only final and absolute reason that can be given that is purely secular is self-interest. But even many bright, inquisitive students will realize that his or her self-interest may or may not lead to love, compassion, honesty. In fact, he or she will eventually realize that it doesn’t necessarily lead to those values or virtues.
Yes, of course an atheist can teach love. The issue is whether he or she can give a good REASON why love should be a motive for action in the face of need.
In the end, only Social Darwinism survives the onslaught of secularism, thought through to the end.
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