Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

In your excellent article "Old Time Religion" (On Assignment, March 27, 1996), you cite the claim I made in my book, Religion and American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma, that high school students should be required to take a course in religious studies. Whether or not this is a good idea, it strikes some, as you note, as a naive position to take, the politics of our culture wars being as nasty as they are.

I would agree, but for the fact that this is not an adequate statement of my position. I also argue in my book that students who object to taking such a course on grounds of conscience should be exempted from doing so. A plausible legal argument might be made for exemptions on free-exercise-of-religion grounds, but there is also a political argument to be made: The availability of exemptions would defuse most of the opposition to it, for no one who has a deep and principled objection would be forced...