Securing Freedom through Civic Education

I recently heard Dr. Os Guinness speak about the importance of the U.S. Constitution and the American experiment with freedom. Dr. Guinness argues that the U.S. is facing a gathering crisis of freedom and that we must act to protect our freedom.

Although we as Americans celebrate the freedom that we won in 1776, that was really just the first step in our great experiment. Next our founding fathers ordered freedom by setting its parameters in the Constitution. The framers of the Constitution placed much importance on gaining freedoms as on keeping them. They wanted a free republic that would last forever. Now maintaining freedom is our most important task as a nation. 

Dr. Guiness describes the paradox of freedom--that freedom is its own worst enemy. Freedom can be undermined in times of prosperity because people stray from the principles that tie us together as a nation and protect freedom. Freedom can also be damaged by actions that are desgined to protect us such as terrorism survelliance. 

It is returning to the first principles that is the most important step in maintaining freedom, according to Dr. Guiness. He describes a Golden Triangle of Freedom involving freedom, virtue and faith where freedom depends on virtue, virtue requires faith of some sort, and faith depends upon freedom to survive. Sustainable freedom depends upon the charater of the rulers and trust between rules and citizens. Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. 

Although key to the survival of our democracy, since the 1960s, civic education has disappeared from our schools. Reintroducing civic education would return our nation to a common understanding of our the first principles or virtues upon which our nation was built and protect our freedom, particularly our freedom of conscience. He describes it like the bedding in which the Constitution sits. If the bedding is corrupted, the Constitution will fail. This would allow for a re-opening of the public square where every American would be able to speak their mind based on their own values, including religious values. 

He concluded that we need a renewal of faith and an end to culture warring.  The next chapter is crucial. Just like a novel, the hardest part of a revolution to write is the ending.  The chapter that the next generation writes will be critical for sustaining the USA.

Although I haven't read his books, as a supporter of civic education, I thought Dr. Guiness's arguments were important. I think civic education is something that we as Americans can all agree to support.

Having studied Establishment Clause jurisprudence, though, I understand why church and state are separate in the U.S. in the sense that laws cannot promote or inhibit religion, particularly in public schools. Yet as currently practiced it creates a conundrum where thousands of Americans feel excluded from the public square because their views are based on their closely held religious beliefs and these views cannot be used as the official basis for new laws. Instead, Americans who are driven by religious convictions to pursue worthy causes that better society as a whole must explain them in secular ways in order to be heard and taken seriously. Dr. Guiness argues that this exclusion is more serious than just a feeling of exclusion; instead it threatens to undermine the foundation of Constitution itself because it is these principles that undergird our original freedoms. I think what he envisions is an American society that would more readily welcome relgious views into the public sphere while still maintaining the formal separation, so that the laws themselves would not promote or discourage religion but that individual citizens are able to openly discuss their views in religious terms if they want to but then lawmakers decide to pursue or not based on the needs of the society. This reintroduction of civic education and a welcoming of religious voices into the public square would return the concepts of virtue and first principles back into the national conversation.

Comments

[Bob Sugar]

Although I'm not sure an increased emphasis on civic education will improve the matter, it can't hurt. The idea that religious beliefs need "something more" to be legitimate foundations for laws or arguments is a major problem in our country. Why? Because most, there are some odd ones, religious beliefs reflect a great deal of wisdom and generally are based on common sense. But so many of our education policies are so contrived, they ignore this basic common sense in an effort to avoid the religious entanglement. My favorite example is sex education. Premarital sex is nearly universally frowned upon by all major religions. The common sense rationales are abundant and truly too many to explain in less than 5,000 words, yet, very basically, reflect the commitment of a husband and a wife to each other and the joint responsibility they agree to take if a child results. But in today's culture the non religious reasons of preventing STDs, lowering health costs, and avoiding the expenses of a potential child carry the day. While certainly valid, these rationales are no more legitimate than that of having two parents who have made a promise before their fellow citizens that they will both care for a child no matter what.