The Growing Assault on Faith-Based Schools

The Australian Law Reform Commission’s recommendation to force faith-based schools to employ staff and enrol students whose way of life and beliefs contradict such schools’ religious beliefs represents an existential threat that must be opposed.

Religious freedom is one of the foundation stones of what Karl Popper described as an open and free society. Unlike a tribal way of life, an open society is characterised by “Humaneness and reasonableness, at equality and freedom”.

As argued by America’s founding fathers, such freedoms are Divine in origin.  The Declaration of Independence states, “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”.

What Christianity teaches is that as all are equal in the eyes of God, all deserve justice, freedom, and the right to go about their lives free of oppression.  As Saint Paul states, “ “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Such is the redeeming and liberating power of Christianity. One of the first acts of totalitarian regimes is to destroy the churches, kill and imprison those of faith and burn the Bible.  In order for dictators to remain in power any commitment to a higher and more transcendent authority must be abolished.

It should not surprise the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci described “socialism as the religion to kill Christianity”.  It also would not have surprised Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who explained the horror and unspeakable barbarism of two world wars and the evils of fascism and communism in four short words, “Men have forgotten God”.

Central to religion’s survival and prosperity is the freedom of those of faith to worship, pray and live according to the morals and beliefs on which their religion is based. Such rights are guaranteed by international covenants and agreements.

As they are their children’s primary moral guardians even more critical is the right parents have to ensure their child’s education supports their religious beliefs.  The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states governments need “to ensure the religious and moral education of … children (is) in conformity with [parents’] own convictions”. While government schools are allowed to teach about religion they are not permitted to proselytise and, as such, if parents want their children to be religious they must have the right to choose faith-based schools.

The woke nature of the secular curriculum, where climate change, identity politics and victimhood, plus neo-Marxist-inspired post-colonial and LGBTIQA+ ideologies are taught with religious fervour, reinforces the need for school choice. Add the fact Australian society is characterised by increasing rates of alcohol and drug abuse, anxiety, depression and self-harm, as well as family breakdown, and protecting religious schools from government interference is even more vital.

Research both here and overseas concludes faith-based schools are successful in promoting social cohesion and stability, volunteerism and a commitment to the common good as well as the need for social justice.

One of the arguments against allowing religious schools to control staffing and enrolments is that it’s wrong to discriminate. The prevailing woke orthodoxy argues such discrimination especially disadvantages non-binary staff and students. But if faith-based schools are to remain true to their purpose they must continue to have control over who they employ. As argued by the Australia’s Catholic Bishops, whoever is employed needs to agree not to compromise or “injure by word or action those religious and moral principles from which the agencies derive their foundation beliefs”.

It’s also important parents and students not seek to undermine or subvert the uniquely religious nature of such schools. There are secular government schools as an alternative.

Dr Kevin Donnelly is a senior fellow at the ACU’s PM Glynn Institute