Actually I kinda non ironically feel this way. My kids go to church and Sunday School for this kind of moral formation. https://twitter.com/andlikelaura/status/1304099480438857729

I think if your kids don’t go to a church, they should get some kind of moral instruction that aligns with your values somewhere (besides Netflix or Disney+), but I don’t want to subsidize it.

And yes, probably it’s time to rethink church’s tax exempt status.

My main point is that the idea of a “secular education” is a good one and I don’t want to see it go away in favor of state-sponsored religious instruction of any kind. I’m also not ok with Christian instruction in class, because it may not be my flavor. Let’s just not.

To extend this thread, because I got some thoughtful pushback, consider this quote & what the reaction would & should be if it were hanging in the entrance of a public school:

There's clearly not a lot to object here, in the abstract. Who could disagree with these sentiments? And yet it would send many parents into orbit, because it's a famous quote from 1 Corinthians. There is a whole ton of context that this quote immediately suggests...

...and many object to the context & to having all of that introduced to their kids in via public schools.

So while schools are never going to be entirely devoid of moral instruction, nor should they be, I definitely think the quotes in the OT are quite akin to the 1 Cor quote.

The quotes carry with them a ton of context & other teaching, much of it metaphysical & even, I would say, theological in its own way. These quotes are part of a full-blown catechism that competes as directly with my own evangelical tradition's catechisms as, say, a Catholic one.

The whole point of secularism was to keep Christian sects from murdering each other. It was a way to have pluralistic society w/ out us being at each other's throats. I think that was good & we should still be doing it.

But we aren't, because critical theory has found a hack.

And that hack is to take an explicitly ethical & moral framework around oppression & liberation, & to extend it to more & more areas of civicl life & thought by framing it as "secular." But it is not secular. It is a competing religious formation, & should be recognized as such.