Book Review: Teaching Morality and Religion

Abstract

Teaching Morality and Religion is a reprint of a booklet that Alan Harris (1936– 1986), a British education lecturer at the Open University, had originally published in 1976. The respectful and reasonable criticism (e.g., superficial philosophizing and theologizing; too theoretical; patronizing cartoons) that Barrie Paskins expressed in his 1977 review for Religious Studies does not need to be elaborately repeated here. Rather, the present review’s focus is on the limited contribution that Harris’s republished essay can make 45 years after its first appearance. With his book, Harris attempts “to offer practical help to teachers” (p. 9). After his thoughts on educating the pupils’ moral and religious emotions in the first three chapters, he consecutively treats Moral Education (ME) and Religious Education (RE) by focusing on the respective disciplines in three ways: (1) as a school subject in chapters 4 and 8, (2) in practice in chapters 6 and 9, and (3) by presenting some case studies in chapters 7 and 10. An equivalent to the fifth chapter, “The Goals of Moral Education,” is lacking in the book’s RE section. Harris’s eloquently stated conviction, “It is impossible to understand much of history, much of art, many of the conflicts in contemporary society and the contrasting life-styles of different ethnic groups in our own country without having some understanding of various religions. For these reasons alone it seems ridiculous that there should be disputes about the existence of RE as part of the normal syllabus of all schools,” was not only valid in 1976, but also applies, and perhaps even more so, to 2021 and beyond (p. 71). Even though Harris considers morality and religion two “fundamentally” different matters, he treats them together in one book because according to him, they both (1) have a minority position in schools, (2) are concerned with the “education of emotions” (e.g., respectively, guilt and remorse; awe and reverence), and (3) face opposition in society because of their (presupposed) indoctrinating character (pp. 13–14). Harris’s assumption of a fundamental dissimilarity between ME and RE, however, does not do justice to educational reality. Put differently, Harris’s book cannot be compared to a hypothetical book entitled Teaching English and Physics (p. 13) because religion is always concerned with morality International Journal of Christianity & Education