religious education
Banners hang on Paris City Hall supporting Charlie Hebdo. Photo via Elizabeth Bryant / RNS
The aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shootings has recently moved from the streets of Paris to the classrooms of France, where teachers, students, and policymakers confront religion and free speech.
The Charlie Hebdo cartoons and January’s subsequent rally of support for the satirical magazine revealed France’s full support for freedom of expression. This freedom includes satire: portraits mocking Muhammad, sometimes clothed, sometimes nude. But while France shares an enthusiasm for “free speech” found among other nations, it lacks one aspect of culture found in most countries: religious education.
Chalkboard image, Sam72 / Shutterstock.com
When Uwe and Hannelore Romeike’s asylum case is argued on Tuesday before a panel of federal judges, their lawyers won’t talk about poverty, war, or any of the reasons most immigrants cite in their bid to stay in the U.S.
Instead, they’ll focus on a parent’s right to teach their children at home, which isn’t allowed in the Romeikes’ native Germany. There, homeschooling families face fines, jail time and even loss of custody if their children are not enrolled in a traditional school.
The Romeikes’ lawyers will also talk about their right to teach the Bible during the school day – an angle that has spurred more than 100,000 U.S. conservatives to sign a petition to let the family stay in Tennessee, where they’ve made their home since 2008.
Ralph Singh, director of publications and public relations for Gobind Sadan — "God's House Without Walls," a spiritual community rooted in the Sikh tradition with locations in India and the United States — responds to the mass shooting at a Wisconsin Sikh gurudwara that has devastated the faith community.
Sikhism was founded more than 500 years ago in India. Observant Sikhs do not cut their hair, and male followers of the religion wear turbans, which they consider sacred.
"A Sikh, wherever they go in the world, is committed to building community a community of peace, an inclusive community to stand as an affirmation of what we now call pluralism," Singh says.
Listen to what Singh as to say on a video inside the blog ...