Should school chaplains have to be religious?

[PhoenixxFire]

I was reading this article earlier. I've always thought it was kind of weird that school chaplains had to be associated with a religious organisation. I also read this article that says that for a while they could be secular but then the coalition government changed it back to having to be religious.

They can't push their own religious views anyway so I don't understand why they can't be secular. Thoughts? Opinions?

Also this quote (from the second article) pisses me off
"But as Bible-believing people … that sense of being genuine, compassionate and caring goes into the nature of everything we do as chaplains." It's an edited quote so I don't know what it originally said but it seems like she thinks people can't be decent humans without religion...

[Calebark]

Honestly, I didn't even know this program existed, so I'm glad it's been brought to my attention. It's funded by the government, so it should be secular. To make the assumption that only people from religious organisations have the capability to provide 'support and guidance about ethics, values, relationships and spirituality' is just silly and possibly damaging to students who don't hold these beliefs.

The idea of a non-religious chaplain sounds weird to me. Maybe they should replace it with a better word, like 'welfare officer' or something, to prevent any misunderstanding.

I see nothing wrong, however, with a welfare officer who also happens to be associated with a religious organisation, as long as there is no interference or proselytizing.

[peterpiper]

"But as Bible-believing people … that sense of being genuine, compassionate and caring goes into the nature of everything we do as chaplains." It's an edited quote so I don't know what it originally said but it seems like she thinks people can't be decent humans without religion...[/size]

I just don't get this program. Honestly. Sounds like religious indoctrination to me in the guise of therapy for students. If they want to help students and involve their personal and emotional wellbeing, I think they're misaiming where their funds should be better spent. I'd much prefer it if they had a program that emphasised evidence-based services that recruited professionals who have had training to deal with what can be extremely complex situations. And I don't think the religious affiliations that these chaplains have may necessarily be of help to those who need such support and care. *cough* *what happened to safe schools?* *cough cough****

[PhoenixxFire]

I just don't get this program. Honestly. Sounds like religious indoctrination to me in the guise of therapy for students. If they want to help students and involve their personal and emotional wellbeing, I think they're misaiming where their funds should be better spent. I'd much prefer it if they had a program that emphasised evidence-based services that recruited professionals who have had training to deal with what can be extremely complex situations. And I don't think the religious affiliations that these chaplains have may necessarily be of help to those who need such support and care. *cough* *what happened to safe schools?* *cough cough****

At my school we have a chaplain and a psychologist. I know the chaplain deals with a lot of friendships issues/fights that type of thing which I think heads of houses/year level coordinators deal with at some schools? I've got no problem with having someone whose job it is to deal with minor issues like that, but I definitely agree that they shouldn't be dealing with more complex issues, which I think my schools chaplain does get at least a bit involved in. According to the articles I mentioned earlier the minimum requirement is a cert IV in youth work which really isn't adequate for dealing with complex situations.

I'm fairly sure the reason it was religious to start with was because it was a community funded program - i.e. church funded, but now that's it's government funded it is absurd to have a religious requirement.

*cough* *what happened to safe schools?* *cough cough****

Ask our coalition government - Still a thing at my school though

[spectroscopy]

For I second I thought this said school captains and I was so confused

Chaplaincy implies ties to a religious organisation. I think the role of a chaplain can definitely be filled by someone of any/no religion but would be called a welfare officer or something as calebark said. But generally school chaplains fill a sort of weird role that we don't really have in alot of Aussie schools. They are somewhat of like a guidance counselor you see in America movies where students talk to them about things like drama with friends, to bullying, to "can I come late to school from now on to practice my sport" as well as the more traditional career type things and letters of recommendation.

In America the role is secular by description and works great so no reason why it wouldn't work here

[turinturambar]

Depends how you define religion, no?  Once upon a time Victoria banned Scientology as not a religion, but it was overturned by the High Court.  And by some definitions secular humanism is a religion.  For some it includes regular scheduled activities that are "church-like" (for example, would you want to exclude those going along to Sunday Assembly?)

What I find more odd is that the schools are being managed by the states and yet the chaplaincy program seems to be run by the Federal government.  Why?

[vox nihili]

Schools shouldn’t have chaplains full stop, unless they’re a religious school. There’s just no place for government funded proselytisers to be placed in public schools. Whilst I absolutely appreciate that there is a lot of good done by chaplains, that good could be done better by spending the money instead on mental health professionals whose means of dealing with these issues are evidence-based, not some church-driven drivel about the value of prayer.

The potential for harm is really significant too. Having people there because of their association with religion effectively ostracises students who don’t share that religion, by providing a fairly significant barrier to attendance to that chaplain, in spite of the fact that they may be a source of help. It also does the same to teachers, who might be less likely to work with the chaplain because they’re there because of their religious affiliation.
This is a big issue because a huge part of that role is being able to identify students who need extra help, which requires your service to be accessible to all students.


My personal experience was that at my school we had two chaplains. I never found it particularly problematic at the time, but on reflection some of what they were able to do was truly appalling. Before I jump into that, it’s worth saying that I had a bit of contact with them early on, because I lost my mum just as I entered high school. That this support existed was really great, and I got along really well with one of the chaplains in particular, who I think was very driven to help young people and who had been trained in counselling. I think he was probably more aware than the other chaplain that his purpose there was to be a counsellor, not a religious support, though he did ask me once whether I was.

There are two things that stand out though. The first is that in year seven we all got dragged into a meeting where the chaplain gave us each a bible and talked to us about how the bible could help us through dark times and give us guidance. Now sure, faith is hugely important for people who have it and can be of enormous support in tough times, which is why we have chaplains in hospitals (and so we should!), but this was a public school, and we were removed from classes to hear someone crap on about God.
Another issue we had is that we had an army chaplain who allegedly used the role to recruit people to the army so great.

[technodisney]

I was reading this article earlier. I've always thought it was kind of weird that school chaplains had to be associated with a religious organisation. I also read this article that says that for a while they could be secular but then the coalition government changed it back to having to be religious.

They can't push their own religious views anyway so I don't understand why they can't be secular. Thoughts? Opinions?

Also this quote (from the second article) pisses me off
"But as Bible-believing people … that sense of being genuine, compassionate and caring goes into the nature of everything we do as chaplains." It's an edited quote so I don't know what it originally said but it seems like she thinks people can't be decent humans without religion...

If it doesn’t say anywhere that they have to be religious in the job description then no. Especially if they aren’t even allowed to discuss religion.

Not all Chaplin’s are funded by the government though. My old primary school has a massive fundraiser every year to raise money for the Chaplin there since the government stopped funding it.

[peterpiper]

Depends how you define religion, no?  Once upon a time Victoria banned Scientology as not a religion, but it was overturned by the High Court.  And by some definitions secular humanism is a religion.  For some it includes regular scheduled activities that are "church-like" (for example, would you want to exclude those going along to Sunday Assembly?)

Totally off-topic (forgive me)

Spoiler

Not to point out the elephant in the room, but secularism is anything but religious.

I've heard this argument before, and it's not particularly convincing, especially when you start hearing people saying atheists are religious. Which is just strange and shows a total disregard for what consensus says religion constitutes. I'll try to explain what I mean by that.

Religion isn't equal to beliefs or holding a belief system, despite what some inaccurate dictionaries may state. It does involve having beliefs, but that's not what it is. It's also not a routine. Like, going to church doesn't automatically mean that you're Christian, for example. It may certainly suggest that perhaps you're religious and associated with christians, but that evidence alone isn't enough to say that you're Christian. It's also (sadly) not personal, because then it would totally defeat the purposes of having a religion (having objective morals etc). It's personal in a sense and a little touchy-feely. It just becomes incredibly relativistic, when we say people decide what religion means to them.

Religion is almost always (I say 'almost' because 'qualifiers' haha) tied to the supernatural or the superhuman. This is probably why a lot of people have problems with religion because there is always some unfalsifiable element universalising their morals and therefore justifying their actions. How it's organised into distinct groups and sects is as much a theological as it is a social phenomena.

One thing I will definitely address is the common misconception people have of those holding a belief system that contain no supernatural deity eg. atheism or secular humanism etc. And this is where the 'secular people/atheists are religious' arguments come into play.

I'll use atheism for simplicity. I know this may sound contradictory to what I was saying above, but atheism actually isn't an ardent belief in the non-existence of gods from what I've gathered in conversation. How I see it, it's an expressed skepticism toward theist religions because they haven't provided the burden of proof that their deity/deities exist(s). And I'm sure with secular humanism this is where they're coming from as well.

The best explanation I've heard was that atheists are without a god or without religion, but they don't necessarily assert that 'there is no god full stop'. Some do, but I don't believe this resonates with every atheist. In fact, a lot of public atheists like Stephen Fry have expressed that they'd happily convert to religions if they were given substantial evidence that a god from a particular religion truly exists beyond doubt. There seems to be a particular emphasis on their disbelief with what many religions assert to be sensible and why they the religious folks think everything is the way that it is. Not on the fact that there is no god/gods etc.

Now, most people stray from using the word atheist to describe themselves, because of the associations it has with equally dogmatic people asserting in the definite non-existence of supernatural deities. They go for the word agnostic to describe themselves, but my only problem with this is that agnosticism doesn't describe their position on whether or not they are a theist/whether or not they have a religion. It just says this is what I know rather than what I believe.

More likely than not, the word they're going for is: an atheist who is also agnostic as opposed to gnosticism, or agnostic atheist. Which in my rough estimate, would pretty much sum up the belief position many atheists themselves hold.

I could be wrong, because I've consulted at least 50 definitions, and some have asserted that atheists believe that there is no god. But I don't believe this is the definition which a lot of atheists use to describe their position. Or at least, it's not what I'm hearing when I listen to what they're saying.

Atheists are irreligious, precisely because they're not a follower of any religion, and I don't think this makes them religious at all. Because to be religious, you must necessarily have a religion.

*sorry very off-topic. But I've just heard this waay too many times and thought I should chime in haha I'll show myself out.

[turinturambar]

Totally off-topic (forgive me)

Not completely off-topic.

Spoiler

Peter, I'm an atheist and I agree with most of what you say.  I tend to use the definition "A person who lacks belief in the existence of any gods".  Which is completely not a religion.  On another day I might have (and probably have) written similar to you.

However, in this context I think it's slightly different, because the "chaplain" debate is using "religion" as a proxy for "being able to give moral guidance".  Similar has come up in the prison system: If you let a religious person access a chaplain of their chosen religion, can you really withhold from an atheist the advice and support of a secular life coach / councellor, however defined?  If so, you are either giving a special privilege to some for holding a religion, or discriminating against some for not holding a religion.

Secular humanism is different from atheism (in my view) because it makes positive assertions about the world, and has axioms for determining what is right or wrong, good or bad.  I don't call myself a secular humanist, though I suspect in many areas my moral code would overlap with it.  But it goes further: I am told some brands of Buddhism have little or no supernatural, and I have seen definitions of religion (serious discussions, not dictionary definitions) wide enough to include secular humanism, strong nationalism, and Marxism / communism / socialism (yes, I know those last three are not even close to the same, but they are often grouped).  Call them ideologies rather than religions if you prefer, but they can share some of the same markers: dogmatism, taking over a person's entire life, dictating morals and life practice, defining the highest possible good or purpose to life.

And if you're not happy to accept any of that wider definition, then we're back to "religion, narrowly defined, is a poor marker for morality".  I'd accept that statement, which as I read it was OP's original point.