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Hell Disappeared. No One Noticed. A Civic Argument*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Martin E. Marty
Martin E. Marty
Affiliation:
The Divinity School, University of Chicago
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Extract

An abstract of this essay would reveal two interests, one civil and one religious. The first has to do with a public debate over values in American elementary and secondary education and what this debate symbolizes about national life in general. Specifically, I want to suggest that the stated intentions of citizens who demand religious instruction in the public schools could only be fulfilled, logically, if this instruction included doctrines of eternal punishment—in short, the possibility of hell. This is especially true if they wish to restore moral instruction “as it used to be.” My second argument urges that such a teaching would impose on schools a doctrine that has disappeared or been drastically diminished in the preachments of most American religious groups. It is a doctrine that is hence not culturally available.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 78 , Issue 3-4 , October 1985 , pp. 381 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1985

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References

1 For samples of this literature see Barton, John and Whitehead, John, Schools on Fire (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1980)Google Scholar; Fortkamp, Frank E., The Case Against Government Schools (Westlake Village, CA: Americana Media, 1979)Google Scholar; Hefley, James C., Are Textbooks Harming Your Children? (Milford, MI: Mott Media, 1979)Google Scholar; Herron, Orley, Who Controls Your Child? (Nashville: Nelson, 1980)Google Scholar; Hill, Robert Allen, Your Children: The Victims of Public Education (Medford, OR: Omega, 1978)Google Scholar; Lockerbie, D. Bruce, Who Educates Your Child? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981)Google Scholar; LaHaye, Tim, The Battle for the Public Schools (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1983)Google Scholar; Buzzard, Lynn R., Schools: They Haven't Got a Prayer (Elgin, IL: Cook, 1982).Google Scholar

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3 The Supreme Court rulings in Engel versus Vitale and Abington School District versus Schempp appear in Frommer, Arthur, ed., The Bible and the Public Schools (New York: Liberal Press, 1963).Google Scholar

4 An introduction to the scapegoating literature is Tim LaHaye, The Battle for the Mind (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1980).Google ScholarPubMed John Whitehead writes frequently in this vein.

5 The Arkansas creationist ruling reviews the situation; see the New York Times, 6 January 1982.Google Scholar

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7 Quoted by Mead, Sidney E. in The Lively Experiment (New York: Harper & Row, 1963) 44.Google Scholar

8 Franklin, Benjamin, Representative Selections (New York: American Book, 1936) 69–70.Google Scholar Emphasis mine.

9 Cited by Healey, Robert M., Jefferson on Religion in Public Education (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962) 31.Google Scholar Emphasis mine.

10 An important discussion of Edwards and the hell imagery along with the citations is in Simonson, Harold P., Jonathan Edwards: Theologian of the Heart (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 125–37.Google Scholar

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12 Elson, Ruth Miller, Guardians of Tradition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964) 212–13Google Scholar quotes from many textbooks on these themes.

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14 See Michaelsen, Robert, Piety in the Public School (New York: Macmillan, 1970) 74–75.Google Scholar

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16 See Sociologîa de la Religión y Teologîa: Estudio Bibliográfico (Madrid: Instituto Fé y Secularidad, 1975 and 1978)Google Scholar; Brunkow, Robert de V., Religion and Society in North America: An Annotated Bibliography (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio, 1983)Google Scholar; Church History is the official publication of the American Society of Church History.

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18 Chittester, Joan D., “Will the Lord Find Faith?” in idem and Martin E. Marty, Faith and Ferment: An Interdisciplinary Study of Christian Beliefs and Practices (ed. Bilheimer, Robert S.; Minnesota: Augsburg, 1983) 94.Google Scholar

19 LaHaye, Battle, 204–5; 214–15.

20 The Evangelist (February 1984) 18.Google Scholar

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23 U.S. Catholic (May 1983)Google Scholar published these statistics after a special survey.

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