Lutherans: School v. Family

The 1,360 schools run by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod constitute the nation’s second largest parochial system, and the church has lately been wondering about how effectively it provides religious training. Last week Missouri’s Concordia Seminary published a survey of religious attitudes and beliefs among its parochial-school children. It suggests that the results may not be proportionate to the investment.

Compiled by Ronald L. Johnstone of Concordia’s research center, the study was based on a sampling of Lutheran youth in Detroit and St. Louis. On questions of religious fact and faith, Johnstone found, students trained exclusively in Lutheran parochial schools did noticeably better than those with a purely public-school education. More than 55% of the students in Lutheran schools could name the century in which Luther lived, compared to 26.9% of public-school Lutherans. Asked to define the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), 60.7% of the students in parochial schools did so correctly, compared to 6.2% of those with no church-school background. But Johnstone found that on questions of doctrinal orthodoxy, such as belief in Christ’s Real Presence in the Lord’s Supper, there was little difference between parochial-school children and those with a public education. In both groups, about half of the students indicated a prejudice against Negroes.

Johnstone does not argue that Missouri Synod should abandon its parochial schools, most of which are of high academic quality. He believes that parochial schooling is of special value to children from “marginal” Lutheran families, in which prayer at home and church attendance are infrequent. His conclusions coincide with those of recent Roman Catholic surveys, which suggest that a religious family background is more important than attendance at a church school in instilling a Christian attitude in youth.