Hey. The other day when I heard that "representatives of the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church and the Baptist Union signed a joint letter to new Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Alan Johnson MP, calling for greater investment in training and resources for school staff charged with organising ‘collective worship", I was hesitant but basically positive. Positive because the stipulations (slightly archaic now) in the 1944 Education Act seemed to provide some scope for varying the actual religious tradition the assemblies are drawn from - "an assembly must include an “act of worship” which should be “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character”. However, with closer inspection its easy to see how this is exclusive and very much part of a christendom type mindset.
Hence I found
this article by the ekklesia think tank very interesting - a satisfying eschewal of the position of power that the church has long held in government. As the article makes clear, when worship is mandated, everyone, including the church, suffers.
8 comments:
interesting - there was a news featue recently on the increasing segregation that is happening in britains schools. I agree that forced worship isnt the way forward at all and instead an appreciation and respect with open choice and encouraged decision making is prevalent. This however maybe somewhat irrelevant when we find that while britain is becoming increasingly multicultural, this happens under a largely segregated umbrella. Ignorance will probably prevail
true, our multiculturalism does seem to be accompanied by division - or anomie as Durkheim would have it - a lack of shared ethical and moral values. obviously there's an increasingly important role for the religious studies as a discipline in schools. maybe there is a way of giving access to different forms of worship in schools, so that kids of a certain faith tradition can worship, but so that others can also join in?
I can remember so clearly Dlariada's religious assemblies. The one's that were specifically christian/religious in general, were so cringy it hurt. And you knew for a fact that practically every word fell on deaf ears. In the last three or four years of my time there (96-00) however, it mostly became non-religious in content, more psychologically based, and generally wishy-washy feel good shit. I really think it would be best if teachers didn't have to fake it anymore - drop the mandated religious assembly idea, but increase relgious education a lot, and opssibly try to provide opportunities for kids to attend worship services of varying kinds. Or perhaps this is where schools can interact better with local religious communities.
I like the idea of the school kids interacting with local communities. I think there may be something there. I wonder is there some way in this to separate school from religion, but at the same time attach them - connections of distinct entities. Surely there'd be something fruitful with respect to building bridges and inter-group relationships in such a setup. If we're forced to accept the boundaries, then perhaps we can work at bridging them in a more honest, and potentially longer-lasting manner.
I'm fascinated to hear that Dalriada's services embraced psychopop. I left in 94, and then it was like Calvin's Geneva.
At the time, I didn't think it made a pop of difference to classmates, who were either fervent members of the CU (still, actually, a really pleasant source of memories) or modern incarnations of Voltaire.
It made me very cynical about American campaigns to overturn the ban on school prayer (keeping religion forbidden, like marijuana, has arguably given it a subversive allure, helping form the members of the modern US emerging church).
But in those days I was pretty guilty of thinking with a secular/religious split in my mind. Since then - after reading a bit of Barth, going to a Quaker college, and living in mainland Britain for a decade - I've become more excited about the potential for education to become a place to explore the glories and tragedies of reality in all its fullness.
God cannot be studied like a frog in a lab (thank heavens!) but there's real room for theology and philosophy in the curriculum. Similarly, the consideration of values is woefully absent in British schooling. You can look at poverty from a statistical perspective in geography, but talking about poverty without mentioning justice is like... [insert colourful metaphor].
I agree with a lot of what you say there manjo - Education is exactly that, education and there has to be room for kids to explore theology/philosophy/values in school. If we engourage our kids to explore Maths and Geography, for example, why not faith and action? You can argue that R.E. allows for this? probably not.
Anyway, great day at Dave and Claires wedding - Aaron it was good catching up with you and it was a beautiful day. My only regret was that i am working today so couldnt stay as late as i perhaps had liked!
Toodle pip
You're not around anywhere near Coleraine this week are you?
hi david. no, actually i'm back in the big smoke - london that is. keep in touch.
a
Aaron, when are we going to see some new material here? Miss your thought-provoking articles, dude. Get your ass in gear and start typing!!
Also, when r we skyping again? Mail me.
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