Opinion: Pulpit politics
Written by Darrell Goodliffe on 25th March 2008 – 7:45 pmSeveral issues have placed religion and it’s role in politics in the spotlight this week.
Labour has found itself in hot water over allowing a free vote on the bill that will allow the creation hybrid human-animal embryos. Meanwhile, across the pond, Barack Obama is assessing the damage done to his campaign by the comments of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. The Pope’s baptised an Italian born Muslim convert as part of his Easter message in what was a somewhat ill-advised piece of showmanship. Here on Liberal Democrat Voice we have had quite a lively debate around faith schools.
First, let’s set some parameters for the debate.
Religious faith, or lack of it, is a matter of personal conviction - but the business of government is to govern an entire society comprised of different levels and types of individual belief. Modern, democratic states must be secular (not atheist) in nature. This is especially true in the age of the ‘war on terror’, when fundamentalist ideologues try and portray secularism as merely a covert tool of Christian domination.
Secularism is a cornerstone of moder democracy, it is a founding principle of democratic nations and direct and principled break from a past in which rulers claimed legitimacy from divine inheritance. It is more than just a fancy word, it must be at the heart of democracy because it is the principle of the predominance of the people’s will over patronage allegedly handed on down from the heavens.
It is not essential to have religious faith to share a set of moral values or indeed to ‘belong’; it is easier and far more healthy to unite around human centered values in beliefs, such as belief in the innate capacity of humanity to better itself. More often than not, religion does more to divide than unite, as we are seeing day-after-day in the world at large.
It coheres a specific ‘group identity’ but part of that process is unity against the other groups. Saying religion is a unifying force is a bit like saying a love of football unites a nation - try telling that to a room full of Tottenham and Arsenal or Manchester United and Manchester City fans.
It is perfectly understandable that somebody’s religious faith may inform and even guide their personal political convictions. This is fine in a local activist; but when those convictions become a matter of state or governance then they must always be set aside. Labour MPs should be allowed to vote as their conscience dictates; that is a matter of elemental democracy. However, there conscience must be guided not by scriptures but by a hard-headed assessment of which course of action best serves the people they govern; this is the only acceptable criterion for judging a piece of legislation.
So, when we come to faith schools it is not merely a matter of ‘freedom of conscience’, as has been insisted. As I have said above, governments govern in the name of all the people and preferential treatment for, or discrimination against, faith schools is equally unacceptable. Often as liberals we have to grapple with tricky balancing acts between different sets of contending rights. Reading Joe Otten’s original Lib Dem Voice piece my feelings were mixed; I warmed to the parts where core secularist values were upheld but balked at certain points.
Parents have the right to raise children as they see fit; but those children also have the right to develop, as fully functioning individuals, their own sets of beliefs formed by their own judgment. We would not accept schooling in a particular political train of thought, and it is unacceptable for a particular religious one to be taught as the all-defining truth - let alone be the criterion for entry to a state-funded school, or the bar that denies a child their basic right to education. All religious education must be strictly neutral and taught in the spirit of educating to understand.
Schools must work on the assumption that the child they are admitting is an individual with no set pattern of belief and has the inalienable right to develop their own. I am afraid that I do not agree with the right of parents to determine their child’s religious belief at any age. Children who do not have a self-professed faith should be chracterised as non-committal until such a time as they feel able to make their own choice; those that wish to stipulate a faith should do so under conditions where parental pressure cannot be brought to bear.
Providing for each ‘faith identity’ is precisely the course of action that is fragmenting our society, because within that ‘provision’ accusations of favoritism and sectional jealousies grow. Where there is no provision, where a state maintains the strictest neutrality there is no room for this growth. A tolerant, secular state which respects the rights of the individual while maintaining its neutrality is one that can heal the wounds that are beginning to appear within our society. When it was suggested that,
there should be parallel provision for all such faith identities represented by a reasonable number of pupils, with philosophy and ethics for non-believers,”
I find myself in natural opposition to this proposal. This kind of policy has failed, and it is the core reason multiculturalism is so fragile. In practical terms, it means the segregation of children from the start, division not unity. Neutral provision of religious education would allow for the free intermingling and exchange of ideas, and the development at an early age of a healthy culture of critical engagement with different ideas. I think the differences on this issue are small, as has been demonstrated in the ensuing debate.
But as is sometimes the case there is devil in the detail.
* Darrell Goodliffe is a party member from Peterborough.
Posted in Op-eds
25th March 2008 at 9:42 pm
I would argue that by suggesting parallel provision within each school for all faith identities, rather than the status quo of schools as an agent of sectarian division, that I am attacking the barriers that the current system erects between children. Sure, a “one size fits all” approach would also do this, although it is politically unfeasible, and not entirely for bad reasons. One size does not, after all, fit all.
I largely agree with your recipe for how schools ought to approach the issue of faith, and it is what I want for my children. I do not get it - they get an unbalanced pro-Christian education in a non-faith school.
And yet agreeing that something is right is not enough to make me agree that it ought to be imposed upon everybody.
We saw in another thread the observation that many catholics - a “whole wing” of one commenter’s family do not agree with the pope on matters of sex and contraception. My proposal would give power to catholic parents at the expense of catholic priests; isn’t this more subtlely and liberally subversive of religious authority than a blanket ban?
25th March 2008 at 11:10 pm
But Joe, you are proposing seperate classes or am I wrong?? One for each faith identity and another for non-believers…i believe that is unfeasible….this to my mind is segregation and it will achieve the precise opposite of the goal we both want too…
26th March 2008 at 2:18 pm
Darrell, yes I am proposing seperate classes instead of seperate schools, that is a vast reduction in the amount of segregation; and the right to change from one stream to another.
While it is difficult for me to speak for believers, I don’t think for them generally it is the propositions that matter, so much as how you relate to the whole package. I don’t see how you can teach neutrally how to relate to God or the idea of God.
I do think there is a caricature of secularism that many believers subscribe to - that neutrality means instead of saying “don’t kill” we say “well I think you shouldn’t kill but you might not agree”. People believing that will be understandably very angry at the suggestion of secular neutrality. However if they are exposed to the reality of secular ethical thought, even if only indirectly through their friends etc, many, particularly the more agnostic, will opt for it.
26th March 2008 at 2:31 pm
What is a faith identity, Joe? It strikes me as a convenient muddying of the waters, whereby kids who don’t have any faith still get rubber-stamped as having a ‘faith identity’.
26th March 2008 at 2:59 pm
An excellent piece Darell.
Secularism is not just seen as a “covert tool of Christian domination” but as the faith school thread clearly shows some Christians equate secularism with atheism and see it as a “covert tool of [atheist] domination”. In a guilt-by-association fallacy because they disapprove of atheism and since atheists support secularism, secularism must also be bad.
The irony is that a secular state and schools system helps religions just as much as atheists. The only religions disadvantaged by a secular system are those the were previously, or are currently, in positions of direct political power. Sadly many Christians don’t even realise just how much official privilege they actually get; or maybe they do and that’s why they oppose secularism.
Joe, I don’t see how your proposal would give power to Catholic parents. The people running the schools and teaching would still be catholic clergy and required to teach catholic (i.e. the pope’s ) message. A secular school would give the children that message as well, but would do so non-judgmentally and parents could then teach their kids themselves about which aspects they approve and disapprove.
26th March 2008 at 3:19 pm
Joe (your other post). I’m not opposed to secular schools with religious education taking place in specific lessons. It’s a bit harder on the school, essentially having to stream kids based on faith.
What I’d insist on though is that the kids get to override their parents and maybe even allow them to jump from one stream to the other at will (basically shopping around). What stream would you put agnostics and atheists in? I’d give them philosophy and secular approaches to morality and ethics; but then those would be great subjects for religious kids as well.
I suspect what will happen though is that the class with the teacher that gives the least work and is the most fun will have the most kids, regardless of what he teaches.
I’d much rather have comparative religion and religious history as a subject though instead of giving ideologies a platform in our schools.
You’d also not eliminate religious discrimination. What do you do with the one or two kids who are not of the principle religion of the other kids and who don’t have a teacher available for their religion? Or are you proposing to limit the number of religions and classes/teachers a school has to pay for or accommodate? How would you decide who wasn’t worthy of their own stream?
I’ve yet to see any proposal for religion in schools that doesn’t encourage discrimination of one form or another. A secular approach, by it’s nature, would minimise the chances of discrimination.
26th March 2008 at 3:37 pm
Is it really necessary to have religious history and comparative religion as subjects as schools? I’d hate it if, say, economic or political history were bumped aside to make way for religious history. To your average British person, religion just isn’t that important.
26th March 2008 at 3:42 pm
Anax: If that’s the case then the average brit won’t be bothered with us removing faith schools then.
26th March 2008 at 3:51 pm
We’re not up against the average Brit though, we’re up against a coalition of highly vocal and highly motivated minorities, and their respective churches/ faith organisations.
26th March 2008 at 3:54 pm
Well, exactly. State-funded faith schools are terribly unpopular, yet the political parties haven’t caught up. In fact, most of them are going in the opposite direction!
Possibly the electoral system favours the concerns of religious groups who can swing marginal seats.
26th March 2008 at 6:59 pm
Thanks for the replies…
MartinSGill raised a good point about Christians seeing secularism as a tool of covert atheist which of course it isnt…frankly I think all the different ‘faith communities’ are feeling fragile right now ….as has been pointed out however a strong secularist agenda is actually as beneficial for the different communities as it is for non-beleivers…
Joe…I think you are hoping that the intergration will take place outside the classroom if you can just get everybody into one school which frankly I dont see happening…you might as well keep the seperate schools and say the way to bring people together is at a good local youth club, the division is still institutionalised….
Children learn from experience….the intermingling of ideas, the necessary honest and critical exploration of the ideas can only take place in the classroom which is the proper framework for it happening…they wont go out into the playground and say ‘lets discuss our religious faith’…they will go out and only MAYBE play together then troop back into their seperate classes with their own faith identity and any positive work will be effectively wirtten off in that instant….
As has been also pointed out elsewhere it is a logistical nightmare as well as politically unadviseable in my opinion….
27th March 2008 at 2:25 am
Darell,
I’m not talking seperate classes for all subjects, just for RE/worship/whatever. Only a few percent of the total lesson/assembly time.
Now I agree that a critical and exploring approach to questions of religion, philosophy and ethics is correct and the foot-stamping of authority is not correct (or the ‘oracular’ style of philosophy I think Popper accused Wittgenstein of). Indeed I would say that the latter is not really teaching at all.
However it is not true to say that non-religious education is consistently of the former kind and non-religious is consistently the latter. And therefore making an issue of religion is slightly missing the point.
Also I wonder if my view on the importance of questioning is somewhat political. I imagine conservatives and many socialists would prefer children to be taught simply to defer to authority.
Martin,
Under my proposal families would have a veto power because of the freedom to change streams, and to set up new streams. If parents/pupils want catholicism minus the daftness on contraception, they can vote with their feet. Whether it is a catholic school or not.
On the question of what qualifies as a religion, I agree this is a problem, as it is with the current system. I don’t have a criterion for telling real religions apart from fake ones. But I am relaxed about seeing this come out in the wash. As there has to be sufficient numbers - again I haven’t defined this, perhaps enough for half to one classful across all year groups - the cults should laregly miss out.
Also it should be said that simple considerations of making a diverse school function as a community will demand a more tolerant line in every stream than would be necessary in a homogenous school.
27th March 2008 at 8:15 am
Joe,
I think we can agree on where we want to be with this…the end goal is not in dispute but how you get there. How can we have that ‘critical’ approach be achieved when at the crucial point, the point where children are learning about these ideas they are sectioned off into their own ‘faith identitiy’. What does that say to them? I think the message is quite clear, in these matters your fellow pupils are different from you, they have different lessons and are taught different things.
Lets get down to brass tacks; this kind of approach is exactly what is wrong with multiculturalism and it is why the multicultural project is so fragile because under the guise of tolerance we have an instituted policy of division starting at the very top - ‘celebrating difference’ instead of ‘bringing people together’. I’m saying if we get back to core values, like secularism, we can proceed on a basis that both respects the rights of individuals but encourages people to come together and unite around commen ideas and principles.
It is a classic symptom of the stick being bent too far…yes there was and is prejeudice and injustice and an intolrence to difference faiths but in correcting that we have gone too far the other way and now we are in a situation where our approach is having the opposite effect of what we wish to achieve.
You said that ‘one size fits all doesnt always work’ as if it was a straight jacket - it isnt, it is more a big tent under which each group has their own proper freedom and space but under which they can all come together.
27th March 2008 at 8:40 am
Leaving the fantastic timetabling problems and organisational/funding headaches your proposal creates aside, the problem you describe is one that has been around for ever and always will be around and there’s no way to solve it.
What was an insane and dangerous cult of lunatics to the Romans was a new religion to others. We cannot and should not dictate or even try to determine what is and what isn’t a religion, because when it comes down to it the only difference between a cult and religion is the political power/influence they have.
Someone once said that “a cult is that other church down the road”, and I think that sums up the problem perfectly. The vatican went on record last year saying pretty much that non-catholic denominations weren’t true religions (the actual wording was that their buildings weren’t true churches); which just proves my point and the wisdom of that quote.
The problem cannot be solved, we’ve not solved it in over 6000 years of recorded history and we never will. What we can do is avoid it and thereby choose, sensibly I think, to not offend anyone. We, as a society and state, should stand back and let individuals decide for themselves and the only way to do that is to remain entirely secular in everything we do or support and that must include schools.
The moment we say “you can’t have a lesson in your beliefs” to just a single child or parent, no matter the reason, we are discriminating against them and that is simply wrong. But if we don’t allow religious education (as opposed to education about religion) in our schools then we discriminate against no one.
27th March 2008 at 10:40 am
I’m going to be away for a few days so I won’t be able to carry on here. But a couple of last points:
1. Ayn Rand’s “objectivism” exists. Marxism exists. Environmentalism-as-a-kind-of-religion exists. All claim (wrongly) a reasonable, non-supernatural basis for their values and all are probably taught somewhere by teachers to pupils, on the sly. One thing I am trying to do here is get “values” out from under the counter, so that we may know what we are getting, and families may choose.
The mechanism of the choice to switch or create streams is a better guarantee than simply a policy that the state will get it right, that it won’t be Marxism or Randism or whatever.
No system can enforce the avoidance of error, but it can avoid forcing error on people.
2. Currently the system is Anglican hegemony (with the odd ghetto). I think that is wrong on 2 counts, you think it is wrong on only 1. You ought to forgive the believers if they cannot tell the difference between your neutrality and your treating everyone like a non-believer. I struggle to see the difference myself.
3. The status quo is an assault on our civil rights, I think we agree. Ask parents whether they’d prefer civil rights or good schools, and many would choose the latter. It is madness, then to try to protect civil rights in a way that attacks the schools that many people are choosing. It will just put them off the cause.
We have our theories as to why faith schools are popular, selection, dumping difficult children, etc. I think those theories are correct, but this does not justify pre-judging the governance question. We cannot credibly call for decentralisation, citizen involvement, letting a thousand flowers bloom, etc, while prohibiting one kind of diversity.
27th March 2008 at 11:09 am
1. You’ll always get that. In your system the families might think they are getting what they ask for but the teacher might actually be pushing, on the sly, an objectionable subset of the religion they chose, and he can claim the moral high ground because he is teaching that religion, as requested. If teachers shouldn’t be teaching ideology, then it will still happen, but at least you’ve got the justification and means to stop them.
2. They don’t see it because they don’t want to. A faith school already treats all kids as non-believers, non-believers in all the other ideologies out there except their own. Why not go that one further and make things fair? You look at only half of what’s actually there. When teaching religion in a secular, neutral fashion, you teach it as though everyone in the room is a non-believer, but you also teach it as though everyone in that room is a believer (i.e. with a level of respect/courtesy), you simply make no distinction either way. Believers just don’t want to extend equal rights, respect and courtesy to other religions; there’s no point, since all the other religions must be wrong for theirs to be right. Whenever their own religion is treated equally with any other they see it as being treated as though they were non-believers, which is exactly how they want/have all other religions taught, so why shouldn’t theirs be taught that way as well?
3 Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. Just because good schools are faith schools doesn’t mean it’s because they are faith schools. You also defeat your own argument. Parents are choosing “good” schools, not “faith” schools. Therefore removing “faith” will have no effect on their choice whatsoever, they’ll still chose good schools and will have one less thing to worry about, and we’ll have one less thing to divide our communities.
27th March 2008 at 4:38 pm
Should schools which teach in the medium of the Welsh language be banned on the grounds that it should be up to the children if they want to be Welsh or not, and it is obviously divisive to teach some kids to speak a special language of their own which others can’t understand - look at all those wars between different tribes with their own languages in other parts of the world?.
27th March 2008 at 6:07 pm
Matthew, with all due respect you are conflating two entirely different things. What language it is most practical for a child to speak is dictated by where they are born. My answer to your question would of course be no but both Welsh and English should be taught.
If schools started to discriminate against English-speaking then of course I would have a problem with that and it would strike me as a highly impractical thing to do in any case. Language is a necessary tool of communication a religion is a set of ideas that you can choose to believe in or not…a closer comparison would be with politics not languages…would you like to see hardened Conservatives, Labourites and even Lib Dems set up their own schools and insist that political alligence was an entrance criteria?? I rather think not….
28th March 2008 at 1:12 pm
Darrell, no it is not an entirely separate thing. In both cases it is about schools which have a focus on a particular culture. There is no need for anyone to grow up speaking Welsh as their first language as there simply are no monolingual Welsh speakers left. There are Welsh medium schools in parts of Wales where there are relatively few Welsh speakers.
People like their children to go to Welsh medium schools because they like their children to grow up surrounded by Welsh culture - it is not, as you are suggesting, an issue of necessity.
If the argument against faith schools is that parents have no right to force their own culture on children, then I would say the same applies to schools which teach in a language which isn’t a necessity, it is kept alive to preserve a particular culture.
28th March 2008 at 2:05 pm
Language and religion are two quite different things. One is a method of communication, the other is a belief system.
There is no Welsh religion, no Irish religion, no Basque religion, no Catalan religion.
Children are taught in those languages because their parents wish to preserve that language and its associated culture.
As long as the children are also taught English (or Spanish, or whatever), I don’t think it is objectionable.
28th March 2008 at 5:52 pm
I am sorry but i have to differ, religion is not culture. Religion is an organised body of ideas which perscribe a truth which those who follow it live by its rules and shape their lives through them. The only rule of a Welsh speaking culture is that you speak Welsh; the Welsh language in and of itself has no views on homosexulaity, abortion or any other contentious issue that religion perscribes on.
In fact the Welsh language is a product of its enviroment, ie, being in Wales, where as religion isnt just produced by an enviroment but takes an active role in shaping it and perscribing on what it would be well beyond merely which language communicate in. This is why I insisted that if you are to compare religion with anything then politics is a much closer comparison.
I dont think it is helpful to the debate to consider the two things together because to my mind they are clearly so different as to bear little comparison. It might be possible to draw the occasional comparison but I really do not think they should be considered as part of the same thing…
28th March 2008 at 5:55 pm
Just as an addendum, slight typoitus I am afraid, speaking the Welsh language in no way presupposes a view on these issues….to me religion and language are not very alike at all….
29th March 2008 at 8:20 am
The trouble is here I am writing to a bunch of people who may have no religious beliefs, but are culturally Protestant. To the Protestant, religion is just about belief “justification by faith alone”, to the Catholic it is about practices “justification by works”.
To suggest that culture and religion are entirely separate things is obviously nuts. Do you suppose, for example, you could separate Indian culture from Hinduism, or Arabic culture from Islam, and make them entirely separate things?
29th March 2008 at 8:43 am
You dont have to be Indian to be Hindu so yes I would suggest they are seperate things….maybe i misspoke a little, stretched the point a bit but the central point on what i said about the Welsh language remains valid…how does speaking Welsh propose a overarching world view like religion does??
30th March 2008 at 7:44 pm
Darrell, on 27th March at 8.15 am you argued “the multicultural project is so fragile because under the guise of tolerance we have an instituted policy of division”. Others have argued against faith school on the grounds it means children growing up in the same street not knowing each other, and having this difference between them.
Now what could be a greater difference than actually having some children speaking a separate language which is incomprehensible to others, and going to a special school where this is done? It seems to me a great many of the arguments used against faith schools can also be used against Welsh language schools.
I take the position that if people have the right to try and pass their Welsh culture to their children - and I strongly support that right - people must also have the right to try and pass on their Catholic culture to their children.
30th March 2008 at 7:51 pm
But language is only one part of a cultural typestry….because immigrants are forced to learn the English language to intergrate their religion is often the last defining thing that gives them a seperate identity, hence the link to multiculturalism….
30th March 2008 at 10:02 pm
Matthew Huntbach wrote: “To suggest that culture and religion are entirely separate things is obviously nuts. Do you suppose, for example, you could separate Indian culture from Hinduism, or Arabic culture from Islam, and make them entirely separate things?”
Wrong. Buddhism is rooted in Indian culture. It may be practiced mainly by people who are not Indians, but its sacred language is Sanskrit. Arabic culture, too, is distinct from Islam. Many Moslems are not Arabs, and quite a few Arabs are not Moslems (some are Christians and others are Jewish). The Arabic language predates Islam.
One of the few languages that genuinely is inextricably linked to religion is Yiddish. All speakers of Yiddish are Jewish. But most Jews don’t speak Yiddish (indeed, the State of Israel has tried to airbrush this language from history). So it is not true to say that Judaism and the Yiddish language are co-terminous.
Separate language schools are an unfortunate necessity, “faith schools” are not. While it is possible to teach children of Protestants and Roman Catholics in the same class, it is not possible to teach Spanish-speaking children in Basque or English-speaking children in Welsh. So it is necessary to have separate schools, just as it is necessary to have separate schools for children with special educational needs.
Note how Matthew surreptitiously attributes sectarian motives to critics of “faith” schools. I for one have criticised religions other than Roman Catholicism, and do not recognise the description of myself as “culturally Protestant”. Presumably the Inquisition would disagree.
31st March 2008 at 10:46 am
By “culturally Protestant” I mean that your understanding of what religion is shows signs of a cultural background in Protestantism. An Italian or Spanish critic of Catholicism may well be fiercely opposed to the religion and as atheist as you are, but the emphasis he or she would put on things and his or her understanding of how the religion works would tend to to be different.
This goes back to my point that there is no objective standard of neutrality in the way you and others argue. What you think is neutral comment about religion actually shows your own bias, and the same applies to me. So NONE of us can actually say “I am so objectively neutral that I have the right to dictate what the state teaches about religion, and nobody may dissent from this, I will ban state funding to anyone who teaches it in a way with which I disagree”. That is why I feel a true liberal approach must permit a diversity of provision.
Having said that, I do make the compromise that I would say state support for religious education also entails state inspection of religious education, and that it should be withdrawn if that religious education is done in a way which encourages hate for other religions or refuses the right to opt out on making up one’s own mind.
31st March 2008 at 11:11 am
“and as atheist as you are”
But I am NOT an atheist. Neither am I “culturally Protestant”, as far as I am aware.
I reject the claims of most organised religions, but that doesn’t make me an atheist.
I refute your post-modernist claim that there is no such thing as objective truth. That is a cop-out and is patently untrue.
When a Roman Catholic takes Communion he does NOT cannibalise part of Jesus’ body. FACT.
God did NOT make the world in six days. FACT.
Should the state be funding the teaching of such deceits?
Now, what “faith” school provision should there be for the Japanese? Should Japanese children be required to attend Buddhist schools and Shinto schools simultaneously?
31st March 2008 at 2:37 pm
Matthew, you are creating a strawman. Because people have their own views doesn’t mean they can’t teach neutrally. If you’ve ever done any debating lessons/coaching you’d realise that it’s possible for people to argue passionatly for things they are strongly opposed to; albeit it takes more skill.
Faith schools exist to ensure that people don’t teach neutrally, but explicitly teach their favoured beliefs to the detriment of all others.
It’s perfectly possible to be neutral (and by that I mean unprejudiced or judgemental) when teaching religion.
Teaching neutrally how religions deal with homosexuality, for example, could be done in the following manner.
“Catholic catechisms state that homosexuality is a sin and that it is an unnatural act and an affront to their God. Many Catholics in Europe do not subscribe to this view, while Catholics in Southern America and Africa strongly support the Vatican’s position. The Church of England has a number of gay priests and bishops. Again believers are divided by locality, with Europe and North America in favour of gay clergy, while the African members of the CoE strongly opposed. In recent years this has caused a lot of tension in the CoE between different congregations worldwide.”
Follow by information about Islam, Judaism, humanism, etc. The discussion can then continue into looking at the various religious texts and the passages, books, history the different factions use to support their positions, and why.
Such a lesson is entirely non-judgemental, it’s not biased towards any one religion nor, most importantly, does it advocate any one position as correct or inherently superior. It doesn’t even judge on whether homosexuality is acceptable or not. They’ll eventually learn that the majority opinion in this country is in favour of gay rights and hence discriminating against them is illegal. They can then decide for themselves if they share the majority view or not, or even if they want to be catholic and disagree with that church’s official position. It’s entirely up to the kids (and the influence of their parents on them).
That is what I consider neutral teaching of religion, no single faith or belief is disadvantaged because no single faith is given preferential treatment.
Non-neutral, or prejudiced, biased, and judgemental teaching is of the following:
E.g. for a Catholic School:
“Our church believes that gays are unnatural and sinners acting against the word of god. Most in this country don’t agree with this, but they are acting in opposition to the teachings of the church and the church believes by doing so they are endangering their souls and their chances of gaining entry to heaven.”.
Can any faith teach religion neutrally? I believe that some do try but simply the the existence of a faith school is proof that they have no real interest or intention of being non-judgemental or non-prejudicial. Certainly any message of neutrality or imparitality and fairness is lost simply by having been taught in a religious school.
Teaching religion fairly, non-judgementally and non-prejudicially is exactly what they were established to avoid. Any child that’s undecided (which should be considered the default) or that’s decided against that school’s faith is being discriminated against.
As an aside, I’ve always wondered that if the only three schools (or one school if I’m in the country-side somewhere) in my neighbourhood were religious schools, and I was an atheist, if I could sue the government for religious discrimination for not providing my kids with a school that caters to my non-religion? Being a reasonable man, I’d settle for a secular school, one that favours no non/religious view over any other.
Isn’t that a risk any government supporting faith schools automatically faces? Another argument for secular schools.
31st March 2008 at 5:00 pm
Sesenco - ok, I appreciate I don’t know your exact religious background, but your comments on religion do suggest to me an unconscious influence of Protestantism - all I mean by this is that I suspect you have grown up in an Anglo-American background, where the default assumption on how religion is tends to be influenced by the former (Anglo) and current (US) Protestant majority.
Martin - yes, I am well aware one can argue something opposite to one’s own beliefs. It’s something I often find myself doing, to the point where people often don’t see I’m putting a debating point rather than strictly my own position. To some extent, I’m doing that here. I have in the past so successfully put the Protestant/Unionist position on Northern Ireland in internet discussions that I was often accused of being a dyed-in-the-wool Protestant whereas my real position would be moderate nationalist.
However, it isn’t always easy to know if you are neutral or not. For example, what you put as neutral comment on the RC Church, I regard as precisely the sort of judgmental and prejudicial approach you accuse religious people of. That is, you want to paint the RC Church in negative terms, so you will place an emphasis on fringe issues like the homosexuality issue which actually do not get the emphasis you seem to believe they do in Catholic teaching. I do not believe the wording and emphasis you choose to place on this issue is anything like what would be used in a British Catholic school.
31st March 2008 at 5:56 pm
I’m sure gays will be pleased to know that the discrimination they face in the RC church is a fringe issue. If it’s such a fringe issue, why did the RC Church protest so loudly about the recent equality regulations?
I chose that topic because it’s the contentious issues where the problems will arise and it’s the contentious issues, and current issues, where we should be educating children. We’re surely trying to give them the knowledge about our society so they can become a integral part of it, not shield them from it.
Please highlight for me where in that small passage I either did not tell the truth or prejudiced one religious group over another? Which part paints the RC Church in a negative light? The fact that there is dissent in the church over it’s stance, or the official stance itself?
Should one lie about or obfuscate the church’s position, or that some members object to it? With that approach we’d have to prevent teaching about the KKK being racist because it paints them in a bad light. A KKK member would surely object to us not extending their ideology the same protection as you wish for the RC Church.
If you are RC, could it be that you are a bit sensitive about the RC Church’s attitude to this issue and consequently see negativity where there is none? If you don’t approve of the official church position, then work to change it or leave the church. Whatever your opinions though, it doesn’t change the official Church’s position, and that’s what should be taught, along with the fact that some object and their reasons for objecting to it. If I replaced the words “RC Church” with “Islam”, or “Scientology”, would you still consider the passage negative, or would it suddenly become neutral and fair?
Is the correct way to educate kids to hide the truth from them, to gloss over the contentious issues?
That’s why I object to faith schools, because that’s what they are most likely to do, even if they do it for ostensibly noble reasons. What’s worse they will gloss over their contentious issues but not extend that courtesy to other religions (or non-religious), since there are no sensibilities to protect; which amounts to essentially a dictionary definition of indoctrination.
1st April 2008 at 1:27 pm
Yes, I would certainly regard it as unfair and biased if someone’s approach to “teaching the truth about Islam in a neutral way” were to pick out bits from the Quran which advocate violence and intolerance towards other religions, and for that person to say “there, I’m being entirely neutral, this is what the religion teaches, I’ve taken it from their holy book”.
Of course there are debates within the religions on these issues, and there are extremists within the religions who do just this picking out the nastiest bits and placing a nasty interpretation on them. I am content to note that not once in the Gospels is Jesus recorded as saying anything like “gays will go to hell”, or in fact as saying anything about homosexuality at all. One might contrast that to the numerous occasions on which he is recorded as being critical of rich people and those who let others suffer.
In my experience of the RC Church, this sort of charitable “love your neighbours” message is far more likely to be what one would hear than a “God hates fags and they will all go to hell” one. In fact I have not once heard a sermon preached with this latter message, or seen a piece of writing in a Catholic newspaper or magazine which has that message.
There is certainly room for a debate on the official position of the RC Church on these matters, how it comes about, its nuances, whether it can be changed. But I can hardly trust someone who is hostile to the RC Church, as you obviously are, to be able to explain its position in a neutral way, as you claim to be able to do. What you experience religion to be about is simply not what I experience it to be about, and there, perhaps we can just agree to differ.
1st April 2008 at 2:18 pm
So what you are saying is that the Vatican doesn’t count as valid source for Catholic messages?
How about the Pope’s own words (Washington Post, the article generally deals with the Church’s official hard-line, i.e. church documents, stance against homosexuality)?
So… the inclination isn’t a sin… merely the act (and he’s on record since becoming Pope of reaffirming that as a Mortal Sin). But merely having the inclination is a sign of an intrinsic moral evil. Remind me of expected the punishment for sinners and evil people in the RC Church?
From the Vatican Web Site the Catholic catechisms, i.e. the official teaching of the Catholic Church:
Oh, and in case you were wondering what the punishment for sin is (same site)…
1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.”
So… evil people (sinners), I presume that also includes intrinsically evil people like those with the inclination to being gay, will burn in hell. Remind me again why you believe the RC church does not hold this stance?
Yes, the good bits exist as well, and there are a lot of them. Most of the day-to-day work done by Hamas is charity work, supporting needy people, education, electricity, medical supplies. Should we therefore not teach our children that they are also terrorists? That is the type of lessons you are advocating. I’m sure hamas faith schools do a very good job, just as RC faith schools do, of glossing over the less appealing parts of their nature.
Would you support Hamas funded faith schools in this country that teach that Hamas is a charity, while failing to mention it’s a terrorist organisation as well?
Most of my family is catholic, and they are religious. I don’t think they are bigots, I know they aren’t. I also know that they go out of their way to make sure their kids (my cousins) understand that the views of the catholic church on many issues, the things the kids hear about in the news and are taught at school or in church are not the views they hold, nor do they believe them to be right. They at least are honest enough to acknowledge that official church teachings and messages are not just the rosy messages you claim them to be.
The only reason you’re not out screaming at the injustice of Hamas being labelled a terrorist organisation is that, unlike the with the RC Church, you’re not wearing Hamas tinted glasses. Could it be because you didn’t go to an Hamas faith school, but an RC one?
1st April 2008 at 2:27 pm
I never claimed I could. I’m pretty certain I could, but you are right, I’m hostile towards the RC church. I consider it a force for evil. A bunch of super rich layabouts thinking they hold the key to the truth about the world and trying to impose their views on everyone else.
I would not make a good teacher for religious education, which is why I am so certain that faith schools should not exist, as the bias of their teachers will be equally evident. That’s what you are failing to grasp.
1st April 2008 at 2:28 pm
“This is fine in a local activist; but when those convictions become a matter of state or governance then they must always be set aside.”
Surely this negates the very way that consciousness and identity works. Its impossible for someone to not be guided by their beliefs to some extent. Everything that happens to us as we grow up shapes our perspective and everything we do is in light of that.
Its far more appropriate to advocate a multicultural society than a secular one, or else you deny people the freedom to excercise and follow their own convictions. Why is your belief in secularism so infinately superior to another’s belief in christianity or in sikhim or islam that you seek to supress them?
We follow our convictions and beliefs in choosing a political party, wherever those convictions come from we should not discriminate against someone based on the elements of their life which shape those beliefs: religious or not.
It seems that you want to spread your religion of secularism, and to demand that others put aside theirs to fit in with it. We must have a tolerant society where people are free to excersise their beliefs so much as that does not infringe on the freedom of others. Your notions certainly seem authoritarian rather than liberal.
The idea that parents can decide the religion of a child in a free society even if they want to is just daft. Whether they go to a church school or not, people make up their own minds. That’s just part of being human. Their parents may not like it, or may try to encourage their child on a particular path, or even put significant pressure on them: but actually deciding what someone else believes?
1st April 2008 at 2:48 pm
“Why is your belief in secularism so infinately superior to another’s belief in christianity or in sikhim or islam that you seek to supress them?”
Er… Who, exactly, is seeking to suppress what?
I am quite happy for people to practice these religions if they so choose.
But try practicing Christianity in Saudi Arabia.
The point about secularism is that you can believe what you like, but the state remains neutral.
“we should not discriminate against someone based on the elements of their life which shape those beliefs: religious or not.”
I don’t think anyone in this thread is calling for religious believers to be discriminated against.
“We must have a tolerant society where people are free to excersise their beliefs so much as that does not infringe on the freedom of others.”
Of what do we have to be tolerant? Widow burning? Female genital mutilation? Arranged marriages? The stoning to death of adulterers?
“The idea that parents can decide the religion of a child in a free society even if they want to is just daft. Whether they go to a church school or not, people make up their own minds.”
Easier said than done.
How “free” is an Amish to walk away from his church? When the consequence is disinheritance and lifetime banishment? And when one speaks only German in an English-speaking country and has no qualifications?
And what of a Moslem woman who rejects an arranged marriage and is hunted down by her family and subjected to an honour killing?
Oh, sorry. I forgot. Honour killing is a precious symbol of Islamic moral superiority over the infidel which we are required to “respect”.
1st April 2008 at 3:18 pm
Strange, why is it that whenever religous apologists object to something they label it a “religion”, even when it’s nothing of the kind. Could it be that it then allows them to think of it as just another cult they disagree with and can ignore, instead of having to engage with it? Maybe I should give up trying to spread my libdem religion, or my human rights religion as well?
Secularism is the freedom of people to believe what they wish and not have the state or anyone else interfere with their beliefs or disadvantage them because of them. Which is basically what you want. This applies to everyone, even your kids. Faith schools disadvantage those people that are undicided, or not of that faith. Cultural “sensitivity” in our laws and attitudes means that in many cases issues and human rights are ignored because “it’s their culture and we musn’t interfere”.
Everyone should be treated equally by the state and by the law. Secularism accepts that it’s impossible to provide equal and identical funding, time, resources and support to every conceivable culture or religion, therefore the only viable and fair alternative is that we should provide support to none of them. That is the fairest and most liberal approach, and that is what secularism is all about.
It’s not hard. Religions have been doing that for time immemorial. The reason people are now able to make up their own minds is because a lot of what is taught now is generally secular in nature. People are taught facts and the way to discover and verify those facts without reference to religious doctrine. Doctrines and revelations, even if taught as fact, as they always have been and still are in faith schools, are now countered by scientific reasoning and critical thinking (ironically often built right into the unreasoning faith structures of modern religion), skills the church made considerable efforts throughout history to keep exclusive to it’s priesthood, i.e. it’s ruling elite, already vetted by them. Almost all “original” naturalists and philosophers were priests for this reason. The very reason we have this free society you mention is because we’ve pushed back the influence of religion and religious indoctrination of your society and our children. Faith schools are an attempt to try and maintain as much of old “truth by revelation” teaching of religions as they can.
Religions re-invented themselves as bastions of morality once they realised that they could no longer maintain their all encompassing control of all aspects of our life. (See how long and hard religions have persecuted scientists). This withdrawal from a force dominating all aspects of life (c.f. sharia law in Islam) to one dealing mainly with morality is something that Islam for example (especially outside Europe) has yet to do. Saudi Arabia is the type of society European countries were a few hundred years ago; trying to repress all access to non-church-approved knowledge and items to ensure people aren’t free to make up their own minds.
I’d actually argue that in Europe protestantism was the first step towards our free-er society, rejecting the authoritarian, centralised, dictatorship of the catholic church for a more personal and individual relationship with God (protestantism also re-introduced the humanist approach to morality and ethics to Europe). Secularism is merely the next step in this process, and a necessary one if we want people of different religions to be able to peacefully exist.
1st April 2008 at 11:34 pm
Martin, Protestantism in England was introduced by the state smashing up the diversity of religious orders and shrines which existed in England, and insisting that everyone worship in the way the state said so. In many other places, Protestantism has meant the rigid literal interpretation of scripture in the place of the acceptance of allegory in Catholicism. Have you ever studied what life was like under Calvin in Geneva? To insist that Protestantism was necessarily more liberal than Catholicism is to deny history. I’m not saying this to suggest the reverse is necessarily true, but to indicate the actual position is more complex than your simplistic way would have it.
In reply to your earlier point, you might consisder the following words from Pope John Paul II in his book “Crossing the Threshold of Hope” (page 186):
“Can God, who loves man so much permit the man who rejects him to be condmened to eternal torment? The silence of the Church is, therefore, the only appropriate position for the Christian faith. Even when Jesus says of Judas, the traitor, ‘It would be better for that man had he never been born’ his words do not allude for certain to eternal damnation”.
So the Pope’s position was that we cannot say for certain that anyone will go to hell. This is the general tone of discussion in the RC Church on these matters these days. Sure it is a change from the bad old days, when there was a tendency for things to be put the other way round.
On homosexuality, you have not quoted article 2358 of the RC catechism where it says of homosexuals “They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
There are liberal and conservative tendencies in the RC Church as there are in other religions. You seem to want to view it, and for it to be portrayed in what you would claim as “neutral” teaching only in terms of its most conservatve tendencies.
Regarding Hamas, I am sorry that in the Muslim world the conservatives and pro-violence people seem to be so successful at the moment, and Islam’s history of toleration and its more liberal streams seems to have been sunk. It is very necessary for those who come from a Muslim background but who have a more liberal interpretation of that religion to stand up and witness to that, rather than to remains silent and let the violent extremists do all the talking. As I’ve said, my position is that if Islam were taught openly in state funded schools we would be in a better position to question it and to challenge those who teach it in a way which emphasises violence and intolerance than we are when Islam is passed on in the way it is now - through private organisations often funded and staffed from dubious backgrounds. If we had state funded Islamic schools, we could and should make sure they are NOT dominated by extremist factions of Islam like Hamas.
2nd April 2008 at 11:43 am
You may well be right about protestantism, at least in the UK. My impression of protestantism and its effect/influence/origins comes from a protestant theologian, so she might well be biased. I also agree that it’s a lot more complex.
While I disagreed with Pope JP2 on many issues he wasn’t anywhere near the medieval throwback that Ratzinger is. I seem to recall at least one cardinal remarked around the time of Ratzingers selection that he would probably set back relations with homosexual communities.
Article 2358 is one that ratzinger and other catholic church spokesmen might want to remember when they talk about insisting that adoption agencies or employers are allowed to discriminate against homesexuals. Of course… they might well argue that because gays are “intrinsically evil”… any discrimnation against them isn’t “unjust”; a nice opt-out that. Of course the other catechisms labelling homosexuality as “unnatural”, untolerable etc is hardly treating the matter with “sensitivity”, “respect” or “compassion”.
That’s the point though of my arguement for comparative religion. You can add that article into the discussion. Hiding the articles I quoted though, which seems to be what you think faith schools should do, is dishonest and deceptive, deliberatly misleading. It’s a biased view of RC.
I suspect that the real lesson for comparative religion is somwhere between your rose tinted view and my more negative view. The problem with faith schools though is that your rose tinted view prevails. Your not providing kids the knowledge to make a critical evaluation of the issue and willfully witholding that knowledge amounts to indoctrination. I’d want secular schools when talking about secularism to mention France and the secularists there a century or two ago who actually were militant and physically attacked and destroyed churches and religious symbols (current religious apologists just use the phrase “militant secularist” on outspoken secularists as a means of discrediting them by generating fear and distrust of them by implications of violent tendencies. By the same definition the Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury are militant christians).
Forcing Islamic schools to conform to our view of their religion is a step a government should never take. Government should not interfere in their religion at all. They can teach whatever they want, as long as they don’t do it with government money or break our laws.
In schools kids should be taught our laws, and should be taught all possible views with equal weighting, and consequently how those views led to our laws. They should be taught about religion and how views differ between and within religions and non-religious value system. The laws should also apply equally to every single person, regardless of their religion, culture, ideology. Treat everyone equally, don’t make exceptions because someone or something is religious or of a specific religion.
Faiths schools are intrinsically unable to teach objectively and fairly about their religion and therefore they, by their nature discriminate against anyone and everyone not of (or yet of) their faith.
Christian faith schools in this country have led directly to creationists like Peter Vardy running schools. That’s proof enough that a faith school system cannot prevent people with an open agenda of indoctrination from teaching our kids. A secular system would at least prevent them doing it with state money; and forcing kids to go to such a school because there are no others in the area or because the others are full. It won’t eliminate it, you’ll always have the odd teacher who’ll proselytise, but you’d be making it considerably harder and you’d have a framework that can stop them which is not forced to discriminate or single out any one religion or ideology.
2nd April 2008 at 1:20 pm
It’s interesting that the apologists for for faith schools rarely if ever mention the rights or best interests of the child as a justification for their position.
Its always exclusively about the rights and interests of the parent.
2nd April 2008 at 1:56 pm
Something I’ve remarked on often enough. It’s not surprising though, the faith school proponents are basically just mimicking the structures they already live under, which are totalitarian and authoritarian. The authorities being their local priest, church leaders, their holy books and eventually their gods. God being the ultimate dictator. That many may consider him benevolent doesn’t change what he is.
Faith schools are merely an extension of “divine right”; the “divine right” of religious parents to impose their ideology (and hence the source/justification of their rule and authority) on their children.
It makes faith school proponents that are also anti-monarchy rather hypocritical. Why remove the monarchy, people are free to make up their own mind and leave the country. Isn’t that what they say about children and religion, that they are free to leave?
In practice, it’s never quite that easy to leave. The cost (emotional/social even financial) is very high.
2nd April 2008 at 2:22 pm
Matthew Huntbach wrote:
“Martin, Protestantism in England was introduced by the state smashing up the diversity of religious orders and shrines which existed in England, and insisting that everyone worship in the way the state said so.”
So who introduced Roman Catholicism into England, if it was not the state?
Roman Catholicism was imposed with an iron fist. Those who dissented were burned at the stake. Up until the dissolution of the monsateries, the Church owned a third of all the land.
So the Reformation not only weakened the ideological hold of the Church, leading ultimately to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, it also had the effect of finishing off the feudal system (by increasing the diversity of land ownership).
Even if we reject the Prayer Book or the doctrines of Luther and Calvin, we cannot deny that the Reformation was an unqualified good. It ended the Middle Ages.
“As I’ve said, my position is that if Islam were taught openly in state funded schools we would be in a better position to question it and to challenge those who teach it in a way which emphasises violence and intolerance than we are when Islam is passed on in the way it is now - through private organisations often funded and staffed from dubious backgrounds.”
A devious defence of “faith” schools. Firstly, having any kind of segregated school entrenches separation. Secondly, having a “safe” state-funded “faith” school is no guarantee that the “back street” versions will go away. In much the same way that licensed brothels don’t do away with illegal brothels; and licensed brothels continue to exploit women under the nose of the state.
3rd April 2008 at 10:54 am
So much to comment on here …
Martin: “Your not providing kids the knowledge to make a critical evaluation of the issue and willfully withholding that knowledge amounts to indoctrination”
Where have I advocated withholding knowledge? I have not. I would certainly wish a faith school to provide full knowledge and experience of its faith, so that pupils in it can make an informed and mature decision as to whether they wish to continue with that faith. I was suggesting that you wished to withhold knowledge by taking some things out of the context in which they occur and over-emphasising them. On homosexuality it is a matter of fact that the issue does not exercise RC leaders nearly as much as you seem to imagine, and that fiery denunciations of it from the pulpit just don’t happen. Certain evangelical Protestants seem to get far more worked up about the issue. I would think it appropriate at senior level for a Religious Education lesson to involve discussions of the Church’s position on homosexuality, which would involve contributions from a variety of sources, including the catechism sections you note.
“Forcing Islamic schools to conform to our view of religion”. No - I would like them to reflect Islam in the full, and not Islam as it is interpreted by wealthy Saudi Arabian Wahhabis, or Islam as interpreted by the sort of extremists who volunteer to do instruction when it’s a free-for-all. Also that if the Islamic education is done in the open as part of the state system, even if it is not controlled, it is more open to debate and interaction. While ultimately, yes, I would like to have mechanisms to ensure faith education doesn’t get taken over by extremists of that faith, and doesn’t act in a way which is intolerantly illiberal, I would hope that those mechanisms would not need to be more than light touch.
“Christian faith schools in this country have led directly to creationists like Peter Vardy running school”. I am not advocating that sort of faith school. Indeed, that is the equivalent of the wealthy Saudi Arabian Wahhabiist approach which I condemned above. I am advocating faith schools when there is a demand for them and what is taught in them reflects that demand. That is NOT the same as a faith school provide because some wealthy individual who advocates an extremist form of that faith is willing to put up a large amount of money to propagate it, and children go to it not because they or their parents advocate that extremist approach to the faith, but because the school is a “good school” due to this wealth subsidy. So the argument for state funding of religious education is the argument AGAINST the Vardy approach, that is, it ensures religious education isn’t of the form put forward by wealthy people.
Iainm: “It’s interesting that the apologists for for faith schools rarely if ever mention the rights or best interests of the child as a justification for their position”.
I have already said on many occasions in this debate that I recognise the conflict. That is I do see a balance between the liberal right of parents to bring up children as they wish, and those children’s own rights. There’s room for a huge amount of debate on where that balance lies. But - a deliberate straw man here, I’m not saying you’re suggesting it - the extreme case of the argument “protect the best interest of the child against parental interference” can get pretty nasty, involving state indoctrination, and the sort of things associated, for example, with the Maoist “cultural revolution”.
Martin: “It’s not surprising though, the faith school proponents are basically just mimicking the structures they already live under, which are totalitarian and authoritarian. The authorities being their local priest, church leaders, their holy books and eventually their gods.”
Well, there you go again. You are not inside my head, and I am afraid your attempts to get inside my head and tell me who you think I am are ludicrously wrong. You have your own jaundiced belief on what it is to be religious or what motivates people to practice a religion, it does not concur with my own experiences. So stop trying to tell me who you think I am. I am a free person, and I can make up my own mind, I don’t need some authoritarian person like you telling me that I hold views because of why you think I hold those views.
Sesenco: “Roman Catholicism was imposed with an iron fist. Those who dissented were burned at the stake. Up until the dissolution of the monsateries, the Church owned a third of all the land.
So the Reformation not only weakened the ideological hold of the Church, leading ultimately to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, it also had the effect of finishing off the feudal system (by increasing the diversity of land ownership).”
I would suggest you read the great radical, William Cobbett on this matter:
http://www.exclassics.com/protref/protint.htm
I am not saying “Catholic good, Protestant bad”, but I am arguing against the old Whig interpretation of history “Catholic bad, Protestant good”. Yes, of course ultimately the Reformation was an important part of the development of liberalism. That does not mean it was always - or even mostly - pursued with a liberal aim.
Cobbett himself was not a Catholic, but he was able to see through the hypocrisy of the state establishment and its interpretation of history at the time in a way that you, nearly 200 years later, obviously cannot. That is, he could see how the official interpretation of the English reformation as promoting freedom was used to hide the way in which it involved state control, the establishment of the new aristocracy loyal to the Tudor establishment, and the loss of the charitable aspects of Christianity.
Part of the reason I have an interest in Catholicism is seeing how Protestantism leads to the evil of the “religious right” as seen for example in the USA. Similar is seen in Islam - it is the Islam equivalent of Protestantism, the Wahhabbi stream, which is driving the evil of Islamic Fundamentalism. That is, the removal of an overall authority which can rein in fringe elements, and the insistence on a text-alone based approach to religion, does seem to lead to an environment in which extremists flourish and moderates in religion are forced out.
3rd April 2008 at 10:54 am
I think that those who have argued support for faith schools is a matter of parental choice should take a look at the front page of todays Independant…it claims that faith schools are asking for contributions *before* admission, neglecting children in care, asking about the material status and occupation of parents at admission interviews….how is this increaseing parental choice??
3rd April 2008 at 11:16 am
Darrell, there is nothing intrinsic in faith schools which mean they must do this, nor does the article suggest that most faith schools do this (it seems to be an issue particularly with Jewish schools, and they have counter-claimed that there are specific Jewish-related issues which lead to these requests for a “voluntary” contribution). I am happy to condemn those faith schools which abuse the system in this way.
3rd April 2008 at 11:34 am
I beg to differ actually, faith schools are already selective schools because they are selecting pupils on a faith criteria….once the principle is enshrined that selection is ok most are seeming to think why not just go the whole hog…and you also must have misread the article because it says of the sample taken 96% of the schools abused the code and the sub-header is ‘vast majority are illegally excluding poor pupils’.
3rd April 2008 at 11:35 am
Matthew, how can you claim to be a Christian and reject what the Bible tells you? Genesis says that God made the world in six days. That is the literal word of God. If you don’t believe it, you are not a Christian.
The religious “moderates” want the power and status that goes with controlling people’s minds, but they reject those bits of the belief system they find embarrassing or inconvenient. They want to have their cake and eat it. At least the fundamentalists are consistent.
The debate about “faith” schools has very little to do with “faith” and everything to do with keeping the power structures intact.
Where did you acquire the belief that the Church’s charitable work ended with the Reformation?
Walk through any town or village and count the number of almshouses founded by the Church of England.
3rd April 2008 at 12:46 pm
I was talking about the general (even abstract) religious structure (one that applies to pretty much every organised religion/ideology); every person has their own twists on things of course. I was not making any attempt to “get in your head”, maybe you only feel that way because you recognised yourself and it seems to have made you angry; as infered from your personal attack on me and your call for me to shut up (in not so many words).
Do you, or do you not behave in a way that you believe God wants or commands of you, are you a “follower” of a religion? If the answer is “Yes”, you do, then I am right. You base your knowledge of what your god wants / commands of you on the teachings/laws/rules/commands of your church and/or the bible; they are called “command”ments for a reason. You might “interpret” what you don’t personally agree with (what exactly gives you the right to “interpret” the commands of your god, or the arrogance to presume you know better than your church leaders / holy books who must surely be closer to the truth than you?). However you come by it, in the end you are doing what you think your god demands of you. If the bible didn’t exist you’d not even know of your alleged god’s existence, his alleged messiah, nor what they allegedly want of you. The entire master/slave relationship is made very clear in the bible, not least by refering to your alleged god as “The Lord”; the ultimate master and you his “servant”.
Religious people are slaves to their god(s); even if they don’t think they are slaves to any cleric or book. Attacking me personally for pointing out a truth you might find uncomfortable doesn’t change it. Just because their god tells them to be nice to people instead of telling them to go kill everyone, doesn’t make them any less of a slave.
You want the state to fund, through faith schools, your desire to make slaves of your children, as commanded/expected of you by your “Lord”.
3rd April 2008 at 5:27 pm
I think that one of the issues with a pluralistic state is that this is a temporary state of affairs. What I mean is that we have moved from a Christendom model (where broadly - although not exclusively - laws have been framed around a Christian perspective) - to a “middle ground” - which I fear is only a waiting room until another model comes along.
In the meantime the laws are not been framed around a long termist set of values but from those who are in power. Currently we have Labour and increasingly they are becoming more and more authoritarian and “nanny state-ish”.
3rd April 2008 at 10:58 pm
Sesenco “how can you claim to be a Christian and reject what the Bible tells you? Genesis says that God made the world in six days. That is the literal word of God. If you don’t believe it, you are not a Christian.”
You are Ian Paisley, and I claim my five pounds.
3rd April 2008 at 11:04 pm
Martin, I’m not attacking you personally, I’m simply saying that no I don’t recognise myself at all in what you are saying, and I am rather fed up with you trying to pigeonhole me into your preconceived ideas. Like most militant secularisst, of course you are happiest with “fundamnetalist” approaches to religion, and so you try to deny the legitimacy or even the right to exist of someone who has a a respect for religion, but sees it as myths and practices around which a community is built rather than literal truth. You are only exposoiing your own intolerane in your refusal to accept the right of someone to be different from you.
3rd April 2008 at 11:08 pm
Richard, the state religion these days is the worship of wealth and celebrity. The celebrities are the gods and godesses whose lives we follow and who we adore, the big businessmen are the priests who encourage us to follow this religion. That is, popular entertainment has taken the place which religion used to occupy in people’s lives.
3rd April 2008 at 11:39 pm
You are Ian Paisley, and I claim my five pounds.
Matthew, that sort of glib dismissal simply won’t do. To me, as a non-believer, the Bible is simply a book, just like any other, and one which I will obviously judge on its own merits. The basis of the Christian religion are the Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus - accounts which, as a putative source of historical fact, would not stand up in any court in the land. It follows that whatever type of Christian you are, you must necessarily invest the Bible with some special status. Whether you call it the “literal word of God,” or go for some other form of words, it cannot simply be an ordinary book. Because when viewed as an ordinary book, the Bible is plainly just myth and legend and cannot sensibly inform our actions in the present time.
3rd April 2008 at 11:45 pm
By the way, what you should have said was, “You are Jesus, and I claim my five pounds.”
The point being that the Gospel Jesus believed in the literal truth of the Old Testament, even if no modern sophisticated Christian does. Ironic, eh?
3rd April 2008 at 11:51 pm
Matthew Huntbach wrote (referring to Martin S Gill):
“Like most militant secularisst, of course you are happiest with “fundamnetalist” approaches to religion, and so you try to deny the legitimacy or even the right to exist of someone who has a a respect for religion, but sees it as myths and practices around which a community is built rather than literal truth.”
Right. So you are a symbolic Christian, like Don Cupit and his preposterous “Sea of Faith” movement? It’s all a load of rubbish, but it does give a few manipulative people the opportunity to have power and status and lord it over the poor and ignorant, so let’s not ruin the fun. Is that what you tell the priest when you go to confession?
I’m old-fashioned enough to think that either the claims of Christianity are true or they are false. If we really will go to hell and burn for eternity if we refuse to grovel to priests, then that is a pretty good reason to grovel to priests.
3rd April 2008 at 11:55 pm
By the way, I have more respect for Ian Paisley than I do for Don Cupit. At least Paisley has prevented Adams and McGuinness imposing a final solution on Ulster. For Cupit, crossing the road to the off licence would be a substantial achievement.
4th Ap