Faith in Schools

Good morning.

The seemingly unstoppable debate about faith schools will be energised by a new report launched today. Faith in Schools drawn up in partnership between government and faith leaders, is bound to inflame passions about the place of religion in general and education in particular.

Some of these concerns will be based on no more than an irrational fear of religion anywhere on the planet! But there are also real concerns that a proliferation of religious schools has the potential to lock our children into educational silos of cultural indifference at best, or outright intolerance at worst.

We should be worried about the possibility of an even wider gulf between the haves and have-nots as more informed parents shoe-horn their children into higher performance schools with a religious ethos.

Religion – so the argument runs - can be bad for education. And perhaps they’re right. Religion can convert convictions into impenetrable walls erecting road blocks between communities - and it’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. As the theologian, Karl Barth reminded us, religion is sometimes the enemy of God.

So I’m really pleased that the report is about faith in our schools. Faith has the ability to get us past our institutional belief systems to tackle the real questions about human relationships, about truth and even about God himself.

When Jesus met a Samaritan woman from a neighbouring village she was really keen to talk about religion. “You don’t talk to Samaritans,” she said. “Our fathers worship in this mountain; you worship in Jerusalem”. She was caught up in important beliefs which accentuated cultural differences. But Jesus wanted to know what she knew about him; and he was quite keen to talk about her quality of life. “If you knew me, and what I can do for you,” he said, “you will really know what it means to live.”

It wasn’t indoctrination. Jesus made her an offer of life she simply couldn’t refuse.

There’s a cultural contradiction running riot in our educational system: our children are celebrating new academic records, but they’re also wearing body armour under their school uniforms.

Faith in schools should have nothing to do with indoctrinating children. That’s the business of our churches, mosques and temples. But it’s really absurd to suggest that our great faiths and their enduring values have nothing to contribute to society’s well being or the education of our children.

At the end of the day faith schools should not be judged either on our phobia about faith or merely by their good exam results. They should be measured by their ability to produce informed citizens who love their neighbours like they love themselves.

-Joel Edwards