End all state funding for faith schools unless they are Christian. _ get rid of tax breaks for Mosques or any other non Christian church’s/Religious buildings.
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Agreed. It is a Christian nation, and if people don’t know this then I extend this thought.
Britain gained its first glimmers of hope by a man named Caratacus as he rejected the Romans and pushed them out of Britain. Over time, among tribal groups spread across England and other regions, Christianity seeped in and unity began to bloom as per the immense ability of community it holds. Over time, we made larger nations, such as Wessex of which held onto London and the “Home Countries” region, and through Christianity we rejected the plight of the Norse. Bit by bit we merged together, forming what we know as England, Wales and Scotland, and after some time, Ireland.
Christianity is the core of our unity, and once we separated, issues grew into what they are now. We owe it greatly to Christianity, return to our churches, even as allies to the Christians, it is our old foundation of community.
Forgive my rant.
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Personally, i dont think faith has any place in schools, so i would support ceasing funding for all. It is not the state’s role to provide anyone with religion. When i was younger, the main divide between the kids i grew up with was whether you were Catholic or C of E. I dont think we need any more division.
Teaching your children about religion is fine of course. If people want to be religious outside of school i dont have an issue unless it is forced upon them.
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There are several issues involved here:
(1) Should non-state schools – religious or otherwise – be allowed at all?
(2) If they are allowed, should we – via the state – prescribe what they teach, and what they are not allowed to teach?
(3) If we do prescribe what schools – either only state schools, or all of them – should teach (and what they should not teach), what should this be?
Question (3) needs to be answered first, because the answers to it will shape the answers to (1) and (2).
There is an additional question which is ‘in parallel’ to the others, namely, how should children be taught, and to what extent should teaching methods (not content) be prescribed? You could have a system which answered (1) to (3) to your complete satisfaction, but if ineffective teaching methods are practiced in the schools, then the fact that all schools are ‘teaching’ what you want taught will be moot.
Finally, we need to acknowledge certain basic goals, and certain objective facts, regarding education, which should shape our answers to the above questions.
I believe education should have two broad goals: (1) the provision of skills and facts, and (2) the shaping of behavior in a socially-beneficial way. Children should learn ‘is’ things: the earth goes around the sun, 1 +1 makes 2, how a law gets made in Parliament; and so on; and they should learn certain ‘ought’ things: thou shalt not steal; respect legitimate authority; and so on.
It’s number (2) here – ‘ought’ things – that generates the most controversy.
The most important objective facts which should affect our educational policy proposals are these:
(1) Children present a wide range of intellectual abilities. Should we provide identical educational methods and content to children whose IQ is 80, and to those whose IQ is 160?
(2) Children come from a wide range of cultural backgrounds: some have parents who are religious fundamentalists (Christian and Islamic). Others come from non-fundamentalist Christian and Islamic homes. Yet others come from non-religious homes. Fewer than half the British population identify themselves as Christians, while a large and growing minority say they have no religion [Religion, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics]
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When it comes to this and other issues of faith, my main question is how we define it. For instance, are Mormons Christians? What about Jehovah’s Witnesses?
If someone claims that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, instead of just the Father as per the Nicene Creed, are they not a Christian?
Basically, my inclination is to define religious communions in statute (Anglican, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, etc.) that can do this, rather than a blanket statement of Christians.
You’ve structured the argument well.
The questions of the “oughts” we teach ties into what sort of society we want to create. Because we’re talking about the fundamental values that children will hold dear as they grow older and become (hopefully) contributing adult citizens in the country.
Personally, I think multiculturalism has to be relegated to the dustbin of history. Instead, we need to focus on a more intercultural approach whereby we have a single unifying culture that allows for the expression of different sub-cultures but NOT at the expense of the dominant unifying culture.
