A Faithful Witness and the Challenges of Government Involvement in Religious Education

 Introduction

 After decades of the exclusion of religion—Christianity in particular—from the classroom in American education, the Oklahoma State Superintendent called for schools to incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments in their curricula.  This return to an earlier approach in education in America follows an increasing concern that children should be taught values—Christian values in particular.  Christian religion is privileged in the curriculum.  Can such a ruling stand opposition from those denouncing Christianity in the culture on the grounds that the government shall not establish any religion?  One might think that the argument stands on stronger grounds in England, where there is an established religion, the Church of England.  However, the English are in general even more secular than the Americans, and the Church of England is uncertain of its faith at best and undermining its historic teaching on key theological and moral subjects at worst.  Just what is religious education, and should it be taught in schools?  If it is taught in private schools, should it be government regulated?  The government’s interest in regulating homeschooling may in part stem from an interest in regulating religious teaching and forcing a state-sanctioned ideology and ethic.

 In this essay, I will begin by describing the argument for government involvement in moral formation and education in Aristotle.  I will then turn to consider the Bloom Report in the United Kingdom.  While Aristotle is concerned with a particular moral formation endorsed by the state, the Bloom report advocates that the state should teach about religion for multicultural, peaceful coexistence without endorsing any particular religion.  My argument is that both proposals overreach the purpose of the state, and Bloom’s suggestion is particularly lacking in suggesting that the end-goal of religious education is toleration or coexistence while what it actually accomplishes is a minimizing and undermining of religious beliefs in a secular state.

 Aristotle

 In Aristotle’s view, the household is a microcosm of the state (cf. Nichomachean Ethics 1160b).  However, he rejects the priority of the household.  Instead, the bonds forming the state exist prior to the household as well as to the individual.  Also, they are natural and positive.  He says,

Thus also the city-state is prior in nature to the household and to each of us individually. For the whole must necessarily be prior to the part; since when the whole body is destroyed, foot or hand will not exist except in an equivocal sense, like the sense in which one speaks of a hand sculptured in stone as a hand; because a hand in those circumstances will be a hand spoiled, and all things are defined by their function and capacity, so that when they are no longer such as to perform their function they must not be said to be the same things, but to bear their names in an equivocal sense. It is clear therefore that the state is also prior by nature to the individual; for if each individual when separate is not self-sufficient, he must be related to the whole state as other parts are to their whole, while a man who is incapable of entering into partnership, or who is so self-sufficing that he has no need to do so, is no part of a state, so that he must be either a lower animal or a god.

Therefore the impulse to form a partnership of this kind is present in all men by nature; but the man who first united people in such a partnership was the greatest of benefactors (Politics 1.1253).

Secondly, Aristotle argued that the state must be concerned with the development of virtue.  He says,

it is also clear that any state that is truly so called and is not a state merely in name must pay attention to virtue; for otherwise the community becomes merely an alliance’ (Politics 3.1280b).

In Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle insists that ‘…the Supreme Good was the end [goal] of political science, but the principal care of this science is to produce a certain character in the citizens, namely to make them virtuous, and capable of performing noble action’ (I.IX.8).

Thirdly, the state’s priority to the household and its concern to develop its citizens’ virtues mean that the state needs to control education.  Aristotle avers:

And inasmuch as the end for the whole state is one, it is manifest that education also must necessarily be one and the same for all and that the superintendence of this must be public, and not on private lines, in the way in which at present each man superintends the education of his own children, teaching them privately, and whatever special branch of knowledge he thinks fit. But matters of public interest ought to be under public supervision; at the same time we ought not to think that any of the citizens belongs to himself, but that all belong to the state, for each is a part of the state, and it is natural for the superintendence of the several parts to have regard to the superintendence of the whole. And one might praise the Spartans in respect of this, for they pay the greatest attention to the training of their children, and conduct it on a public system (Politics 8.1337a).

Here, then, is Aristotle’s argument for state-controlled education, especially in regard to moral formation.  In his day, Greek religion did not offer a vision for morality.  Instead, this teaching was encased in the law and taught by the various philosophical schools.

The Bloom Report

 On 26^th April, 2023, Colin Bloom issued, upon request of the government, an important report on the subject of government and religious education in ‘Does Government “do God?”’  This 159 page document is filled with recommendations for the United Kingdom on (1) Religion, belief and faith in the UK; (2) Faith literacy in government; (3) Faith in education; (4) Faith in prison and on probation; (5) Faith in the UK armed forces; (6) Faith-based extremism; (7) Faith-based exploitation; and (8) Religious marriage.

 Under the section on religious education, he argues that religious education should play a significant role in education in the UK and should therefore be more intentionally promoted in schools than it already is.  He distinguishes between religious instruction (teaching a faith) and religious education (teaching about a faith and appreciating its values in a multicultural society). 

 However, to make his case for a multicultural UK, the Bloom report not only does not promote Christian faith and values but also neutralises Christianity.  Education is not considered ‘formation’ but mutual understanding and appreciation for coexistence.  The report (1) assumes a disestablished Church in the UK that is replaced with peaceful coexistence (probably regarding evangelism and apologetics negatively, if not as hate speech).  It (2) advocates diversity, pluralism, and a welcoming of other faiths.  It further calls for (3) government involvement, direction, and oversight of schools and off-site religious education (e.g., homeschools and, apparently, Sunday Schools).  Such oversight includes the government telling educators what is harmful in religions.  Moreover, (4) the definition of ‘religion’ is very broad and should, according to the report, include humanism.  For that matter, it could also include Satanism and Druidism.

 Proposals for why religious education should be taught are embedded in the discussion, and I would arrange them into the following list extracted from the education section of the report.  One can see that the aim in ‘religious education’ is not merely teaching about religions but to promote a certain perspective on religion.  The report’s proposals and concerns are as follows:

 1.     To encourage diversity and pluralism, welcoming persons of diverse faiths, understanding the role of faith in their lives, breaking down barriers of integration, and allowing everyone to thrive (pp. 67-68).  ‘Providing space for this discourse [issues of religion, ethics, and morality], even within the tenets of a particular faith, aligns with the pluralistic, inclusive and inquisitive classroom environment that we should be encouraging, as guided by British values’ (p. 75).

2.     So that OFSTED can oversee the curriculum in schools and offsite religious education, teaching of religion should be ‘appropriately registered and regulated’ to avoid a ‘potentially poor safeguarding practice, unchecked health and safety compliance, and narrow educational focus’ (p. 68).  This would include registration of home schools.  The danger of not doing so is that students may be subjected to ‘extremism and exposure to other forms of harmful practice and safeguarding risks’ and ‘psychological, physical and sexual abuse, as well as indoctrination into extremist ideologies and the promotion of violence’ (p. 76).  Government ‘should go further in its efforts to register and regulate out-of-school settings’ (p. 77).

3.     To foster an ‘inquisitive environment where students can examine, explore, research and discuss different religions, beliefs and faiths that engage with the deepest questions in life’  (p. 69).

4.     There is a ‘need to teach faith perspectives on these issues’: ‘guidance for relationships, sex and health education’ (p. 69).

5.     Slight attention is given to RE classes, and this means students are less likely to take up the subject for A levels or in university.

6.     For students ‘to understand the different religions, faiths and beliefs that shape the contemporary world they live in’ (p. 71).

7.     So that students will understand the legal right of others to hold their faiths and beliefs, accept those different faiths or beliefs from themselves, and not be prejudicial or discriminatory (p. 75).

8.     For ‘building a better, more inclusive Britain’ (p. 72).

9.     Instead of a ‘faith-blind’ approach, ‘…teachers should adopt a ‘faith-sensitive’ approach instead to help create a welcoming school environment where the different beliefs and traditions among people of faith are understood, respected and celebrated’ (p. 73).

10.  Since some faith practices are harmful, ‘Teachers and educators need to be appropriately trained to understand the various expressions of religious belief and why certain practices are important and others harmful.’  Therefore, government needs to ‘prioritise the proper delivery of RE’ (p. 74).  [In other words, government needs to tell teachers what is harmful in religious beliefs so that they can teach this to children!]

The Catholic Education Service has, in a short and general statement, endorsed the Bloom review.  Not all have been pleased with it, however.  Two areas of concern that this review raises have to do with the role of government in religion and the assumption of neutrality in teaching about religions.

Government and Education

The involvement of government in education should be worrying, especially in a climate turning steadily against Christian faith in the UK.  The report, however, strongly advocates government’s ‘doing God’ (a rather uncomfortable notion in itself).  In addition to points already noted, it says that religious schools should be encouraged to become academies (p. 75).  While not explained in the document, since 2000 in the UK, ‘academies’ are state funded schools that have private sponsorship.  They are not overseen by local councils.  This allows some degree of privitisation for religious schools while, at the same time, bringing them under Ofstead (the Office for Standers in Education, Children’s Services, and Skills).  Ofstead grades schools’ performances and has authority to remove and replace the head teacher and the school’s board.

With the UK’s swing to the Labour Party in the recent election on 4^th July, and with the immense confusion of the Conservative Party about what it means to be ‘conservative’, I expect that the government’s strong involvement in all the institutions of society is now sailing with the wind at its back.  This, coupled with the inexorable pressure to disestablish the Church of England, view Christianity as a social nuisance full of hate speech and a celebratory posture toward multicultural and multi-religious plurality underway in the UK carries ominous warnings for Christians.  The heavy hand of government in socialist governments turns the notion of a nation and its laws under God into a nation and religion under the state.  Just how far this goes depends on the state of play in a given country at a given time, but it the move to extend the state’s power is the same that we see in China’s sinicization policy.  Under this policy, religious institutions are brought under the Community Party’s authority and are forced to reshape their faith and practices in ways that are said to be compatible with and that promote Chinese ‘culture’.  Another example is the close relation of government and the Orthodox Church in Russia today.  This report and the socialist trajectory in the UK claim government’s right to have a hand in religions.  The only question is to what extent and how.

The situation is, of course, different in the United States of America, where the First Amendment to the Constitution states that

 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The government’s role is not to dictate standards for religion but to protect the free exercise of religion.  Religion is also not privitised, since free speech is protected.  Such an assurance or limitation of the government’s authority protects religion from being suppressed on the grounds that it is considered by government officials as ‘hate speech’.  Thus, government does not function as a regulator but as a protector of religion.  It does not ‘do God’ not because it is a secularised, social institution (as in the French Revolution) operating over or apart from religion but because it is a protector of religious freedom.  What this meant for the original founding fathers, many of whom were Deists rather than practicing Christians, was that Christianity could be and was very public and openly endorsed, such as through Christian prayers in government meetings, as long as people were not coerced into obedience or their different religious practices were suppressed.  The focus in such an understanding at the time was, in particular, a rejection of a Church-state relationship as was found in Europe, such as with England and its established Church.  The American disestablishment of a body like the Church of England allowed Baptists the free expression and practice of their ‘religion’—this was mostly an inter-Christian matter and not an inter-religious matter, despite the use of the word ‘religion’.  Of course, the founding fathers were aware of Jews in the country at the time, and they fell under the same protections from government.  The thinking at the time did not have to consider extreme opposition to Christian faith from government officials or from other religions like Islam.

The Assumption of Neutrality in Teaching about Religions

While some European countries (e.g., Finland) have seen direct challenges to Christian faith on certain issues (e.g., the Christian view that homosexuality is a sin), others oppose it by neutralising it.  This report, while attempting to make a case for religious education in schools, actually works to neutralise Christian faith in the UK schools.  It does so by advocating the view that all religions are equal and provide value to a multicultural society.  This postmodern perspective operates from the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.  One might reply that, while all fish are fish, not all fish are safe for consumption.

The report recognises this, which is why it further involves the government in teaching teachers what is ‘harmful’ (as noted above).  If liberal democracy in a relatively homogenous British society once had to concern itself with the danger of diluting Christian faith, postmodern Britain’s multiculturalism now faces the concern of harmful practices in religions (e.g., radical Islam) that are touted as equal, even celebrated.  However, the presumption of power by the state over religion not only disestablishes the Church but further undermines religious authority by creating the grounds for a new state religion.  The Roman Empire did the same.  Amidst all the various religions of the Roman Empire, with the plurality of the gods and diverse devotions to particular gods, emerged an Empire cult.  This state regulation at times became the very basis on which Christians were persecuted and put to death from time to time.  The Romans from time to time had to declare certain religions harmful.  One, the Bacchic religion, truly was harmful and was outlawed by the government.  Christianity rejected the culture’s diverse deities and rejected the Imperial Cult.  Its anti-cultural, antisocial, anti-government stance resulted in ten major persecutions before the empire came under Christian protection by a Roman emperor, Constantine, in the early 4^th century.

The increased role of the state over religion is as dangerous as the rule of the state by a religion, as in Islam.  Islam makes no distinction between religion and government and, where possible, Islamic countries operate under Sharia Law.  At best, they subject Jews and Christians to a taxation and regulate their lives within the Islamic state.  At worst, they persecute Christians and even put them to death.  As European countries in this postmodern era remove the vestiges of Christendom by equalising all religions and thereby minimising the Christian religion, they also remove distinctions between religion and government.  If Islam unites religion and government with religion in control, Europe is moving more towards a uniting of religion and government first by equalising religions and then by placing government in control over them.

What this means for Christians today is that, instead of seeking a place at a multi-cultural table of appreciative enquiry, they need to develop as apologists for the faith in the public square and as devoted disciples of our Lord in the practice of the faith.  To such an end, the Arete Academy seeks to train Christians to advance the good of society in general by promoting and defending Christian values.  Both a defense of Christianity in the public square, often in legal challenges, and an advocacy of Christian teaching in the face of opposition from a post-Christian society is necessary.  We see this also in the work of Christian Concern and its Wilberforce Institute in the UK.  Christian Concern states that it is building a movement of Christians who are ‘passionate about bringing the love, justice, truth, freedom and hope of Jesus Christ to the heart of society’.

Tim Dieppe, the Head of Public Policy for Christian Concern, recently addressed Christian concerns about the government’s assumption of neutrality in education.  He argues that a claim of neutrality is disingenuous as it sneaks in a host of some groups’ values while suppressing other groups’ values.  The supposed promotion of value in all religions actually disvalues religious claims that their values are not mere contributions to a multi-faith culture but are fundamental and more valuable in many cases than others—it undermines religion.  A stance of neutrality turns out to be an objective claim (!) that there is no objectivity—everything is and must be subjective.  Such a view, Dieppe points out, is promoted in the ‘Dismantling Racism in Mathematics’ programme funded by the Bill Gates.  The vacuity of this view is not only in its reduction to absurdity (making an objective claim that there is no objectivity) and its claim of subjectivity in fields that clearly cannot function without objectivity (try to build a bridge where 2+2 may equal 5), but also in the association of objectivity with white supremacy.  If such claims in the current climate of Western society can be made about mathematics, how much more so about religious beliefs.  Yet, religions make claims about truth that, if reduced to equality or neutrality, undermines religious teaching.  If a religion agrees to play such a game, it becomes self-contradictory—as the Church of England is about to discover as it continuously undermines historic Christian teaching in favour of the post-Christian culture and, in the interest of diversity, equity and inclusion, permits Muslims to read the Quran in its cathedrals.  Regarding religious education, Dieppe concludes that teaching religion ‘from a so-called neutral perspective to children will relativise and “neutralise” Christian belief’.

The devil is in the details in some of the recommendations of the Bloom report.  My boys in a CoE village school in Year 5 were subjected to a teacher’s adventuresome approach to religious education—an approach that understood the aim of religious education to be appreciative engagement with other faiths.  She had the class meditate like Buddhists to experience and appreciate a different faith.  Buddhist meditation is about clearing the mind, whereas Christian meditation is about filling the mind with thoughts about God, as in the Psalms.  We protested, to the great surprise of the teacher.  This is undoubtedly how the recommendations on education in the Bloom report will be implemented.

The origin of the West’s postmodern values of diversity, equity, and inclusion lie in modernity’s values of freedom and equality.  Yet the origin of freedom and equality arose in the West’s Age of Enlightenment not because of the rejection of religious teaching but because of it.  Freedom is necessary for faith, and faith is undermined by coercion.  The religious belief that faith in God comes through conversion and not coercion is the very ground for the Enlightenment’s programme of scientific study, the need for objective proof, and the understanding that truth is non-falsifiable.  The notion of freedom under which many in the West have operated has been a Christian notion of freedom that involves free speech and persuasion, not controlled speech and coercion.  Whereas modernity still operated under Christian assumptions of objectivity, postmodernity functions under the assumption of subjectivity.  Freedom and equality give way to higher values that determine the meaning of freedom and equality, the subjective values of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Conclusion

However education includes Christian faith, it must not be taught as a subject of religious education controlled by a government.  Government’s role should be the free expression of religion, including freedom to promote a religion, defend it and to live according to the life it promotes in public spaces.  This involves a public debate over religious matters, not an appreciative engagement with various religions to promote a multicultural and multi-religious society.  The role of government is protection of the freedom of religion, not its teaching and certainly not its endorsement or evaluation.  The place of critique is not the government’s but the public square.

A second problem discussed is the assumed neutrality in teaching religion that stems from the postmodern values of diversity, equity and inclusion.  Far from allowing a religion a presence in the education of children, neutrality and equality based on a conviction of subjectivity in matters of faith actually devalues religion.  Instead of appreciative discourse in a religious education curriculum, Christians need to make their case for their faith and ethics over against other religions.  For example, a generic prayer to ‘God’ in a multi-faith  context without mention of ‘in the name of Jesus Christ our Saviour’ is as good as a prayer to the unknown god of Athens (cf. Acts 17).  It is not Christian prayer.  Similarly, the teaching of religion without faith, while accomplishing some good, ultimately secularises faith for every religion.  If religion becomes ‘too religious’, the government feels a need and right to step in and say what is harmful and what is not.  Praying near an abortion clinic, street preaching, stating oppositional views publicly about homosexual ‘marriage’, religious attempts to convert others to their moral and faith convictions, and so forth have been deemed to be harmful.  When the government presumes to control religion over such matters, it becomes the arbiter of religious faith and practice, including in how religious education is presented to children in classrooms.  Again, the role of government is to protect the freedom of religion, not control it.

This argument inevitably breaks down as more and more extreme views are presented for consideration.  What about sacrifice?  What about teaching Druidism alongside Christianity in a supposed ‘neutral’ manner?  What about allowing ‘Satanism’ as a religion—or witchcraft?  At some point, a society simply has to say what it is in terms of religion: multi-faith societies are not workable the more a society rejects its own culture and values by promoting a new culture of diversity, equity and inclusion.  In recent years, the word ‘civilisation’ has dropped from our vocabulary in the West because we reject our own development along a certain (Christian) trajectory and privilege diversity.  This is unsustainable, not least because what is let in includes views that contradict a Christian value of freedom.

Education is, ultimately, not just about knowledge acquisition and certainly not about appreciating everything from a subjective assumption of neutrality (an odd notion from the start).  Education is about formation as well.  A society has to decide what it is, what it promotes, and what it does not.  The success of Christian society, basing its notion of freedom on the view that religious conversion is through proclamation and is a matter of one coming to faith, not being coerced, produces a society that protects the right of others to believe what they will while also promoting its Christian values.  Putting matters bluntly, England should not become a Muslim society in the vacuum of faith that postmodernity creates, a vacuum affirmed by a notion of religious education that is subjective and that celebrates diversity as a cultural strength.  The secularisation of the UK already involves opposition to Christian faith, but it is only a stepping stone to a more coercive society.  Whether in a majority or a minority, the right road for Christians in the UK is to advocate for the truth of the Gospel.  Whether the winds of culture are against or behind Christians, they must not relent on their calling as Christians to be witnesses to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.