Knowing about Religion

In many UK schools its not just history of religion, but something akin to religious instruction. Does he know that the state collaborates with churches in running public schools? And that, legally, all schools must have a collective act of worship every day?

Bible as Literature is a standard college prep course in lots of American High Schools. Lots of choir and orchestra classes play a lot of devotional music — obviously: to disallow it would be like disallowing 80% of the classics from Literature classes (I know, I know, the pomos and lots of the multiculturalists would like to do that too, but it doesn’t make it any less absurd).

Harry: Yes, I should have made it clear that RE classes were more religious instruction / being a Godly Person classes than religious history. Ireland doesn’t require a collective act of worship.

Albert: I’m not saying anything about what most American Protestants know about the history of the Reformation. (There’s probably data somewhere.) I’m just reporting what my experience has been.

Sunday school is not about the history of religion or even theology. It’s usually about short moral lessons derived from specific scriptural passages (OT or NT).

I took a “World Religions” class my senior year in high school in the U.S., but it was a private school. And the class was a history elective, not a requirement. One of the boys in it was a deeply religious evangelical Christian (sounds rather like Professor Healy’s student). I got the feeling that the class was sometimes painful for him, particularly during the unit on Christianity, but he made terrific contributions to discussion.
It was a wonderful class.

More than 50% of Americans are Protestants and a chunk ( most? ) of them don’t know about 1517 and the 95 theses? What do they teach at those Sunday schools?

They teach about the Bible and the doctrine and about how to live in Sunday school. I went to Sunday School for ten years and there was never a single word about the history of where Protestantism came from. That would have been extremely out of place.

I never knew that my denomination, Presbyterianism, was the official church of Scotland until this year (I’m 21).

I don’t know why knowing about religious disagreements four hundred years ago would be in any way relevant to a child’s upbringing nowadays. It’s not like learning national history, where you need to be informed about the context of what’s happening in your own back yard. Churches don’t teach about the historical figures that shaped the church rituals; that would distract from the whole idea that the scripture leads naturally to the faith.

As for learning about it in history class, that’s European history, rather than American history. I don’t think any public school requires a class in European history.

“I don’t know why knowing about religious disagreements four hundred years ago would be in any way relevant to a child’s upbringing nowadays. It’s not like learning national history, where you need to be informed about the context of what’s happening in your own back yard.”

Ew.

Is that parody? It is, right? Sheer parody. Right?

Drapetomaniac,

I don’t think Harry was saying that 80% of literary classics are about the Bible. He was saying that a large (80%?) fraction of serious music is religiously inspired, and to bar music of that type would be like barring an equivalent share of literature.

I have no idea whether 80% is correct, but it is surely true that a big part of serious music is religious. Check out Bach’s biography sometime.

Ophelia Benson asks,

But how odd that we’re the god-ridden place and the UK isn’t. That we’re the notorious godbotherers and Ukanians aren’t.

Alexander Cockburn (who was not in the UK for his RE, but close enough) once wrote that a child not immunised by compulsory religious education was susceptible to all manner of religious enthusiasm. I suspect that the USA’s strict separation of church and state (well; it was pretty strict when I was living there) facilitates religiosity rather than otherwise. There are many bad things about American churches, but Erastianism isn’t generally one of them.

(I would add that I live in another country that has compulsory RE in the state schools. Though its two state churches are only de facto, not de jure establishments, they probably enjoy more state support than does the Church of England; and about 80% of the population are nominal members of the one church or the other. Yet church attendance is very low, and attempted church interference in state affairs minimal.)

Nice to meet you again too, drape. Not the most charitable way of putting it, but yes, that was me. Have this horrible feeling when the teachers of my acquaintance say that the classics shouldn’t be compulsory that they are trying to keep something for themselves and their children. Like when they get up in arms about vouchers, having themselves bought houses in the neighbourhoods with the best schools. Not a big deal though. And thanks, Bernard, for explaining my garbled comment correctly.

I was being a bit flippant about the devotional music, but it is, in fact, a non-trivial problem. School administrators are not always completely cognisant of the state of first amendment law (which is, anyway, entirely confusing); and even when they are they can’t be sure that district administrators will back them up. So they have a strong incentive to evade parental complaints by avoiding anything that *might* be controversial. And in small school districts one lawsuit, however unfounded, can break the bank. Caution is sometimes the order of the day, and music teachers are frequently encouraged to avoid devotional music. This is more of a problem for choir than orchestra. The same dynamic discourages classes like Bible as Literature and, come to think of it, may go some way to explaining Kevin’s initial observation. (Our district has excellent legal guidelines for teaching Bible as Lit, drawn up by the district legal department, but its the only class I know of which has legal guidelines that every teacher has to read).

“Alexander Cockburn (who was not in the UK for his RE, but close enough) once wrote that a child not immunised by compulsory religious education was susceptible to all manner of religious enthusiasm.”

Hmm, interesting. I have heard that idea before, of course. Maybe so, maybe so. Though there are other variables, so it’s hard to say how much difference that makes.

“That we’re the notorious godbotherers and *Ukanians* aren’t. ”

Oh yay, another irrepressible kuro5hin phrase …

I think the law requiring ‘A daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian character’ is more honoured in the breach than the observance. At my school, we used to have a bible reading every day (except Monday, oddly, when we had a piece of secular literature instead), but that was pretty unusual.

RE lessons in state schools are generally comparative religion and ethics classes. Their content, as for most lessons in British schools, is laid down by the national curriculum.

tim says:

bq. I think the law requiring ‘A daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian character’ is more honoured in the breach than the observance.

Yes, certainly. Especially in secondary schools, where I’d be surprised if more than 10% of non-religious schools do it. I don’t know when Tim went to school, but the decline in the daily act started in the early seventies (partly for practical reasons — the UK baby boom was starting to kick in, and schools had more kids than they could fit in the assembly hall, so assembly became twice or even once a week, in year group-defined groups rather than whole-school), and then continued precipitously in the 80’s.

I think I would support for a curriculum that teaches history and principles of religions (i.e. faith and truth claims etc). I would also include atheism, agnostism etc in there. But no mass worship of anything.

(Heck may be that would stop the religion advocates from pushing their stuff to science classes!!)

I teach social studies in an overwhelmingly black public high school. Most of my students find out that they are Protestants in World History class.

Harry: Yes. Brain misfired, I suspect. One *pumps* up clue and *pimps* out sites. My bad.

Re; the daily collective act of worship in UK schools.

My recollection was that this only became a statutory requirment in 1988. The intention of the Government at the time was not to immunise children against religion.

Interestingly, New Labour have actually strengthened the requirment for an act of collective worship. It is now possible for a body of school governors to be condemned as ‘failing’ if the schools inspection regime finds that an daily act of collective worship is not being carried out.