To think it is about time to stop being a Christian country.

[ShagOBite]

On the council prayers debate, lots of people have said "but we're a Christian country". Why are we? Should we be? How do we go about changing this? It seems so inappropriate and unnecessary in this day and age.

....Even if their parents and teachers disagree ...

SD - thank you for taking the time to read and respond

Small children should not be expected to be able to defend their faith (or lack of faith) in school.

Amen to that! And I understand your POV - as a child from a christian family, I was rather at the religious content of some of our school assemblies.

SDuchars.

Welcome, and thanks for your reply. It is an Interesting spin on the debate and one I hadn't considered. It is a fair point that the fact that many schools pay lip service to the whole religion thing undermine your more committed faith.

So if schools were secular, and there was no need to identify the faith of individual children, would you stop home educating and send your DCs to a state school?

I'm sure that I would have continued to home educate (my DC are now 20 and 17). The faith issue was only one of several things that made me consider home education.

It could also have been argued that when the DC were old enough to be able to make their own stand then they could have gone to school (although, my experience of school was that that would always have been difficult because of the power imbalance between teachers and pupils). By the time they were old enough, it was no longer my sole decision whether to home educate - they wanted to continue. My DD did attend the local state primary in Y5 for a term, to see what it was like. I did not withdraw her from assemblies because we had agreed (among ourselves) that she would fully participate in school life for that time.

Incidentally, my faith also means that I affirm (rather than swear on the Bible) in court.

Lord Avebury wanted the Education Bill amended, last year, to remove the requirement for collective worship in schools. The vote was abandoned due to a lack of support for the proposal.

In the words of government minister Lord Hill of Oareford:

?The Government believe that the experience of collective worship makes a contribution to the spiritual and moral development of young people, not just for those who attend religious schools.?

?In the British Household Survey of 2010, more than 70 per cent of people said that their religion was Christian, and we think it right, therefore, that these values should underpin the ethos of our schools.?

?It is a matter of historical fact... that the Christian traditions of our country have influenced and underpin our systems of law, justice and democracy.?

And of course what the government 'believes' is right.

We are so used to the values and ethos underlying this country that we forget there's a lot of Christianity behind them. They are not "default" values, otherwise they'd be everywhere.

No-one has yet answered my question:

Are there differences in cultural values, between countries with a lot of Christian history behind them and those without? How many countries with no Christianity behind them have adopted similar ethics?

Well he's a fucking idiot with no knowledge of history then. The model for democracy is Ancient Greek, so if you want to thank sky-pixies for it then the names are Zeus and Athena, not Jesus and Jehovah.

Our civilization results from Greece, Rome, and yes, Christianity followed by the Enlightenment. Christianity is part of it but far from the whole story. One of the features of christianity in the UK is that it has been relatively malleable with some ability to adapt as knowledge and societal norms evolve. The christian church was not the driver in sexual, racial and gender equality.

It's simply not true that Christianity always gets the most attention in education these days.

OFSTED, who inspect schools and are not religious in any way, say that schools are often failing to fully include Christianity in religious education, paying more attention to other faiths and sidelining Christian pupils.

here

*It's simply not true that Christianity always gets the most attention in education these days.

OFSTED, who inspect schools and are not religious in any way, say that schools are often failing to fully include Christianity in religious education, paying more attention to other faiths and sidelining Christian pupils.*

And luckily for you, a secular schooling system would stop this happening! It is nice to see you recognise that the current system doesn't work and does not treat all religious denominations and non religious children fairly across the board.

sorry, the first two paragraphs of my last message were supposed to be bold (quoting Popcorn), but I forgot to add the second "*".

Popcorn - if it is the case that RE lessons (in any school) don't include a proper history of Christianity then that is wrong.

However, I would say that as someone who attended religious assemblies every single morning of my primary and secondary school life, I still feel quite ignorant about the history of Christianity and details of the bible. There was a lot of song singing (sometimes nice tunes, but I really didn't 'get' much from the words, half the time didn't understand what on earth they were about).

For some years of my school career I was even forced to attend church every Sunday - but as far as I was concerned it was just a man in a long dress going 'blah blah blah' and implying that I should be feeling guilt for something or other (was never quite sure what).

It's a shame - the time could have been spent much more productively in a spiritual, community, and learning sense. Although the singing practice was good I guess.

Ah, the irony. If this is happening, presumably its because teachers (and the SACREs) are trying to address a perceived imbalance because Christianity is 'the cultural default'. If their perception is wrong nowadays, then the curriculum should be rebalanced.

Just think about this for a moment:

'A recent survey of more than 500 12-year-olds found that only 54% knew that Christians celebrated the Resurrection at Easter.

Rev Janina Ainsworth, the Church of England's Chief Education Officer, said: "Ofsted's findings relating to the teaching of Christianity are of particular concern, suggesting that in too many schools, the faith held by the majority of people in this country is not being properly taught in an in-depth way. '

If Christianity really was 'faith held by the majority of people in this country' then surely the same high proportion of children would know about Easter anyway from their home life, (and then some more would pick this up at school). Blaming RE lessons because the parents (shhh) aren't really christians is spectacularly missing the point.

You can't argue this both ways. This piece clearly demonstrates that we are not, in any meaningful way, a 70% Christian country.

IT may have been mentioned already but the National Anthem starts, God save our Gracious Queen (of King).
The Queen is the Head of the Church of England.
As will Charles be.
And even Wills.
In fact, Kate got confirmed shortly before her wedding - must have thought "Blimey, my DH is going to be in charge of all this church malarkey - better join in with the rules and sharpish..."
The Queen's grandson, Peter, married a woman who had to denounce her Catholicity in order to marry into the royal family.
If you want to remove the Christian (C of E) element from our cultural identity, then the monarchy will most likely go too.
So, actually, just bashing about a few ideas that as loads of young 'uns don't have any religious identity, let's all stop being a Christian country would have MASSIVE impact on our state, laws, culture, monarchy, identity.

This piece clearly demonstrates that we are not, in any meaningful way, a 70% Christian country.

Grimma - are you sure you are not Richard Dawkins

?The Government believe that the experience of collective worship makes a contribution to the spiritual and moral development of young people, not just for those who attend religious schools.?

This is the bit that makes my blood boil. The assumption that worship makes people more moral. My Grandmother (atheist), gave all the families' spare cash to animal charities, was vehemently anti-racism unlike many of her generation, was in the WAAF and was the best Grandmother ever. My mother and father, both wonderful atheists. My mother spends a lot of her time working to collect money for cancer charities. She has raised thousands of pounds. The rest of the time she has volunteered with the homeless, taught English to new immigrants and on and on. She spent one memorable Christmas (yes CHRISTMAS) with me providing food and company to a shelter of young homeless people. Number of Christian volunteers there that day - zero. I'm sure up and down the country there were Christians doing good that day but I would love to know how many Christmases the average person has spent in a homeless shelter compared to me. I am not blowing my own trumpet because I love this kind of work and wouldn't change my life for a lot of money but please don't assume people can't be good and kind without religion.

IT may have been mentioned already but the National Anthem starts, God save our Gracious Queen (of King).
The Queen is the Head of the Church of England.
As will Charles be.

Yeah, but Charles believes in homeopathy - but you have to expect that when cousins marry in a family.

Joking aside, I agree that things are intertwined, but the only reason why people are not looking about how to untwine them is because the people at the top know they will loose power if things are unravelled - so it is not in their personal interest. It doesn't mean it isn't worth campaigning for though!

Hmmm. Ethics and cultural values equal to the Christian world.

Well, starting with the Crusades, I daresay there are other cultures that have charged a quarter of the way round the world to drive people out of their homes and attempt to seize the land because of their religion...

Tibetan buddhists seem very ethical - though it's possible that if there have been paedophile crimes and cover ups committed by their monks against the boys in their care and schools it might not have reached the British press?

Gandhi was a well known violent menace, but that's to be expected from Hindus.

Blu you know what those monks are like. And, that Gandhi, shifty bugger.

Grimma - are you sure you are not Richard Dawkins
Yup, my eyebrows aren't scary at all. And my evidence may be better

If you want to remove the Christian (C of E) element from our cultural identity...

I don't (does anyone else?)

The Queen is Queen of Scotland, and Canada, without being head of their churches. Disestablishing the church wouldn't have to have any significant effect on the monarchy. The CofE could keep the monarch as its supreme govenor if it wanted (and if the monarchy still wants the position after Elizabeth). Both institutions might be happier with a looser tie - having to denounce catholicism to marry a minor royal is surely an embarrassing anachronism in this eucumenical age. Such overt discrimination - bordering on an ancient hatred - against one branch of a religion by another is hardly something to cherish.

Charles - King of Arnica.

Actually - people have been trying to amend the laws...

In fact, looks like I'm a bit out of date...

here

I know it isn't exactly the point that the OP was making but it is massively intertwined. If OP knew any British history whatsoever.

I've mentioned Canada a couple of times. There are actually propormore declared Christians, 77%, than in the UK. The Queen is Head of State and on the money. Religion is alive and well just not in Council meetings and schools. I have found (living there for a number of years) that there are more practising Christians and people who attend Church than in the UK.

*proportionally more, don't know what happened there.

Grimma -
">'A recent survey of more than 500 12-year-olds found that only 54% knew that Christians celebrated the Resurrection at Easter.

Rev Janina Ainsworth, the Church of England's Chief Education Officer, said: "Ofsted's findings relating to the teaching of Christianity are of particular concern, suggesting that in too many schools, the faith held by the majority of people in this country is not being properly taught in an in-depth way. '

If Christianity really was 'faith held by the majority of people in this country' then surely the same high proportion of children would know about Easter anyway from their home life, (and then some more would pick this up at school). Blaming RE lessons because the parents (shhh) aren't really christians is spectacularly missing the point.

You can't argue this both ways. This piece clearly demonstrates that we are not, in any meaningful way, a 70% Christian country."

Good point. That's the thing with all this pretendy religion in school. If all the kids and teachers who aren't Muslim, Sikh, Jewish etc... are presumed to be Christian and expected to act like they are Christian, how can they be expected to learn at the same time that there are a specific set of beliefs associated with being Christian, and if you reject those beliefs then you are not one (and that is ok).

It is all so mushy. It is the opposite of education.