To think all schools should teach children the old traditional hymns

[Staringintothevoid616]

Just switching between channels and Songs of Praise came on. It was a run down of the most popular school hymns.complete with recorders It brought back many memories and how important communal singing is. It doesn’t matter what your religion is, everyone should know the most popular hymns as a way of uniting society.

Anyone who thinks hymns aren't widely known and sung isn't a rugby fan.

Hymns are decent songs!
Far more rewarding musically than most modern school assembly songs

I think choirs and community singing are fabulous and should be promoted in schools i just don't see why religious hymns are the obvious choice for this when there's a huge range of popular secular music thats accepted and enjoyed across people of all faiths and none. Bringing religion into it divides people and spoils it.

I was a child at school in the ‘90’s and I don’t know that song at all. I don’t know how OP plans to find hymns that everyone is familiar with, even with ignoring the existence of other religions, when common hymns vary so much by age/region/denomination etc.

The purpose of religion is to worship God.

When it comes to people who openly state they don't follow a religion I generally encounter far more agnostics than I do atheists, but any single individual is going to have a limited sample size to draw conclusions from.

Census does couch it in terms of "no religion" though rather than asking to specify beyond that. I don't think it particularly matters, because it's not like there is any purpose in asking non-believers about which religions they don't believe in the most, whereas there is in asking the religious to specify which they adhere to.

Trust me I know.

Are you going to tell us when society was less fragmented?

But do people really think about the religious connotations when singing hymns? All music, whatever the topic, actually brings people together in a way that nothing else does. Hymns don’t promote hate or division.

Even Adam and Eve fell out.

If I trust you because you know, can you give me Tuesday's Euromillions numbers, please?

The vast majority actually are Christian though!

We are a Christian country.

The very fact that we don't sing our hymns in case it offends Muslims is actually bonkers to me.

Keep religion out of school. Take your child to where you go to learn

Yeah. And God blamed Eve, and cursed her and all women for ever.

Ohh, the kids had a bit of a fall out too.

TBH, there is nowt good in that book to sing about.

Where is your evidence that "we don't sing our hymns in case it offends Muslims"?

But did they duet?

@Livelovebehappy

Hymns don’t promote hate or division

Perhaps not overtly through their content, no, but if you compel people who do not believe the messaging and premise to participate in signing them, then you will inevitably end up with a degree of resentment toward the relevant religion.

If parents want their kids to specifically sing religious hymns why not take them to church every Sunday & sing them there?

Not sure it has to happen at school but this one of those goady kind of threads isn't it?

Less than 50% of the UK population describe themselves as Christian.

We sing hymns every week in church, on the radio, on the Songs of Praise show that OP referenced (every week since 1961 on national television), at remembrance services, at the rugby, at christenings, weddings, funerals, in school, at work if you're in the services, in choirs etc.......when don't we sing 'our' hymns?

It was less than half at the last census. I would assume that downward has continued. Probably isn't "the vast majority" or certainly won't be for long - it's not because of the Muslims. It's science and education to blame.

Nonsense.

Only 46% of people in the 2021 Census claim to be Christian, not a majority, never mind a "vast" majority.

Since this has been in decline for a good while it's likely an even lower figure now. This also includes all the people who unthinkingly tick the "Christian" box for no other reason than they were brought up in a loosely Christian tradition, but they don't follow the religion, don't go to church, don't practice Christianity, don't have a particularly deep understanding of it, and in a lot of cases won't even believe in the existence of Gods.

The UK is emphatically not a "Christian Country".

Aha! Here we go!

OP is going to love me saying this.......but the poster to whom you are replying has 88 in her user name. HH. Coffeeandbooks88

You seem to think the growing acknowledgment of the issues around multiculturalism is a bad thing.

Two fat ladies????