Why do non religious schools sing about Jesus and God?

[DairyNips]

This is a genuine question. My ds1 has just started school in a lovely primary school. I went along to the welcome assembly today as the headmistress was talking about it being a lovely school full of love for each other and the love of God. When I have attended assembly's in the past (ds went to nursery there), the children have also been singing songs about Jesus and how great he is etc.
Now, it was the same when I was at school but I just wonder why it is this way? Why do non religious schools choose to sing about any particular belief system? Isn't it a bit biased? Also, doesn't it make an assumption on behalf of the children that they all believe in God/Jesus etc?
Personally, I went to Sunday school yet never actually chose to do that.. I now don't follow any religion, I have my own beliefs about certain things but that's as far as it goes.

I just think children should be allowed to make up their own minds without being made to sing about one religion in particular. Btw I'm totally up for children being taught about all religions and I think this is important.

Any thoughts on this?

Nitpicking much, exotic?!

My son is being brought up atheist, in the same way that a Christian / Muslim / Hindu child is brought up in their family's traditions.

When he's old enough to form his own opinions, he might choose to be an atheist or to find religion, but until that point he is an atheist child IMO.

Horatio, ooh yes we sang them :)

Well the number of adults identifying themselves as Christians is falling dramatically, so I can only assume that the indoctrination children receive at school doesn't work very well. That's my fervent hope anyway. I tell my DC that they are nice songs and stories, to be enjoyed for their historical and cultural significance, but to be taken with a pinch of salt.

And Puff the Magic Dragon. Always made my cry but I loved it :)

I'm not very keen on the outsourcing approach. I think some schools are wheeling in a local volunteer to do their statutory 30 minutes a fortnight of Christian indoctrination with metaphorical air quotes around it saying "this is Christianity, feel free to ignore it".

That sounds all very fair and balanced, but in practice the DCs are learning that "whatever the local bloke happens to believe = Christianity", whether that's Creationism, Socialism, homophobia, sexism, converting Pakistan to Christianity etc.

I think my DCs are being taught a much more nuanced and accurate picture of the minority faiths than they are of Christianity.

I'm not very keen on the outsourcing approach. I think some schools are wheeling in a local volunteer to do their statutory 30 minutes a fortnight of Christian indoctrination with metaphorical air quotes around it saying "this is Christianity, feel free to ignore it".

That sounds all very fair and balanced, but in practice the DCs are learning that "whatever the local bloke happens to believe = Christianity", whether that's Creationism, Socialism, homophobia, sexism, converting Pakistan to Christianity etc.

I think my DCs are being taught a much more nuanced and accurate picture of the minority faiths than they are of Christianity.

It is nitpicking though.

My post was in answer to conorsrockers, who said

"It's what our mothers and fathers did before us - we all know the hymns etc... "

My point was that it's not everybody's tradition. Not mine for a start, nor my parents, nor theirs.

"no child is atheist or agnostic or religious. They believe what they are taught to believe. As far as I'm concerned until a child is old enough to understand and declare their own beliefs they are merely parroting what their parents/carers/significant adults have taught them. "

Agreed.

It really is splitting hairs.

I would say a child brought up in the Christian tradition, who goes to church, is a Christian child.

I would say a child who goes to Mosque is a Muslim child; a Child who goes to Temple is a Hindu Child.

My child is an atheist child, in that he's being brought up in an atheist household, with certain ways of doing things which are different to religious ways of doing things.

Yes it says more about my beliefs than his, of course, but is does describe something real about his experience, family traditions and culture that's different to a Christian / Muslim / Hindu child.

Semantics really.

I went to primary school in the late 70s, early 80s. I remember assemblies involving many hymns - Come and Praise hymn book anyone? And this was every assembly too. Also was in middle school as well. That was your average, working class first and middle schools in Yorkshire.

aufaniae you didn't grow up in Cambridge by any chance?

I'm an atheist, but as I managed to go to CofE schools with daily Christian assembly of hymns, prayers, and improving story and still got to 11 without realising that there were people who actually believed the Bible bits, I'm not too bothered about assemblies in principle. And I'd quite like my offspring to learn hymns with classic tunes and references - I don't expect them to believe the lyrics any more than I expect them to believe King Louie is king of the jungle or Macavity the cat can defy gravity.

I won't be happy, however, if they get told off for not having their hands in the right position or for looking at the wrong thing while prayers are being said - at least children can't be slapped in school any more. And some of the modern Christian songs are quite nauseatingly twee - though so are many other songs I got taught at primary school. Like Dilys, I'm concerned about outside speakers coming in to 'do' Christianity and other religions, not least because while the hugely-oversubscribed CofE school near me can't fill its 50% of places reserved for qualifying Christians with them, that's partly because many of the local population are Christian but belong to churches too niche or extreme to belong even to the Evangelical Alliance, so don't qualify. If the school tries to represent the local community with speakers, there could be all sorts of opinions coming out.

As Tim Minchin said

"I don't go in for ancient wisdom
I don't believe just 'cos ideas are tenacious it means they are worthy
I get freaked out by churches
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are dodgy

And yes I have all of the usual objections
To the miseducation of children who, in tax-exempt institutions,
Are taught to externalise blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right and wrong
But I quite like the songs"

As far as I'm concerned until a child is old enough to understand and declare their own beliefs they are merely parroting what their parents/carers/significant adults have taught them.

Exactly. If you happened to be Muslim you could say that your DCs was, if you happen to be atheist you could say your DC was, etc BUT eventually they will decide for themselves and they may follow you or they may differ-they will be the one to decide.

Daily act of collective worship legally required by 1940s Education Act (think it was 1945 but can't be bothered to google). Daily act of collective worship of a broadly Christian character required by 1988 Education Act +due to trendy lefties interpreting the 1945 act as a free pass to indoctrinate children with totalitarian/Green ideas, plus the country being swamped with immigrants of different religions and white children knowing more about Diwali than Christmas+

+words between the asterisks are a paraphrase of TV appearances by rentaquote 1980s Tory MPs/conversations had with family members in the years since 1988 and may not represent my own views+

In practice it largely depends on the Head IMO. If the head is either so religious that s/he thinks it's normal, or even considers the 'quite like the songs' approach normal and unmarked, the act of worship will be Christian in character. There are however huge numbers of songs that children can sing that contain no reference to Jesus. Ours is towards the non-Jesus end, but does sometimes mention God; it's possible to avoid this but I can see that if you are going to ask children to be 'grateful' and to 'worship' you need to have some name for something they are worshipping and being grateful to, and it's perhaps best not to stress too much about it.

Most of the kids on my street enjoy singing "Who's the King of The Jungle" because it's noisy and has actions.

I grew up learning all these songs etc and still managed to be an outstanding atheist

horatio I grew up in London, why do you ask?

horatia! sorry!

Just in case we were at school together, which evidently we were not.

Cambridge has always been full of educational theorists who can't afford private schools fairly progressive and liberal as local authorities go.

I'm bothered about what school will say about Christmas too. Any presentation of Father Christmas as more than a story or a character one can encounter in shopping centres will baffle DC1. Pre-school managed it beautifully because I'd asked in advance what they were intending to say.

No such thing as a moral atheism?

I'm struggling to find a polite reply to that one!

When I was at school I sang hymns in assembly.
My grandma would take me to church sometimes on a Sunday and I enjoyed it because the church was beautiful and I loved the singing, I also attended Sunday school which I didn't enjoy.

Even though I was raised as a christian, as an adult I'm not religious at all.

My DC attend a none religious school but they sing hymns and celebrate Easter and Christmas, we make donations for harvest festival they visit the local church and the vicar from the church visits the school.

I do think that the law is outdated but my DC will make there own minds up about religion as they get older the same way that I did.

"if you don't like it then leave the country" is an all purpose answer to any kind of policy discussion, which adds precisely nothing. In fact why bother having parliament, voting, or any kind of policy reform ever? Just keep things exactly as they are and those who don't like it can leave

Like you, I have a vote in this country. I do not want to see the system change. I do not want schools to be secular. There may be many, many more like me than you think.

I dont often speak of this issue - and I am not going to get into a debate now - but I do not agree with the current rather loud but possibly minority who want to see schools drop the cultural Christianity from the curriculum.

There are those, as many posts here express who want so see change. But you may not be in the majority when it comes to votes.

Do you honestly think that atheists have no morality?

This is not the place to debate the issue but any morality atheism has is borrowed. Its either borrowed from Judaism or more often borrowed from Darwinism. I would be extremely wary of the latter. I think a lot of people buy into something they dont actually know about often.

But as I said, its not a debate for this place.

And also because some of us are old enough to have gone to school before the national curriculum! I never sung a hymn nor was ever asked to join in a prayer in my state primary or secondary school in London

Which all gos to show that it is quite possible to find schools in this country who take a liberal to the point of dismissive position with regard to the law. It is therefore quite possible for anyone who dislikes assemblies conduted within the law to find a school which ignores it.

Incidentally, as an atheist I believe that religions are not handed down from a god or gods, they are invented by man. Hence, any morality that comes from religion is also invented by man. We can just skip a stage here and cut out the religion!

"I do not agree with the current rather loud but possibly minority who want to see schools drop the cultural Christianity from the curriculum. "

I'm happy to see Christianity in the curriculum as part of religious education. Worship, and the assumption that Christianity is the Truth - which you get in assemblies - is something entirely different.