Defence of the Religion and Worldviews approach to RE
From Sarah Lane Cawte
Sir, — We were disappointed to read the Revd Michael Wilcockson and Richard Coupe’s warnings against the “secularisation of RE” (Comment, 7 July), and would like to offer reassurance that a Religion and Worldviews approach does not aim to remove religion from the school curriculum, but, rather, to move the subject forward to a place where it offers rigorous, in-depth and challenging opportunities to engage with both religious and non-religious beliefs and practices in modern Britain.
This is not about “adding more and more religions and ‘worldviews’”, but, rather, about promoting a high-quality education, equipping students with the tools to engage at greater depth with substantive content.
The Religious Education Council of England and Wales, celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding this year, is a unique organisation. It brings together about 60 national organisations with an active interest in religious education, including religious and non-religious groups, professional educators, and organisations with a focus on education, both in schools and in academia. It does not claim to be “the official voice”, but operates within a broad consensus, bringing together a wide range of views and perspectives and yes, many experts.
The Commission on Religious Education, chaired by the Very Revd John Hall (formerly Dean of Westminster) published its report and recommendations in 2018. Much work has been done since then, and extensive consultation has taken place, informing and influencing the way in which the project develops.
Resources to help those who wish to explore and implement a Religion and Worldviews approach in their curriculum planning are due to be published next year, but there is no campaign to change the name of the subject, and there is no suggestion that the legal framework will alter: this is about a new approach, not a new subject.
The Religious Education Council continues to consult widely among those with expertise in education, with academics, and with more than two dozen politicians from across the political spectrum. These consultations inform the way in which the vision of the Commission on Religious Education is taken forward.
We have made numerous offers to engage in discussion with the Independent Schools Religious Studies Association, of which your contributors are both Council members (recognising, of course, that independent schools have the freedom to construct their own curriculum). That offer still stands.
SARAH LANE CAWTE
Chair
Religious Education Council of England and Wales
Northgate House, North Gate
New Basford
Nottingham NG7 7BQ
From Professor Trevor Cooling
Sir, — The Revd Michael Wilcockson and Richard Coupe warn us against the “secularisation of RE. They take aim at a Religion and Worldviews approach to RE, which, they assert, is an attack on the “religion element” that, indeed, lies at the heart of the subject. They, therefore, announce the formation of the Religious Education Network as a resistance movement.
The article is seriously flawed, particularly in its failure to discuss the central documentation and proposals in the Religion and Worldviews approach, most notably the proposed National Statement of Entitlement (NSE). Rather, they rely on scaremongering. (There is not, for example, a proposal for a National Curriculum in RE.)
Your contributors write on behalf of the Independent Schools Religious Studies Association (ISRSA), as its Twitter account proclaims. As project director for the current curriculum project exemplifying a Religion and Worldviews approach, I have specifically invited ISRSA to comment on and offer a critique of the NSE. An invitation that was flatly refused. There is a consistent pattern here of making unsubstantiated allegations rather than engage in the ongoing academic and pedagogical conversation.
Messrs Wilcockson and Coupe are indeed correct that the Worldviews approach is becoming influential among those who have engaged with it. That includes the new Religious Education Directory launched recently by the Roman Catholic Church, which has clearly drawn on the NSE. Are the RC bishops now agents of secularisation? I doubt it.
TREVOR COOLING
Emeritus Professor of Christian Education, Canterbury Christ Church University
Apartment 35, Honeybourne Gate
Cheltenham GL51 8DW
From Professor Robert A. Bowie
Sir, — The great threat to RE is teacher supply, school abandonment of the subject, and the need to win the hearts and minds of a generation of voting non-religious adults. As a director of a Christian-education university research centre and a professor of Religion and Worldviews education, I don’t feel the conflict of the article “Resist this secularisation of RE”.
Worldviews is more as a way of thinking about religious literacy and classroom pedagogy than a secularist plan. The RE Council, which the authors decry, has long had strong representation and engagement from both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, leaders of other religions, and other groups who are dedicated to good RE. Have they all been hoodwinked?
Worldviews is a handy term that people at large seem to understand. It was long used in Christian colleges to position Christianity against other meta narratives (see David Naugle’s book Worldview. He was Professor at Dallas Baptist University —hardly a bastion of secularism). When I speak to Christian school advisers, there is quite a strong sense that it matters to describe materialist and rationalist sense-making perspectives. Worldviews helps here, though it is far from perfect.
The writers support philosophy and ethics as do I. A-level Religious Studies, however, has long emphasised secular Western philosophers (Bentham, Mill, Ayer, etc.) and not included Continental philosophy or Eastern philosophy traditions that are more welcoming of religious sensibilities. Are the authors promoting secular philosophy in RE while at the same time decrying secular world-views?
I believe the authors are sincere, but gravely mistaken. They are right to worry about RE. It faces chronic collapse: catastrophic recruitment of teachers because of a lack of bursaries. People cannot afford to train to teach any more. Plus, many state schools are abandoning it altogether. Most urgently, it needs to address the complex self-understanding of most young people, who both disassociate from organised religion and yet maintain some spiritual practices and hold strong ethical ideas. The new voting population is less religious, and the subject must win their hearts and minds to retain its status on the curriculum.
These are the greater challenges that the subject faces.
I fear that this idiosyncratic crusade is alarmist, divisive, and undermining of efforts. This is no time to splinter the network. I challenge the authors to bring their concerns to the table, discover the reality behind their imagined conspiracy theory, and then volunteer to help to solve the real problems with the rest of us.
ROBERT A. BOWIE
Professor of Religion and Worldviews, and Director of the National Institute of Christian Education
Research
Canterbury Christ Church University
Old Sessions House, Canterbury
Kent CT1 1QU
From Mr Richy Thompson
Sir, — The Revd Michael Wilcockson and Richard Coupe write of reform to RE that, “if the Religion and Worldviews title is adopted, the ‘religion’ element will be downgraded or, over time, disappear. . . Pre-eminent among all possible non-religious world-views will be humanism, as advocated by the Humanists UK. . . It will not be long, we fear, until humanism will be the compulsory element, and religion squeezed out, being deemed just one world-view among many.”
Such a squeezing out is not something that we support nor something that we are aware of anyone advocating: certainly not us, and certainly not the RE Council. It is vital that every young person learns about different religions and humanism, as such teaching clearly has a beneficial impact in terms of its contribution to social cohesion, its education about history and culture, and its helping young people find meaning and purpose. That will always be true: religions are not going away.
On the other hand, Messrs Wilcockson and Coupe are both part of the ISRSA. In their comment, they write that it is “all good and healthy” to add humanists to SACREs; but the ISRSA has in recent years spent its time opposing the putting of humanism on an equal footing in the school curriculum. It is merely that inclusion that we and others want to see.
RICHY THOMPSON
Director of Public Affairs and Policy
Humanists UK
39 Moreland Street
London EC1V 8BB
‘Commendable’? LLF prayers and canon law
From the Rt Revd Dr Colin Buchanan
Sir, — You report that the House of Bishops is “weighing up” giving official approval to the prayers arising from Living in Love and Faith by means of the Archbishops’ approval under Canon B4 rather than by commendation under Canon B5 (News, 7 July). Perhaps some history may assist the weighing up.
In 1984, the Liturgical Commission (of which I was a member) sent to the Bishops the newly drafted texts of Lent, Holy Week, Easter. The Bishops replied that, because the texts were uncontroversial, they would not use the full synodical route to authorisation, but would cut a few corners by using Canon B4. The Commission was horrified — because authorisation under B4 would impose the texts thus approved and would allow no deviation from them.
We were aware that an enormous range of uses for Holy Week was happening in the parishes, all of which would be precluded by the imposition of our new set of texts under B4. We therefore put it to the Bishops that the parish liberties under B5 would be retained if the House of Bishops simply “commended” our texts for use in that way.
This procedure was followed, and the concept of “commendation” (previously unknown) came into use and has been used regularly since. It is subject to no rules, and it gives no status in the Church of England to the texts thus commended (though they have regularly since the 1980s been published in official-looking C of E format). But it was, of course, vital from the start that such liturgical material as was commended should be uncontroversial, not for doctrinal or canonical reasons (for it was all outside of the rules), but for moral ones, namely, that the procedure should not be used to avoid proper synodical scrutiny and amendment of that which might be divisive.
It was, therefore, fairly extraordinary to find that the House of Bishops’ proposals in February were to be “commended”. A suggested change of mind now rather implies that the House has seen the difficulties of “commending” that which had in February divided the Synod so painfully. But what does a move to using Canon B4 entail? Obviously, it still avoids Synod scrutiny and the requisite two-thirds majorities in each House of the Synod under Canon B2, and, if the Bishops are weighing up using Canon B4 to get controversial material past the Synod without scrutiny, then they will need to “weigh up” facing down any negative reaction from the Synod.
But the procedure also raises a presentational issue; for what is approved by the Bishops allows no alternative in the parishes: the liberties under B5 exist only when no provision has been made under B2 or B4. The liturgical material in the February proposals was for “Resources: Prayers, Acclamations and Promises”. This would become a very curious rite in our range of authorised services, as the sub-headings (including “Prayers for God’s blessing” and “Prayers for a Household and Family”) could hardly impose necessary forms upon us and thus preclude all other uses. So, how would they be presented? Under what title would the “resources” come?
If the provision were named “The Blessing of Same-Sex Couples”, supposing that is the real intention, then that title would have become far more explicit than in the February proposals — but, if it were not so named, but were just “authorised resources”, it would become a collection of varied prayers for unspecified occasions, and there might well be trouble in even giving it a title by which it would be authorised.
Its exclusive nature would then be wholly ridiculous, and could probably be alleviated only by providing a rubric to head each prayer, “This or other suitable prayers may be used.” But the upshot then would be a wholly amorphous and apparently superfluous set of resources, which were, in effect, being “commended”, though they were now gaining some slightly spurious firmer standing by being “authorised”.
Some weighing up would seem to be timely.
COLIN BUCHANAN
21 The Drive, Alwoodley
Leeds LS17 7QB
Solar panels and the faculty jurisdiction
From Mr Justin Stopford FIET
Sir, — With reference to letter “Big conservation area” (7July): I am not sure about relaxing the faculty requirement for solar panels. There is too much at stake and too much that could go wrong. Solar panels by themselves will not give any great financial benefits to most churches. When they are combined with an electric heat pump to provide background church heating, however, it is possible to make significant reductions in electricity bills.
A large battery, charged up from the solar panels, is also helpful if many of the services are in the evening. Do not discard the gas or oil boiler: you will need these for topping up the heating in a cold winter.
If lithium batteries are used, they must be installed outside the church building.
JUSTIN STOPFORD
13 Brandreth Delph, Parbold
Lancashire WN8 7AQ
Advice to incumbents on training curates
From the Revd James Dwyer
Sir, — As I read the Ven. Rick Simpson’s astute article about the potential tensions between curates and training incumbents (Petertide Ordinations, 7 July), I was reminded of some sage advice given to me by an experienced colleague before my first stint as a training incumbent. “The thing about being a training incumbent”, he said, “is that it’s as much about being trained as an incumbent as it is about training someone else.”
JAMES DWYER
The Vicarage, Chapel Road
Flackwell Heath
High Wycombe HP10 9AA