News from Queensland: there will be no change in the way religious instruction is offered (and provided) in Queensland Government schools. This represents a victory for the Christians who have protested energetically against the proposed changes, some of which would have allowed any religious group the right to offer religious instruction.

I feel somewhat ambivalent about this win. Churches campaigning vigorously to maintain their privileged position do not make an appealing sight, yet their argument that Christianity is culturally the most appropriate – and therefore healthiest – for Queensland children still carries weight.

I did not respond to the requests to write to the Minister of Education in Queensland or even pray enthusiastically that the changes be stopped. I can certainly make no claim to be part of the victory. My position among those with strong interests in the teaching of religion in schools is different from many Christians, and I wonder whether this ‘victory’, while I cannot disagree with it, is in fact holding back more educational approaches.

Hysteria

There was a note of hysteria about the possibility that the new Education Act would allow Wiccans (or as the more hysterical called them, witches) to teach Wiccan (witch-craft) in Government schools. The new Act required only the compliance of parents and teachers.

I don’t believe that extreme groups would ever have been admitted to schools. I can’t imagine a school community allowing it. My experience has been that (a) conservative Christians campaign vehemently against Wicca wherever it raises its head, and (b) though quieter in their anxiety, Principals in particular, and parents are usually even more conservative on this issue. I recall, for example, a senior official in the Department of Education and Training here in WA, saying, “I wouldn’t allow Wicca or any of those weirdos anywhere near one of our schools.”

So on pragmatic grounds, I doubt that the worries expressed during the campaign in Queensland would ever have been realised.

Why Religious Education?

My second point of difference from the ‘winning team’ concerns the purpose of religious education. I have always advocated strongly for more RE in schools, both from visiting Christian teachers (called SRE or CRE in most States of Australia) and teaching about religion in the general curriculum (GRE in WA, and I think elsewhere).

I am not entirely comfortable with the principle of offering confessional religious education within a secular school.. I feel definitely uncomfortable when my fellow-Christians fight so hard to maintain their privileged position. Our presence in State Schools is not a right. It’s given by grace.

Firstly, it’s hard to know whether ‘society’ wants confessional RE. The Morgan Gallup polls show that a large majority of Australians, about two-thirds, want religion taught regularly in State Schools. It’s not so easy to establish what people mean by teaching religion. I have assumed that people mean they want the status quo: that is, the right of churches in all States except SA, to offer religious education in State Schools.

Community changes

There are obviously those who vocally oppose the status quo. But I sense also that there is a shift in what people might mean when they support the regular teaching of religion in State Schools. I sense that more people want religion taught – after all, it’s a subject of major human interest – but that they assume that religion will nowadays be taught in a fairly open manner. Visiting RE teachers teach in a closed manner. Their approach is confessional.

The motivation for most RE teachers in WA is to give children the opportunity to hear the Christian gospel. Simone de Roos’ research into RE in Dutch schools supports this view. She has found that parents are more likely to want ‘Traditional Religious Education’. Teachers come out more on the side of ‘Respect for Others’ Religion’.

The status quo not the best possible arrangement.

My dilemma as a Christian citizen is that religion in the sense of ‘Respect for Others’ Religion’ is not taught well in public schools. Teachers do not feel competent to pursue religious themes that arise naturally in (Studies of) Society and Environment or English., and they certainly feel that they are restrained from initiating discussion of religion in their classrooms.

I wonder whether Years 11 and 12 courses such as “Religion and Life” will erode teachers’ reluctance to teach more thoroughly about religion. In the light of 9/11, one would hope so!

So my fall-back position is to encourage traditional Religious Education taught well. I believe we can do SRE or CRE with a clear conscience, even if some teachers understand it as an opportunity for energetic evangelism. Confessional teaching does not brainwash students. Even atheists like Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell, 2006) acknowledge the evidence that shows the ease with which children immersed a tradition can walk away “with a shrug and a smile and no visible ill effects.” (324). What traditional RE does well is to introduce students to the great questions of life and to Christianity, one of humanity’s more successful attempts to answer those questions.

So I say ‘two cheers’ for Jonathan Sargeant and all the Christians in Queensland for their hard work in keeping the status quo. But I’ll save my third hurrah for the day when regular classroom teachers teach religious themes with the same seriousness as they teach literacy and numeracy both across the curriculum and in its own Learning Area, and as a result the community grows in religious literacy. The world will then be a better place!

PS: Take the test. See where you fit on Simone de Roos’ scale. What do you think if the most important purpose of Religious Education?

On a scale of 1 to 6, where 1 = not at all descriptive of me to 6 = highly descriptive of me, mark the following statements.

It's important for me that my children/pupils…

                                                                                                   1     2     3     4     5     6

This questionnaire, and an interesting analysis of some of these issues in the Dutch context, is in:

Simone A. de Roos “Young Children’s God Concepts: Influences of attachment and religious socialization in a family and school context”, Religious Education, Vol. 101(1) 2006, 84-103

Daniel Dennett’s thought-provoking book is available to borrow through the WA State Library system.

Dennett, Daniel (2006) Breaking the Spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon, Viking.