The Lords Prayer

Lovely Calon Lan Anniebach I love belting it out when there is a funeral in our town.

Me too Sparkly and it can certainly be belted out ????????

SueDonim - If you think about the wording of The Lord's Prayer it covers the beliefs of Jews, Muslims and Christians,
Jesus isn't mentioned, only God.
And the values contained in it are universal for all 3 religions.

My two GC go to a Church of Wales Primary school, they know the Lords Prayer in English and Welsh, (they are also taught their times tables up to 12 x 12). In their school there are Muslims and a Buddhist, and nonconformists, in fact the Buddhist played the lead role in the Nativity play a couple of years ago.

Grandma70s I agree about the aesthetics of prayers and hymns. One of my favourite hymn is The Spacious Firmament on High, the words are simple, poetic, and the science is all wrong. but the spirit is true because sometimes we simply need to express a feeling of awe.

Jesus is mentioned in the title of the Lord’s Prayer.

Fennel yes, it does.

As it says in the bible, it is the Lord's prayer as Jesus taught to his disciples. But Jesus was a Jew praying to his Father in heaven.
In St Matthew's text it finishes 'but deliver us from evil'.
The rest was added later.

I think school is not the place to indoctrinate children in Christianity or any other religion. Schools are for teaching facts, not beliefs. Assembly should be restricted to covering school announcements and such like.

Totally with you on that one, fionajk42. Religion should play not part in a state school education. If parents really want their child to receive a religious education, then they should pay for it.

I don't agree with faith schools either. They have the potential to create divided communities - just what we don't need!

The Catholic education received by my children bore no resemblance to my ‘ hard core’ one, and my grandchildren’s bears even less, being mostly centred on respecting and helping others.

Assemblies are compulsory as is a daily act of worship, mainly Christian in nature.
However if you are keen for your family to grow up with a faith then there are 100s of churches to go to!

Am reminded of DH leading an inspection of a major northern boys grammar school. The colleague asked to report on that morning’s assembly summed it up neatly as “a hymn, a prayer and a bollocking”!

fiona reading your post made me wonder if our Head of State should not also be required to be Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of tbe Faith.
Although Prince Charles says he would want to be Defender of Faiths.

The C of E is the Establishd Church.

It's odd isn't it? I can recite the old version of the Lord's prayer, can sing at least a 100 hymns,
won the RE prize through most of junior school and the first 2 years of secondary and ended up an agnostic on a good day and an atheist otherwise.

I attended C/E church regularly until age 17. Did A level RE & went to a C/E TT college. I do not have a faith now but value the knowledge I have about the Bible.. so much of British culture references it!

I can, my children can too - I went to the local non denominational school in the days when non-denominational meant Christian - their idea of being inclusive was that the Jewish kids didn’t have to join in if they didn’t want to!
My kids went to church schools.
Amen

PECS

Assemblies are compulsory as is a daily act of worship, mainly Christian in nature.
However if you are keen for your family to grow up with a faith then there are 100s of churches to go to!

Sorry but that’s not true. Unless it is a particular faith school then assemblies are not religion based. They are about school community, news, stories, issues, showcasing work etc. Religion only comes up when it is a particular festival and then all major religions are included.
Any non-denominational school running an assembly with a Christian bias are poorly managed and will be in hot water if ofsted get wind of it.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/collective-worship-in-schools
Schools do do this. I have delivered 100s in my career teaching in non faith based schools!

ps that is nonsense about OFSTED!

Is it not against the law to ban freedom to practice faith ?

yes it is,Annie faith schools can obviously have a stronger emphasis on teaching their faith in assembly/ collective worship: Christian(RC or C/E) , Islam ,Judaism etc! Community schools do not promote one faith more than another but should have a time for worship and ensure broadly Christian values..which are shared by the main religions anyway!

I haven't known a school which has 'a collective act of worship' for about 35+ years!

Occasionally nowadays there is a Harvest Festival without any religion seemingly involved and a Christingle service (come if you wish, if not don't worry!) but no service, daily or otherwise, in schools.

Oh the Christingle service is so good for the soul!

I cope until the little ones with their candles (in oranges) sing 'Away in a manger.' Without fail, the tears flow.

So moving - and 'holy'.

Prisons are full, many churches are empty.