From the Humanist Association - discuss

No Granjura , all this thread has done is moved me in favour of faith schools to protect children from the rabid humanitarian side of humanitarianism

Someone quoted Christ telling how and where to pray The Lords Prayer, very selective bible picking, they obviously forgot / haven't read his teachings to go out into the world and spread his word. How you can lunch with people of faith when you want them to live their faith behind closed doors is puzzling

And on Religion and the state generally - Christians have nothing to fear from secularism

Terry Sanderson, NSS president commented, "There is obviously a confusion among some Christians about terminology. Secularisation – the process whereby attachment to religion drops in a society - is not the same as 'secularism'- the constitutional framework of a secular state. This poses no threat to religion; in fact it protects all religions and none from the imposition of any single religion's doctrines on society at large."

"Religion can and does thrive in secular states, as in the United States. While religiosity in the US is now starting to fall, it can hardly be claimed that religion is side-lined or that religious people are 'pushed out' of public life in America."

"The Secular Charter of the NSS states explicitly that the rights of religious people to believe and worship must be protected by law,"

And there is nothing to keep anyone behind closed doors, not from bearing witness that they are Christian (or anything else)

Some facts about faith schools to place against the hot air.

Plus - I don't think that faith schools would be banned. That would be impossible anyway and they would just go underground- but that they would not receive funding from state or local authority sources.

So I agree 'live and let live' in your own home, privately but not in schools, not in Government, not with such a strong hold on our institutions
^Time for religous tolerance, but time for it to be a private^

I wonder if these are the offending observations which have caused Anniebach such distress?
I also feel that there are many more GNetters who live in and have experience of "multicultural areas" than you suggest.

How can they not be? If RC send their children to RC schools, and CofE to theirs, and Muslims to theirs, and Creationists to theirs ... and as Alea said (which is amazingly insulting) - every piddling religious group does to?

This thread has turned into something it was never meant to be- and it is too sad to continue. Perhaps it makes the point better than anything I could have said, and turns out to be the very best advocate for having schools without religion.

Again, as Dave Allen said...

Off to the Ecumenical Lunch now.

Will they be segregated Granjura ?

A pity that you repeat- no-one has at all told you your Faith should be kept behind closed door. Several of us have been at pain to explain this. Anger? No anger here, just sadness that some choose to distort and twist what is being said.

The only point of discussion is about Faith Schools. Any other point made has been in response to comments made, which diverted from it.

Best go- I am having lunch with many friends, both Catholics and Protestants- to raise funds for the social actitvities their provide here (with our help) - all the local RC Priests and Protestants Vicars and staff will be there- a wonderful bunch. We do respect each other and work so well together.

Indeed Iam64- perhaps those who do not live in multicultural towns are just not aware of this. And of course this is the reason why so many Muslims want to open their own schools- hence the proliferation I was talking about.

This thread was never anti religion, and never to 'attack' the Anglican Churches. I only went on to research the number of Angliccan denominations when AnnieB corrected my mistake, when I mentioned the CofE instead of the CofWales- and wondered why it seemed important at all. The intention was of course never to 'push individuals to defend their adherence to a denomination, at all, ever (and I am quite sure you know that)- but to point to the division, and the divisiveness. In the recent past, mainly in the UK, there were State Schools, CofE schools and RC schools- but now, in an increasingly multicultural and multifaith country, and with an increasing majority not being practising Christians- inisiting on keeping Faith Schools will lead to more Faiths requesting the same right (and we know that already), including Christian Creationists. And THAT, and only that, was the point of discussion here.

AnnieB- why should I not understand? I was raised a Protestant, in a family where the Catholics and the Protestants barely tolerated each other. Thank goodness we didn't have Faith schools- as it would have made that situation 1000x worse. I am Baptised and Confirmed too- and most of my family here still are both Protestants and Catholics- the only difference now that they work together, worships together- have common mariages and Baptisms and use each other's Churches when required. Ecumenism is alive and well here- and that is heart warming to see. Anti-religion me? I work with both Churches, with the greatest of mutual respect- I have made that point several times.

So, Faith Schools are divisive, in so many ways, religious and socially too and push other Faiths to insist on their own, as clearly stated in Iam64's post- and I sincerely wish that came to an end. Our society is increasingly fractured- and that is not what so many of us want for our grandchildren to grow up in.

Such anger from just a few . It has been said in this thread I should keep my faith within my home , which means behind closed doors. I cannot , to do so would be betraying Christ and betraying the Christians in the world who are being killed because they will not deny Christ .

I am a Christian , I try daily to follow his teachings -often fail. I believe he suffered that horrific death for people of all faiths , agnostics and atheists and thinking this did cause tears but then I recalled his words - remember if the world hates you it hated me first.

I have also be given a glimpse of what it must be like to be a Muslim in this country , a country which was Christian , has a PM who wrongly believes it still is and has a head of state who is the top dog in the CofE , every aspect of your faith is attacked .

I was thankful there have been posts from non Christians who were able to express their views in a manner I expect from humanitarians , sadly It seems the humanitarian movement also has members who hold such anger it bordered on hatred

I now question the values of humanitarianism

I'm catching up with this thread again. I've several times started a post only to delete it in order to avoid the kind of hand bagging I feel Anniebach is being subjected to by some comments.

My position is simple, I'd prefer faith schools not to exist. I don't like extremes of any kind and fear the separation that comes with some Muslim or Creationist schools. My grandsons went to a CofE primary, where 80% of pupils were from the Muslim Pakistani community. That's the reality on so many northern former mill towns at primary and high schools whether they be non denominational, CofE, RC. Where Muslim schools are being established there are few, if any, white British children or children who are not practicing Muslims. That's separation folks.

I empathise with Anniebach whose comments I haven't found inflammatory or one sided. I share the views in Alea's post above in seeing some of the comments here as being anti religion and certainly dismissive of the Anglican Church. Yes, there are divisions in the Anglican Church as there are in most families.

That is an awful lot of division, just among Christians. Do Anglicans consider themselves 'a better sort of Christian than other Christians'?

I am finding elements in this thread unnecessarily aggressive, certainly anti-Anglican if not anti-religion.
It seems to have moved on from the sentiments of the original article quoted about the disestablishment of the Church in England to an all out disproportionate rubbishing of those who have a genuinely held belief (and Anniebach is at the receiving end of much of this aggression)

I would not dignify the question asked with any answer other than 'No' .
Time to move on.
If the desired result of OP was to push the argument to a point where individuals have to justify their adherence to a denomination that is unacceptable.
I am amazed that with such entrenched anti-Anglican views any person would have wished to see children or grandchildren attend a school espousing the principles of the Church of England.
Anyway as the Dragons say, "I'm out".

The British Humanist Association has expressed concern that Ofsted inspectors are barred from specifically inspecting denominational RE or Collective Worship in ‘faith’ schools. Rather, ‘faith’ schools appoint their own inspectors in these areas, and some inspectors have extensive links to the schools they were inspecting.

humanism.org.uk/2015/09/01/bha-calls-on-ofsted-to-start-inspecting-re-in-faith-schools/

"Good quality RE is essential if schools are to produce open-minded and tolerant citizens"

"In addition to the conflict of interests in the inspection of state-funded ‘faith’ schools, concerns were also raised in the submission about the private school system. While Ofsted currently inspects around half of all such schools, the other half is inspected by an independent inspectorate appointed by the school. The BHA has previously expressed doubts about the impartiality of one such body, the Bridge Schools Inspectorate (BSI), who were formerly responsible for inspecting schools from the Christian Schools Trust (CST) network or the Association of Muslim Schools (AMS). Whilst the BSI was forced to close earlier this year following allegations that their inspectors had extensive links to the schools they were inspecting, similar concerns still exist around the School Inspection Service (SIS). Despite having been founded by the Focus Learning Trust (FLT), a group of schools that teach in line with the beliefs of the strict Exclusive Brethren Christian group, the SIS is responsible for inspecting all FLT’s schools, as well as Steiner schools, about which the BHA also has concerns, particularly in relation to the teaching of pseudoscience.

On that point, the BHA’s submission also expressed concern at the fact that neither Ofsted’s inspection framework, nor the Inspectors’ Handbook, addresses the teaching of pseudoscience in schools. On a number of occasions in the past, the BHA has identified pseudoscientific or creationist teaching in schools only to discover that a recent Ofsted inspection had failed to also identify such issues. This was the case, for instance, with Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls’ School in Hackney, which was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted in 2014 despite ‘blacking out’ GCSE science exam questions where they contradicted the schools beliefs in areas such as creation and sex education."

I know it only as well as you know that no teacher of one faith or denomination would tell a child of another faith or denomination that what they believed was untrue. No more and no less likely.

Children and staff are all equal now, can you say you know no teacher would tell a child the child's beliefs are untrue ? I do mean know not assume

Secularisation is not anti-religion. Individual teachers in secular schools would not be stripped of their religion and made to deride it. No-one wouild be burnt at the stake or pilloried for their religion, children and staff of all shades of belief would be equal. They could discuss the differences in their faiths in RE classes (or whatever the latest name is)

No-one is going to say "It is all a pack of lies" No-one is going to say, either, that evolution is a pack of lies.

I wouldn't think of answering for all Christians Granjura , again I have no expect ion that you could understand this

There are actually:

Number of Christian Denominations:

According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, there are approximately 41,000 Christian denominations and organizations in the world.

This statistic takes into consideration cultural distinctions of denominations in different countries, so there is overlapping of many denominations.
Center for the Study of Global Christianity (2011)

That is an awful lot of division, just amon Christians. Do Anglicans consider themselves 'a better sort of Christian than other Christians'?

I agree luckygirl, but you have to be anti religion to launch some of the attacks in this thread , I agree with Alea on this

Sorry I meant Granjura

You do not have to be anti-religion to be anti-faith schools.

Where is there segregation in the worldwide communion Eleogran?

Alea I don't think anyone on this thread thinks that "atheism" should be taught in schools. They are merely saying that, so far as religion is concerned, education should be neutral. Like you, I commend Luckygirl for her common sense, but but she seems to be saying that as well:

"The problem with faith schools is that they favour one faith over all the others that they are teaching. A non-aligned school does not (or should not) do that. They are religion-neutral and world religions are taught in the same way as history or geography for instance."

This is taken from the BBC website from 2006 and refers in particular to Blackburn in Lancashire:

"Pupils from St Bede's - 99% white - meet pupils from Beardwood High - 95% non white.

A group from St Wilfrid's Church of England High - 91% white - sit across a table from a row of Asian faces from Pleckgate.

" "I don't see faith schools as being divisive at all," says St Wilfrid's Anglican chaplain, the Reverend David Dickinson.

" "We provide an option. We have had the debate with the government about one size fits all and our society values choice."

"But Blackburn's director of children's services, Peter Morgan, suggests there are real concerns about the impact of parents choosing faith schools.

" "It is going to make our work in terms of building bridges between these communities and these young people more challenging," he says.

"This year, Blackburn's Education Authority welcomed a new secondary school into the fold: the Tauheedul Islam Girls School.

"Among primaries, 27 school names feature a Christian saint - from St Aidan, St Alba and St Andrew, via St Cuthbert, St Edward and St Gabriel to St Silas, St Stephen and St Thomas.

"Ted Cantle, who advised government on what lessons might be learned from the race riots in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley in 2001, says segregation of schools along racial or religious lines is dangerous.

" "It is not just Blackburn," he says. "The problems of segregated schools can be found in towns and cities across the country."

There are 44 different Anglican Churches across the world- and they certainly do not agree on some things. Ask Anglican Churches in Africa how thex feel on homosexuality and same sex mariage, perhaps.

Now I would not have made that distinction, but as you corrected me fro mentioning the CofE, when you meant the CofW- then ...

Did you meant to say this thread is 'anti-religion' DJ? or is that a typo. This thread is definitely NOT anti-religion, and making a case for not having religious schools. A very different proposition, surely.

That is not segregation annodomini , all countries have to be respected, Africa as well as America, the American Anglican Church carried out same sex marriages before the worldwide communion had reached a decision

Unless one is a Christian it isn't possible to understand, I accept this

Well, Anniebach, without intending to inflame things, the Anglican Communion has barred the US branch from decision making for allowing same-sex marriage. The expectation is that the Scottish Episcopal Church is soon to follow the American example. A bit of a schism there, perhaps?