Wrong to ban RE infuence - report states

A new report from the theology think tank Theos has criticised attempts to restrict the influence of religious beliefs on education.

“Doing God in Education” is authored by Professor Trevor Cooling, director of the National Institute for Christian Education Research at Canterbury Christ Church University.

He says attempts to ban religious faith from shaping education as misguided and harmful.

In particular, he challenges the prevailing assumption that education should be based on human knowledge and rationality because they are objective and independent of the “clutter” of religious beliefs.

Professor Cooling warns that such a position only privileges secular worldviews and so-called “commonsense” values in the classroom.

“The problem with this position is its dependence on the particular humanist belief that religion is ‘clutter’ when it comes to knowledge. It is not therefore fair or inclusive to base public education on this approach because it unjustifiably privileges a secular view of knowledge,” he states.

Instead, Professor Cooling argues that humanists and Christians need to recognise that each other’s beliefs are integral to the development of their own interpretations of issues such science and the family.

Professor Cooling said there was a need for atheists to change the way in which they regard their own beliefs and accept that religious beliefs are not simply “clutter”.

He asserted that Christians were not looking for religious worldviews to trump non-religious worldviews, but rather that they be treated as “equal partners”.