Studies in Religion and Education

John M. Hull

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429628122
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First published in 1984. John M. Hull was a leading figure in the controversies which had surrounded religious education since the late 1960s. This book brings together in one volume 21 of his published papers and articles, which had previously appeared in journals, conferences, reports and books in Belgium, Australia, Canada, the United States, as well as the United Kingdom. This book is essential reading for all teachers, clergy, parents and students seriously concerned with the issues confronting religious education and Christian upbringing in our secular and pluralist world.

PART I

Religious Education and School Worship

1.Worship and the Curriculum

The clauses in the 1944 Education Act dealing with school worship were warmly welcomed by those then concerned with religious education. This was not because the number of schools in which a daily act of worship was provided would increase, since the great majority of schools were already holding such services, but because of the official recognition which the act provided and the security which this offered. ‘Now, and for the years to come, nothing less than the repeal of section twenty-five of the Education Act 1944 … can prevent the daily offering to Almighty God of the worship of the school children of England and Wales. Meanwhile, “the voice of prayer is never silent, nor dies the strain of praise away”.’¹ The Oxford Diocesan Council of Education was one of many bodies to express approval in only slightly less lyrical tones. This new recognition by the state of the vital importance of worship in the life of every school within the statutory system is a landmark in English history, for it indicates that the lead which the Church has for centuries been giving in her own schools is now to be followed in those of the many local authorities.’²

The teacher of religious education of today looks back to this time of optimistic faith a sadder and perhaps a wiser man. It is generally agreed that the daily act of worship has not had the fine results which had been hoped for. ‘Among the seriously concerned … there is a strong feeling that the Law has overstepped itself.’³ ‘I think we need to ask the question very seriously whether it is worth going on with school worship at all. Would it not be better – more realistic and more effective – to cut out the obligatory periods of worship, and leave the children free to go to church and learn to worship there?’⁴

It is easy enough to suggest reasons for the increased concern about school worship. Difficulties in practice are obvious. Pupils are less and less likely to be familiar with religious worship through attendance at church and Sunday school.⁵ Figures supplied by the National Council of Christian Education show that the number of children in Sunday Schools dropped from 2,892,060 in 1946 to 2,345,905 in 1963 although in the same period the number of children of school age rose from 5,592,000 to approximately seven million. Expression of conscientious objection to worship is probably more common now than 20 years ago. Handbooks of school worship are often insufficiently varied and imaginative to arouse the interest of pupils. The increase in the number of children who belong to non-Christian religions is an additional complication. Worship in the Christian communities of Western Europe and North America, if not beyond, is passing through a serious crisis. The reasons for this are not fully understood, but it is not surprising that if worship is undergoing anxious scrutiny in the sphere of faith it is likely to become increasingly problematic within the increasingly secular environment of the maintained school.

More perplexing are the matters of principle which school worship raises. The discussion ought not to be so much about what the circumstances will permit us to do, but about what ought to be done even if the circumstances were favourable. What place ought worship to have in any educational system? What place ought it to have in the particular system of English and Welsh public education? Are the principles of worship compatible with the principles of education?

The literature of school worship reveals an almost total lack of consideration of such matters. The Oxford Book of School Worship, already referred to, is an outstanding example of this defect. Originally issued for use in church schools, it was revised in 1958 with the 1944 Act in mind and offered to both church and to state schools. But, as the Bishop of Oxford says, ‘the substance (of the revised edition) remains the same.’⁶ It is assumed that all pupils taking part in the assembly will be convinced Christians. When the Apostles Creed is said, ‘the utmost care should be taken that, when it is used, it should be said by everyone as an act of faith, and in such distinct and reverential tone that every word can be heard.’⁷ Pupils are to give thanks for their baptism and confirmation,⁸ prayers are offered for the extension of the church,⁹ for ‘heathen lands,’¹⁰ for ‘our Bishops and clergy’¹¹ and so on. It is assumed that the religious life of the school has as one of its functions the service of the church. ‘The aim in selecting prayers for this book has been to give the pupils such contact with the Book of Common Prayer that they may come to love it … ,’¹² ‘… the school prayers should lead naturally to a devout appreciation of the public services of the church’;¹³ ‘there should be a steady stream of keen, well-trained congregational singers coming out from schools to take their part in the common worship of the Church.’¹⁴ No allowance is made for the differences both in atmosphere and in principle between the church school and the state school; indeed, it is not too much to say that the book, still widely used, proceeds on the tacit view that the Act turned the state schools into church schools. The substance, as the Bishop said, remains the same.

In the widely read writings of Revd J.G. Williams neglect of educational ethics is elevated to become an argument.¹⁵ The peculiar problems of worship in the maintained schools arise from the fact that worship does not even begin ‘to be possible outside the provision which God has made within the sacramental life of his Church.’¹⁶ The answer is to make the school as much like the church as possible. Hence ‘in school worship the claims of the Church must always be kept clearly in sight.’¹⁷ No attempt is made to work out any independent justification for the state teaching of religion, and the discussion concludes that ‘until our educational system is once again … inspired by a theological outlook that gives unity and coherence to the whole field, we must continue to look to the Church school as the one place where education can be, in the Christian sense, complete.’¹⁸ If this is so, Christian parents are conscience bound, as indeed official Roman Catholic policy still affirms, to withdraw their children from the state system and to place them in church schools.¹⁹

But the most disturbing feature of the treatment of school worship in this book is that it is frankly regarded as a powerful means of instilling religious doctrine: ‘… it is because in worship these attributes of God are simply taken for granted, and not argued or deliberately taught, that worship is the most powerful medium of all for communicating dogmatic truth. It is far more powerful than the direct instruction of the classroom, simply because it teaches incidentally and by implication; and it is the things that are taken for granted, the implicit assumptions, rather than any kind of explicit teaching, that sink most deeply into the subconscious mind and become the foundations of “faith”’²⁰ Indoctrination is regarded by J.G. Williams as being evil when it destroys the freedom and responsibility of the pupil²¹ and this is just what he regards as being most valuable about the school assembly. It is effective because it deprives the pupil of his responsibility. He does not know what is going on. Mr Williams regards this as an inevitable part of any act of worship.²² Perhaps this is acceptable if the committed are deepening their faith by immersing themselves in the believing group, but if as seems to be the case here, it is intended to be a way of influencing the uncommitted, it would be difficult to justify in any educational work, including such work which professed to be based upon Christian principles. Since large numbers of pupils are uncommitted it would seem to follow that to offer them worship is both bad education and bad Christianity.

Worship and the Modern Child is certainly more candid than most writings on this subject, but it is striking how seldom even in less forthright works one finds discussion of the objectives of the school assembly. It has often been taken for granted that just as within the Christian frame of reference worship being the affirmation of the divine glory can have no justification beyond its intrinsic worth, so acts of worship provided for pupils within an educational frame of reference require no extrinsic justification. ‘Religious worship, in secondary schools, as everywhere else, must be nothing less than the rendering unto Almighty God of the honour, the veneration and - most perfect of all worship - the adoration which is due to Him as Creator and Redeemer, and the love which is due to Him as Himself eternal Love.’²³ Even a theme of worship, such as meditation on some special virtue, is not allowed by C.L. Berry, for the sole purpose of worship is praise. Confession and intercession are avoided on the grounds that worship is what we offer not what we ask or receive, and, he insists, that worship required by the Act must be ‘on the part of’ and not merely in the name of or on behalf of ‘all pupils in attendance at the school’²⁴ This sort of argument is found but rarely now, but such clear statements of objectives in school assembly do serve a purpose if only in isolating the difficulty of assimilating worship strictly understood into the educational work of the school. Similarly, H.T. Salzer feels that too often in school assembly emphasis is placed upon man and his response to God rather than on God himself. ‘The essence of true worship is that it should be, first and foremost, God-centred.’²⁵

It is sad to see that even in the more recent Agreed Syllabuses little attempt is made to tackle the problems raised by this relationship between worship and education. The West Riding Agreed Syllabus gives approval to the assembly as a powerful means of unconsciously inculcating doctrine: ‘… all acts of worship are attempts to communicate a faith without giving direct instruction.’²⁶ The Agreed Syllabus of the Inner London Education Authority however marks a long overdue step in the right direction in a short article on the subject, concluding ‘by adopting a broad definition of worship and linking it imaginatively with life as the pupils know it, it should be possible to achieve a sense of unity within the community, so that excusal for conscientious reasons is minimized, and the boys and girls enabled to appreciate and participate in religious experiences drawn from many sources and traditions.’²⁷ Full recognition is to be given to the fact that ‘no membership of a Christian community can be assumed, and that a proportion of staff and older pupils may have intellectual doubts about the validity of worship.’²⁸ In this short article one can see that worship simply as worship is actually yielding to a variety of other religious, moral and social values.

Enough has been said to show that school worship is seldom if ever thought of as part of the school curriculum. No other part of the timetable has so successfully resisted change. Religious education thus presents a noteworthy paradox: worship, the content of which was not positively described in the Act, has been more conservative than the religious education classroom lesson, content of which is controlled in some detail through the Agreed Syllabuses. Perhaps if syllabuses had been imposed for school assembly, worship would have evolved as have other aspects of religious education. But assembly is not thought of as ‘syllabus’; it is thought of as liturgy.

Some recent school assembly books make efforts to overcome the narrow (but precise) definition of worship we noticed in earlier writing.²⁹ Many schools are carrying out all sorts of new and valuable programmes for assembly. But what is needed is some consideration of the role of this daily school gathering in relation to the school’s work as a whole.

Two preliminary steps seem to be necessary. First, we must ask whether the school assembly may have any potential for contributing to the general educational work of the school. Second, a theology of the school assembly must be developed which will be faithful both to educational and theological norms. As we have seen, it is doubtful whether this can be done as long as the assembly is thought of as worship. We begin therefore by asking what other potential it may have.

What educational potential has the assembly?

Of course, school assembly is already valued in many schools not because of its intrinsic worth as praise, nor for any specifically religious reasons, but for non-religious benefits which accrue more or less incidentally. These include the widely held belief that there is psychological value in an orderly start to the school day, the occasion for school rituals such as the creation of prefects, the opportunity for the head to build up some kind of relationship between himself and the school as a whole and so on.

Can the assembly be reasonably expected to fulfil any other non-liturgical functions? The following may serve as hypothetical functions with a prima facie plausibility; whether they can be more than that will be known after more prolonged observation after deliberate a...