Stubborn Realities

The Archbishop of Canterbury, whose objections to the bombing of Muslims clearly stop rather short of resigning his Government post, and who famously prefers a large and bigoted congregation to a smaller one with gay bishops, is delivering a speech to the National Church Schools conference today, arguing that faith schools are not divisive, exclusive or irrational.

"The often forgotten fact that church schools are the main educational presences in some of our most deprived communities means that it simply cannot be said that these schools somehow have a policy of sanitising or segregating," Dr Williams will say. In Tony's Choice Emporium, of course, even our most deprived communities can choose between a faith school and something else; and although "faith schools should adopt national criteria for admissions", none of them would ever dream of trying to claw its way up anything so worldly and sordid as a league table.

Church schools, according to Dr Williams, "are among the relatively few public institutions generally regarded with trust by minority religious communities" such as the Church of England. It is this fact which "gives the lie to any idea that faith schools are automatically nurseries of bigotry." No doubt schools run by corporations will be among the public institutions generally regarded with trust by shareholders; and doubtless this will have nothing whatever to do with their ability to turn out good little consumers.

"In our present context," says Dr Williams, "an education system which conveys some sense of what religious motivation is actually like is more helpful in avoiding communal suspicion or violence and avoiding 'ghettoisation' than one which rigorously refuses to engage with any religious practice on its own terms." So faith schools will be more interested in "conveying a sense" of religious experience than in promulgating the religion of those who set them up. It would certainly be refreshing to hear from William James and Mircea Eliade at morning assembly, but I don't think that is quite what the National Church Schools conference has in mind.

Dr Williams apparently favours "universal principles of teaching about other faiths", whatever that may mean, as well as "exchanges between schools of different faiths". The Archbishop will also argue that "Far from cementing religious believers more firmly into their inherited framework, educational partnership with public authorities should have the effect of engaging religious groups with the stubborn realities of a wider world and making what they say and do in some ways accountable to that wider context, its language and its standards." Last month, it appears, religious leaders from various faiths signed a declaration "backing the teaching not only of their own religion but an awareness of the 'tenets' of other faiths in schools". This hardly seems necessary. Few religions have anything against their adherents being aware of rival religions, so long as the rival religions are properly excoriated.

"Now, children, this is a Muslim school. This is a Muslim child. George, stop sniggering and put that aeroplane away before I confiscate it. Pay attention, everyone; this Muslim child is a stubborn reality of your wider world, to the language and standards of which you must be accountable in a wider context. No, Rowan, of course the wider context is not more important than God. Now listen. The tenets of the Muslim religion include the idea that Jesus did not die on the cross, that the Resurrection did not take place, and that an Arab merchant with lots of wives was a greater prophet than Christ. Yes, Anthony, I know what Jesus said about false prophets. Yes, Ruth, I know what Jesus said about those who deny him. George, leave that alone, please..." It does make a pretty scene.