Faith School Menace? Page #4

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you would come to.

It might seem there's nothing deeply

wrong with parents

making a pact with beliefs

they don't hold

in order to get their children

into faith schools -

a little harmless hypocrisy,

perhaps.

But I worry that these parents

may be unwittingly

saddling their children with ways of

thinking that are hard to shake off.

One in three schools in Britain

is now a faith school,

and their number is increasing

throughout

our green and pleasant land.

As a non-believer,

I have concerns about this, but not

for the reasons you might imagine.

"Remember now thy Creator

in the days of thy youth.

"While the evil days come not, nor the

years draw nigh when thou shalt say,

"I have no pleasure in them. "

Perhaps surprisingly,

I'm in favour of religious literacy.

As we glide over the English

countryside,

I really feel that in order to understand

England, the village cricket matches,

Evensong, harvest festivals,

the weddings and christenings,

you need to have an appreciation

of the cultural heritage of England,

and that includes Christianity.

Equally, if you're to understand

our wider world,

the Muslim Koran and

Hindu Bhagavad-Gita deserve study.

"Stay me with flagons, comfort me

with apples, for I am sick of love. "

It's not all that surprising that I

enjoy the reading the Bible so much,

because, at least in the

17th-century King James version,

it is most beautiful English.

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard.

Consider her ways and be wise. "

"Spare the rod and spoil the child. "

"Of making many books

there is no end. "

These phrases and hundreds like them

suffuse our literature

and our language.

You can't appreciate Shakespeare

unless you are steeped in the Bible.

While I think it's important all schools

teach about the culture of religion,

I'm worried that faith schools

are allowed to do far more.

Even the mild old Church of England

has openly set out its aim,

through the Archbishops' Council,

for its some 5,000 schools

to "nourish those of the faith,

"encourage those of other faiths,

challenge those who have no faith. "

What does that mean for those

on the sharp end, our children?

I suppose what we are trying

to indoctrinate into is...

a view that faith matters.

What you would expect here is to find

that collective worship means something.

But the main aim is not just to learn

about the major faiths,

but to have something

of an experience of faith.

One of the things that's very

difficult to do when you're older

is to make a decision on something

about which you know nothing

and have experienced nothing.

So it would be very easy

for someone to say,

"Oh, religion's all a load of rot,"

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