Today’s ruling against Bideford Town Council – of acting unlawfully by making prayers a compulsory part of its Council business – should also be extended to state-funded schools. Currently, there is a legal compulsion on all state funded schools in England and Wales to provide daily acts of “broadly Christian” worship.
“There is an important place for religious education in school, but not religious indoctrination. Even if one is very much in favour of a religious identity, school is not the place to learn faith, which should instead come from the home and Church, Mosque, Synagogue or Gurdwara. Worship should be a voluntary activity, not a statutory obligation’ said Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, the Accord Coalition Chair.
‘This applies particularly in today’s multi-faith Britain, where religious worship of any one particular kind in state-funded schools is no longer appropriate. A school can do many things collectively, but by lacking a shared religious faith it cannot worship collectively’.
The Accord Coalition would like to see school assemblies retained, but without confessional prayer, and instead looking at common themes (justice, freedom, diversity) through readings, some from religious traditions, as well as poetry and periods for reflection.
Bideford Town Council in North Devon had decided to maintain a traditional practice of holding prayers during its Council meetings, despite protestations from a minority of Councillors. Although today’s ruling by Mr Justice Ouseley is open to appeal, he found that prayers could be said during Council events, but only as long as Councillors were not formally summoned to attend.
A BBC poll a few months ago (see below) showed that the current laws around Collective Worship are so unpopular and unworkable that a great many schools simply do not provide assemblies and break the law, which is very unhealthy in a modern democracy. It is time to amend the worship laws, both to free those yoked by it and to take account of those avoiding it.
Notes
‘Worship in School Study’ for the BBC by ComRes in July 2011 suggested that only 28% of children took part in a daily act of collective worship at their school, while 60% of adults (to 36%) thought the Collective Worship laws should be enforced: http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/BBC_Religion_Worship_in_schools_results_(plus_regions)_July11.pdf
Schoolchildren are not old enough to have made an informed choice on a delusional belief system. They cannot ‘belong’ to a religion any more than they can belong to a cult or sect. If a school chose to have compulsory worship of Baal, Ra or any other of a thousand ‘Gods’ or taught Scientology everyone could clearly see it as bizzare and borderline abusive, but no further boundaries would have been crossed.