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The publication last week of Lord Nash’s letter stating the importance and the central role of SACREs and local authorities has re-opened the long-running debate about the statutory arrangements for RE. Perhaps slightly odd that the letter should come from Nash, who has responsibility for ‘faith schools’, since they are the very establishments that don’t fall within SACRE’s orbit of responsibility.

You can read Nash’s letter here: http://www.natre.org.uk/news/latest-news/lord-nashs-letter-to-sacres/

The debate feels tired. The RE Council in its 2013 Review recommended the need to pursue with policy makers the challenges around the existing settlement – jargon for the legal status of RE.

Ofsted recommended a full review of the legal position of RE in each of its last three reports on RE (2007, 2010 and 2013)…. and the DfE ignored the recommendation three times. You will deny me thrice! It can drive a guy crazy.

It is clear that there is little political appetite to deal with the issue. In the meanwhile RE continues to limp along tied to statutory arrangements that are increasingly anomalous and outdated. There is a strong argument that says we must be pragmatic, recognise that nothing will change, and make the best of what we have.

But pragmatism could be dangerous. I have often returned to the problem of creeping academisation and its challenges. Things are quiet on the education scene at the moment. Morgan has been brought in to send us to sleep before the election. It maybe the enthusiasm for expanding academies has diminished and we will now continue with a mixed economy of different types of school. But the problem remains – we have serious statutory muddle and muddles are dangerous.

The position of RE in our education system is based on a history of political fudges and compromises going all the way back to the Education Act of 1944 (missed opportunity for a 70^th birthday bash last year).

I have become convinced the statutory muddle underpins the low standards and weak provision that plague RE. Two issues need our attention:

-The legal oddness of RE undermines its credibility! Why do we constantly have to explain our place in the education system? Why is RE alone locally determined? Why do religious groups have such an influential role on determining the content of RE? Why is it compulsory at Key Stage 4 and post 16? Why is it tacked on to the EYFS when other subjects wait til Year 1? Why is the position of humanists on SACREs still ambiguous? Why is RE compromised by association with a strange phenomenon called collective worship? Why can parents opt their children out? Somehow RE needs to normalise itself! RE needs to become a ‘normal modest’ subject like history and geography which is not subject to the maze of legal complications that lead to its marginalisation in schools.

-RE is too complicated as a subject and this reflects the legal muddle. RE has never quite secured its place as a proper academic subject. The educational rationale for the inclusion of RE in the curriculum is never quite clear. May be as the result of feeling isolated and misunderstood, we often make excessive claims about our importance; claims that bear little relation to the reality of school life. Our exclusion from the National Curriculum meant we missed a major opportunity to take on board the principles of Tim Oates’ review of the NC. Our legal complexities meant the REC could not drive through a radical review of the 2004 Framework. The REC’s 2013 National Framework for RE simply failed to apply Oates’ central principle of doing …. fewer things in greater depth so pupils really master fundamental concepts in the subject. And I have to take my share of responsibility. As a member of the Steering Group, I failed to say ‘no’ when it was clear we had produced an over-ambitious, over-blown and over-complex document that left RE further isolated from the rest of the curriculum. We fudged it! RE needs to simplify its purpose and clarify its content. It needs to align itself much more closely with the other subjects of the NC. It needs to be straightforward and accessible so all teachers can own RE for themselves and plan, teach and assess the subject more effectively.

If we ever got to the stage of having a proper independent government-funded Review of RE, led by someone of status with no axe to grind (where is Charles Clarke when you need him?), I would point them back to 2004. That original QCDA/DfES National Framework for RE document was of its time. It needed radical updating and revision BUT …. it had status and credibility because of the discipline brought by an ‘independent’ national government agency that could rise above the muddle of vested interests that plague the current statutory arrangements.

And – no messing – I would recommended that all schools, including those with a religious character, follow a common curriculum for RE. Ok – maybe that’s just a little too crazy!

The following is written in response to Lord Nash’s letter sent to all SACREs last week.  His message got me thinking about whether the current legal position on RE is working. I wish to start a genuine debate in the wider RE community about how we can improve.

There is a lot to take issue with in Nash’s letter, but here is what I see as the main problem. Nash’s argument seems to be that SACREs aren’t doing their job well enough and that Local Authorities aren’t supporting them. Here, I agree with him and would argue that it is down in part to an agenda of fragmentation pursued by his government. His reason for the letter is that he wants to see an improvement in standards and this stems from the fact that ‘The introduction of the new and more demanding National Curriculum makes the importance of improving religious education even clearer’. There’s a key word here that gets to the crux of the problem. Have you spotted it yet? That’s right: ‘National’. The content of RE is agreed locally. Now, localism is great. I support localism. I want to support my local high street book shop. I want to support my community-owned village pub. I want my local council to collect my bins on a weekly basis. But I don’t see why the curriculum content of a subject that is required by law to be taught throughout all key stages should be decided locally. When the new Maths or History curriculum was being drawn up, did anyone seriously say, ‘Do you know what, Sir Humphrey? You need to be careful with this. They need to learn calculus in Cumbria but long division in Lincolnshire.’ No, of course not. Is it too much to ask that as professionals we cannot come up with some form of national agreement (I don’t see why we should be afraid of using the word curriculum!) on the core knowledge about religion that we want our young people and future citizens to learn? @thegoldencalfre dealt with the serious problem in the quality of agreed syllabuses in his first blog, which you can read here: http://thegoldencalfre.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/religious-illiteracy/

However, and I know you’ve already realised this, there’s another problem with what Nash is saying. He states that ‘SACREs must provide an agreed syllabus to support the religious education curriculum in schools, which must be reviewed every five years’. Yep, that’s what Is generally happening but what happens to the syllabus? It’s likely to be ignored or be deemed irrelevant. And here’s why. According to the latest statistics 60% of secondary schools are Academies – schools that are not required to follow any locally agreed syllabus. The current fragmented, localistic, anachronistic system of deciding the RE curriculum just doesn’t tally with Nash’s drive to encourage schools to be more independent – and it makes no sense that the government is limiting the role of the LA in all areas apart from in RE. Why is Nash insisting we prop up a failing system, run pretty much entirely by well-meaning volunteers who are under-resourced? The response to the DfE #reconsult reforms was unprecedented. Approximately 2,000 responses were received, yet we don’t seem to care that content for KS1-4 (5 in some cases) is decided by random groups (who decides who represents the local traditions? What is the vetting process?) of well meaning people from varying backgrounds and with varied expertise, with little guidance or financial support and without any central quality assurance or accountability. In many cases those sitting on SACREs will be members of religious organisations that don’t even demand that their own schools even teach the LAS. Seriously, if someone proposed this system – inherited from the random passing of various education acts – as a new workable solution today, they’d be laughed out of town.

I concede that there are many SACREs doing good work with little support or reward. But think about this for a second. Every local authority has one. And do they work together? Some do, but many don’t. And isn’t this a colossal waste of time and effort? Teams of local geography ‘experts’ (geographers?) don’t meet up in every local authority every five years (why five years? On what evidence is that term fixed?) to reinvent the wheel. How much duplication of effort and time goes into these documents that end up with incredibly similar content and outcomes? Andy Lewis (@iteachRE) posted this on the SAVE RE Facebook page in a thread on this issue: ‘I know Barking/Dagenham and Havering are working on a joint one and this is seen as revolutionary that two (neighbouring) London boroughs are working together. Why the hell aren’t all the London boroughs working on one with the rest of England?’ This lack of national cohesion leads to an inequality of provision, not the good or outstanding provision Nash claims is his aim.

The launch party for the last agreed syllabus in my county was embarrassing. A dozen or so people in a cold room listened to two speeches, then went home. SACREs need urgent reform or abolishment, not a friendly letter from the minister for faith schools (sic). The documents they produce are widely ignored (schools know that no-one, including OFSTED, will check on them) and the minister responsible seems to have his head in the sand if he thinks he can fix a broken relic of a system. Its clear the DfE has no plans to inspect locally agreed syllabuses or implement a rigorous quality assurance process. There is NO quality control over membership or output as far as I can see. When the agreed syllabus lands on the desk of the primary Headteacher, how do they judge the quality of it? If they are lucky they’ll have a specialist RE teacher in their school but many do not. SACREs have failed to provide quality to date, and this letter and its vague proposals about collecting reports together on the NASACRE website to record best practice is a laughable solution. How does Nash seriously expect these bodies to hold schools to account for not teaching RE when they themselves are hugely underfunded, under-resourced, and lack statutory power?

I’m fed up with RE being a cinderella subject. As teachers of RE and others with vested interests, we need to demand we are taken seriously and we need to act like it. Let’s start by working together to decide the core knowledge our young people need to learn, and let’s get this nationally agreed. Now!

Comic books that include religious characters and themes have moved on since stories of St. Paul were published in the back of Eagle in the 1950’s and 60’s. Across comics, authors are using religious characters and themes and artists are finding ways to represent religious figures, experiences and behaviours. It is material rich for use in the RE classroom!

Although we feel we would know an example if we saw it, and could easily distinguish it from a novel, animation or a film, comics are not easily defined. Eisner (2008:xi) called them “sequential art”, McCloud (1993:9) went further emphasising the use of “deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce and aesthetic response in the viewer” and Labio (2011:124) mediates this with a “hybrid genre that is both visual and literary but that does not privilege text over image”. ‘Comics’ means different things to different people; what is important to note is that comics are a medium, not a genre. The medium now spans multiple genres and forms; they can come as the brightly coloured single issues more associated with superheroes, the weighty single volume graphic novels that win literary awards and many different forms in between.

There are many interesting scholarly texts on the relationship between superheroes and deity but these, in my opinion, tell us much about how we understand and create superheroes but nothing about deity. Examining superheroes is too easy; the challenge for learners is to engage with deeper, subtler religious dimensions of comic books (though Kamala Khan, the new Ms. Marvel and first Muslim character to have her own Marvel comic series, is worth checking out. No Normal (Vol. 1), written by G. Willow Wilson, herself a Muslim, is a conscious effort to introduce positive female Muslim role models to the world of superheroes). But what is so special about comic books, why can’t these ends be accomplished through other mediums, say film or television?

Comics as a medium have suffered from the perception that they are for children (or more specifically, young boys and misogynistic men living in their parent’s basements), those who struggle with or are reluctant to read and those looking for a quick, shallow read. Yes, there are examples of each of these across comic history, but this is also a massive underestimation. Reading comics is not easy. It is a different kind of literacy that combines images and text and requires active participation. Static images are arranged in sequential panels (usually drawn boxes) but separated by the blank space of the ‘gutter’; the bit in between. In these spaces the reader is required to imagine in order to move the action on.  They must also fill in space, time and sensory information using cues drawn by the artist such as diagonal lines to represent rain falling. Crucially for our purposes, the artist must use recognisable symbols and imagery. For example, in order for God to be a recognisable part of the narrative, the artist must depict them in a manner that can be recognised by the readership.

It is an immersive experience that demands involvement from the reader. Unlike film or animation where the viewer is passive to the moving images, reading comics requires the reader to turn the page and to move themselves between panels. Sometimes pauses are needed to assimilate a change in the presentation; a single wordless panel, taking up the whole page as a contrast to the usual pace of narrative can cause the reader to stop, to consider the image differently, perhaps more deeply. However, the eye can also be allowed to wander as all the information it will soak up across the page contributes to the story-telling. It is this participatory element, I believe, that distinguishes comics as useful to RE. In employing a combination of imaginative and experiential knowledge with opportunities for re-examination and deeper reflection the reader is involved in an immersive experience.

There are two key ways in which I believe comics can be used in the RE classroom; reading them and making them. Each way is able to bring the student into contact with complex religious themes and give cause for reflection and will be discussed in the article from the view of an enthusiast. I will offer an overview of each of these aspects with the goal of introducing the possibility of using comics in the KS3, 4 and 5 RE classroom to educators who may previously have not known such a range exists or have shied away from what is [incorrectly] considered to be an insular, male-dominated, nerdy area of literature.

Firstly there are plenty of comics containing religious content and characters, a reason why they are now included in, but shouldn’t, I believe be limited to, the OCR GCSE specification. They are useful through out KS3, 4 and 5 either in their entirety or as selected pages and panels for analysis. Careful selection of material is vital though, for example whilst Garth Ennis’ series Preacher covers many of the themes discussed below and may in name appear useful to us, it contains a level of graphic violence that most adults would find challenging.

There are comics that can tell us about specific religious beliefs and practices, frequently they are written by members of the particular faith communities. For example Gene Luen Yang’s The Rosary Comic Book was written as a Lent activity that allowed the author to weave his faith into his work as a comic writer. It includes instructions on how to pray the rosary, the reasons behind prayer and the Luminous Mysteries, all in comic book form. Yang even gives instructions on how to pray along with the narrative with different shape panels representing different beads of the rosary. In Simone Lia’s Please God, find me a husband! the author depicts not only her personal quest for a husband but her inner faith journey and relationship with God. Throughout the narrative the main character comes into contact with a community of Roman Catholic nuns, spends time engaged in worship and imagines herself into Bible stories. The story ends with Lia reconnecting with God and bicycling with him into the sunset.

A visual medium such as comics does raise issues of how authors and artists choose to represent deity or if not, why not and the discussion can go much wider than controversial Danish cartoons. Osamu Tenzuka (coming from a Zen Buddhist background but moving to agnosticism later in life) chose to depict Brahma as a small, bearded old man in his classic story of Siddhartha Gautama; Buddha. However, in keeping with Jewish tradition, Will Eisner does not show God in his groundbreaking work A Contract With God. Rather his main character Hersh’s relationship with his creator is made all the more powerful by God’s absence.

Through examining comics we can analyse how members of faith communities choose to represent their faith, such as in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese or Steve Ross’ Marked (a re-telling of the Gospel of Mark). Or how non-religious people wish to represent religion from the outside for example in Ron Marz’ The Magdalena which has a dynasty of female warriors fighting for a Dan Brown-esque Vatican or Guy Delisle’s Jerusalem illustrating the challenges of life in contemporary Israel.

There are also possibilities for the textual analysis of sacred texts as there are a plethora of comic versions of the Bible; some better than others. Samples of these comics can open up discussions around the authority of sacred texts when retold or reinterpreted.  Does a comic Bible that chooses to present the story of Jesus as a single narrative with footnotes referring to the relevant passages have more or less authority as one without footnotes or a modern translation such as the NRSV? Comics also provide materials for the critical examination of literature created to promote religion and religious ideas.  For example, the controversial fundamentalist Jack Chick publications are written as proselytising guides instructing a particular evangelical brand of ‘appropriate’ Christian behaviour. His works could be considered in contrast to the work of comic creator Suleiman Bakhit who produces comics using Arab characters and themes to combat the extremist ideology young Arabs find themselves subjected to.

Secondly, and more briefly,  ‘storyboarding’ is a technique often used in KS2 and 3 classrooms, laying out a religious story panel by panel.  When done well, this offers opportunities to develop the literacy skills of selection, summarising and sequencing and it is often however, in RE terms, a superficial exercise with no opportunities for challenge. Following some of the techniques used by comic authors and artists can stretch learners to consider the inner and outer lives of their characters as two interrelated but separated experiences and open up opportunities for reflection and ‘learning from’. For example, guiding learners to use the words and pictures as interdependent (the combination communicates a deeper meaning than each part could separately) to create panels that show a character’s inner thoughts and outer actions require learners to consider the difference between the two.

Just like art, film, animation, literature and so on, there is a huge variety in genre and quality when it comes to comics. However, there are many skilled examples that can offer immersive, participatory experiences of religious themes and practices and glimpses into lives of faith. These comics, depicting many different religions, are worthy of our time as readers and inclusion into our classrooms.

References

Eisner, W. (2008) Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist. Rev. ed. of Comics and Sequential Art. New York. W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.

Labio, C. (2011) ‘What’s in a name? The academic study of comics and the graphic novel’ in Cinema Journal. 50:3 pp123-128

McCloud, S. (1993) Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York. Harper Collins.

A month ago I focused on the issue of ‘content’ in RE. I said I would return to the topic. Since then GCSE has got in the way. The two issues are not inseparable. One of the aspects of the GCSE proposals which could be improved is greater transparency about what constitutes appropriate content for an RE curriculum.

The previous blog can be found here: When ‘content’ seems to be the hardest word! – https://reonline.org.uk/blog/when-content-seems-to-be-the-hardest-word/

That previous blog explored why in RE we seem to shy away from a key issue – what do we want teachers to teach – how should we go about defining the content of the RE curriculum?

Non-negotiables! – once again I am grateful to Mary Myatt for a ‘killer term’. Mary has challenged us to set out ‘the non-negotiables’ when it comes to defining the core content of the RE curriculum.

The notion seems to echo Tim Oates’ oft quoted clarion call: Pupils need to learn:‘fewer things in greater depth so they really master fundamental concepts in the subject. The goal is to: ‘secure deep learning in the central concepts and ideas in the subject’.

So what are these fundamental concepts, those key central concepts and ideas in RE; the ‘non-negotiables’?

The 2004 non-statutory National Framework for RE (the one before the current one) did set out some possible fundamental concepts: beliefs, teaching and sources; practices and ways of life; forms of expression; identity and belonging; meaning, purpose and value; values and commitments. 10 years on from that Framework where might we go in terms of re-thinking those ‘central concepts and ideas in the subject’?

I would offer SIX concepts as the ‘non-negotiables’ of the RE curriculum and invite comments. These would be some of the core ideas/questions that I would want pupils to become increasing competent at understanding. As pupils develop their subject understanding I would hope they would be increasingly confident in explaining that these are the core ideas and questions of the subject.

1.Understanding what we mean by the concept of religion – this seems fundamental but strangely absent from some discussions. What do we mean by ‘religion’? How does it relate to ideas like faith, sacred, superstition, magic, spirituality? What is the difference between a religious and non-religious person? What are the different dimensions of religion (Smart)?

2.Understanding the key questions that underpin the religious quest – recognising and exploring key questions about meaning, purpose and the nature of reality; the problems of suffering, death and evil; the nature of spirituality; questions about the nature of happiness and the good life.

3.Understanding how the features of particular religions or beliefs fit together – if you take particular religions or beliefs how do their various features fit together? What are the key beliefs and concepts of each religion or belief studied? How do the beliefs, practices, teaching, values, and institutions etc. of any religion or belief link to one another? This is about developing a systematic understanding of religions – how many and which religions/beliefs you study is secondary to this core idea of understanding things systematically.

4.Understanding the ‘language of religion’– this is challenging but crucial. Pupils need to understand that religions use the languages of imagery, myth, ritual, symbol, metaphor to express ideas; understanding that the languages of religion and science are different.

5.Understanding the lived reality of religion and belief in the modern world – recognising the wide variety of ways of being religious or non-religious in the modern world; the ways in which religion impacts on the lives of individuals and communities; the different ways in which people experience religion; the impact on religion of living in a secular age. How do different religions and beliefs respond to the challenges of life in the modern world?

6.Understanding that religion is highly diverse and controversial – that there are many different ways of making sense of religion; that different religions offer different views of the world; that there are wide differences within each religion; that different people within a religion have very different ways of being religious and different religious identities.

So these, for me, on a cold grey day in early December, would be the six areas of understanding that would underpin the ‘content’ of RE. These would be the ‘non-negotiables’:

• Understanding what we mean by the concept of religion
• Understanding the key questions that underpin the religious quest
• Understanding how the features of particular religions or beliefs fit together
• Understanding the ‘language of religion’
• Understanding the lived reality of religion and belief in the modern world
• Understanding that religion is highly diverse and controversial

A dose of realism – translating these into a coherent curriculum which matches the learning needs of pupils at each key stage is a further exercise. The value of the idea of ‘fundamental concepts in a subject’ is that it helps define the landscape and begins the process of translating the core purpose of the subject into a coherent curriculum. It should help the teacher to keep on track and understand what the subject is fundamentally about …… help pupils ‘own’ their  learning in RE.

AND one last paradoxical non-negotiable:

• The whole process is up for negotiation ….. with the pupils. We start with the questions they are asking – the skill of the teachers is in helping the pupils to find bridges between their questions and the ‘fundamental concepts of the subject’!!!

COMMENTS WELCOME!

It is clear from the curriculum and examination reforms of the government that religious education and religious studies should be more academically credible. This credibility has, in part, focussed on the study of text. What is also clear is that we have a generation of RE teachers who have no background in the teaching of ‘religious texts’. Ofsted (2013) have rightly criticised the lack of knowledge pupils demonstrate and their poor levels of religious literacy. What Ofsted does not really tackle is the lack of religious literacy among many RE teachers themselves.

In response to this situation the Cornwall Agreed Syllabus 2014 requires a study of one synoptic Gospel in depth. This arose for a number of reasons in the Cornish context. Firstly, this is an area that has been effectively neglected since the 1995 Agreed Syllabus for Cornwall, although the study of text was required in some form – usually through encountering stories. At Key Stage 3 pupils would often read small passages that were used as ‘proof texts’ and this was compounded by the way texts were used in GCSE Short Course textbooks and examinations. The question arose in the Agreed Syllabus Conference: can you be considered to be religiously educated without having had the opportunity to study one whole religious text in depth? Secondly, as RS GCSE criteria are going to focus more on text than previously: how do we best prepare pupils at Key Stage 3 to be able to study a Biblical text when they are doing GCSE? This is non-problematic in English due to the way that curriculum builds over the four key stages but it is a problem in RE as there is no clear link between the writing of syllabuses and the requirements of GCSE specifications. As a result of these questions the Conference decided to specify the study of a synoptic Gospel in depth.

Why study a Gospel in depth at all?

It is clear from Ofsted (Ofsted, 2007, Ofsted, 2013) and from academic research (Conroy, 2013, Copley et al., 2002, Hampshire, 2011) that pupils have little knowledge or understanding of Biblical literature as a result of its neglect in many religious education programmes of study. This is seen by the research to negatively impact on examination candidates when responding to GCSE questions (Conroy, 2013, Ofsted, 2013) and a broader disengagement with sources of religion which are culturally significant  (Barnes, 2014, Copley, 2005).

It has also been an expectation that pupils would encounter religious text in depth as part of the religious education at a national level for some time (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 2004) and this has been recently reasserted (REC, 2013). In terms of Cornwall’s Agreed Syllabus this has been a requirement since 2005 and was strengthened in 2011, although the encounter with text was relatively non-specific, leaving this to the judgement of teachers. Hence, in the light of evidence the prescription of one synoptic Gospel was introduced in 2014.

In the end it comes down to the question: could pupils be considered to be religiously educated if they had not had the opportunity to study a Gospel in depth? In the context of English religious education as set out in the 1988 Education Reform Act, and subsequent legislation, and that required by the government of Academies and Free Schools, the answer would have to be a resounding no.

Choosing a Gospel

Choosing which Gospel to study can become over complicated. It may be that you want to ensure that pupils have a resource which best fits to the GCSE they are likely to go on and study. On the other hand you may just want them to experience this particular genre of Biblical literature. There will be many reasons for studying a specific Gospel and often that choice will come down to teachers’ own preferences. What matters is that they get a view of what the whole Gospel is seeking to achieve. There will also be opportunities to cross reference with the other Synoptic Gospels.

Choosing Mark

Mark is the shortest of Gospels and scholars are generally agreed that it is the first Gospel. It has no birth narratives and tells you nothing about Jesus’ childhood. Similarly it has no resurrection narratives proper to itself, although it does have the Easter proclamation. It is contained in Luke’s and Matthew’s Gospels almost in its entirety. One third of the Gospel is dedicated to the last week of Jesus’ life. It is also considered to be an ‘urgent’ Gospel in that it uses the phrase: and immediately so often. As a text it can be read from beginning to end in about one hour. A fascinating feature of the Gospel is the mystery of Jesus and the Messianic Secret.

Choosing Matthew

Matthew has often been regarded as ‘the Church’s Gospel’ (it is the only Gospel that uses the Greek word ecclesia that we translate as ‘church’). For many centuries it was thought to be the first Gospel, due to its heavily Jewish character, and it was held that it existed in an Aramaic form before being translated into Greek. The Gospel is structured in such a way as to have seven distinct sections and is seen to mirror the Heptateuch (Genesis to Judges in the Hebrew Bible). The birth narratives focus around Joseph, who parallels Joseph in the book of Genesis, and Jesus ‘recapitulates’ the history of Israel by being exiled in Egypt. Interestingly, there is no Ascension narrative in Matthew but there is the Trinitarian baptismal formula.

Choosing Luke

In many ways Luke is the most widely known Gospel culturally as it contains the most extensive collections of birth narratives, the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan and the story of the Road to Emmaus. As with Matthew there are seven sections but the flow is towards Jerusalem and then to Rome (in the Acts of the Apostles). Hence, Luke’s Gospel is part of a larger work not a Gospel that stands alone. An interesting feature of the Gospel is its focus on ‘the poor and dispossessed’; in the beatitudes in Matthew it is the poor in spirit who are blessed but in Luke it is simply the poor. Luke provides the early Church with a concept of salvation history culminating in the second coming of Jesus in power with the church itself forming part of that history.

Where to start

There is an interesting question as to why there are only four Gospels in the New Testament. The earliest source for this is Irenaeus of Lyon in the second century. He recognised that there were many competing gospels in circulation and he taught that only four were authentic witnesses. Those were the four Gospels accepted as authentic by the major Christian churches – Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria – and were of an age to be considered closest to the events. A further question has to be: why four and not one? In fact there were attempts to make one Gospel from the existing texts, the most famous being the Diatessaron. The Fathers of the Council of Nicea (325 AD) rejected this idea and chose the ‘four witnesses’ as the four Gospels to be seen as Scripture. They knew that the Gospels did not always agree but that didn’t worry them.

A useful place to start is with the genre. In one sense the Gospels are a genre to themselves but draw on a larger set of literary traditions in the Greco-Roman world (Burridge, 1992). As such they are not intended to be ‘histories’ but a proclamation of theological truths for the Christian communities for which they were written. From there is also useful to have an opportunity to compare the Gospel you have chosen with the other Synoptic Gospels. Here the concept of ‘synoptic’ is key. Noting the similarities and differences between the Gospels can enable the pupil to grasp that different authors were writing for communities in different contexts, with different histories and with their own theological concerns. Hence, exploring the ‘synoptic problem’ is a useful exercise.

When pupils have grasp of the genre there is no better way forward than encountering the text. In terms of their ability to read the text this should be presumed on the basis of their English literature experience. They will have read books already and they should understand concepts such as genre and audience. They may need to learn that parable and miracle stories are genres in their own right if that has not already been covered. What teachers shouldn’t presume is no knowledge or experience of text or of the Gospel being studied.

Points to note

As a genre the Gospels were designed to be read in believing communities. Hence, they are not seeking to prove things – they are not works of systematic theology – but they are seeking to inform their audiences. The main theme of all the Gospels is the work of God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Hence, the preaching is focussed on the Kingdom of God, as are the majority of the parables. The miracles are a sign that the Kingdom has arrived in Jesus and as such are eschatological statements. Jesus doesn’t perform wonders simply because he can but because with Him the end times (eschaton) have broken in (Cunningham and Theokritoff, 2008, Evdokimov and Clément, 2011). Therefore, the Gospels should be seen as essentially as theological in nature.

To highlight the particular theological concerns of the evangelist you have chosen it is useful to select some passages to compare and contrast. One might be Peter’s confession of faith and the resulting reaction of Peter to Jesus’ prediction of his death and resurrection:

Comparing and contrasting this common passage (which also occurs in John 6: 67 – 71 but in a very different context and with the devil being associated with Judas) can highlight some of the issues that the reader of the Gospels has to come to terms with. Here are some questions:

• If we only had one or two of these Gospels, would it matter?
• Matthew is the only Gospel to use the word ‘church’ (here and in 18:17), is that significant?
• Does Matthew’s use of the name Simon for Peter have any significance?
• Luke’s Gospel does not have the story about Jesus rebuking Peter, calling Peter ‘Satan’. Does this show that Luke has a different approach to the Apostles from Matthew and Mark?
• How can we account for Jesus’ remarks to Peter in Matthew, from highly positive to highly negative?
• How does Luke’s insertion of the word ‘daily’ in the command to take up the cross change the meaning of the passage in Mark’s Gospel?
• Why has this passage in Matthew’s Gospel caused significant controversy among different Christian denominations? Does the meaning of this passage change in the light of Matthew 18:18?

Which translation?

The standard academic translation is the New Revised Standard Version (Anglicised), as used above. There are more informative Bibles, though, and one of those is The CTS New Catholic Bible – Standard Edition (2007), which replaces the New Jerusalem Bible (DLT 1985). This edition has useful notes in the introductions to the Gospels as well as explanatory notes on the text. It also has notes on the use of the Gospels in the Roman Catholic Church’s services – helping teachers to see how Scripture is used in one denomination.

The use of Scripture in the life of churches and individuals

One opportunity that the study of a Gospel in depth affords is to explore how the Gospel being studied is used by individual churches in their liturgical life. Hence, in relation to the Roman Catholic Church and Anglican Church there is a three-year lectionary that means the Synoptic Gospels are read in sequence during those years; John’s Gospel is read at specific times of the year. Other churches, such as the Orthodox Churches have a yearly cycle of readings, which includes readings from all of the Synoptic Gospels. Yet other churches, such as Free Evangelical churches do not have a specified pattern of reading  – so when might a local church have a focus on a specific Gospel?

Similarly, how and when do individual members of particular churches read these Gospels? How would a Gospel inform the life of a particular Christian? This could include specific forms of engagement with the text, such as Liberation Theology where appropriate.

Standards

What does ‘in depth’ mean? Firstly, pupils will be able to recall sections of the text in detail and context. Secondly, they will understand the major themes of the Gospel being studied and how we know that those are the major themes by reference to the text. Thirdly, they will be able to talk or write about the context in which the Gospel may have been written, including the audience that scholars think the Gospel was originally aimed at. Fourthly, they will be able to compare and contrast the Gospel they have studied with the other two Synoptic Gospels and draw conclusions from those comparisons. Finally, they will be able to relate what they have studied to the ‘ecclesial’ contexts in which their Gospel is used.

Pupils should know that these texts have been commented on for centuries, and continue to be commented on. Christians and others find in these Gospels real inspiration and new discoveries throw new light on these ancient texts in every generation of scholarship.

Within all of this there will be an acquisition of language, key words being:

Conclusion

The study of a Synoptic Gospel was once the ‘bread and butter’ of religious education but since the 1980s this became much less so. There is a challenge to introducing the study of a Synoptic Gospel into the Key Stage 3 programme of study, not least because teachers are no longer used to teaching a Gospel as a text.

There are, though, great benefits to the study of a Synoptic Gospel in RE. Firstly, it is difficult to understand the religious imagination without the study of a religious text in depth. Secondly, because these texts have been foundational to the way we as a people have thought about and constructed our responses to the world they are worthy of serious study. Similarly, much of the literature, art and culture of our nations on these islands have their inspiration in these texts. Finally, these are texts that inspire millions around the world and for that reason alone they are worthy of in depth study in the formative years of a young person’s schooling.

Bibliography

Barnes, P. (2014). Education, religion and diversity : developing a new model of religious education, London, Routledge.

Burridge, R. A. (1992). What are the Gospels? : a comparison with Graeco-Roman biography, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Conroy, J. C., Lundie, David, Davis, Robert A., Baumfield, Vivienne, Barnes L. Philip, Gallagher, Tony., Lowden, Kevin, Bourque, Nicole, and Wenell, Karen (2013). Does religious education work? : a multi-dimensional investigation, London, Bloomsbury.

Copley, T. (2005). Indoctrination, education, and God : the struggle for the mind, London, SPCK.

Copley, T., Walshe, K. & University of Exeter. School of Education and Lifelong Learning. (2002). The figure of Jesus in religious education : the report of the Teaching about Jesus in Religious Education Project, Exeter, University of Exeter, School of Education and Lifelong Learning.

Cunningham, M. & Theokritoff, E. (2008). The Cambridge companion to Orthodox Christian theology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Evdokimov, P. & Clément, O. (2011). Orthodoxy, Hyde Park, NY, New City.

Hampshire, P. D. G. (2011). Does it matter by degrees? The impact of the academic backgrounds of teachers on their teaching of religious education. Coventry, University of Warwick.

Ofsted (2007). Making sense of religion. A report on religious education in schools and the impact of locally agreed syllabuses. London.

Ofsted (2013). Religious Education, realising the potential. London: TSO.

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2004). Religious education : the non-statutory national framework, London, QCA.

REC (2013). A Review of Religious Education in England. London: Religious Education Council of England and Wales.

In the 2011 Census, 14.1 million people, around a quarter of the population in England and Wales, reported that they have ‘no religion’. My research focuses on 14- and 15-year-olds who also tick the ‘no religion’ box in response to the question ‘what is your religion?’ In this short article, I will briefly introduce you to what some of these young people think about ‘religion’ and ask you to consider with me how an emphasis on belief within the RE classroom might have influenced their understanding of this concept.

The Philosophical Turn in RE

As readers will already be aware, exam questions for GCSE and A-Level religious studies have, in recent years, been designed to test pupils on their ability to critique religious truth claims and on their knowledge of how religious adherents should live and act. For example, the following questions have been taken from the three main exam boards in England:

Explain why some people say that religious revelation is only an illusion (AQA GCSE Religious Studies Short Course Specification A, June 2010)

Do you think the universe is designed? Give two reasons for your point of view (Edexcel GCSE Religious Studies Religion and Life, May 2010)

Explain why some creationists do not believe in the Big Bang theory’ (OCR Advanced Subsidiary GCE January 2011)

Although this might help pupils develop their critical thinking skills, this approach to the study of religion reinforces the notion that religion is concerned with private, individualized beliefs. An emphasis on developing skills to evaluate religious truth claims may convince pupils that not only are such claims essential for the study of religion but also that a certain type of propositional belief is of central importance to religious adherents. It does not provide room for pupils to consider how religion might be broader than assent to propositional beliefs or to explore further the nature of belief and how it might function in everyday life. By emphasising the importance of the philosophical and ethical dimensions of religious belief, does the Philosophy and Ethics strand of secondary religious studies syllabuses occlude the more experiential, relational and material elements of religious traditions?

This recent philosophical turn in RE is partly due to the influence of Andrew Wright’s religious education pedagogy, which emphasises the importance of the search for truth in the study of religion. It focuses on ‘ultimate questions’ about ‘the true nature of reality’ (1993:61, 63) and seeks to help pupils engage cognitively with religious and secular systems of thought. It is the truth claims of each of these that Wright considers to be most important.  He writes:

The heart of religion lies… in the claims to truth it makes about the objective nature of the universe and the place of society and individuals within this world view. To reach a depth of understanding of religion thus involves not achieving insight into religious experience, but reaching an understanding of the world view a religion holds… It is the teaching of religions, their concrete beliefs, and the question of the coherence and truth of these claims that marks the heart of religion, as it is understood by believers themselves. (1993:72)

Although this generalization may be true for some believers within a creedal religion such as Christianity, there are also likely to be many Christians who do not consider this to be the most important aspect of their religious lives. Furthermore, there are other world religions that do not consider truth claims to be of central importance for the religious life. By focusing on those aspects of religion that might be used in order to hone pupils’ critical thinking skills, Wright’s recommendations for an emphasis on the exploration and critique of religious beliefs and truth claims may have made it a more academically respectable subject to study at GCSE and A-Level, but it may also have affected the way religion is understood by pupils, as well as by teachers and policy makers. For example, this approach to the study of religion seems to have influenced some of the recommendations for the inclusion of secular philosophies in RE.

Recommendations for the Inclusion of Secular Philosophies in RE

In recent years, there has been increased debate about the inclusion of secular philosophies within RE in England – a view championed by the British Humanist Association (BHA). Although it is not presently possible for pupils to study humanism in the same way that they would any of the six largest world religions, the BHA continues to campaign for humanism to be included within RE lessons and exams.[1] Central to their argument that humanism should be taught alongside the six main world religions are the claims that there is a ‘silent majority’ of pupils in the RE classroom who do not follow a religion and that this should be reflected in the content of RE syllabuses. For Marilyn Mason, formally the BHA’s education officer, ‘If RE is supposed to help pupils towards a sense of identity and a formulation of their own life stance it should not ignore such a large section of the population’.[2] This line of argument raises the question of whether the purpose of RE should indeed be identity formation, and whether the content of this subject should therefore reflect the life stances of the pupils studying it, including those who report ‘no religion’. But it is far from clear whether teaching humanism in RE would necessarily reflect the life stances of young people of ‘no religion’, since young people who do not follow a religion may not necessarily consider humanism to accurately reflect their own beliefs about the world. Furthermore, the emphasis on humanism as a life stance or worldview that stands in contrast to those taken or held by religious practitioners continues to prioritize the importance of assessing the validity of religious truth claims in the study of religion and to stress the centrality of propositional belief in religious life.

This understanding of the purpose of RE can be detected in the Institute for Public Policy Research’s report What is Religious Education for?[3]In privileging a particular understanding of belief over all others, and assuming that this is more important than other aspects of religion, the authors appear to reduce religion to assent to propositional truth claims. Central to their argument is what they refer to as ‘[t]he possibility-of-truth case for compulsory RE’:

Pupils should be given opportunities to consider religious propositions, and be equipped to make informed, rational judgements on their truth or falsity, on the grounds that some of these propositions may in fact be true (2004:6).

This, it is argued, would help pupils rationally judge ‘the truth or falsity of religious propositions’ as well as shift the emphasis in RE from ‘empathising to evaluating, from trying to imagine what it is like to hold certain beliefs to asking what grounds there are for doing so’ (2004: 6). The authors of the report therefore see no problem in accommodating a particular type of secular philosophy within RE. They share with Wright the assumption that the study of beliefs is of central importance, not only in relation to religion and secular philosophies, but for the purpose of RE and the education of young people. Unlike Wright, however, they propose using nonreligious philosophies as a tool for challenging the validity of religious truth claims.

Politics scholar Melissa Lane’s response to the IPPR report recognises the problems with approaching religion as if it were tantamount to belief. For Lane, there are other elements of religion that should also be studied within RE. In particular, we need to recognise ‘that evidence and belief do not exhaust – and may not underpin – the varying and specific forms of religious identity which people choose to espouse’ (2010:2). The report’s recommendation that pupils should ‘question the beliefs they bring with them to the classroom … so that they are genuinely free to adopt whatever position on religious matters they judge to be best supported by the evidence’ (2004:3), therefore amounts to ‘an education out of religion’. A religious education should instead be ‘an education about religion’, which would entail ‘studying the varying histories of religious groups, paying attention not only to their beliefs, but to how their doctrines evolve and change in relation to practice and to the broader culture’ (2010:4).  Lane criticises the IPPR report’s recommendations because they misrepresent religion by reducing it to propositional truth claims. I would argue that this is equally true of the recommendation that secular beliefs – such as humanism – should be the sole focus for the study of ‘nonreligion’ within RE. If religion cannot be reduced to a set of propositional beliefs, then perhaps nonreligion cannot be reduced to a body of belief such as secular humanism.

Nonreligion and Belief

Lois Lee, one of the founders of the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network (NSRN), offers a provisional definition of nonreligion as ‘anything which is primarily defined by a relationship of difference to religion’ (2012:131). Although this includes non-theistic stances such as atheism or agnosticism, as well as anti-religion and indifference to religion, this definition also allows for a broader understanding of nonreligion that does not consist solely of nonreligious beliefs. If, in a form of RE that comes after the philosophical turn, religion is no longer reduced to propositional belief systems, then richer understandings of religion would also enable more nuanced presentations of nonreligion. Part of my research into the lives of young people of ‘no religion’ will consider whether it is meaningful to talk about nonreligion as something that exists in a relationship of difference to the religious practices, relationships and dispositions that might be described as operating beyond religious beliefs and identities. Lee’s definition of nonreligion highlights its necessary relationship to local understandings of ‘religion’, and it is therefore important for researchers of nonreligion to be reflexive about what they and their participants mean by ‘religion’.

Research with Young People of ‘No Religion’

Findings from my research suggest that the young people that I interviewed understood religion to be associated with metaphysical belief. People who followed religions believed certain propositions about the existence of God or gods, the origin of the universe and the purpose of life. Strength of belief in these propositions was also thought to be an important part of the religious life. In order to follow a religion it was thought to be necessary to believe and accept everything within that religion, there was no room for doubt or divergent beliefs. Participants also thought that ‘religious’ people believed biblical stories to be literal accounts of events in the past. Stories of miracles or creation narratives were therefore often dismissed as false because there did not appear to be enough scientific ‘evidence’ or ‘proof’ to support them. As religion and science were understood as competing explanations of the way the world works, religion was frequently compared unfavourably to science and often considered to be obsolete.

In addition to the importance of metaphysical beliefs, religion was also understood as consisting of ethical beliefs about how to live life. Participants often thought this meant that ‘religious’ people did not experience life as much as those who chose not accept certain religious ethical beliefs. The lives of monks, for example, were sometimes assumed to be ‘sad’ or ‘depressing’ because they did not appear to ‘live life to the full’. A person’s religious identity was also understood to be dependent on accepting the ethical beliefs of their religion, and so it was often thought that when certain religious laws were broken, it was no longer possible to be part of that faith. Medical ethics were also thought to be particularly important for ‘religious’ people, which is perhaps not surprising considering the emphasis that is placed on fertility treatment, abortion and euthanasia in GCSE Religious Studies exams. Some of the participants recognised that much of their own morality had been influenced by religion, and what they understood as religious commandments not to kill or steal were seen as valuable prohibitions for any society. But these positive religious ethics were often separated from ‘religion’, with ‘religion’ still understood primarily as consisting of certain propositional beliefs that they did not share.

How are these pupils’ understandings of religion informed by their experiences of an RE classroom in which the importance of belief and ethics is emphasised in the study of religion?  To what extent do current proposals for the inclusion of secular philosophies in RE compound pupils’ understanding of religion as primarily concerned with truth claims? And do they similarly misrepresent the nature of nonreligion as also primarily centred on belief and truth?   If the purpose of RE is identity formation, the development of pupils’ life stances and the cultivation of ways of living, and if the silent majority in the RE classroom should be a factor in decisions about the content of RE, then might greater understanding of the lives of young people of ‘no religion’ enhance proposals within this debate?

References

Institute for Public Policy Research. (2004) ‘What is Religious Education For?  Getting the National Framework Right’

Available at:  www.ippr.org/research/teams/event.asp?id=1066

Lane, M. (2010) ‘What is Religious Education For?’ The Philosopher’s Magazine Issue 48 Available at: www.thephilosophersmagazine.com/TPM/search/results

Lee, L.  (2012) ‘Research Note: Talking about a Revolution: Terminology for the New Field of Non-religion Studies’ Journal of Contemporary Religion 27(1):129-139.

Wright, A. (1993) Religious Education in the Secondary School: Prospects for Religious Literacy. London: David Fulton Publishers.

‘Miss!’

‘Yes Sally’

‘Why do Muslims go around cutting peoples heads off?’

‘Well Sally, they’re not real Muslims.’

‘How do you know Miss?’

This paraphrased conversation was heard in a primary school and reported to me by the teacher, the name of the child has been changed. The teacher wanted reassuring that she had made the correct response and advice on how she might best respond in the future.

The problem of authenticity

The way that we present religions has been a longstanding issue going back into the 1970s (Schools Council, 1971, Schools Council, 1972)in English RE, it is not a  new problem (Barnes, 2014). Over the last forty years there have been a number of attempts to ‘solve’ this problem in terms of what goes on in the classroom. Hull and Cox (Cox, 1983, Hull, 1982) embraced a phenomenological approach, echoing Smart (Smart, 1969), but this approach tended to overlook contentious issues by emphasising the positive and delegitimising the negative, especially Hull (see Barnes, 2014 on Hull’s theological position in relation to authenticity and the relationship between different religions). When religion appeared to be in decline, both nationally and globally (Berger, 1967, Berger, 1969), this was unproblematic. Certainly, the desire to develop young people with a better understanding of different pupils’ religious beliefs and backgrounds to build a better society has been at the heart of much RE since the 1970s (Barnes, 2014, Gearon, 2013a, Gearon, 2013b, Copley, 2008) and is still a stated aim of national guidance on the subject (Afdal, 2010, Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 2004, REC, 2013).

Religion, though, did not go away and the demise of the Soviet bloc enabled to the development of new nationalities and movements based around religious belief, whether American Christian fundamentalism (Blaker, 2003), Islam in different parts of the world (Formichi, 2012), and even Buddhism (Tambiah, 1992). The impact of these movements on others around the world has been significant, especially in failed states (Shortt, 2013).

One solution to the issue of how to talk about religion has been to deconstruct the concept of religion from an anthropological perspective (Jackson, 1997, Jackson, 2004). Jackson argues that religions exist as constructs with which people identify themselves through embodied expressions (such as denominations) but individuals make their own choices – explaining the diversity within religious traditions and between individual believers. Another solution is to embrace a postmodern perspective in which all the ‘grand narratives’ of religion have been replaced by personal constructs (Erricker, 2010, Erricker and Erricker, 2000). Another approach has been set out by Gearon (2013a, 2013b) where he seeks to situate religious education in the context of personal holiness – the religious quest (Holley, 1978) – and preparation for eternity. Hence, the claims of religions as to the means of salvation and the challenge that this poses to the individual called on to make a choice becomes paramount. The question of discerning which religion ensures the path to salvation remains – given the claims and  counter claims of religions to the truth.

Nevertheless, the construct of ‘religion’ and what defines a specific religion persists. This persistence has led to alternative ways of looking at religion based around truth claims (Barnes, 2014, Wright, 1993, Wright, 2000, Wright, 2004), developing in to what Barnes (2014) refers to as a post-liberal religious education. The difficulty is to identify what does in fact define an authentic expression of a religious tradition and who decides? Whose interpretation of a religion should be seen as more authentic and whose less? How would we know? Or, more pertinently, how would the teacher know?

Abandoning the quest for authenticity

Perhaps we have to simply accept that religions are contested spaces and that teachers are not in a position to make a judgement, because no one is. What we can say is that religious traditions have, and had, followers who live very different types of life in different contexts, socially, politically, economically and historically. There is no doubt that there are many people who identify with Islam believe sincerely that IS/ISIS/ISIL is true Islam and that to be a Muslim you should join or support them, there are many more that don’t. Islamic scholars in the Middle East have condemned the barbarity of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/17/saudi-clerics-fatwa-declares-terrorism-heinous-crime-sharia-law) as have Muslim scholars in Britain (http://www.mcb.org.uk/leading-islamic-centres-condemn-so-called-islamic-state/). This does not settle the question of authenticity, though.

Hence, we need to proceed differently. Firstly, we need to present religions, and other worldviews, warts and all. If we don’t we are simply ignoring the elephant in the room. In our context religious communities and individuals do a tremendous amount of good (Woodhead, 2009, Woodhead and Catto, 2012) but it does not follow that they always will. There is, though, a propensity for some religious traditions to be more prone to violence than others, despite the image of a golden age when all lived together in harmony (Shortt, 2013, Shortt and Institute for the Study of Civil Society., 2012) and exploring core beliefs or contradictions might prove to be fruitful for RE teachers.

British schools, fundamental British values

What we can say as teachers is that we uphold British values, as we are professionally bound to do. These are defined in the Teachers’ Standards (see: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/301107/Teachers__Standards.pdf) as:

‘Fundamental British values’ is taken from the definition of extremism as articulated in the new Prevent Strategy, which was launched in June 2011. It includes ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’.

Tolerance of different faiths and beliefs does not mean that we, or our pupils, have to agree with them. Similarly, the law shapes individual liberty. Hence, we cannot incite others violence despite our beliefs. Likewise, we also believe that these fundamental British values are shared with others across the world and form a template for a civilized society and a better world. Therefore, it is never right to be relativist in terms of our moral stance. If taking power by terror is wrong here it is wrong elsewhere too. If this were not the case there would be no point in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the International Criminal Court.

Dear Sally

Sally was not wrong to ask the question and it is a question that deserves an answer. However, unsatisfactory this may be it could go something like this:

‘Miss!’

‘Yes Sally.’

‘Why do Muslims go around cutting peoples heads off?’

‘Which Muslims Sally?’

‘Those from the telly miss.’

‘Those would be Muslims in the Middle East; lets find it on a map. Can you see it? Where are we on this map of the world? Okay, there is a war going on in the Middle East with lots of armies and fighters. Some Muslims want a place where only Muslims like them live – even if that means killing other Muslims who disagree with them. The trouble is, Islam, like all religions and beliefs, is really diverse and people, Muslims, argue about which is the real Islam. Usually they do this peacefully but sometimes it becomes really violent. Muslims around the world have condemned the beheadings, especially those where we live. Some people have wanted to make a distinction between Islam as a religion and something called Islamism, which is a fairly new way of thinking about Islam and politics. Of course this isn’t only true for religions it also happens in politics as can be seen in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Cambodia and China. Humans have a great capacity to be cruel to each other.

So Sally, when you say “Muslims” you need to ask yourself the question: all Muslims or some Muslims? Then there is another question: what are other Muslims saying about what these Muslims are doing? Finally, there is the question of right and wrong. Is it ever right to use violence to terrorize others so you get your own way?’

The key skill is tailoring the response to the age and development of the pupil.

Resource

A useful resource has been produced that teachers interested in religious texts in Judaism, Christianity and Islam could access. Aimed at promoting religious dialogue around key texts http://www.scripturesindialogue.org/index.html hosted by Leo Baeck College might be a useful starting point for developing a better understanding of some of the issues above from the perspectives of scholars from within their own traditions in dialogue with those in other traditions.

Bibliography

Barnes, P. (2014). Education, religion and diversity : developing a new model of religious education, London, Routledge.

Berger, P. L. (1967). The sacred canopy : elements of a sociological theory of religion, Garden City, N.Y, Doubleday.

Berger, P. L. (1969). A rumor of angels : modern society and the rediscovery of the supernatural, Garden City, N.Y, Doubleday.

Blaker, K. B., Edward, Edwin. Kagin, Frederick. Kirkhart, Bobbie (2003). The fundamentals of extremism : the Christian right in America, New Boston, MI, New Boston Books.

Copley, T. (2008). Teaching religion : sixty years of religious education in England and Wales, Exeter, University of Exeter Press.

Cox, E. (1983). Problems and possibilities for religious education, London, Hodder and Stoughton.

Erricker, C. (2010). Religious education : a conceptual and interdisciplinary approach for secondary level, Abingdon ; New York, Routledge.

Erricker, C. & Erricker, J. (2000). Reconstructing religious, spiritual and moral education, London, RoutledgeFalmer.

Formichi, C. (2012). Islam and the making of the nation : Kartosuwiryo and political Islam in twentieth-century Indonesia, Leiden, KITLV Press.

Gearon, L. 2013a. On Holy Ground – The Theory and Practice of Religious Education. London: Routledge,.

Gearon, L. 2013b. Masterclass in religious education transforming teaching and learning. London: Bloomsbury Academic,.

Holley, R. (1978). Religious education and religious understanding : an introduction to the philosophy of religious education, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Hull, J. M. (1982). New directions in religious education, Lewes, Falmer.

Jackson, R. (1997). Religious education : an interpretive approach, London, Hodder & Stoughton.

Jackson, R. (2004). Rethinking religious education and plurality : issues in diversity and pedagogy, London, RoutledgeFalmer.

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, A. D. F. E. a. S. (2004). Religious education : the non-statutory national framework, London, QCA.

Rec 2013. A Review of Religious Education in England. London: Religious Education Council of England and Wales.

Schools Council (1971). Religious education in secondary schools, London, Evans Bros : Methuen Educational.

Schools Council (1972). Religious education in primary schools, London, Evans Bros : Methuen.

Shortt, R. (2013). Christianophobia : a faith under attack, London, Rider Books.

Shortt, R. & Institute for the Study of Civil Society. (2012). Christianophobia, London, Civitas.

Smart, N. (1969). The religious experience of mankind, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Tambiah, S. J. (1992). Buddhism Betrayed? : Religion, Politics and Violence in Sri Lanka, Univ.Chicago P.

Woodhead, C. (2009). A Desolation of Learning: Is this the education out children deserve?, Brighton, Pencil-Sharp.

Woodhead, L. & Catto, R. (2012). Religion and change in modern Britain, London ; New York, Routledge.

Wright, A. (1993). Religious education in the secondary school : prospects for religious literacy, London, D. Fulton, published in association with the Roehampton Institute.

Wright, A. (2000). Spirituality and education, London, Routledge Falmer.

Wright, A. (2004). Religion, education, and post-modernity, London, Routledge Falmer.

This is Part 3 of my search to map the landscape of the debate around GCSE and maybe help us come closer together in our thinking.

This is possibly one of the most disturbing features of our recent discussions. A number of colleagues have said they don’t want to have to teach about religions at Key Stage 4 as part of a subject called ‘Religious Studies’. The punters will walk away! One person even posted on Facebook to say they didn’t want to return to having to teach religious studies in Religious Studies! Can you imagine a historian saying s/he doesn’t want to teach history in the History GCSE?

I think we do get it. If you reduce teaching about religions to dreary, bloated lists of content then it will be dull. Also we know that for many students the ‘religious view of the world’ is outmoded and lacking in credibility. We need to strongly acknowledge the ‘contested’ nature of religion in their learning.

What we have failed to do in recent years is find enough models of teaching about religion and religions which are engaging and which students see as relevant to questions they are asking. Many teachers say they can keep students’ interest in religions going through Key Stages 2 and 3 but feel it falls away by the time they get to Year 9.

What is going on? I am quite sure there is nothing intrinsically boring about studying religion. GCSE students are willing to study atomic structure and the periodic table, geomorphic processes and landscape, early medieval history!

This is a massive wake up call for the RE community. If we really can’t make the study of religion(s) interesting at GCSE we are in serious trouble.

Five thoughts:

• We may have to accept that the study of religion(s) is only of real interest to some, not all – Move to optional GCSE and remove the statutory requirement at KS4 – my clarion call.
• If learning about religions is reduced to covering that content set out in the Annex to the GCSE Consultation then we may be doomed. Dull, undifferentiated content is very bad news.
• We must acknowledge that the study of religion(s) at Key Stage 4 needs to be energised by starting with questions that are challenging and engaging AND start closer to where the students are.
• We need to remember the students have already done up to 9 years of RE – we can’t keep doing more of the same. We need progression into more challenging learning about religion.
• If we start with the idea that teaching about religion is dull we will find we fulfil our own prophecy. The teacher’s infectious enthusiasm for the matter is crucial ….. but exciting course specifications can help!

The way forward

A more imaginative interplay of Part 1 and Part 2 of the GCSE subject content proposals might offer a more coherent and credible way forward. So, if you are studying Christianity, I would integrate some of the social, ethical and cultural questions into the study of the way the religion engages with the modern world. Are Christians effective in dealing with gender and equality issues? What has been the Christian response to issues around social injustice? How has Christianity dealt with the issue of war and conflict? Explore these questions as PART of the study of Christianity not as separate topics.

If you are studying Hinduism the issue of social justice, equality and mobility is particularly important in relation to the continuing use of Hindu concepts to justify the caste system.

If we take Islam the issues topics might be: What are the issues that challenge Muslims in the modern world? What are the debates around the place of Jihad and Sharia law within Islam? Why does controversy always seem to follow Islam?

This would also allow us to match the ‘issues’ to the religion in a more meaningful and challenging way.  Some issues are more relevant to some religions than others. My examples are just that – examples – we would need to spend a little time deciding what the best questions might be. This also might involve looking again at the assessment criteria and curtailing the emphasis on comparing religions – always a dubious exercise at the best of times.

So we could end up re-configuring Parts 1 and 2 of the subject content in the consultation document:

 To repeat what I said at the outset of these blogs: it is crucial to remember that so far we have been presented with criteria not course specifications and the exam boards have the opportunity to be creative. And there is still plenty of time to respond to the consultation.

I am not sure whether we can rely on the Boards to be creative OR how far we need to amend the criteria to foster that creativity – both I suspect.

This is Part 2 of my search to map the landscape of the debate around GCSE a little more and maybe help us come closer together in our thinking. (For Part 1, see: http://reonline.org.uk/blog/the-gcse-debate-the-inclusion-of-humanism/)

‘Problem’ is in italics – clearly there is nothing problematic about P&E. Indeed as Kate Christopher reminds us: ‘The only way is ethics!’

But we have a major problem with our traditional curriculum in England – it is defined by a set of subjects which have not really been refreshed or re-thought for decades. Up to the end of Key Stage 4 it doesn’t include any significant provision for philosophy, economic, politics, sociology etc. It is also resistant to cross-curricular working.

In recent years, as RE lost confidence in its traditional subject matter, it looked around for content that might prove popular and relevant. And as a result there has been a tendency to ‘dump’ issues-based and cross-curricular topics into RE. This process was accelerated by the Short Course (and for over a decade there have only been short courses!). It has also had an effect on the Key Stage 3 provision in many schools with a growth in GCSE-style issues-based courses in Years 7-9.

The effect has been two-fold. First, it has taken RE/RS away from the proper study of religion and belief and has contributed to the collapse in students’ religious literacy. Second, and equally importantly, it has often dumbed down the study of those issues-based and cross-curricular topics. We were seeing issues about rights and responsibilities, the environment or fair trade taught in RE without a proper engagement with the other key disciplines needed to make sense of the issues – geography, science, politics, economics, sociology. It all ends in sentimentality – it’s nice to be nice!!!

The current GCSE proposals for ‘Religious, philosophical and ethical’ themes have largely avoided the worst pitfalls of the ‘dumping game’. Some of the themes (religious views of the world, the existence of God(s) and religious dialogue) have a clear ‘religious’ focus and deserve to be studied in their own right as ‘stand-alone’ religious studies topics.

But others remain questionable. Topics on human rights and social justice, crime and punishment, peace and conflict, and relationships and families are really huge cross-curricular themes. To be done properly they need to draw deeply from the wells of economics, sociology and politics. I fear that in these cases the links to religion will continue to be tangential and clumsy.

So I think there is still a bit of ‘dumping’ going on – using religious studies as a context for dealing with topics which students find ‘relevant’ and that can’t find a place in the wider curriculum.

Does it matter? Possibly not. The approach probably offends the subject purist but, as so many teachers have said, it does engage the punter. But ideally I would probably look for a ‘new’ subject that provided the opportunity to study some of these topics as genuine cross-curricular themes drawing from a range of other disciplines. How can you study ‘wealth and poverty’ without some serious engagement with economics and sociology?

And I would look to include more themes directly related to the study of religion itself – sadly missing at the moment. Topics like:

• The changing pattern of religious life in the modern world/Britain
• New patterns of religious life and modern alternative forms of spirituality
• The relationship of religion and spirituality

It may be that examination boards will develop these more creative approaches – let’s encourage them. But perhaps we should ALSO respond to the consultation by suggesting that the criteria be changed to encourage this creativity.

A Reminder of the Problem

Earlier this year I wrote a blog titled ‘Why GCSE RE Fails Pupils.’ It illustrated how poor content and perverse assessment in popular GCSE RE courses, neglect and distort religion, and argued that the number of routes available to achieve a GCSE in RE has encouraged a race to the bottom and rendered the notion of it as a qualification meaningless. Yet, whilst the current GCSE situation may be indefensible, it is not without its perks for some. It is therefore, no surprise, that as proposals for a future, more rigorous GCSE emerge, previously masked fears and vulnerabilities are surfacing.

A Head of RE once recounted to me how at the start of year INSET, her headteacher had given her a bottle of wine and praised her. The reason for this was that both she personally and also her RE department, had achieved the best GCSE residuals in the school. Requests to observe her soon poured in from other teachers asking ‘how do you get such great results in an hour a week?’ ‘How do you get the children so engaged in your subject?’ After weeks of dodging observation requests, and pretending that she possessed some sort of magic beans, she decided to come clean. Whenever a colleague asked if they could observe her GCSE lessons, she gave them an exam paper and mark scheme and told them that if they still wanted to watch her after reading it, they would be welcome. No one came. Whilst admirably, this teacher was honest, others have ridden the wave of dumbed down courses, in order to enhance their reputation and responsibilities, and even to elevate themselves into senior leadership roles. These are the Deputy Heads, who wink at the RE teachers on GCSE results day, insiders on the secret, the great charade.

Courses which are ‘accessible’ (by which I mean easy) and ‘relevant’ (by which I mean don’t have much to do with religion) have masked a multitude of sins. Entry numbers have remained healthy, but pupils have remained religiously illiterate. Pupils have achieved A*s, but no real knowledge of religion. Artificially high results have refuted the argument that RE needs more curriculum time. Pick ‘n’ mix scripture and social studies have created the very caricatures of religion that RE should confront. School leavers have been left unable to navigate a world permeated by religion and belief. We should not mourn their passing; these courses have done us no real favours.

Where are we now?

Though not without fault, the criteria’s desire for more rigour and a serious study of two religions, is an improvement and it provides a better platform for further study. However, my concerns are twofold.

Firstly, in the response to the criteria there is a familiar negative discourse that the study of religion is boring. This only ever undermines RE, and there is a risk that it could both compromise the final criteria and negatively influence subsequent decisions of exam boards. However, I fear there are points at which the criteria give ammunition to this rhetoric, by failing to go deep enough below the surface of the nuts and bolts of religions.

Secondly, the failure to integrate Textual Studies and also Philosophy and Ethics into the study of religion means that not enough has been done to prevent Exam Boards from constructing courses that are incoherent, unchallenging and crude caricatures of RE.

1. A Discomforting Discourse: Religion is Boring

Years of dumbed down courses have contributed to a view amongst many RE teachers that the study of religion is boring for pupils, and that RE should focus on contemporary issues. On social media, some people have lamented the dry, dour focus of the new criteria and the lack of ‘sexy RE.’ Though I am not overly familiar with the notion of ‘sexy RE,’ from what I can work out it doesn’t involve learning much about religion. Perhaps it is a phrase that Ofsted encountered, when Subject Leaders repeatedly explained to them that they had “moved to study social and ethical issues because they could not see a way of making the direct study of religion challenging and engaging.”

The study of religion has great value. This controversial and ever changing force has, and continues to direct our human story. Barbaric at times, beautiful at others, but never boring; it is our failure of imagination that is so. Religion is not some subculture, in need of replacing by philosophy, it remains a driving force for the vast majority of the human population.

When I hear RE teachers complaining about the focus on religion in the criteria, I wonder what it is they were expecting to teach when they became an RE teacher. It is like complaining there is too much chocolate in one’s chocolate bar. It is not the study of religion that will bore pupils and turn them off the subject; it is a teacher who thinks religion is boring. My experience is that pupils greatly enjoy discussing abortion and animal testing. They also enjoy discussing x-box and football, but as I have written here, enjoyment is not the purpose of education. Our responsibility is not to pander to limited, parochial interests of pupils but to take pupils beyond them, widening their horizons through access to a richer world of ideas.

Contemporary issues may be provocative, but if they are not related to religion, then they aren’t ours to touch. ‘Sexy’ they may be, but RE they are not. RE should not be a ragbag of the waifs and strays of the curriculum unable to find a home elsewhere. Our survival requires distinctive disciplinary integrity. RE will not die out because it focuses on religion, it will cease to be RE if it does not.

An Alternative Discourse

As has said, what we should be asking is whether the content and structure of the criteria captures the fascinating nature and restless energy of religion and religions enough. Basic facts are vital building blocks of coherent understanding, but does the criteria scratch deeply enough beneath the surface of religions to more challenging concepts and tensions? Does it explore how these have played out both in history and in our present world? Does the content encourage exam boards to create courses that strike at the real heart and meaning of religions, addressing their inherently provocative ideas, concepts and challenges? Is the chocolate in the chocolate bar chocolatey enough?

2. Interdisciplinary Tension and Unclear Identity

The relationship at GCSE RE between Religion and Philosophy and Ethics (P+E) needs clear definition. This interdisciplinary tension has not been confronted adequately by the new criteria. It has dislocated the study of religion from Textual Studies and P+E, by designating them as separate sections, and suggested that “Awarding Organisations can develop, combine or cross reference the required content in any way appropriate to the specification.” I fear that this is where problems will arise.

There is an acknowledgement of the concerns of subject experts, Ofsted and Ofqual over the nature of Philosophy and Ethics in current GCSEs, but the criteria reduces the concerns to a problem of too much ‘personal response’ in place of ‘religious teachings.’ Whilst this is part of it, the problem is much bigger as I have illustrated here. What we call ‘Philosophy and Ethics’ in GCSE is predominantly social studies with tenuously linked religious references bolted on. In its distortion and misrepresentation of religion, it is bad theology. It certainly does not constitute philosophy, and it is academically undemanding.

Despite acknowledging concerns over P+E, the criteria fail to confront the deeper issue, in fact it simply describes it. It states that pupil responses to contemporary issues should be ‘grounded in religion’ with ‘scope for the study of critiques of religion and of non-religious beliefs’ and also ‘include a study of different philosophical and ethical arguments and their impact and influence in the modern world.’ This is an overloaded, conflicting and incoherent pseudo-academic discipline. If P+E is going to be academically demanding then it needs to be, either real Philosophy, or be an integral part of the study of religion, which emerges from it.

If P+E is Philosophy, then it is a separate subject that involves the study of philosophers, uncompromised by having to crassly name-check religious and non-religious worldviews. If, as I hope, P+E is meant to be part of RE, then it needs to be clearly integrated in the study of religion along with Textual Studies. This would still allow pupils to consider secular challenges to religious ideas.

Despite the requirement to understand beliefs and teachings in Part A, there is still a risk of Exam Boards either making P+E RE’s ‘bit on the side,’ or forcing religion into a dumbed down P+E framework. Under the false guise of P+E, unchallenging pathways through the qualification could be created, which would be comparably easier than more intellectually robust alternatives. For example, if a course is weighted 50% P+E with no Textual Studies, what relevant religious source will pupils be applying? Their answers will lack depth, compared to a course in which the weighting was 25% Textual Studies and 25% P+E. The temptation for Exam Boards will be to ‘creatively’ integrate already existing material from Part A to Part B, not to add more. This could continue the existing problem, where for example, the theologically rich creation narratives of Genesis are simply used as a means of illustrating that global warming is wrong, or that Christians should not be racist.

An Alternative Proposal

The way in which the currently dislocated areas are integrated is pivotal to the success of future GCSEs. Therefore, their epistemological relationship needs to be clearly defined in the criteria. History shows it would be naïve and irresponsible, for those forming the criteria, to shirk from this challenging task, leaving this epistemological issue in the hands of commercially motivated exam boards. Neither should is it be passed off as a matter for Ofqual further down the line. The criteria’s suggested weighting of each part acts as useful guidance, but if it is to prevent religion from becoming fodder for social studies, it is vital that the current dislocation is replaced with greater integration of the different content areas. The criteria’s diversity should be in content, not discipline.

In a more holistic or integrated approach, philosophical and ethical issues would be explored, because they naturally arise out of the religion being studied, not simply because they seem relevant or provocative in their own right. If philosophical and ethical study is to be academically challenging and avoid misrepresenting religion, there need to be specific texts, genuine arguments relating to the issue, and strong examples of engagement with the issue from the religious community being studied. A more integrated, cumulative approach would allow for deeper mastery and progression within areas of study. Pupils would be drawing upon and applying a rich understanding of beliefs, practices, texts, tensions and contemporary challenges, and expressing genuine theological insight to issues of genuine relevance and concern to the religion being studied. This would far better meet Ofqual’s much improved proposed assessment objectives.

Concluding Thoughts

As Mark Chater has already said, we have a golden opportunity to restore “the academic and professional kudos of our subject.” For RE teachers to argue against putting religion at the core of a more rigorous GCSE is counter productive. The spirit of the criteria is right, but the devil is in the detail, and that detail needs some careful attention.

David Ashton is a secondary school RE teacher. He blogs about RE on thegoldencalfre.wordpress.comhttp://thegoldencalfre.wordpress.com

Follow David on Twitter @thegoldencalfre