Religious Studies Essay Research Paper Edith RogersEngland

Religious Studies Essay, Research Paper

Edith Rogers-England

3rd year: MA (Religious Studies)

Christianity and World Religions 3

“Should we pray together.” A study of interfaith worship in schools

The question of interfaith worship began to be seriously discussed about fifty years ago. Ethnic groups have been present in Britain since at least the 1870s, when the East India company began to employ Muslim seamen from Yemen as a result of the opening of the Suez Canal. However, the 1944 Education Act does not seem to refer to any religion other than Christianity . In the 1950s, high employment produced by the need for post war reconstruction caused problems in filling the least desirable jobs. The British government therefore began recruitment campaigns in the Caribbean, India, Pakistan, Cyprus, Kenya and Uganda. The new immigrants were placed almost entirely in industrial cities most of which were to be hard hit by unemployment at the end of the post war boom. The 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act gave preference to professionals and dependants over unskilled lone males. By the late sixties therefore many inner city boroughs were facing questions of how best to provide an education for a significant number of children with a home culture perceived as very different to the school culture, and a religious background that was not Christian or Jewish . A part of this was the problem of school worship, which up until then had been explicitly Christian.

The debate on education was fed by the wider discussions taking place on “race”. During the fifties the most popular official stance was that of “assimilation” . It was argued that black people were inferior to white people and that their only possible means of self-improvement was to try to acquire “white” norms and values and perceptions, meanwhile accepting their place at the bottom of the socio-economic class system. By the sixties, when ethnic minority children were beginning to enter education in significant numbers, some shift in official attitude can be detected, with a move towards an “integrationist” approach, where the presence of ethnic minority people was acknowledged and there was talk of greater mutual understanding of culture . A 1977 Green Paper by the Department of Education and Science acknowledged that education needed to change:

1.11 the education appropriate to our imperial past cannot meet the needs of modern Britain.

10.11 Our society is a multi-cultural multi-racial one and the curriculum should reflect a sympathetic understanding of the different cultures and races that now make up our society

However, Brandt and Muir argue that the effect of these ideas was to minimise disruption to the fabric of white, Protestant society, with the actual image presented being of the failure of black and Asian people, by now increasingly of British nationality, to integrate themselves into society. Thus in many ways this was not much of a progression from the fifties assimilationist stance.

The current move towards interfaith prayer may be seen as part of a trend towards cultural pluralism. This might be defined as the situation where the presence and legitimacy of a range of differentiated cultures is recognised, and where they interact according to a model in which the state is seen as a negotiator. Emphasis is on similarity rather than difference. The 1985 Swann Report, Education for All, included in their passage on “The Concept of Pluralism”:

We consider that a multi-racial society such as ours would in fact function most effectively and harmoniously on the basis of pluralism which enables, expects and encourages members of all ethnic groups, both minority and majority, to participate fully in shaping the society as a whole within a framework of commonly accepted values, practises and procedures .whilst also allowing, and, where necessary, assisting the ethnic minority communities in maintaining their distinct ethnic identity within this common framework (p5)

Three criticisms are discussed at length in the 1988 Brandt and Muir article, that most relevant to interfaith prayer in schools is that the state is not a neutral arbitrator in matters of race and religion, as cultural pluralists hold, but is biased in favour of white Protestant ideology. Thus in state schools all teachers are required to pay some attention to Christian ideas in their teaching, and it is nearly impossible for members of non Christian religions to get funding for their schools . In wider society Anglican clergy sit in the House of Lords and the Christian religion is the only one protected in law from insult . While the ideas behind interfaith worship cannot be divorced from the cultural pluralist perspective, interfaith dialogue has also been influential, not least in legitimising the idea of different faiths praying together. For example Islam has been recognised by the Vatican Council as sharing some features of Christianity , and other Christians such as John Nicol Farquhar promoted Christian understanding of Hinduism, while Ram Mohan Roy of the Brahma Samaj movement and Swami Vivikananda of the Ramakrishna movement have both produced Hindu doctrines which are open to Christianity. However, it is important not to confuse dialogue with equivalency. Although two groups may be able to share ideas about their gods, this does not mean that they can wo