Sunday 6 January 2008

"Bishop warns of Islamic areas"

Said is said.

Dr Nazir-Ali, you rock!

My latest blogpost: "Bishop warns of Islamic areas"Tweet this! Posted by Mark Wadsworth at 14:59

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wish me luck - I've begun to take a small stand today. I've just withdrawn my child from religious education at school. As it is a bog-standard state comp with no religious entailment, religion was not a condition of entry.

The school have just rung in a flap - it is very inconvenient to them as I've said I want the child out of the classroom, no just ignoring things at the back of the class. I want the child to do something useful with the saved hour; have a browse in the library, do some ICT, or brush up the Latin or maths. Don't mind which - proper history is fine by me.

I've taken the decision not because I'm implacably hostile to religion - quite the reverse - but because unless the school wishes to deliver a narrow syllabus based on a decent reading of the King James Bible, then it is really a waste of time.

The KJB is a foundation document for this country and the West, and the Enlightenment. It doesn't matter what your name is, if you are going to live here, you need have passing acquaintance with this text. Scholarly understanding is not required but without the cultural references, would you Adam and Eve it, you can't even do Cockney Rhyming Slang. Even if you think it is all unmitigated rubbish, you still need to know about it.

If the school was delivering an recognizably Judeo-Christian briefing, that would be OK, but I don't think the multi-cultural mish-mash is worth the time. There is nothing they deliver at great length and expense - because there cannot be anything without risking controversy - which could not be covered in a short, sharp booklet in year 11.

So that's my decision. They can either do proper Judeo-Christian ethics, or they can do secularism (either will suit me, I'm not fussy) but what I won't stand for is a theoretically secular position which then allows various sects including creationists, islamists, etc. to push their products.

7 January 2008 at 12:02
Mark Wadsworth said...

Good for you! I'd do the same, but both my kids go to Roman Catholic schools (they happen to be the best value private schools round here).

7 January 2008 at 12:05

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