In the UK, the majority of people call themselves Christian, mostly out of a mindless repetition of what their parents used to say. Hardly any of this majority, though, pray, attend church or exhibit any identifiable characteristic of a Christian.
A large proportion of the UK, of course, is not Christian. They may be active Muslims, Buddhists or atheist.
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| God's got his fingers in education within Wales. |
Whilst I have no problem whatsoever with those of a religious persuasion, or in measured teaching of religion, I do have very great concerns about state-sponsored religious education when it is not balanced in presenting the non-religious view.
Here in Wales, a remarkable statutory requirement is in place to ensure Christian values predominate and our kids are brainwashed into becoming bible bashers. Or so they hope. Standing committees known as SACREs are in place across the nation, consisting of do-good preachers, religious zealots and such like who like to see their position as telling others what to do.
In Wales, such religious fanaticism is usually blended to make a toxic mix of public sector jobs, narrow-minded welsh nationalism and, more often than you might want to comfortably accept, membership of the Masonic lodge. In other words, these are the kinds of people that can only get on and influence the world through arse-licking and joining childish roll-up-your-trousers kids' clubs.
The harsh reality is that, whilst these committees are worrying, single-issue aberrations from the past, nobody really takes any notice of them. Most schools have simply got more important things to do.
Sitting quietly, often lax in their presentation of what actually goes on in those meetings, these SACRE men do, however, do their best to pontificate on how they can make schools - that is, our kids - more Christian. I'm not sure how many decades behind society these people are, but the sad fact for them is that whilst you may be able to just about get a kid to repeat some bible stuff because they have to, as soon as morning service is over, they ditch God. Once out of school, they overwhelmingly ditch Him for good.
It's simply a quirk of power and tradition that we still have these SACRE bodies. A once-powerful church swung legislation in its favour, whereas in Wales, such laws found willing supporters in the shape of 19th-century attitude preachers and good, old-fashioned welsh values (according to them.)
I'd be much more willing to accept SACREs were they balanced by a statutory advisory body on Science. But they aren't. In an overwhelmingly secular society, where science and technology have already pushed religion to the severe margins, there ought to be no special, separate place for religion over science.
It's time someone living in chapel la-la land looked at the statistics. If they did, they'd have to accept that Wales will never be going back to building chapels and churches around every street corner. Personally, I'd be happy to see a few mosques and synagogues popping up to add some welcome diversity in this monotonal principality. But I doubt the chapel-meisters would welcome those with open arms, because they are generally not the tolerant sort of people Jesus would have promoted.
Remarkably, whilst we in the UK think of the US as still locked in church-going and bible-bashing, that view is not generally correct when it comes to schools. It is, in fact, unlawful to promote (or inhibit) religion in US schools under the First Amendment, a remarkably democratic piece of early law-making that, sadly, has no parallel in the UK.
So, let's make an amendment of our own to change the law, ditch these outdated SACREs, and let those retired, white-haired, white-skinned chapel men go to their maker. That would be the best way to move our children - and the failed welsh education system - into a brighter future.
