Education
Another area of intense interest to the church is education. While increasing secularisation has meant that Christianity has been squeezed out of the mainstream of education in our schools, pluralism has meant that religious education is now a form of comparative religious study. Any moral element in education, such as in personal and social education (PSE), has to be taught in a non-judgmental and uncommitted way. Thus issues about sexuality, gender roles and the sanctity of life are presented in a purportedly neutral manner and the children, who lack the criteria by which to judge what is right and wrong, are even more confused and pick up their values from their peers and the media. As parents of covenant children we must make our voice heard in these matters.
How can the church, as a minority institution, influence state education? or is it time to abandon it as a lost cause and set up Christian schools? We should make full use of all the opportunities we already have, such as through Church representatives on Education Committees and parents' representatives on School Boards. There is a great public debate about education at the present time. There is a greater recognition now of the need for parent involvement in the education of their children. Parent partnership has become one of the buzz-words. Parents should be encouraged to be more involved in their local schools. They must be given every help in counteracting the effects of the secularist, pluralist agenda of state education on their children. This will require study of all the latest research and policy documents and making some input into the process of policy making. We should encourage more of our young people to become teachers of RE as well as of other subjects.
Much can be said in favour of Christian schools: for instance the opportunity to create a real Christian ethos and discipline, the opportunity for indirect evangelism, as non-Christians realise how good the school is, the opportunity for applying Biblical teaching to all areas of thought and life. The problems are also obvious: the expense, the problem of reaching agreement within any group of Christians, the danger of take-over by extremists with their own particular hobby horses, the taking away of Christian teachers from the state system, to name but a few. I believe the time has not yet come for a complete withdrawal from the state system. It may be that, as Muslims press for their children to receive an Islamic education courtesy of the state, we might have to insist on a parallel, though not separate, opportunity to pass on our culture and values to our children within the state system. At present Muslims run after-school and Saturday classes to teach Islamic culture and the Koran in Arabic. Are our Sunday Schools and home teaching succeeding in imparting to our children a competent knowledge of Scripture and applying it to everyday life?
What is needed most is informed, level-headed debate of all the issues involved, recognising that pluralism will not go away and that we have to think up new strategies of preparing our children for a very different world from the one we grew up in.