Faith-based Education and Religious Ethos – Some Reflections

Abstract

Faith-based Education and Religious Ethos – Some Reflections1 t Michael Jackson Introduction In addressing this broad area, I want to lay out a few pointers which may help in setting the context as it impacts on me. The first is that every school has an ethos of some sort and also that religion shows no signs of going away in Ireland any time soon. The second is that no Church should be afraid of the secular and the challenges which it brings but all too often an agenda of aggressive secularisation masquerades as pluralism. The third is that ethos is, at its simplest, a habitat and a Church of Ireland ethos, particularly in an educational context, needs to be shaped by contemporary traditional Anglican principles more than it is by the mores of a social and sometimes tribal Church of Ireland. Ethos and Religion classes My heart regularly sinks when, in any discussion of education, the argument slides from ethos to Religion classes in schools. The latter has become a battle-ground about denominational and doctrinal invasion of publiclyfunded space and time. The former, I think, is different and deserves to be considered as part of a contribution to the holistic educational experience of all involved in the school; it has, however, become embroiled in the former and is manifestly part of the controversy. In the situation in which I have obligations as patron, the argument sometimes advanced now is to the effect that schools under Church of Ireland management should have only practising Church of Ireland pupils in their classrooms. To me this causes untold problems of imposed lack of diversity. I think that ethos is quite different from religious instruction, because it offers a shape to the life of a school which is formed and sustained by specific values. These pervade and proof how people behave towards one another and how they exercise the opportunities to think with responsibility and to form opinion with integrity, in the particular context which education affords. It Michael Jackson Studies • volume 108 • number 429 74 is this word ethos which I should like to explore. And, at the end of the day, I can explore it most pertinently from an Anglican perspective, that is, as Christianity lived and argued from Anglican principles because I am an Anglican Christian. Theocracy and secularisation Faith-based education per se has in recent times raised more questions and antagonisms than it used to do. I suggest a number of reasons. People in Ireland today generally have much greater confidence in challenging theocracies and, viewed from both history and living experience, Ireland in both its parts still has strong overtones of religious belief and practice. Even if many in Ireland decry this as some sort of failure on the part of the societies to evolve seamlessly towards Godlessness, this is what characterises a significant number of Irish people. Visitors from outside notice it, even if we do not. Politically, there is a groundswell of opinion that secularisation of itself creates a wider platform of choice and capacity for decision in a way which is not compromised either by settled and stale positions or by the circularity of religious argument which, of itself, makes too many presuppositions and takes too many liberties. The tension seems to me to be one played out by those who are ultimately using arguments against the existence of a God who intervenes in a transformative sense in the lives of individuals and communities for good, and against a Constitution which safeguards the entitlement of parents and guardians to have their children educated in an environment which reflects and implements in daily life their religious tradition. Such religious positions, it is argued, were taken up and embedded when there was a totally different worldview and therefore have no relevance in a ‘new and secular Ireland’. Into this well-oiled debate, I would simply wish to say that, from my own perspective, people like me who are involved in a full-time way in religion and its dynamic are well aware that the old Christendom model is long over. In fact, it is very much an impediment in what I call the contemporary experiment in...