Church and State

[yewchapel]

Yes, I know there are other faith-run state schools (I am in England :D) but they are not really on the same scale as C of E schools. I live in a rural area and luckily our village school is non-denominational. But if I had lived in the next village, I would have had the choice of a C of E school, or driving my kids several miles to a different village. My issue is that it is so unquestioning accepted that it is OK for religious organisations to be running schools. I have no objection to my children learning about religion as a subject, but I do object to a single denomination being part of the fabric of the organisation.

Faith schools are only going to get set up where there's a decent number of adherents to that faith, and in fairness a lot of non-religious parents don't have any objection to faith schools (and let's face it, CoE schools are hardly going to be fundie training camps). However, while I (admittedly an Anglican) don't mind faith schools I do think the legislation on them should be tightened - at the moment they can restrict RE lessons to just their own faith, which I think is wrong, and I also think that restricting attendance to members of that faith is totally wrong - all state schools should be open to pupils or all or no faith. I am also very suspicious of religious Academies, although I am not a fan of the Academy system anyway.

[Mama Mia]

So you have faith based schools that are paid for by the state ? This is fascinating ! The only thing remotely similar in the U.S. is the concept of vouchers - where a portion of tax funding is given to a family to use towards a private school - and it is very, very contested, and I don't think there are even states that allow it ( could be wrong )

I had no idea that church and state were so intertwined elsewhere.

[Bazile]

What is really fascinating is that we do pray here at schools do the nativity thing etc. I think it is seen as just a school thing like lumpy custard and hideous school uniforms and how many girls can faint at assembly and at which hymn. You can be excused from it if you do not identify with said religion. Whereas in the US where religion plays such a huge part in every other aspect that it is not allowed in schools. Although does school not start with a pledge of Allegiance which covers the god thing anyway?

When one thinks of a school routine you think pledge of allegiance, but in reality I only remember doing it about half the time at schools in rural North Carolina. We did it most years in elementary,but I don't remember ever doing it in high school. In middle school someone would lead the pledge over the intercom with the rest of the morning announcements, but the entire thing was almost impossible to hear over the teachers telling people to settle down and be quiet. In high school you could take Old and New Testament for elective social studies credit. I took Old Testament, and while it was taught by a local Baptist minister he started the first class out by telling us it wasn't a Bible Study but a a look at the Bible from a historical perspective. He said that we were more than willing to discuss religious issues with him and attend services at his church if we would like, at school he was there as a teacher and not a pastor. Then told us that if that was a problem and we wanted to drop the class he would write us a pass to the office to change our schedule. Except for on September 11th when he had a bunch of teenagers asking if the WTC and Pentagon attacks were signs of the apocalypse, he kept to that and would redirect if we started veering to close to having a Bible Study. And during the one exception he basically told the US wasn't really important as far as Biblical prophecies went, Israel was, and that we probably weren't going to be raptures that week.