The Red Beach School Bible

At a meeting yesterday we heard from the Chaplain-at-Large of the inner city that Auckland has over 250 distinct ethnicities, more than Sydney or London. That must reflect a huge number of different religions.

Which seems to give some point to the complaint of Jeff McLintock to the Human Rights Commission about the Values in Action programme at Red Beach School, just over the road from our home. It is clear that the Values in Action curriculum has moved a long way from what used to be called "Bible in Schools". And it certainly doesn't appear to engage in the disgraceful, fundamentalist kind of "evangelism" that led me to refuse to participate in religious instruction in schools fifty years ago.

But the two sample lessons on the VIA website are both coat-hangered on passages from the sacred writings of just one religion. This may be thought to be OK in somewhat monocultural Red Beach - though Jeff McLintock, from the perfectly legitimate perspective of one with no religion, obviously doesn't agree. The VIA religious emphasis would certainly be quite unacceptable for the inner city as we heard it described yesterday. And the discomfort for children of parents who "opt out" of any "voluntary" programme - as distinct from "opting in" to a programme of personal choice - must surely be a matter of concern.

The style of the VIA looks great. I recall having some really stimulating times with school children in Panmure in 1964, involving them in these kinds of discussions. But what other volunteers taught in those days discredited whatever values a few of us managed to convey. So I became a conscientious objector to religious education in schools.

While I remain unconvinced that that faith can be "taught" I am all in favour of encouraging children to explore "values" in the school setting. But tackling values through the faith of just one religious group says something a little negative about the values of those who do it.

Go Opua School!

I hear that the Board of Trustees of one of our local schools last night voted to cease religious instruction as from the end of the year. Before a storm of protest breaks out among the local Christians, let me place on record that I am not greatly troubled. Indeed, as a conscientious objector to leading such classes myself for some 50 years, I am somewhat gratified.

I understand the Board voted primarily because they had a problem with the growing number of children whose parents asked them to be excused. It seems only one Trustee actually objected to the content and delivery though I understand the probability is that the local volunteer teachers were sitting very loosely to the official guidelines of the NZ Churches Christian Education Commission.

Nearly 60 schools in this country have relinquished religious instruction in the last couple of years. This is consistent with our 1877 Education Act which stated that education should be free, compulsory and secular. For one and a half centuries, enthusiasts have been finding ways around the secular clause and squeezing “Bible in Schools” and other such programmes into the school year.

Had this determined assault by well-meaning Christians produced a country of devout Christian citizens all this voluntary effort might have been justified. But the evidence is that NZ continues to lead the way in secularisation in the Western world. Attempting to “teach” the faith to children in the public school does not produce faith-full adults. Indeed, some suggest that it actually provides a barrier to serious reflection as an adult. Certainly my experience in dealing with people beyond the Church has been that I get a better hearing among those who don’t carry around a package of childhood knowledge of “Bible stories”, never mind threats of hellfire and damnation on sinners.