Religious Education

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I apologise for arriving late, Mr Brady, and I shall not delay hon. Members for long. I congratulate the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on securing this debate. I hope that the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) will not mind my saying this, but he gave the driest version of what religious education might involve that I have ever heard. His speech included a lot of sentences that could have ended with the word “discuss” in an essay title.

I have four brief points. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), I am not a layperson. I was ordained in 1986 in the Church of England, and that remains with me although I resigned my orders prior to entering the House. I believe strongly that the most important place where people catch faith—to use the words of the hon. Member for Southport—is in the home; the best faith education happens in the home, in a family setting.

Last night, however, I sat next to a woman who told me that although she was a strong member of her local United Reform church, and in her words a very liberal Christian, one of her sons is now an ardent evangelical who believes that she will be going into the fiery pit, and her other son is a militant atheist. None the less, she felt that she had done a good job of religious education in the home.

The question of RE in schools is vital. The subject is not an add-on; it is essential to understanding so many other subjects. Few works of English literature—apart, perhaps, from that written in the past 20 years—can be properly understood without an understanding of Christianity. It is difficult to understand many modern British novels without knowing something about Islam. Most British music—indeed, most European music from the past 800 years—is dominated by religious themes. How can one understand the history of Parliament without some reference to the religious debates that started with rows about the Lollards and went through to the disestablishment of the Church in Wales in the early 20th century?

If we wish to respond to some of the challenges of militant religion, we should perhaps be better at discussing religion in the main Chamber. Some elements of geography cannot be understood without a knowledge of religion. The relationship of Istanbul—once Constantinople—with Europe cannot be understood as a geographical entity without consideration of the religious aspect. Few modern languages do not require an understanding of religion.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that without an understanding of religion, we are left only with labels, which is a huge problem for society?

[Chris Bryant]

I was coming to that point. However, before I do, I want to say as an article of faith—and I am not a fundamentalist, either in religion or politics—that I think spirituality is a river that one cannot dam. There are hundreds of different forms of spirituality, but any education worth its salt in this country needs to give young people an opportunity to understand and develop that spirituality, so that it is fully grown and mature, not naive.

The hon. Member for Congleton referred to “a tolerant society”. I hate that term. I do not want to live in a tolerant society, because it smells of people saying, “I am prepared to put up with you.” I would much prefer to live in a respectful society. If anything, the danger of the liberal—small “l”—Britain of the past 100 years is that we have been tolerant of other religions, but never learned enough about them to be truly respectful.

In addition, we have never learned enough about Islam, or any other religion, to be able to challenge bad religion. Heaven knows, there is plenty of bad religion in society today. It is not just the British attitude that one cannot possibly talk about politics or religion at a dinner party; it is that all too often we are fundamentally ignorant about the basis of most religions. I would include in that the fact that many young people are extremely ignorant about Christianity.

My experience of Catholic teaching in many Catholic schools is that sometimes it is good and sometimes it is appalling. There is one thing that I particularly dislike: I have heard Catholic teachers refer to “Christians and Catholics”, as if non-Catholics were not Christians. I always believed the word Catholic to extend beyond. I hope all that has moved on, but I think that in some cases it has not.

I want to refer to one final matter. I happen, bizarrely, to be an external adviser on the Oxford theology degree. One of my concerns is that the number of people applying to do theology at university is dwindling. In part, that may be due to social issues, but it may also be due to the respect with which religious education is treated in the curriculum in England, Wales and Scotland. I wish it would be accorded further respect, not least because the big danger is that otherwise the courses will end up just being vocational. In other words, somebody training to be a priest goes to read theology at university and is merely trained in that narrow, prescriptive way, and does not learn about other religions or extend the course. That is a vicious circle because fewer people who have an interest in religion itself, rather than a desire to go for ordination, will take it forward.

I wholly agree with what the hon. Member for Congleton said, and I congratulate her. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us about the value that he places on religious education in schools.