JME 2006 - 8 - Gates (Religion Et Citizenship)

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Journal of Moral Education

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Religion as cuckoo or crucible: beliefs and believing as vital for citizenship and citizenship education
Brian E. Gates
a a
St Martin's College, UK
Version of record first published: 28 Nov 2006.
To cite this article: Brian E. Gates (2006): Religion as cuckoo or crucible: beliefs and believing as vital for citizenship and citizenship education, Journal of Moral Education, 35:4, 571-594 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057240601025677
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Journal of Moral Education Vol. 35, No. 4, December 2006, pp. 571594
Religion as cuckoo or crucible: beliefs and believing as vital for citizenship and citizenship education
Brian E. Gates*
St Martins College, UK
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The importance of motivational beliefs and, more specifically, religion, is identified as central for both citizenship and citizenship education. Whether they take an expressly religious form, or appear in a purportedly more open form, such as faith or world view, beliefs are at the core of human being. The tendency to speak more of shared values than beliefs in the context of educating citizens is open to question values are not necessarily any more universally agreed, since they too are affected by beliefs. Moreover, the presumption of secularisation, that religious believing is fast disappearing, is itself now exposed as strangely dated. Beliefs, often explicitly religious beliefs, are fundamental in national constitutions. Thus, religion may inspire a critique of a nations behaviour; religion will also need to be subject to critique. How to build an opportunity for understanding and critiquing beliefs into any public educational system is a major challenge. The provision for Religious Education (RE) in England is taken as an example of this challenge being directly addressed as a necessary complement to any separate policy for character education, citizenship education and/or moral education in whatever form they exist. RE is able to home in on the religious plurality which figures in national and international life. Understanding of the insights and contentions of religions in all their plurality is a source of illumination for citizens wherever they are in the world
Being a citizen has an outward face, but an interior animation. Like those of an automobile its visible appearance and performance will be what is commonly noticed and measured, but what is under its bonnet or hood will be its major determinant. This article will argue that the qualities of what is seen as citizenship and citizenship education are significantly impeded unless special attention is paid to the more interior motivational beliefs from which they derive real potency. This must include a readiness to scrutinise religion and to be scrutinised by it, for religion is the engine of belief. And yet in practice, the dimension of belief, as most especially constituted in religious form, is widely neglected. This is true of English educators and their counterparts in other western liberal settings in the discourse of both citizenship and citizenship education. What strangely monochrome and peaceable world are they
*Division of Religion & Philosophy, St Martins College, Lancaster, LA1 3JD, UK. Email: b.gates@ucsm.ac.uk ISSN 0305-7240 (print)/ISSN 1465-3877 (online)/06/040571-24 # 2006 Journal of Moral Education Ltd DOI: 10.1080/03057240601025677
572 B. E. Gates living in? It has been exposed by global events to be a blind spot that warrants urgent attention. Beliefs and values in the arena of citizenship What it means to be a citizen can vary according to how belonging is understood from one nation state to another. The very notion of nation state, with high intensity administrative order, has itself evolved into global usage relatively recently (Giddens, 1987). Yet the clustering of peoples into distinctive groups based on language, culture, territory and shared beliefs goes back several thousand years. Some are political nations wherein nationality derives from country of birth (ius soli), others are ethnic nations with membership through parental inheritance (ius sanguinis) (Krejci, 2004). And whether described as tribe or clan, nation or empire, the language of religion has invariably been involved in the history of their social ordering (Toynbee, 1976), and, in turn, carried over into assumptions as to what is expected of one who belongs, as also of those defined as outsiders (Marshall & Williams, 1982). These expectations are invariably set within a working framework of beliefs and values which give the nation a distinctive identity, and which form the basis of its constitution. Moreover, the forms through which national identity is appropriated and expressed are often as much emotional as they are conceptually elaborated. This applies within all of the current 193 independent nation states, each with its own flag, symbolising loyalty to a greater entity, in reference to which individuals can feel and know a sense of collective belonging (Nations Online http://www.nationsonline. org/oneworld). It is no surprise therefore that the chants, songs and anthems heard at both national and international sporting events reveal religious sentiments mingling within the beliefs and values of the spectators wherever they are. Similarly, the gestures and prayers of individual athletes reveal the intensity of conviction which commonly motivates their performance. Leaving aside the notion of the sporting citizen, citizenship has many other social and political spheres of operation. These include employment, law and order1, health and welfare, family obligation, media communications, electoral representation and the environment. They comprise both explicit and implicit expressions of citizenship, since revenue from public taxation is as necessary for the function of the nation state as the bloodstream to the human body, yet no less taken for granted. The scope of Citizenship Education needs therefore to be enlarged to give attention to the more implicit expressions as well as those which are supposedly more actively participatory. In each of these spheres, the act of believing, as well as valuing, on the part of individuals is involved, with such issues as: why work?; on what basis are different modes of employment viewed as more or less important?; why bother at all with society?; what claims, if any, do the dead have over the living? Where the prevailing social context is sensed as grossly unfair, perhaps because of inequalities in wealth and resource allocation that lead to premature death, individuals and groups may challenge their national government by engaging in
Religion as cuckoo or crucible 573 acts of resistance which may be non-violent or violent in form. These actions will be based on beliefs and values. These same beliefs may in some settings take on extreme forms, wherein the enemy becomes demonised and all manner of aggression and retribution is given licence. Instead of the boundaries of belief regarding who matters as inclusive of all humanity, they are redrawn so that some people are believed to be dispensable, even to the point of their warranting elimination. The subsequent cocktail of beliefs whether nationalist, tribal or even internationalist in form mixed more often than not with distorted religion, becomes a deadly poison which attacks the heart of any form of citizenship which wants to acknowledge the independent worth of others. Throughout the arena of citizenship, the beliefs and values of individuals and communities are involved. And this is true even when mercenary or criminal interests are a corrupting presence, since they rely on different beliefs, which actively ignore or reject the claims of a more responsible citizenship. Corrupt societies and governments only magnify the vulnerability of individuals to such distortion. This is not the place to debate the priority of beliefs over values. Instead, the article proceeds with the claim that they beat from the same heart, so that values are usually consonant with beliefs, though behaviour (for the better or worse) may belie both. It also claims that a neglect of the religious character and ingredient in beliefs and believing shows a lack of realism, which consciously or unconsciously may itself be ideologically driven. Whereas values have received attention in the arena of Citizenship Education, beliefs have not. Religion: the name of the game? By focusing on beliefs and believing, my intention is to highlight this strand of human identity as one which is often overlooked, even though it is pervasive in everyday behaviour. It is not my argument that all belief is religious, although belief often is. Some expressly reject that label (the secularist or the atheist) and some believing is of a different order (simply a matter of taste or preference e.g. that the music of Dylan is better than Eminem). However, after Phenix (1964), taking religion to be the most comprehensive, determinative, ultimate and intensive of all realms of human meaning, links intrinsically with the beliefs that matter most to people. Overall, the act of believing is at the core of citizenship, since both its more passive and more participatory forms are expressions of deeply felt assumptions and convictions about the nature of human being and of social and political belonging. There is a cluster of words, which relate to this area of human existence. One is trust, without which, according to personal experience and the weight of social scientific findings, lives fall apart. The sense of trust, or the lack of it, is established in earliest childhood years (Bowlby, 1984). It is extended outward from nurturing relationships to the wider world. Another is faith, which is co-terminous, as in having faith in someone or something. There are affective and cognitive components of each, and their vitality depends on both as a guard against the deceptions of a blinkered sense of faith or trust which is lacking in discernment.
574 B. E. Gates Belief takes on a more predominantly cognitive connotation, especially when it takes the form of belief that rather than belief in, but believing is more than skin deep.2 Evidently then, trust, faith and belief are each both cognitive and affective in different ways. In their elaborated forms trust, faith and belief become belief systems, philosophies of life, faiths to live by, religious convictions and theologies. Each of these terms has its own connotations. Theology is perhaps the most specific: though it has variants both between and within particular religions, it is usually taken to include belief in God. Religious conviction is less specific, since there are many different ways of being religious, including non-theistic ones, such as Confucian or Theravadan Buddhist. The term faiths has also come to lose its specificity. Where once it was commonly taken to have an expressly religious connotation, it is now used in a more openly inclusive way to include secular humanist philosophies. In the USA, James Fowlers influential usage defines it as
a human universal. Most often it comes to expression and accountability through the symbols, rituals and beliefs of particular religious traditions But faith is not always religious in the cultural or institutional sense In the midst of the many powers and demands pressing upon us, enlarging and diminishing us, it orients us toward centers of power and value which promise to sustain our lives, and to guarantee more being. (Fowler, 1980, p.53; cf.1981)
Within the UK, over the last fifteen years some within the British Humanist Association have described their own position as one which has the form of faith. Though this is contentious with some, who take a more exclusively rationalist and secularist line, it has also come to be used by a recent Secretary of State for Education to articulate his own secular humanism (Clarke, 2006). Another term, which has had some academic currency is world view (Smart, 1999a). It has the potential advantage of German equivalence in weltanschauung, but is taken by some to be more explicitly political and less attentive to the depth and intensity of religious conviction. Similarly, ideology, has comparable breadth but is often given the narrower scope of exclusively political connotation and one abstracted from personal experience. That leaves two other related terms, philosophy and spirituality. Philosophy often suffers from a narrowed interpretation, reduced to logic or empiricism, and poorly tuned to receive complementary wavelengths of meaning. The richer sense of philosophy identified by Smart (1999b), drawing on classical traditions of both East and West, comes closer to the realm of belief and religion. Its connotations may include sagacity and wisdom, spiritual analysis, speculative cosmology, fathoming of mystery and asking searching questions. These go to the heart of believing and trade easily in the language of religion. Finally, spirituality has for many in recent decades come to be preferable to religion (Heelas et al., 2004; Tacey, 2004). In part this may be because it is seen as more inclusive, less institutionally hard-edged and much closer to the real heart of humanity. But its territory is still that of deep believing, with a special emphasis on inwardness, and its link back into philosophy and religion has been powerfully expounded by Cottingham (2005).
Religion as cuckoo or crucible 575 Reverting momentarily to the word religion, it is vital to recognize that behind it is the range of different connotations associated with each of these other terms. There is also the flow of personal meanings, which make up each religious tradition, within which insider individuals will themselves vary in both the understanding of what that tradition means and the degree to which they would wish to identify with it. Although religion has the ring of dependability in what it points to, at any one time its resonance and vitality is fluid in character. My point in all this is that citizenship without believing, philosophy of life, faith to live by, or religious conviction is likely to be hollow-hearted and perfunctory. It lacks the crucial springs of action. Accordingly, an approach to citizenship education, which does not expressly include this strand of human identity risks surface skating and missing an opportunity to become more deeply engaged in the process of social and political enlivenment. There is an urgent need for disciplined attention to the rationality and emotional integrity of believing and its development. The bracketing of beliefs, especially those described as religious Throughout much of the discourse of citizenship and citizenship education rather more reference is made to values and valuing than to beliefs and believing. This is evident from North America, as reflected in recent overviews of the related literature, such as Althof and Berkowitz (2006) in this Special Issue or Lapsley and Narvaez (2006) on character education. Again, in a review of what can be learned from US- sponsored aid investments in Civic Education throughout the world, whilst there are no references to religion, just two to family beliefs and two to democratic beliefs and practices, there are 40 to values (USA. Office of Democracy and Governance, 2002). From the UK, the justly influential Crick Report (Great Britain (GB). DfEE, 1998), which legitimised the introduction of Citizenship Education in England, makes 57 references to values, but only two to beliefs and three to religion and these latter only as a part of a list. The subsequent specification for Citizenship Education in the National Curriculum speaks frequently of human rights, but does not consider from where they derive. Instead of referring to beliefs, it uses the term point of view (GB. Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), 2000). More recently, the point is reinforced by the new handbook Developing citizens (Breslin & Dufour, 2006). In the 36 chapters, by as many glitterati of the field in England, beliefs do not figure and the only references to religion come in the one excellent chapter on Religious Education (RE) by Keast (2006), a specialist in the subject. There may be several reasons for these oversights, but the three most influential ones are as follows. The first is the implicit view that there is greater commonality regarding values than there is about beliefs. Lists of moral values associated with what it means to be a good citizen, do indeed, share many features across nations, cultures and religions. They include such virtues as telling the truth, care for neighbours, protection of the vulnerable, respect for the environment and avoidance of murder. Although
576 B. E. Gates consensus is far from complete, recurrent features also extend to respect for property, promise keeping, partner fidelity, loyalty to the nation, care for other living creatures. A supportive invocation may also be made to the theory of natural rights or the universal declaration of human rights, sometimes drawing on the classical western tradition of natural law, but much less frequently on its ancient Indian and Chinese parallels. Ironically, although not advertised, any such invocation indicates implicit belief in their worth, and, as will be illustrated below, even legally attested versions of constitutional rights are themselves ultimately dependent upon such belief. In such affirmations of shared values, what is also commonly glossed over is not that they are in practice often interpreted differently, but that the interpretations rely on a persons predominating beliefs. For instance, in the case of truth-telling, what is believed to be the relative importance of the letter and the spirit of whats true? With regard to promise keeping, I might believe that promises are good so long as they suit my own convenience. As for caring for neighbours, I might believe in this more as an idea than in practice, and, of course, that my own immediate family must come first. My perceptions of need to protect the vulnerable may be influenced by whether I believe that all forms of human life, however embryonic or decrepit, are of equal worth. Similarly, I may well believe that any threat to my own life should in all circumstances be countered, even if it means the death of others. By contrast, I may believe that property rights are of far less importance than human welfare; yet another may believe them to be inviolable. And, as for showing respect to other living creatures as well as to human beings, my vegetarian beliefs may be (but not always) health related, species selective or extending to even the lowliest of life forms, including plants and even flames (which some Jains would defer from extinguishing). The suggestion that shared values and common sense morality are themselves subject to a persons fundamental beliefs and an act of believing needs to be further qualified. Those beliefs may be explicitly systematised and articulated, or could be if necessary, but they are just as likely to be implicitly habitual. This does not mean that they should be discounted as unreliable, or that only the former matter. On the contrary, personal believing, however inchoate, has its own internal coherence and conviction, as the individual works with his/her own sense of identity, meaning and purpose in living and dying. A second explanation of the apparent reluctance to give as much attention to beliefs as to values is heightened recognition of the diversities of beliefs and opinions. Travellers tales of the variety of local customs and beliefs, as found in foreign lands, have been around for thousands of years, but the systematic documentation of such has led philosophers and social scientists in more recent centuries to talk the language of cultural relativity. More extensive travelling in the shape of mass tourism reinforced this outside the academic world. Similarly, vicarious exposure, through television, to very different ways of believing and behaving socially, has given further impetus to the attitude of superficial tolerance of diversity, so that one persons ways have often been seen as good as anothers. Even if not totally abandoned,
Religion as cuckoo or crucible 577 overarching beliefs and the importance of meta-narratives have tended to take on a lower profile, or allowed to hold their sway as simply peculiar. The third reason for relatively greater attention being given to the matter of values and valuing rather than beliefs and believing is the double-fronted impact of secularity. On the one side was the dominating trend in much western political thinking and related academic scholarship from the 1960s to the 1990s that religious beliefs and believing were on the wane. The combined insights from the natural and social sciences were received as explaining away the meaning and worth of any religious frame of reference. There really was no need of such hypotheses. And especially in European countries institutional religious practice was seen as in terminal decline. This view sometimes took a hardened secularist form which was abrasive in its critique of any religious claims and intent on exterminating them.3 Perhaps more often, the view was simply appropriated by futurologists and the media as a cultural given, without any need for careful and extensive scrutiny (Lorie & Murray-Clark, 1989). Such devaluation may be implicit in the thinking of some social and political psychologists in undervaluing the variable of religion in survey work. Admittedly, it sometimes shows up as statistically insignificant, but that may simply be because what is being measured is, for instance, institutional attendance, rather than one of the many other potential aspects of believing or being religious. It is certainly significant that the massive International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement Citizenship survey across 28 countries makes little attempt to be more sensitive in the matter of beliefs and religion (Torney-Purta et al., 2001). The other side of the impact of secularity arose as a spin-off from the separation of church and state, for example, in the USA constitution. Whilst potentially prizing religion in its separateness, there was an effective banishment of it from the public square, so that it did not need to be given any particular attention, and most especially not in schools where it would immediately invite controversy (Carter, 1993; McGraw, 2003; Gates, 2004). Any bracketing out of religion from the attention of politicians and from public education, whether due to these or other reasons, has latterly become much more difficult to justify. The beliefs dimension of human behaviour has suddenly taken on a higher profile in being a citizen. The actions of the suicide bomber are regarded as relativising the beliefs which inform national citizenship by appeal to a different order involving what is understood to be in the interests of a greater global justice, and theologically endorsed. The beliefs which endorse the claims and counter claims of different orders of citizenship have been highlighted. Religious beliefs and citizenship in national/international constitutions Citizenship of a particular country, empire or commonwealth is usually associated with certain formally attached conditions. It may be acquired by birthright or special adoption. Moreover, whilst the sense of being a citizen of a particular nation is
578 B. E. Gates sometimes central to a persons consciousness, more often it lies dormant, reactivated quite one-sidedly during international sporting competitions, trade disputes or even bloodier conflicts. A check on the constitutions of individual countries, as also on those of wider international entities, is revealing. They are all conveniently accessible on the following websites: Political Science Resources at Keele University UK (Keele, 2006), the Richmond University Constitutions Finder (Richmond, 2006) and the Texas-based Constitutions Society (2006). Virtually all constitutions involve some affirmative belief statement as to the identity, purpose and worth of the nation or the other entity in question. Thus, that of Switzerland (adopted by public referendum in 1999) begins, In the name of God Almighty , and that of Indonesia (adopted at Independence in 1945) with, The state shall be based in the belief in the One and Only God. Chinas constitution (confirmed 2004) is more elaborate: The Peoples Republic of China is a socialist state under the peoples democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants (Article 1). The state organs of the Peoples Republic of China apply the principle of democratic centralism (Article 3). The state advocates the civic virtues of love of the motherland, of the people, of labour, of science, and of socialism; it educates the people in patriotism, collectivism, internationalism and communism and in dialectical and historical materialism (Article 24). Once a constitution is formally promulgated and adopted, or accumulated by precedent (not every country has a written constitution, for example, the UK), it takes on the force of law. Whichever form it takes, even then, its credibility still rests upon personal convictions collectively expressed, which in turn look to others to share in those beliefs. The extent to which, if at all, overtly religious belief figures in the foundations of a state varies considerably. There are countries which declare their Muslim identities, most of which do so in such a way that makes it clear that Islam will be the singular religious ingredient in any citizenship education. This is true of Malaysia (adopted 1957) and Pakistan (adopted 1999), as also of most Arab countries. However, of the 44 countries with predominantly Muslim populations, only 10 are Islamic states, with constitutions determined by shariah law. Because of the secular constitution established by Atatu rk (adopted 1920), Turkeys is more qualified than most countries with a predominant Muslim population in this regard. Even so, Islam provides the normative context overall, continuing in subsequent revisions, including recently (2004), pertaining to prospective membership of the European Union. With education in mind, Lebanon (adopted 1926), more exceptionally, acknowledges Christian alongside Muslim interests.4 Elsewhere, Cambodia (adopted 1999) declares its Buddhist identity, as does Thailand. And Vietnam (adopted 1992) joins China in prizing its Socialist credentials. Many European countries which would once have boasted a Christian (Orthodox, Protestant or Roman Catholic) allegiance, now do so in a more qualified way. There is now no established church in Spain (since 1978) or Finland (Seppo, 2004), and
Religion as cuckoo or crucible 579 an official government commission has recently recommended separation in Norway (Church of Norway, 2006). Less predictably, in some countries, for example, the Russian Federation (adopted 1993), the Orthodox Church is re-establishing its position, institutionally both in its preferential status in relation to other denominations and religions and its normative status for the school curriculum and popular mind set5 (Verkhovsky, 2003). In other countries, the religious association is being downplayed. The French model since 1789 has been deliberately secularist: France is an indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic (Article 2). Some would say that the strictness of interpretation of secularity has been at the expense of the fractured social fabric. They point to the correlation of urban riots and disproportionately high unemployment rate within Muslim communities (Cesari, 2005). Certainly, for the time being, trappings of religion are banned from schools, both from pupil adornment and from the curriculum. Two other secular models away from Europe do it differently. In the USA, resistance to one established religion derived from the Christian convictions which the early seventeenth century settlers took with them from Europe. Wariness with regard to religion in the public school system has proved a deterrent in many states against the federal option to teach about religion (Nord & Haynes, 1998). In India, too, sensitivity to the plurality of religions at the time of Independence and Partition led Congress to insist that the constitution should be secular (Baird, 1992), thereby deliberately establishing the principle that all the religious traditions of India matter equally. Over fifty years later, there is now an emerging acknowledgement that religion is too important to have been consequently left out of the school curriculum, although as yet it simply figures within Peace Education (Government of India. National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), 2005). Congruent with membership of the United Nations, the principle of freedom of religious belief has become normative, although what that means in practice varies considerably, not least in an educational context. It is not unusual for there to be a stipulation within national constitutional clauses that if beliefs are perceived to threaten the health of the nation, they will be controlled. This is widely used as a response to groups identified as cults, and notoriously in China, in spite of acknowledgement of more mainstream religions, applied to followers of the Falun Gong (Matas & Kilgour, 2006).6 Religion as a challenge to national citizenship Anthropology and sociology make clear that religion thrives in small-scale societies and tribal contexts, and that there, as in other social settings, it can serve to support the immediate status quo and authority structures (the chief, the shaman, the tribal elders), or, indeed, to point beyond them. The history of religions also makes it clear that religions often endorse particular nationalisms, not least with the notion of Divine Right of Kings.7 However; unless their theologies are exhaustively identified with that status quo, voices from within the
580 B. E. Gates religion typically spy out such localising limitations and point beyond them. My nation right or wrong is just bad theology, for its sense of any transcendent reality is too small a category mistake, which sees a part as though it were the whole. Where the voices of more global horizons are weak internally, there is commonly a louder shout from religious believers from the same or other traditions elsewhere, as is presently happening in criticism of the northern based government in the Sudan by other Muslims and the World Council of Churches. With some notorious consequences, the 1889 Meiji constitution established state Shinto, centred on the Japanese Imperial Order, and it became an example of religion turned in on itself. When its outward forms were largely dismantled in 1945, it had been challenged not only by the Allied war effort, but by other versions of Shinto (Sect and Shrine) (Smart, 1992). Some versions of the Chosen status of the People of Israel distort that, so that it becomes a position of exclusive and superior supremacy, quite belying the sense of servanthood and universalism found in Biblical Torah and Prophets. As in the oft misremembered cartoon story of Jonah, these also tell that the nation of Israel, along with other nations, is found morally wanting by God and in need of penitence. Similarly, whilst some Brahmins would argue that being Hindu is only feasible for one born on the sacred soil of India, and then within a hierarchically restricted pattern of relationships (Burghart, 1987), others see their faith as quintessentially bringing all beings into the position of mutual recognition and interdependence irrespective of national or species-based origins. Christians from the first century onwards may have shown regard for national and imperial leaders, but they have also had strong convictions about the whole inhabited earth as looking for a new ordering which is characterised by justice and peace. The House of Islam since the time of Muhammad has been in tension with the House of Darkness, which is the rest of the world; but all creation, all humanity, derives from the one God. Religions, by definition, point beyond themselves. There is a distinctive point here about the claims of nationalism: they are relativised by religions when religions are true to their own proper credentials. Of course, there are many instances where religions have been domesticated and tamed to some local end, as already instanced, and as in the case of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. But, where they are true to the best in their traditions, religions point beyond themselves to greater contours of concern. Far from having God on their side, the Godness of God is always also elsewhere and with others as well. Unfortunately, not all relativising of inflated nationalisms by religions is admitted by those same religions as needing to be applied to their own institutional operations. This is especially true when the institutions of a particular religion claim for themselves the power of God and become absolutised. Speaking theologically, such a move must be blasphemous, for there is no God but God. God may be in an individual, in a group of individuals, but God as God must remain more than such, or else misperceived and falsely delimited. If such tendencies can be detected in the Bharatiya Janata Party in India, as in certain politicised manifestations of Islam
Religion as cuckoo or crucible 581 (militant jihadists) or Christianity (militant crusaders), then they deserve to be exposed by the global theologies of their own traditions. Human institutions are fallible, and that needs to be acknowledged by both religions and constitutions. This self-deceiving category mistake was evident in the two great pseudo- religions of the twentieth century (Cohn, 1993). Nazism and Russian Communism each sought to create larger entities than had previously existed. They broke up ethnic boundaries and nationalisms in the pursuit of what they perceived as some greater humanity. But the scale of human devastation that was given licence by their relativising of local loyalties only became fully revealed in retrospect, in the murdering of millions of Jews (Katz, 1994) and Kulaks (Applebaum, 2004). Religions, pseudo or apparently authentic, may indeed challenge limited horizons of citizenship, but they, too, need checks against their own inflated egos. Citizenship in the Third Reich or the USSR was based on its own version of legal rationality rooted in particular beliefs of religious proportions. Those could only be exposed and defeated if they were challenged by other more humanly comprehensive beliefs, combining both religious and moral force. Once again the argument is being advanced that there is a belief dimension to being a citizen. The believing in question may take moral, political and/or religious forms. Accordingly, education for citizenship will be significantly lacking unless it engages directly with beliefs and believing. A long educational revolution: responding to the plurality of citizens beliefs in the UK Nations and religious communities alike have been traditionally reluctant to encourage opportunities for challenge to their authority. It is as though there is some institutional drive to favour uniformity. Yet, it is now more usual than not, across both nation states and faith communities, for the integrity of individual conscience to be affirmed. It figures within the apologetic of every world religion. And it is built into the Declaration of Human Rights, which most nations have signed in joining the United Nations.8 In effect, that is an acknowledgement that not everyone will think alike. Although the principle of conscientious objection in times of war has never been universally acknowledged, how and how well a nation makes provision for its objectors is a fair test of its readiness to admit its own limitations. So, with religion is respect for dissidents within its own traditions. One further sign of mature democracy is that it not only permits dissent, but that it also provides opportunities for the grounds of differences to be understood. Patently, the contemporary world is host to an even greater variety of mutually challenging beliefs than it already was 2000 years ago, though the extent of that itself is often under-estimated. The strength of adherence to particular belief systems moral, political and/or religious varies within countries and continents. Nowhere, however, is it the case that only one belief will be found, and even in a society which is relatively monochrome in prevailing belief, degrees of believing as well as other beliefs will be uttered by individuals (that glorious human capacity to think
582 B. E. Gates unpredictably) as brought home by one or other of the electronic media which now abound. Because religious beliefs have had such a central role in most notions of national identity, it is reasonable to consider one example of the ways in which their plurality is being sensitively affirmed and worked with in an educational context. It may be that, when done well, such affirmation already provides some degree of citizenship education. It may also be that in countries wherein the feasibility of such religious education remains unlikely at least in the near future, the model will be illuminating for what might be done additionally under the formal heading of citizenship education. The educational process involved is one of critical engagement rather than passive instruction. In the course of deepening appreciation of the beliefs of others, it encourages young people to think for themselves. The model chosen is from England, which as a society manifests all the signs of the globally mixed economy of beliefs: Christian by inheritance and the selfascription of over two-thirds of the population; secularising in that its social fabric increasingly operates independently of a particular faith allegiance; and religiously diverse, with Muslims as the largest religious minority (GB. Office for National Statistics, 2001). (Without claiming that this religious demography is typical, it is worth remarking in passing that, in one form or another, one-third of the worlds population identifies with Christianity, one-fifth with Islam and one-sixth with no particular religion (Barrett, Kurian & Johnson, 2001)). What is special about the English model is that it begins by taking beliefs and believing very seriously within the context of public education. The political recognition of the diversity of beliefs in the UK has been a long revolution over four centuries. In terms of its recognition within the context of publicly funded education the time frame is shorter. State funding for schools only began in 1870 when a partnership was established with the agreement that church and state would collaborate in providing for the nations educational needs. Though only a part of these needs, the matter of beliefs remained fundamental. In 1944, amidst heightened WW2 consciousness of the explosive power of beliefs, a new Education Act decreed that all schools should provide Religious Education (GB. Statutes, 1944). Beliefs and believing were seen to matter for all children and young people, but what was to be believed was acknowledged as contentious. Schools owned by the churches (Church of England, Free Church and Roman Catholic) and Jewish community, yet receiving public funding, had discretion about this denominational RE. In local education authority (LEA) schools, the syllabus had to be locally agreed by a conference comprising representatives of teachers, politicians and the churches. There was also a conscience clause ensuring the right of parents to withdraw their children from any RE; this is still in place (Louden, 2004). From 1944 to the mid 1970s, these Agreed Syllabuses were Biblically based, thereby providing a common denominator across the main differences of belief, including the Jewish community. Thereafter, the syllabuses (starting with that from the City of Birmingham (1975)) began to take account of other religious traditions. This development was formally acknowledged and reinforced by the 1988
Religion as cuckoo or crucible 583 Education Reform Act (GB. Statutes, 1988). The ERA stipulated that Religious Education in LEA schools should take account of Christianity and the other principal religious traditions of the UK; these were understood to be Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh.9 No syllabus which ignored them would be legal. The membership of Agreed Syllabus Conferences, which have the role of agreeing any local syllabus, needed to be enlarged to reflect the diversity of beliefs. This also applied to the Standing Advisory Councils for RE (SACREs) which were then required to continually support and monitor the provision. With due attention to the nature of religious diversity on the ground locally, attention to plurality of religious beliefs subsequently became the established norm for primary and secondary schools. In 2004 there was a further development. RE provision nationally in England and Wales is varied as a result of denominational schools providing education for around one-quarter of all pupils and the existence of many different locally agreed syllabuses. (Potentially these are as many as 150, but in practice far less because some LEAs adopt syllabuses agreed by other authorities.) Following extensive consultation with faith communities, and the British Humanist Association, and interested academic and professional associations, the government published a National Framework for RE (GB. QCA, 2004). Although it is non-statutory, it is intended to convey the spirit of good RE across all publicly funded, including denominational/faith,10 schools throughout England. One of its distinctive features is that it sets out expectations from RE for all pupils between the ages of 3 to 19 years. Rather than specifying the details of content, which remain within local or denominational discretion, it indicates its expectation that every child will be exposed to the diversity of religious beliefs, that their understanding will go beyond surface meanings, and depth and discernment will be encouraged in whatever personal beliefs an individual student comes to hold. There is no assumption that this public provision for RE will be a substitute for RE within a home or parental faith community. However, it is presupposed that the various faith perspectives which are encountered in school will be authentically explored hence the involvement of men and women from different religious communities in the local syllabus conferences and support councils. The potential contribution from RE to the believing that informs an individual students sense of citizenship is therefore intended to be real, and open (Gates, 2007, forthcoming). Citizen as familiar face or foreign foe In this English context, because of daily exposure to those from different backgrounds, learning to read and understand religious and cultural diversity is an important social skill. Being able to explain and corroborate what I and others believe, where we agree and disagree, is an important philosophical and communicative skill. The National Framework is clear that such skills are vital for any educated citizen. Irrespective of the extent to which it makes sense to try to identify shared values, there should be no false pretence that deep down everyone
584 B. E. Gates believes the same, as in some legendary common core of religions. There should be neither wilful exaggeration of difference between religions to exacerbate conflict nor immediate rubbishing of a belief simply because it is a bit different from usual. Learning to become not just literate and numerate, but also religiate is designed to remove false stumbling blocks between people who believe differently, whilst opening new vistas on living that may not have been previously noticed. Forty years ago, there was a current slogan heard in Vietnam: Kill a Commie for Christ. This year in the Lebanon, a similar slogan has been heard: Killing a Jew brings you closer to God. Both slogans thrive on ignorance.11 It is not uncommon amongst the Muslim Arab populations of the Middle East for the Jew to be perceived as an interloper who has dispossessed the Palestinian people from their rightful land, and to have done that arrogantly and belligerently. Much more rarely expressed in the Middle East is an awareness of the systematic brutality of the Nazi extermination camps, or the centuries of pogroms which preceded them in the other countries of European Christendom. On the contrary, the malicious anti-semitic forgery, known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was first circulated in Russia in the 1890s, is now regularly shown in serialised cartoon form on peak time TV throughout Middle Eastern countries, and it is received as true.12 The caricature of the Jews as the wicked source of misery amongst Muslims is all too similar to their centuries old caricature amongst Christians as money-grubbing, brothel keeping, spreaders of plague and kidnappers of young boys. Elsewhere in the world, it has not been uncommon for Muslims to be portrayed as fatalistically indifferent to human life. The violence of the Crusades in the Middle Ages is portrayed as Muslim, and only defensively as Christian (Kedar, 1984; Frassetto & Blanks, 1999). According to some media comment, todays suicide bombers are proof of the madness of their religion. Actually, Islam shares the prophetic indignation, found also with Jews and Christians, against poverty and all forms of social injustice; those responsible will warrant divine judgement. Unfortunately, as has happened in the past with some Christians (against the witches and communists, as well as the Jews), some Muslims have styled themselves as Gods agents of retribution. All these facts deserve to be known in the context of any good RE and/or Citizenship Education. But so, too, does the story of Gaffa Khan, the Muslim leader who was vigorous in his use of non-violence to bring peace to the territory of Afghanistan in former centuries (Bondurant, 1971). Or again, the quote contained in the collection of those quotations officially recognised within the Muslim community as amongst those most highly valued, because ascribed directly to Muhammad himself, speaking as follows:
The first of people against whom judgement will be pronounced on the Day of Resurrection will be a man who has died a martyr. He will be brought and Allah will make known to him His favours and he will recognise them. (The Almighty) will say: And what did you do about them? He will say: I fought for you until I died a martyr. He will say: You have lied you did but fight that it might be said (of you): He is courageous. And so it was said. Then he will be ordered to be dragged along on his face
Religion as cuckoo or crucible 585

until he is cast into Hell-fire. Hadith 6 from Forty Hadith Qudsi (Izzudin & JohnsonDavies, 1980).
There are resources for citizenship education from across the worlds religions, but these traditions deserve to be understood at some depth, especially by those teaching, if pupils are to be taken beyond superficial impressions. Take any of the following less obvious instances from what for many Christian readers will still be only the partially known Christian tradition:
N N N
Biblical portraits of marriage, including polygamous patriarchs and kings (Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon) in the Old Testament, and Pauls advice (1 Corinthians 7:3) about mutual recognition of sexual interests within marriage (Barton, 1996); a Papal fatwa against Queen Elizabeth 1st of England;13 Doukhobar Christians relocated from Russia to Canada following persecution in the 1890s holding a naked demonstration to make a political point (Hawthorn, 1955); being committed to truth whilst practising deception in Nazi Germany Bonhoeffers theological prison reflection after his involvement in the failed plot against Hitler (Bonhoeffer, 1955).
Without appreciation of the reasoned basis in belief, any one of them may be quite striking, but remaining so only at the level of oddity. Yet this is precisely the challenge to those engaged in Citizenship Education: if we do not understand the complexities of a religious tradition which is near to us, how much more likely is it that we will be unaware of our ignorance in relation to other traditions. Some opening up of the diversity within a familiar tradition itself becomes important as a means of unmasking superficial stereotypes and replacing them with a sense of richness and vitality which might otherwise be missing. However, it must also be acknowledged that some real understanding of the beliefs involved is necessary, if the related behaviour is to be understood. Actions generally depend on motivations and beliefs, and citizenship education is incomplete unless it attends to them. Admitting conflicting claims to truth: young citizens engaging with different beliefs and identities Reverting more directly to the approach to RE and citizenship education found in England, there is a clear expectation that, as a necessary component in the development of their own beliefs and values, from their earliest years in school children will be introduced to the diversity of what people believe. Far from proving to be very confusing for them, experience suggests that the risk of confusion is much greater in the absence of such teaching from the curriculum (Homan & King, 1993). Well managed learning opportunities have the opposite effect, as is evident from individual school reports by the schools inspectorate (GB. Ofsted, 2006). This is no less true with younger pupils than with older ones. The promotion of exploratory conversation between children themselves, as much as between children
586 B. E. Gates and teacher, is a common feature of infant and junior school classrooms, not least as a means to making sense of beliefs and believing and values and valuing. This may come in the guise of Circle Time, or involve the use of Persona Dolls with different religious identities. It has been most systematically developed as a fundamental pedagogical strategy for good RE by Robert Jackson and colleagues at the Warwick University Religions and Education Research Unit (Jackson, 2003, 2004). It is often referred to as the dialogical approach. Julia Ipgrave has exemplified this way of working over several years. Exposure to the otherness of peoples beliefs comes from three sources: the children themselves, other children of a similar age but in different schools (often electronically linked), and indirect encounter through handling the emblems and artifacts of belief and identity (Ipgrave, 2001). In addition, Eleanor Nesbitt has exposed the variations and complexities in religious belief and identity, which can be found even within one pupil, sometimes because of parental differences (Nesbitt, 2004). Whatever their background, all children and young people have an entitlement to this process of exploration. The main thrust of this RE tradition in England is to promote understanding of beliefs and values, directly engaging with different versions and interpretations of the claims to truth involved. The legal safety net for this is the existence of representative Standing Advisory Councils for RE (SACRE) in every part of the country 150 in all. They sit alongside the local syllabus conferences and each is constituted to be able to draw on the combined experience of nominated teachers, politicians and members of the different faith communities. These ecumenical councils are remarkable in themselves. As already indicated, at the time of their first permissive introduction in 1944, the potential for their faith diversity and disagreements was derived from within the Christian churches. In the last twenty years, the challenges in arriving at consensus agreement and advice have become much greater. They are stretched both by the range of faiths needing to be represented and by the question of how best to be supportive of educational experience in beliefs and values, which is relevant in a rapidly changing world. Another English example of distinctive student experience, which draws directly on the SACRE mode of operation, is that of Young Peoples SACREs. This has recently been pioneered in North Yorkshire, and is currently being extended elsewhere. Following the model of the adult SACRE, Joyce Miller and colleagues in the city of Bradford, a locality with a high proportion of Muslims, established a youth equivalent. Students aged 16+ were nominated as representative counterparts from each of interest groups which comprise the adult Standing Council. In successive years the youth council has concerned itself with some of the issues which have been exercising the parent SACRE, including the priorities in RE for 1619 year-olds and local inter-faith relationships. Positive reports of the impact on all concerned have led to the model being adopted in other LEAs.14 There is some similarity between Young Peoples SACREs and the more widely known phenomenon of School Councils. However, the deliberate determination to work with the diversities of belief and the modelling of a statutory political process carry major promise for the future.
Religion as cuckoo or crucible 587 In drawing attention to current practice of RE in England there is no intention to imply that comparable provision may not be found elsewhere. The related new curriculum in South Africa is styled Religion Education rather than Religious Education, and uses the word Religion to flag an inclusive agenda (Chidester, 2002). Within the European Union since 9/11, the Council of Ministers has approved direct attention to beliefs. Hitherto, there had been reluctance to deal overtly with the substance of religion in any of its educational programmes. Instead, over the previous decade there was a preferred reference to culture and inter-cultural education. This was the apparently easiest way to avoid a confrontation between the rival interests of continuing denominational ownership of education on the one hand, and, on the other, a secularist belief that religion should not be studied in school. Now, in accord with the European Convention on Human Rights (Council of Europe, 1950), a reference to religion and beliefs has been added as warranting further development (Council of Europe, 2006). There is yet a distinctive feature in the English approach, which continues formally to admit the vital interests of faith communities in educational provision. Thus, the Dual System of educational partnership between church and state, established in 1870, has now been extended to a plural system of partnership between faith communities and state. Together they serve as one of the institutional carriers of beliefs and values within the nation, pledged in a contract of mutual check and balance. This communitarian dimension, directly linking education with its roots in living communities of faith, offsets any tendency for a formal curriculum requirement to lose contact with the passion of its sources. Religion and ethics in the roots of citizenship and citizenship education Up to this point, the words ethics and moral education have not appeared. This is entirely because their centrality to citizenship and citizenship education is axiomatic to this Special Issue. Moral values provide common substance in the discourse of both education and politics. In sharp contrast, it has been argued that, whilst in widespread use in contemporary politics, religion and its related vocabulary is more ignored than attended to in citizenship education. Whilst contributory explanations for this have been touched on, a further consideration may be at work. Principled affirmations of the autonomy of ethics can be a deterrent against acknowledging any link with religion. Accordingly, even to mention the possibility of such can be seen as risking a return to religious tutelage. By concentrating on the purity of a religion-free morality, the childish condition of dependence on a contaminating heteronomy can be avoided. Once the conceptual distinction between religion and ethics has been clarified, however, there are two necessary caveats which public education should heed. One is that, in popular discourse the world over, there is a continuing mix of beliefs and values, religion and ethics. The other is that philosophically the autonomy of religion is no less an important principle than the autonomy of ethics, and the two autonomies have an endemic relationship, the one
588 B. E. Gates with the other. In their roots and ramifications they intermingle, giving mutual support and challenge. In the name of moral autonomy, assumptions of religious legitimation for acts of partiality and prejudice on the part of individual citizens, national governments or religious establishments deserve to be exposed as such. This will apply in respect of ownership of land and natural resources, gender inequalities, the conduct of war and, indeed, across all arenas of personal and social behaviour. In the name of religious autonomy, assumptions of moral legitimation on any front deserve to be put under scrutiny. For instance, laws are not necessarily just because they have been passed by a national government; the appeal to universal human rights is as much an expression of faith as it is of reason, as is any decision regarding where the boundaries are to be drawn between human life and the claims of any other degrees or forms of sentient being; and it is questionable that individuals will do the right thing once they have been taught what that is or, indeed, have come to evaluate for themselves what it might be. The implication of this for citizenship education is that it will do a disservice to children and young people unless it finds ways of giving appropriate priority to their need to understand both the religious and the moral roots of being a citizen. In some national settings, this may be especially difficult to achieve. Constitutionally or legally, the extent of direct attention to religion in the school curriculum may be seriously restricted. Alternatively, it may be specified as needing to take a denominationally exclusive form. The argument of this article is that neither of these positions is morally healthy, and if that is the prevailing condition other curricular means need to be created to give more open scrutiny to religion. More positively, the combined realities of global politics, local relationships and personal meaning warrant properly resourced engagement in the context of public education with both the religious and the moral in their own right. For children and young people to be equipped to make mutual sense of how and why they want to live their futures requires nothing less. The model exemplified from England at least begins to do this, but it has long way to go before it becomes the norm for all even within the UK15 in practice. A concluding comment: cuckoo and crucible The complaint is sometimes heard that religion is, as it were, a cuckoo in any public school curriculum, which will seek to take over and oust elements which claim to be more natural and native, especially when they are termed moral education or citizenship education. This article has argued the contrary. Religion has been a pervasive presence in human civilisations over the centuries and best guesstimates suggest that, for well over four-fifths of the worlds population, it continues to be a defining ingredient in how individuals characterise themselves (Barrett et al., 2001). Far from being a cuckoo, religion is more a crucible. Though it has sometimes paraded itself as the perfection rather than a pointer to such, it is actually a crude container for the human clustering within which deepest beliefs and values are
Religion as cuckoo or crucible 589 variously held and refined. In the interests of the moral education of global citizens, no school can afford to ignore the matter of religion. Where that happens, from the best of intentions, whatever the school espouses in its place may turn out to be the intrusive cuckoo. What is then effectively ejected from the nurturing environment of the school is the appreciation and testing of living faiths. In sum, there are two fundamental points. Firstly, citizenship depends upon beliefs and values, and these are both religious and moral. Therefore, Citizenship Education which pays scant attention to the process and content of both moral and religious believing is likely to stumble, for therein lie the springs of active participation. Secondly, religion is too important with its transformative capacities for both good and evil to be left to separate faith communities to tend in isolation from each other. Disconnection between religious communities, as between states, breeds fear and suspicion. It also imperils any emergent sense of belonging to an inclusive global community of living beings past, present and future. Notes
1. This can be illustrated from anecdotal reflections as well as research studies. For instance, according to a Scottish Chief Constable: I joined Sussex Police at the age of 18 and so I probably had what some might consider as rather naive motives for joining. Like many colleagues I wanted a career that offered variety, excitement and a meaningful role in making a positive difference to the lives of others. Edinburgh Evening News, 25 February 2006. Similarly, from Ottawa a Police Sector Council study of 1600 young people aged 1630 reveals that all but 6% saw public sector policing as an opportunity to do meaningful work. For the third who saw it as a serious job option, the most frequently cited reasons were: making ones community safer, helping victims of crime and being of service to the public (Ipsos-Reid, 2005). However, this is not to deny that motives are usually mixed, or that there will not be variations from one country to another. Extensive research, first begun in the 1960s, has demonstrated the power of belief in a just world to influence how individuals interpret events in daily life, a belief maintained in spite of appearances and which enables sense to be made of otherwise distressing facts of life (Lerner, 1980; Montada & Lerner, 1998). To the familiar Freudian and Marxist confidence that religion is being outgrown may be added that conveyed in the position of Steve Bruce (2002). For a descriptive analysis of the constitutional context in 44 Muslim countries, see Stahnke & Blit (2005). Soviet citizens used to stand in endless lines to venerate Vladimir Lenins embalmed remains on Red Square, Moscow. Now Orthodox believers are standing in round-the-clock lines to venerate saints relics. In the latest example of such religious fervour, in over 40 days nearly 2.5 million believers across Russia, Ukraine and Belarus venerated what Orthodox Christians believe to be St John the Baptists hand, after the relics return to Montenegro, its home since 1941. Report from Moscow Orthodox Patriarchate in Ecumencial News International. ENI06-0607, 31 July, 2006. In Western Europe, Scientology has been subject to extensive legal proscription on this basis, most especially in France (Vivien, 2001; Pallison, 2002) and Germany (Moseley, 1997). In China, the proscriptions extend to forms of Buddhism, as well as less well known groups like the Falun Gong; for a comprehensive overview, see United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (2005).
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590 B. E. Gates
7. Within Christendom, since the time of Constantine in the fourth century CE, emperors and monarchs were regarded as deriving their authority from God and this was transmitted by inherited birthright. There is parallel across civilisations and cultures, from ancient Egypt to twentieth century Japan or twenty-first century Cambodia. Indeed, the current Thailand constitution (Section 6) describes the King as holding a position of revered worship. The notion of the moral potency of the imperial lineage in Japan is vividly conveyed in Hiroike (2002) II, Ch. 13 A & B; for a comparison with the Divine Right of Kings, see III, pp. 657. In the wake of transition to constitutional democracies, the deference to elected leaders and to the will of the majority may for some still contain a sense of divine indebtedness, albeit mediated through a no less God-given right to vote. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes the freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Possessed of reason and conscience, every human is obliged to behave in a genuinely human fashion, to do good and avoid evil! Endorsed by 1993 World Parliament of Religions as part of its commitment to pursue a common Global Ethic (Kung & Kuschel, 1993). The full text and related resources are available from its continuing Council: http://www.cpwr.org. According to Section 8:3 of the Education Reform Act: Any agreed syllabus.shall reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are in the main Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain. (GB. Statutes, 1988). This was in direct recognition of the increased diversity of religious communities thriving within the UK, and it was also deliberately reflecting the wider global condition. In government usage the previous terminology of church school has been superseded by faith school to reflect the fact that though the majority of such schools are related to the Christian communities, there are also publicly funded Jewish, Muslim and Sikh schools, albeit in small but increasing numbers. In its application to all schools, this framework envisages critical reflection within any particular faith as well as a readiness to understand the faith of others. The first slogan was commonly seen on car bumpers in the USA at the time of the Vietnam war and has been newly reproduced in the repetitive chanting by USA soldiers during training in the PC DVD game Vietcong 2 (Kolar, 2005). The second has been seen on a poster on a classroom wall in a Palestinian school, as shown in a UK Channel 4 TV documentary 31 July, 2006: Judah and Mohammed. A devastating collation of publication and distribution in book and televised form is contained in the Wikipedia 2006 entry on the Protocols: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion. Because Wikipedia entries are vulnerable to abuse, the extensive corroborative documentation of the extent of current broadcasting of this material is a necessary guarantee that this point is not being exaggerated. Leaving aside the 1605 Gunpowder Plot on Parliament, which was of September 11 proportions, the strength of lethal antagonism which Christianity has engendered is evident in the letter sent by Cardinal Como in 1580 in response to an enquiry to the then Pope Sixtus as to whether it would be sinful for two English nobles to take the life of Elizabeth 1st: Since that guilty woman of England rules over two noble kingdoms of Christendom and is the cause of so much injury to the Catholic faith, and loss of so many million souls, there is no doubt that whosoever sends her out of the world with the pious intention of doing God service, not only does not sin, but gains merit, especially having regard to the sentence pronounced against her by Pius V of holy memory. And so if these English nobles decide actually to undertake so glorious work, your lordship can assure them that they do not commit any sin. Cited in Black (1959), pp. 1789.
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14. Assisted by special grants from the Westhill Trust, there are now ten other Youth SACREs, in the following Local Education Authorities: from 2005 Bristol, Hounslow, Hull and the East Riding, Portsmouth, Solihull; and from 2006 Blackburn with Darwen, Kirklees, Newham, Surrey and Tameside. 15. Home grown suicide bombers are not an example of any weakness in this model, but rather of its incomplete implementation. An examination of the quality of RE in the schools of the 7 July London bombers shows that it had been characterised as weak by the schools inspection agency, OFSTED, in reports published at the times when they had been at school. This will have impacted both on their own understanding of Islam in relation to other religions and on the attitudes towards the Muslim community of their non-Muslim peers in the same schools. See Campaign against terrorism a paper prepared by the Religious Education Council of England and Wales, July 2005.
References
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JME 2006 - 8 - Gates (Religion Et Citizenship)

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This article was downloaded by: [Corporacion CINCEL] On: 12 October 2012, At: 05:26 Publisher: Routledge Informa

Journal of Moral Education

Version of record first published: 28 Nov 2006.

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Religion as cuckoo or crucible 585

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Religion as cuckoo or crucible 591

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Religion as cuckoo or crucible 593

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