If Nicky Morgan wants Christianity to flourish, humanism should be taught in schools

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/29/nicky-morgan-christianity-humanism-school

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Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, is reported in the Telegraph as demanding that schools teach that Britain is a Christian country, and that schools have no obligation to teach humanism or atheism. This is a remarkably shortsighted way to nurture the traditions of Christian belief. It’s pretty futile to argue over whether and in what senses Britain remains a Christian country. It’s certainly very much less of one than it was 50 or even 30 years ago. But I spent the three weeks before Christmas in Hong Kong, where the festival celebrates American popular culture, and looking at England from that perspective, this is still a very Christian country indeed.

Related: Britain a Christian country? Mostly, says Archbishop of Canterbury

It is almost impossible to make a neutral assessment of whether Britain is in fact a Christian country, and even if it were possible, no one would bother: arguments about religion are, in this context, arguments about identity and allegiance. These are subjects on which the country is divided and possibly always will be. What people believe to be true about such questions is also a statement about what they want. The schools that teach that Britain is a secular country will mostly be doing so because they think it ought to be – though some, of course, will be teaching this because they want their pupils to feel outside the mainstream, and called to change it. The schools that teach that Britain is a Christian country will be trying to keep it one. It seems unlikely that the government can enforce unanimity in this argument, even though it’s obviously a matter for political dispute. But then I have less taste for interminable argument than people who are drawn to party politics.

Humanism is simply assumed to be the only rational ground on which decisions could possibly be made

The attempt to ban or discourage the teaching of humanism is much more shortsighted. Anyone who really wants Christianity to flourish in this country should be lobbying untiringly for the teaching of humanism in every school and nursery.

Humanism gains its strength in Britain today because it is not taught. Instead it is simply assumed to be the only rational ground on which decisions could possibly be made. The tenets of humanism are taken to be facts, while other moral or metaphysical positions are simply beliefs. Humanism is approached in a completely ahistorical way, much as devout Muslims approach the Qur’an, as if it had no roots and could never be superseded by any other belief system.

This kind of belief is by far the strongest that can be built, because it is knotted into every part of our culture. Difficulties and contradictions are not argued away: they simply become invisible or unthinkable. There is no humanistic fundamentalism in Britain at the moment simply because humanism is not in the least bit threatened. You could look around the world and ask very seriously whether liberal democracy is a religion of peace, seeing that there is war on so many of its borders, but snug inside Britain the question looks absurd.

The cure for this kind of self-confidence is doubt, but you can only doubt and question what you know to exist. Teaching humanism as a belief system alongside Christianity, Islam or Hinduism is the first step towards getting people to notice that this is what they actually believe (and so are free to disbelieve).

To do so does open up some horrendous possibilities. Do we really want children asking seriously what is wrong with torture or slavery, or why democracy is such a good idea? If they were given a genuine choice in the matter, the answers might very well prove repugnant. There are some humanist beliefs about sexuality and tolerance that schools are already committed (quite rightly) to enforcing rather than discussing. But those are reflections from the Guardian’s point of view.

From the viewpoint of a Christian of the kind that I take Nicky Morgan to be, confident that deep reflection must lead people to an acceptance of Christian truth, then making children think about their beliefs and assumptions must be the right thing to do. If compulsory Christianity produced generations of humanist schoolchildren, just think what compulsory humanism classes could do for Christianity.