Reconciling British and Christian Values!

Transcription

1 Reconciling British and Christian Values Dr Bob Bowie Principal Lecturer in Education Canterbury Christ Church University Addressing the Conference for Church School Leaders Diocese of Canterbury Chartham Village Hall, Station Road, Chartham, Kent CT4 7JA Wednesday 8 th July Initial remarks on Government moral and civic language It shouldn t take any intervention from my department to say that young people should be learning the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, tolerance and respect - because these British values are fundamentally a good thing. Fundamental British values are the attributes that have in this century and the last, made our country one of the greatest forces for good. They re the values that bind us together, that mean despite the many differences in our nation, we re united as one people. So I m unapologetic in saying that no school should be exempt from promoting fundamental British values, just as no school should be exempt from promoting rigorous academic standards. (Rt Hon Nicky Morgan: why knowledge matters, 27 January 2015 (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered at Carlton Club, London government/speeches/nicky-morgan-why-knowledge-matters)) Never has the urgency to take on new government policy language in education been so pressing as it is with fundamental British values as new inspection frameworks arrive to ensure schools can be downgraded for failing because of this new area. Democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, tolerance and respect, are essential priorities to be promoted by SMSC. There should be no extremism or discrimination in any part of the curriculum for teaching and this all forms part of the new broader definition of safeguarding. It would be wrong to think that inspectors are only interested in regions of significant Muslim populations. I know of local inspections in leafy, largely white suburbs where British values feature very highly. My university has just begin to conduct research into how schools, especially Church schools, and also how Anglican Universities make sense of the new SMSC guidance. We have a number of

2 funded research projects, some by government and others by Trusts, keen to support Church schools and Cathedral group universities, in negotiating and navigating this tricky field. What I have to say today are initial thoughts and impressions which I will revise once we have completed the research. 2. Contested Notions Values, British values and Christian values are contentious terms, open to contrasting interpretations: values is used for different things. We might talk of virtues, principles, rules, ideas, beliefs, aspirations, or hopes. A uniting feature is that when individuals talk about their values, they are talking about something of concern to them, that matters dearly. Values speak to integrity, conviction and the heart. At the same time Government talk of British values is bound up with very specific concerns about radicalisation and extremism and speak to compliance, accountability and threat. British values are complex. Britain is a union of nations and narrowly conceived national values would need to accommodate the different legal and constitutional arrangements of the different parts of our county, before we even begin to touch cultural or belief differences. Those values could be variously small minded and bigoted or open hearted and welcoming, depending on the examples you chose to emphasise from our attitudes, behaviours and histories. Christian values may refer to quite different things. Roman Catholics, Non-conformists and Anglicans might come to quite different positions of value, on issues like the nature of authority, the extent of free will, the nature of the family and relationships and so on. 3. Fundamental? The values schools are asked to promote are advanced as fundamental, a word with both positive and negative connotations. Not Foundational: Fundamental sounds foundational. Do we slot our religion over the top of a fixed set of deeper beliefs that Christianity must be compatible with? In which case which matter more, those deeper values or Christianity? Is Christianity just a shell for some sort of unievrsal, or national set of generic moral concepts? We might prefer to to leave foundations to faith or world-views. Binding us together?: Nicky Morgan says our values bind us together. This language is strong. There is something a little ominous about being bound together. I rather prefer to think that

3 voluntary deep sharing unites us far more than the sense of external limitation that 'binding' offers. It reminds me of a modern hymn bind us together with cords that cannot be broken. Both religion and states can become too focussed to restricting and controlling members. Basic shared: A better way of thinking about fundamental is 'basic' and shared' values, things we all hold dear that make life together possible and better than it would otherwise be. The subtle agreements that help us to speak to one and other, work with one another, live with one another. Overlapping: We might reach shared values as something of an overlapping consensus. You and I might come to a shared point of principle, a point we both agree about from different foundations. There are theories of justice which operate around the idea that we can reach an overlapping concise us about how to live and work well together. 4. Schools as reconciling, negotiating There is a practical need to do some reconciling or negotiating of this language. This kind of negotiation is necessary because of being a Church school that is both of and for the Church and of and for the wider world it serves. Church schools are curious overlapping institutions, that reach out into wider communities beyond the obvious Christian designation. I think we can do well to reflect on the early church as it sought to find shared ways of living together, through dialogue and debate, and even argument sometimes. The New Testament reveals the Early Church as a community of dialogue that we see evolving as it learns to live in the Roman, Greek and Jewish worlds. We read of successes and failures in Acts and the Epistles and these struggles show us that this question today is ancient and long debated. Perhaps those texts offer us advice - talk about your community with one another, and reach out into the wider community. Discuss it. So perhaps our Church schools can encourage a dialogue both within and without, touching pupils, parents and others. And here I think we have echoes in the New Testament of some of those ideas that are important for democracy - shared living, discussion, debate, dialogue. I think this dialogic quality can prevent schools from becoming authoritarian and narrowly dogmatic transmission istitutions amd emable them to be more supportive of a democratic culture.

4 5. Christian resources for Church school values What kind of moral dialogue might we hear in our schools? People speak of rules, what to do or not do, like the commandments. People speak of principles to apply, like the Golden rule. People speak of the kinds of attitudes and dispositions to encourage - virtues or Beatitudes. Church schools are schools of Commandments, principles and Beatitudes. Rules provide structural clarity and accountability for systems and speak to actions. Virtues offer a vision for the kind of human being we want to become, and tell us of the wider culture and ethos of the place. One produces ethics centred on actions. The other produces ethics centred on people. Jesus used language that drew on all of these, but he did so with and in stories. The Christian tradition is a narrative of narratives, a story filled with stories, with ambiguities, nuances, mysteries and illumination. This offers more than a list of rules, principles or behaviours. There is a much greater wealth of resource in the Churstian narrative than short sets of codes or principles. Narratives provide context, they speak to real life in all its complexity, reveal the struggle and the possibility of creative solutions. Often we abstract with values, take our moral language out of the situations and circumstances of everyday life into a kind of universal sphere. But our moral encounters are always within particular situations and circumstances. In dealing with values, we ought to acknowledge this dimension of story. Story sets values into the wider context of lived lives and communities histories. This brings much greater meaning than the words themselves. This is particularily true for Fundamental British values that come about as part of a story that includes 7/7, 9/11, Trojan Horse, British foreign policy and more. It is better to think of our schools as communities of story, rather than (just) communities of moral codes. There is always a story and a context behind the principles we put forward and this is as true for notions of Britishness as it is for Christianity. 6. From tolerance to hospitality Adopting particular moral language requires careful thought and I think this is most accute around the word tolerance. Tolerance might be a gift - we don't all have to be the same. Difference is permitted. I don't have to be an Anglican to be British. Ok so far. But behind tolerance there is an unequal power relationship. If I tolerate you and you are tolerated by me, then the place of power

5 rests with me. In the shadow of tolerance is the sense that I am normal but I permit you, who are not. I may not really like how you do things but I put up with it, I bare you. I don t think this is sounding so very Christian now. One concern among some Muslim commentators is that British values means Christian values. They fear it is short hand that means Britain is not for Muslims. It emphasises the power between the Christians, whose home this land is, and the visitors, the Muslims who must be good guests, well behaved, minding their manners. We will tolerate them but it is we who tolerate. I am not sure this reflects the hospitality that is at the heart of so many messages in the Bible. Here are some of those messages: The Good Samaritan promotes hospitality, over tolerance: The Samaritan places himself at the service of the stranger. Jesus makes the controversial point of using the mixed race foreigner who follows several religions, as showing greater holiness through an act of charity than the pious (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus said his Father s house has many rooms: Hospitality can be limited, constrained, or unlimited, unconditional, ever welcoming as the house sounds. Abraham welcomes the three unknown strangers, though they outnumber him: He shares his homestead with them, even though he does not know their names. And he honours them, though they are unlike him. Hebrews 13:1-2 talks explicitly of showing hospitality to strangers. Jesus chooses to dwell with those of such low standing that the rest of society were appalled. He opens himself to their welcome, crossing their threshold and living under their roof. Hospitality is a much better virtue for Christianity than tolerance. Hospitality goes further and offers the possibility of dropping the unequal power relationship although itself it can be limited. I may let you stay in my house, but I may apply strict rules and draw lines at certain things, and certain people - That power relationship is creeping back again. Unconditional hospitality is quite frightening. Which of us would happily allow strangers who live such different lives than us, to stay under our roofs, regardless of any agreed rules. Yet this seems to to speak to the unconditional love at the heart of Christianity, a self-sacrificing love, an other centred love. This speaks to the quality of those who are prepared to offer asylum to the lost of the world, whether they were French Huguenots, Bosnians or Syrians fleeing oppression or war. It is part of a wider British heritage.

6 I don't think hospitality is at odds with the British value of tolerance. Hospitality is an evolution of the more limited tolerance - Or maybe tolerance is a narrowing of hospitality. Hospitality delivers the attitudes we would wish to see that tolerance reaches out for. Hospitality goes further and is better. Justin Welby talks about living a life with the hospitality and generosity of Christ (2015) and several scholars have suggested that hospitality is part of a broader Christian pedagogy (Cooling 2010; Smith and Carvill 2000). When the government talks about tolerance and respect for others, I think hospitality captures both these ideas and adds some. So I think Church schools should be schools of hospitality (encapsulating tolerance and respect and more besides). 7. Good Christians, good subjects, good citizens? I heard an account of a Church school governors meeting where it was agreed that British values were of course Christian values. In short, if a school is a good Church school then by definition it supports British values. If we see Christianity as part of the established culture, part of the fabric of Englishness, part of the land, parliament, monarchy and so on, then this justifies the Christian- British synergy. But there are some problems with this as it seems to underplay the prophetic tradition of the Chruch to stand as a challenge to authority and government to hold them to account and be a voice for goodness and justice. 1. There are plenty of Christians who express grave doubts about the moral culture of Britain, whether that s to do with materialism, the sexualisation of the young, or the lack of concern about the least in our society. 2. The Christian family has grown far beyond any single nations borders. We are part of a worldwide Christian movement. This is something that naturally troubles those in government, especially in times of insecurity when barriers are drawn up and we have a desire to be protected from the world out there. 3. There is that sense of a higher authority beyond the parochial one. Part of the government policy is about the need to respect law and democracy. Of course they are worried about a higher allegiance that involves following rules which supersede or contravene the law of the land, and in particular justifies acts of violence or encourages attitudes classified as extreme. Christianity has a wider perspective than a single national authority and our Church schools should offer children that wider perspective.

7 8. Respect for the law and democracy means law keeping, law making and law challenging. The Christian tradition often teaches that to be a good citizen we must be good law keepers. In the Gospel Jesus does not raise an army to overthrow the Romans, but he does challenge aspects of culture which he sees as wrong, including rules for rules sake. We would hope that our children take seriously their responsibility in making a more just society, and this goes beyond unquestioning obedience or the status quo for status quo sake. Our Church schools might demonstrate this through the extent to which pupil voice is part of the streams that guide the life of the school, be it expressed through councils, or pedagogies that encourage an open school culture. Jesus occasionally shows he is a law breaker although these are the laws of custom, culture and religion, rather than the laws of the state. He demonstrates disobedience to authority, not the Roman authority, but those who ran the Temple. He is prepared to break rules which prevent him from showing love, such as by touching the unclean, the sinners, but he stops at violence and rejects it even when his followers use it to try to save him from arrest. Love and justice go beyond obedience and express themselves through kindness, a passion for justice and on occasion righteous anger. However Jesus largely distances himself from those who advocated civil disorder. Instead he is prepared to advance rules which have a higher bar than the law of the land. "even the thieves look after their own he says - go and look after those who are not your own (see Matthew 5:46) So Church schools should offer a higher bar than that which government wants to promote and respect for the law means participating in law making and that entails law challenging. Think of those quakers and non conformists who chose pacifism in defiance of authority. Think also of the campaigns to extend freedom to all. The anti-slavery campaign and the women's emancipation movement are illustrations of the drive to change law so that it might be moral. Being good Christians and being good citizens entail engaging with the legal, and political structures and working for a fairer world. This speaks to participation in making the community and the system for the community better, rather than over-throwing it altogether. The actions of good people striving to make the justice system better through persuasion and campaign for more moral laws, are the actions of good citizens and good Christians. In this way the role of democracy is connectable to our Christian tradition, with the example of the shared life of the early Church where discussion and debate took place.

8 9 Living with and for others British values require that we show respect and understanding for others, far beyond tolerating them. And here we have some aspects of some thought in Christianity which can become conflated to justify intolerance to those of other faiths. The biblical narrative that Jews, and later Christians are the people of God, his chosen people, could be used to elevate Christian above others in terms of moral importance. Coupled with a particularly narrow interpretation of "I am the way the truth and the life" and a view that others are damned and that we must strive to convert them lest their souls be lost, this could lead us unwittingly into all sorts of territory that might seem far from respectful. We might cast other religions simply as an error in our religious education. We might choose to underline the wrongness of those religions instead of being attentive to what they mean for their followers, and what they share with other religions. We might cast our schools as protective enclaves agains the fallen damned world beyond with all its sinful vice. I think there are dangers in emphasising these theologies without also acknowledging that Jesus held up those who lived lives deemed of poor status by wider society. In the Good Samaritan, there is no suggestion that the Samaritan abandons his mixed religions and returns to true belief, but actually that he is able to show truer love than those who are pious. So there are very good Christian grounds to be respectful of other faiths and to seek to understand other people. Two Crunch Points Given that there are some opportunities to genuinely engage with this values discourse in a meaningful way that is in keeping with a church school orientation, there are some crunch points which we have to negotiate. These are the areas which present particular challenges Visiting help from Christian / Church groups: Many Church schools benefit with positive links with volunteers who come into schools to work with children, and some Christian groups which visit schools provide help with SMSC activities, assemblies and perhaps RE. Often these visitors are seen as experts who support teachers less confident in religion. However it is important they are suitably sensitive to the wider responsibilities towards the other religions. From a Christian perspective it is important that the principle of love that is at the heart of Christian faith prevents the occlusion of other religions.

9 Church schools should be confident and positive in their teaching of other religions and understand how to negotiate that within a Christian approach to teaching and school life. Sex and relationships education, sexual orientation, homosexuality is an area that will continue to attract much tension. There is doubtless some degree of incompatibility between conservative Christian beliefs about homosexuality, certainly as expressed in Church teaching on the one hand, and the British legal and cultural attitudes to homosexuality on the other. This is a particular problem as Church school s feel a need to promote particular moral views. This difficulty is revealed in the Church of England guidance related to this issue (in Valuing All God s Children Guidance for Church of England Schools on Challenging Homophobic Bullying ). That guidance stresses the need to both identify the Church s official teaching whilst including other perspectives from a range of Christians. There is a complexity and a puzzle here for the Church itself as it tries to accommodate multiple perspectives on an issue it struggles with, whilst retaining some authority and clarity. Perhaps a way forward is for church schools to understand their church-ness not as a kind of loudhailer for Christian moral judgement, but as expressions of the early church community marked by dialogue and discussion, sensitivity and sharing. I think this would be in keeping with the experience of the Church and respects the fact that school leaders are situated in the overlapping world of Church, community and the wider world. 6. Conclusion Given these challenges I conclude that as church schools and as civic schools we should promote discussion and dialogue, not blind obedience. We should not confuse moral judgementalism with moral leadership. We should help our schools to become schools of hospitality, encapsulating tolerance, respect and more. We should not forget the prophetic tradition and should inspire children to make the law better - a civic and a Christian responsibility. Finally we should confidently encourage learning about those who hold different beliefs, remembering that Jesus praised those of other faiths who showed moral leadership through acts of love. These things wont entirely reconcile Christian and British values but they should go some way to address the overlapping reality of schools that are of and for the church and of and for the wider world.

10 Thank you. Further Reading. Cooling, T (2010) Doing God in Education. Theos. Available Online at Smith, D and Carvill,B (2000) The Gift of the Stranger: Faith, Hospitality and Language Learning. Eerdmans. Welby, J (2015) Archbishop of Canterbury's presidential address to General Synod. Tuesday 10th February Available online at: archbishop-of-canterburys-presidential-address-to-general-synod Woodward, R (2015) The Place of British Values in Church of England Schools and Academies. Diocese of Lichfield. Available online at: Lichfield_Diocese_Board_of_Education_British_Values_Guidance_June_2015.pdf REToday services (2015) Religious Education and British Values: Issues, opportunities and resources. Available online at for 15 - discounts for multiple copies. Wilson, Tom (2014) A Theology of Hospitality for Anglican Schools. Cambridge: Grove Books (