The Erosion of Christianity in Britain
- Thread starter rynner2
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
It's official:
Schools leave Christianity in the wilderness
Jack Grimston
Schools have been accused of ignoring the views of their Christian pupils while paying careful attention to children of other faiths.
According to Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, teachers are failing to educate children in the core beliefs of Christianity, ignoring their legal obligation to do so.
An Ofsted report released today says stories from the Bible are often used simply to teach children about their feelings or about how to empathise with the sick, but their religious significance is neglected.
The inspectorate finds there has been a sharp decline in the quality of religious teaching, particularly in secondary schools, over the past three years.
“Insufficient attention was paid to ... pupils who were actively engaged in Christian practice,” the report notes.
“Often, their experience was ignored ... this sometimes contrasted sharply with the more careful attention paid to the experiences of pupils from other religious traditions.”
Critics argue that too many teachers are both ignorant and embarrassed about Christianity and are frightened of causing tension in multi-faith schools.
However, supporters of the approach identified by Ofsted argue that teachers are simply reflecting the secular views prevalent in society.
Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said: “There is generally in the culture a kind of embarrassment about talking openly about Christianity that doesn’t apply to other faiths.”
He warned that teachers were in danger of presenting religions as a “smorgasbord of interesting rituals and feasts”.
Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector of schools, said: “All young people should have the opportunity to learn about religion [and] learn from religion. This requires good teaching based on strong subject knowledge and clarity about the purposes of religious education.”
The teaching of religion has become increasingly fraught. Last year, a primary school teacher from Tower Hamlets, east London, claimed he had been forced out of his job because he had complained to his headmistress about an anti-Christian bias among pupils.
Some had allegedly praised the September 11 hijackers, while one boy had said he was glad about the death of a lawyer who had been stabbed “because he’s a Christian”.
Schools are obliged to teach religion, although it is not part of the national curriculum. Lessons are also supposed to reflect the fact that Christianity is the main religion in Britain, while taking account of the other leading faiths.
etc...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 144802.ece
Schools leave Christianity in the wilderness
Jack Grimston
Schools have been accused of ignoring the views of their Christian pupils while paying careful attention to children of other faiths.
According to Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, teachers are failing to educate children in the core beliefs of Christianity, ignoring their legal obligation to do so.
An Ofsted report released today says stories from the Bible are often used simply to teach children about their feelings or about how to empathise with the sick, but their religious significance is neglected.
The inspectorate finds there has been a sharp decline in the quality of religious teaching, particularly in secondary schools, over the past three years.
“Insufficient attention was paid to ... pupils who were actively engaged in Christian practice,” the report notes.
“Often, their experience was ignored ... this sometimes contrasted sharply with the more careful attention paid to the experiences of pupils from other religious traditions.”
Critics argue that too many teachers are both ignorant and embarrassed about Christianity and are frightened of causing tension in multi-faith schools.
However, supporters of the approach identified by Ofsted argue that teachers are simply reflecting the secular views prevalent in society.
Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said: “There is generally in the culture a kind of embarrassment about talking openly about Christianity that doesn’t apply to other faiths.”
He warned that teachers were in danger of presenting religions as a “smorgasbord of interesting rituals and feasts”.
Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector of schools, said: “All young people should have the opportunity to learn about religion [and] learn from religion. This requires good teaching based on strong subject knowledge and clarity about the purposes of religious education.”
The teaching of religion has become increasingly fraught. Last year, a primary school teacher from Tower Hamlets, east London, claimed he had been forced out of his job because he had complained to his headmistress about an anti-Christian bias among pupils.
Some had allegedly praised the September 11 hijackers, while one boy had said he was glad about the death of a lawyer who had been stabbed “because he’s a Christian”.
Schools are obliged to teach religion, although it is not part of the national curriculum. Lessons are also supposed to reflect the fact that Christianity is the main religion in Britain, while taking account of the other leading faiths.
etc...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 144802.ece
I've seen this first hand. My mother works in childcare - nursery nurse - and has done for nearly thirty years. Her nursery is awash with 'PC' thinking (she actually brought home a memo banning her from singing 'Baa Baa Blacksheep' among others).
The nursery celebrates religious and secular feasts from all over the world, Diwali, Eid, Ramadan, Chinese New Year, Hanukkah etc... they also celebrate Christmas (with a crib) but their Easter celebrations failed to mention any Christian aspect of the festival.
My mum wouldn't say boo to a goose so she didn't raise the question but for a company that goes out of its way to teach pre-schoolers about different faiths and religions it seems odd they neglect the most important Christian festival.
The nursery celebrates religious and secular feasts from all over the world, Diwali, Eid, Ramadan, Chinese New Year, Hanukkah etc... they also celebrate Christmas (with a crib) but their Easter celebrations failed to mention any Christian aspect of the festival.
My mum wouldn't say boo to a goose so she didn't raise the question but for a company that goes out of its way to teach pre-schoolers about different faiths and religions it seems odd they neglect the most important Christian festival.
Kondoru
Beloved of Ra
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2003
- Messages
- 10,684
This is hard to say.
I went to a so say xtian school, we did the festivals (and mayday, which isnt very xtian) and said our prayers and hymns, also bible stories.
not only did we have the obligatory nativity play, a lot of our other plays were biblical (I recall David and Goliath, and also Captain Scott)
But I didnt grow up a xtian, neither did (I suspect) my friends
Because it was not practiced at home. I have no doubt if it was, regardless of what went on at school I would have felt differently.
(And lets not talk about an aquantance of mine who is pagan and makes sure all her kids teachers are conversant with her version of paganism, even to complaints about their neglect of paganism in history teachings...Hoo ha.)
I went to a so say xtian school, we did the festivals (and mayday, which isnt very xtian) and said our prayers and hymns, also bible stories.
not only did we have the obligatory nativity play, a lot of our other plays were biblical (I recall David and Goliath, and also Captain Scott)
But I didnt grow up a xtian, neither did (I suspect) my friends
Because it was not practiced at home. I have no doubt if it was, regardless of what went on at school I would have felt differently.
(And lets not talk about an aquantance of mine who is pagan and makes sure all her kids teachers are conversant with her version of paganism, even to complaints about their neglect of paganism in history teachings...Hoo ha.)
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2005
- Messages
- 1,255
There's been a change in the popular meaning of Christian in recent years. Someone describing themselves thus until the later decades of the C20th would mean anglican, catholic, non-conformist, etc.
Today you could bet on a university Christian society, among others, being an evangelical group with distinct fundamentalist overtones. This has been underwritten by anti-religious groups problematising the word and locating it within literalist evangelism. As a rare church-goer I mourn the description indicating a set of principles and replacing them with dogmatic ideas.
Today you could bet on a university Christian society, among others, being an evangelical group with distinct fundamentalist overtones. This has been underwritten by anti-religious groups problematising the word and locating it within literalist evangelism. As a rare church-goer I mourn the description indicating a set of principles and replacing them with dogmatic ideas.
Mal_Adjusted
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2003
- Messages
- 2,246
I can't see the point in teaching children religion.
If their parents are religious they'll get their instruction at home, if the parents aren't religious they're unlikely to ant their kids taught religion at school.
complete waste of time.
If their parents are religious they'll get their instruction at home, if the parents aren't religious they're unlikely to ant their kids taught religion at school.
complete waste of time.
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2005
- Messages
- 723
^^I wonder if it's not so much the 'teaching' of children about religion, more a case of seeding them with a superstitious neurosis that can be pretty hard to break out of, even during adulthood.
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2005
- Messages
- 1,255
Kondoru said:
Many beliefs were, and probably still are, unfocussed and dull, but that doesn't mean they deserve close scrutiny and the believer has to justify themselves for holding them.
The militant end of rationalism and religion deserve one another's disdain and their motivations are closely linked IMO, an uncompromising insistence that everyone sees the world the way they do with apocalyptic warnings to doubters.
That isn't representative of what religion was and wasn't true of scientific rationalism either until recent times, both made room for the value of doubt.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Our architectural heritage is at risk:
Saving churches for their history - not religion
These buildings are an important part of our landscape – even if they are not used for worship
Ian Jack The Guardian, Saturday 3 July 2010
If churchgoing is a reliable indicator of Christian belief, then England began losing its religious impulse when Victoria was still on the throne. Attendance at Anglican services began its decline in the 1890s. By 1968, only 3.5% of the English population went regularly on a Sunday. By 1999, that figure had halved to 1.9%. And, as the numbers went down, the age of the congregations went up. The average age of a member of the Church of England is 50. In 2015, it is likely to be 55. If present trends continue – a phrase, admittedly, that always invites suspicion – then in 30 years' time two thirds of observing Anglicans will be more than 65 years old, and almost all of them will be women.
The social, constitutional and moral consequences of the church's shrinking importance are often debated, but perhaps the real threat, which all of us can care about, is aesthetic. More numbers: three quarters of England's 16,000 parish churches are listed as buildings of architectural and historic interest in Grades I, II* and II. Churches listed grade I comprise 45% of all England's buildings – castles, mansions, banks, railway stations, markets – in the same first rank. In the words of an official from English Heritage, this means that less than 2% of the England's population is directly responsible for the care of nearly half of England's finest architecture.
Public funds have helped the churchgoers. Since 2002, English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund have spent £179m on repairs to listed places of worship of all denominations (but mainly Anglican), and every year another £12m is doled out in grants equivalent to the VAT paid on the work. The fear, for English Heritage and the church, is that a Treasury hungry for cuts won't renew the VAT scheme when it runs out next year. In a report this week, English Heritage reckons that only about one in 10 listed places of worship is in poor condition, but implies that if the cuts come this number will grow. More leaking roofs, more broken stained glass, and then ruin or conversion into flats.
Lincolnshire is a good place to consider these things. "The second largest county in England and the least appreciated," John Betjeman wrote in his Guide to English Parish Churches. The Lincolnshire wool trade, flourishing in the 12th to 15th centuries, left behind a fine stock of medieval knaves, chancels, windows and towers; Lincolnshire has 913 buildings listed Grades I and II* and 418 of them were built to be prayed in. Like other rural countries – Herefordshire, Rutland – it has an unusually high number of listed churches per head of population. "A pre-industrial legacy," in the words of this week's report, "means that the cost of maintaining buildings falls to a disproportionately small number of people, mainly in rural areas."
etc...
Nothing as handsome as these churches will ever again be built in these villages; their presence there seems almost miraculous, like finding an original Leonardo in a Skegness postcard rack. But how empty they are! Christian worship seems to have melted away almost as completely as the wool trade, and long before Richard Dawkins and the atheist revival came hunting for an argument. We should at least take care to preserve its inspiring remains.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... nservation
Saving churches for their history - not religion
These buildings are an important part of our landscape – even if they are not used for worship
Ian Jack The Guardian, Saturday 3 July 2010
If churchgoing is a reliable indicator of Christian belief, then England began losing its religious impulse when Victoria was still on the throne. Attendance at Anglican services began its decline in the 1890s. By 1968, only 3.5% of the English population went regularly on a Sunday. By 1999, that figure had halved to 1.9%. And, as the numbers went down, the age of the congregations went up. The average age of a member of the Church of England is 50. In 2015, it is likely to be 55. If present trends continue – a phrase, admittedly, that always invites suspicion – then in 30 years' time two thirds of observing Anglicans will be more than 65 years old, and almost all of them will be women.
The social, constitutional and moral consequences of the church's shrinking importance are often debated, but perhaps the real threat, which all of us can care about, is aesthetic. More numbers: three quarters of England's 16,000 parish churches are listed as buildings of architectural and historic interest in Grades I, II* and II. Churches listed grade I comprise 45% of all England's buildings – castles, mansions, banks, railway stations, markets – in the same first rank. In the words of an official from English Heritage, this means that less than 2% of the England's population is directly responsible for the care of nearly half of England's finest architecture.
Public funds have helped the churchgoers. Since 2002, English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund have spent £179m on repairs to listed places of worship of all denominations (but mainly Anglican), and every year another £12m is doled out in grants equivalent to the VAT paid on the work. The fear, for English Heritage and the church, is that a Treasury hungry for cuts won't renew the VAT scheme when it runs out next year. In a report this week, English Heritage reckons that only about one in 10 listed places of worship is in poor condition, but implies that if the cuts come this number will grow. More leaking roofs, more broken stained glass, and then ruin or conversion into flats.
Lincolnshire is a good place to consider these things. "The second largest county in England and the least appreciated," John Betjeman wrote in his Guide to English Parish Churches. The Lincolnshire wool trade, flourishing in the 12th to 15th centuries, left behind a fine stock of medieval knaves, chancels, windows and towers; Lincolnshire has 913 buildings listed Grades I and II* and 418 of them were built to be prayed in. Like other rural countries – Herefordshire, Rutland – it has an unusually high number of listed churches per head of population. "A pre-industrial legacy," in the words of this week's report, "means that the cost of maintaining buildings falls to a disproportionately small number of people, mainly in rural areas."
etc...
Nothing as handsome as these churches will ever again be built in these villages; their presence there seems almost miraculous, like finding an original Leonardo in a Skegness postcard rack. But how empty they are! Christian worship seems to have melted away almost as completely as the wool trade, and long before Richard Dawkins and the atheist revival came hunting for an argument. We should at least take care to preserve its inspiring remains.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... nservation
escargot
Disciple of Marduk
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2001
- Messages
- 43,528
- Location
- HM The Tower of London
barfing_pumpkin said:
Depends on which creed they favour. My own parents went for the 'nominal Methodist' type, ie 'Don't go to church yourselves but send the kids to Sunday school to get them out of the way for a bit.'
Made me cynical about religion from a very early age. I suppose I should be grateful. :lol:
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2005
- Messages
- 1,255
rynner2 said:
That's a damned fact. Whatever one's personal (dis)beliefs, chuches represented the highest aspiration in art and architecture of their period.
You could argue they also introduced international hegemony into vernacular building styles, though many are a marriage of both.
Compared to the average lottery funded village hall, the local church is a wonder. An English landscape without spires and towers is as unthinkable as one without hedgerows and drystone walls. I was in Normandy a few weeks ago and some architectural jewels are simply being left to rot. It will happen here.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Stornoway's golfers drive a hole through sabbath ban
Western Isles face battle over Sunday shutdown as club and leisure centres challenge 'religious bias'
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent guardian.co.uk, Sunday 1 August 2010 21.28 BST
They are the guerrilla golfers of Stornoway: a small and unassuming group of rebels who over the last few months have done what golfers anywhere else in Britain do naturally – played the game on Sunday.
But each time this group carry their golf bags on to this compact but windswept 18-hole course on the sabbath, it is a deliberate act of defiance. On the Presbyterian islands of Lewis and Harris, Sunday is the one day of the week when playing Scotland's national game is banned.
For the deeply orthodox Protestants of the Western Isles, Stornoway golf course is emerging as one of the last battlegrounds in their increasingly vain fight to keep the sabbath sacrosanct.
And today, a softly spoken community dentist, George MacLeod, walked on to the steep-sided course with a small group of friends for another rebellious round. Elsewhere were others, quietly putting on greens hidden from view.
"I wouldn't say I felt like a revolutionary," MacLeod said. "I would say I just felt like an adult. Why they're telling me I can't play on a Sunday is beyond me."
The rebellion is intensifying. Last Wednesday the club's latest attempt to get a Sunday drinks licence was thrown out. Councillors upheld allegations by church groups that granting the licence would "damage morality", "weaken the integrity of the community" and lead to increases in domestic violence, alcoholism and disorder.
The Lord's Day Observance Society, the umbrella group for hardline sabbatarians, reminded the board "that they constitute part of the powers that be that are ordained of God … not to weaken the integrity and decency of community. We believe that granting the application would both undermine morality and inhibit the due observance of the Lord's Day."
Ken Buchanan, the club's mild-mannered secretary, was exasperated by the vote, which went 6-4 against granting the licence. "Terrible," he said. "Why are so many people intent on blackening the good name of Stornoway golf club?" he asked the committee. "What has this club done to deserve this onslaught?"
Very little, according to Inspector Steven Black of Northern Constabulary. There had only been six minor incidents at the club in 12 years, so the force had no objections to a Sunday licence. "It is a well-run establishment. We do routinely check it and we have no issue with the management of the premises," he told the committee.
Norrie MacDonald, the club captain, says there is little the club can do to stop the unauthorised rounds. As Sunday games are banned by the Stornoway Trust, the club's landlord and owner of 28,000 surrounding hectares, they cannot employ any staff. So the course is unmanned.
It is, MacDonald notes drily, the only course in Scotland where you get a free game on a Sunday. "If someone isn't a member, we can't do anything about it. We can't even charge them a fee," he said. 8)
Over the past few years, the sabbatarians have lost a series of crucial battles with privately-owned businesses: ferries and flights now land on Sundays, while pubs and a petrol station in Stornoway are routinely open. All are heavily used.
But critics claim the sabbatarians' influence over publicly-owned leisure centres, swimming pools, golf courses and football pitches remains total: they are the only sports facilities in Britain that remain closed on Sunday for religious reasons.
Western Isles council (Comhairle nan Eilean Sar in Gaelic), which owns all the main sports facilities, remains implacably opposed to Sunday opening.
And across Lewis and Harris, numerous locally-run football pitches, sports centres and golf courses funded by public grants are kept shut by their owners.
Their authority is now being challenged on two fronts. The golf club's members have voted overwhelmingly to press Stornoway Trust for permission to amend their lease to allow Sunday golf. And George MacLeod's wife, Helen, is leading a campaign to get the town's leisure centre open on Sundays, gathering signatures from 300 families on a petition.
The MacLeods, Buchanan and MacDonald believe the council is guilty of religious discrimination by allowing one religious position to determine policy, while the funding agencies, particularly Sportscotland, which handles millions of pounds in government and lottery grants, are guilty of hypocrisy.
In the mainly Catholic southern parts of the Western Isles – the Uists, Barra and Benbecula – all the sports facilities are open on Sundays.
etc...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/au ... -stornoway
Western Isles face battle over Sunday shutdown as club and leisure centres challenge 'religious bias'
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent guardian.co.uk, Sunday 1 August 2010 21.28 BST
They are the guerrilla golfers of Stornoway: a small and unassuming group of rebels who over the last few months have done what golfers anywhere else in Britain do naturally – played the game on Sunday.
But each time this group carry their golf bags on to this compact but windswept 18-hole course on the sabbath, it is a deliberate act of defiance. On the Presbyterian islands of Lewis and Harris, Sunday is the one day of the week when playing Scotland's national game is banned.
For the deeply orthodox Protestants of the Western Isles, Stornoway golf course is emerging as one of the last battlegrounds in their increasingly vain fight to keep the sabbath sacrosanct.
And today, a softly spoken community dentist, George MacLeod, walked on to the steep-sided course with a small group of friends for another rebellious round. Elsewhere were others, quietly putting on greens hidden from view.
"I wouldn't say I felt like a revolutionary," MacLeod said. "I would say I just felt like an adult. Why they're telling me I can't play on a Sunday is beyond me."
The rebellion is intensifying. Last Wednesday the club's latest attempt to get a Sunday drinks licence was thrown out. Councillors upheld allegations by church groups that granting the licence would "damage morality", "weaken the integrity of the community" and lead to increases in domestic violence, alcoholism and disorder.
The Lord's Day Observance Society, the umbrella group for hardline sabbatarians, reminded the board "that they constitute part of the powers that be that are ordained of God … not to weaken the integrity and decency of community. We believe that granting the application would both undermine morality and inhibit the due observance of the Lord's Day."
Ken Buchanan, the club's mild-mannered secretary, was exasperated by the vote, which went 6-4 against granting the licence. "Terrible," he said. "Why are so many people intent on blackening the good name of Stornoway golf club?" he asked the committee. "What has this club done to deserve this onslaught?"
Very little, according to Inspector Steven Black of Northern Constabulary. There had only been six minor incidents at the club in 12 years, so the force had no objections to a Sunday licence. "It is a well-run establishment. We do routinely check it and we have no issue with the management of the premises," he told the committee.
Norrie MacDonald, the club captain, says there is little the club can do to stop the unauthorised rounds. As Sunday games are banned by the Stornoway Trust, the club's landlord and owner of 28,000 surrounding hectares, they cannot employ any staff. So the course is unmanned.
It is, MacDonald notes drily, the only course in Scotland where you get a free game on a Sunday. "If someone isn't a member, we can't do anything about it. We can't even charge them a fee," he said. 8)
Over the past few years, the sabbatarians have lost a series of crucial battles with privately-owned businesses: ferries and flights now land on Sundays, while pubs and a petrol station in Stornoway are routinely open. All are heavily used.
But critics claim the sabbatarians' influence over publicly-owned leisure centres, swimming pools, golf courses and football pitches remains total: they are the only sports facilities in Britain that remain closed on Sunday for religious reasons.
Western Isles council (Comhairle nan Eilean Sar in Gaelic), which owns all the main sports facilities, remains implacably opposed to Sunday opening.
And across Lewis and Harris, numerous locally-run football pitches, sports centres and golf courses funded by public grants are kept shut by their owners.
Their authority is now being challenged on two fronts. The golf club's members have voted overwhelmingly to press Stornoway Trust for permission to amend their lease to allow Sunday golf. And George MacLeod's wife, Helen, is leading a campaign to get the town's leisure centre open on Sundays, gathering signatures from 300 families on a petition.
The MacLeods, Buchanan and MacDonald believe the council is guilty of religious discrimination by allowing one religious position to determine policy, while the funding agencies, particularly Sportscotland, which handles millions of pounds in government and lottery grants, are guilty of hypocrisy.
In the mainly Catholic southern parts of the Western Isles – the Uists, Barra and Benbecula – all the sports facilities are open on Sundays.
etc...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/au ... -stornoway
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2001
- Messages
- 5,823
But only on Sundays.
ramonmercado
CyberPunk
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2003
- Messages
- 58,356
- Location
- Eblana
rynner2 said:We should send in the Army!
Definitely! Send in the Irish Guards!
I wouldn't have a problem if the Sabbatarians were just saying that it's nice to have a day that people don't have to work, and can do social things instead-I've been in places in Europe where the shops are shut on Wednesday afternoons and Sundays and it's quite nice once you adapt. (I'm all for Paul LeFargue and the Right to Be Lazy generally. That and the need for human beings to play.)
But saying we have to shut everything because God says so is nae cool. Respecting people's culture is one thing but when members of that culture say everyone has to follow the edicts of their religion, it makes everyone look daft.
The amount of elderly folk having heart attacks in the Isles seems to go up on a Sunday- people seem to keel over in the Kirk like nobody's business. Nothing particularly weird in it- sometimes people walk there, or have to stand for longer than they probably should- it seems to put stress on the bodies of elderly folk with health problems, anyway. I'd be interested in stats on the subject- my experience could well be unrepresentative- I just used to send the ambulances out.
But saying we have to shut everything because God says so is nae cool. Respecting people's culture is one thing but when members of that culture say everyone has to follow the edicts of their religion, it makes everyone look daft.
The amount of elderly folk having heart attacks in the Isles seems to go up on a Sunday- people seem to keel over in the Kirk like nobody's business. Nothing particularly weird in it- sometimes people walk there, or have to stand for longer than they probably should- it seems to put stress on the bodies of elderly folk with health problems, anyway. I'd be interested in stats on the subject- my experience could well be unrepresentative- I just used to send the ambulances out.
Quake42
Warrior Princess
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2004
- Messages
- 9,312
I really don't know what this guy thought he was playing at.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10935390
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10935390
- Joined
- May 23, 2003
- Messages
- 4,580
Young people have 'faded memory of Christianity' says Church book
The study published by the Church of England concludes that people born after 1982 - known as "Generation Y" - have only a faded cultural memory of Christianity. For many young people, religious observance extends no further than praying in their bedrooms during moments of crisis, on a need to believe basis. The findings are contained a new book, The Faith of Generation Y, whose authors include the Bishop of Coventry, the Rt Rev Christopher Cocksworth.
Sylvia Collins-Mayo, principal lecturer in sociology at Kingston University, said most of the 300 young people questioned for the study were not looking for answers to ultimate questions. For the majority, religion and spirituality was irrelevant for day-to-day living, she said. On the rare occasions when a religious perspective was required, for example coping with family illnesses or bereavements, they often made do with a very faded, inherited cultural memory of Christianity in the absence of anything else. The authors described this approach as bedroom spirituality. Some teenagers prayed for the health of loved ones or for success in relationships and exams, while others made confessions in an attempt to express their anxieties.
But most young people today define themselves by a secular trinity of family, friends and the reflexive self, giving them an immanent faith based on relationships in this world, the study found.
Fewer than one in five young people believe in a God who created the world and hears my prayers, and teenagers were more likely to believe in the nicer parts of religious doctrine than those about the devil and punishment.
Their images of God tended to be of an old man with a beard, while pop songs were played at memorial services because the young congregation did not know any hymns. The book suggested that the chain of Christian memory has become eroded in Britain, particularly as the authority of the church has declined, society has become more interested in technology to solve problems, and globalization has led to a spiritual market of competing beliefs. It is undoubtedly the case that the Christian memory is very faint and in many respects Generation Y are a largely unstoried and memoryless generation, the study said. The 2001 census found that 62 per cent of young Britons still call themselves Christian, although in a more recent survey only 27 per cent of 18 to 24 year-olds felt they belonged to a Christian denomination.
Only two-fifths of children are being baptised into the faith as fewer and fewer young people are being brought up in households with religiously inclined parents. However, despite their distance from traditional religion, the young people interviewed were not actively hostile to Christianity.
The book points out that about one in three schools in England has links to a church, while all state schools are supposed to provide acts of collective worship. Without school religion the Christian memory would be much weaker than it currently is. But there was a risk that the compulsory nature of religion in schools could undermine pupils interest in Christianity.
Link
The study published by the Church of England concludes that people born after 1982 - known as "Generation Y" - have only a faded cultural memory of Christianity. For many young people, religious observance extends no further than praying in their bedrooms during moments of crisis, on a need to believe basis. The findings are contained a new book, The Faith of Generation Y, whose authors include the Bishop of Coventry, the Rt Rev Christopher Cocksworth.
Sylvia Collins-Mayo, principal lecturer in sociology at Kingston University, said most of the 300 young people questioned for the study were not looking for answers to ultimate questions. For the majority, religion and spirituality was irrelevant for day-to-day living, she said. On the rare occasions when a religious perspective was required, for example coping with family illnesses or bereavements, they often made do with a very faded, inherited cultural memory of Christianity in the absence of anything else. The authors described this approach as bedroom spirituality. Some teenagers prayed for the health of loved ones or for success in relationships and exams, while others made confessions in an attempt to express their anxieties.
But most young people today define themselves by a secular trinity of family, friends and the reflexive self, giving them an immanent faith based on relationships in this world, the study found.
Fewer than one in five young people believe in a God who created the world and hears my prayers, and teenagers were more likely to believe in the nicer parts of religious doctrine than those about the devil and punishment.
Their images of God tended to be of an old man with a beard, while pop songs were played at memorial services because the young congregation did not know any hymns. The book suggested that the chain of Christian memory has become eroded in Britain, particularly as the authority of the church has declined, society has become more interested in technology to solve problems, and globalization has led to a spiritual market of competing beliefs. It is undoubtedly the case that the Christian memory is very faint and in many respects Generation Y are a largely unstoried and memoryless generation, the study said. The 2001 census found that 62 per cent of young Britons still call themselves Christian, although in a more recent survey only 27 per cent of 18 to 24 year-olds felt they belonged to a Christian denomination.
Only two-fifths of children are being baptised into the faith as fewer and fewer young people are being brought up in households with religiously inclined parents. However, despite their distance from traditional religion, the young people interviewed were not actively hostile to Christianity.
The book points out that about one in three schools in England has links to a church, while all state schools are supposed to provide acts of collective worship. Without school religion the Christian memory would be much weaker than it currently is. But there was a risk that the compulsory nature of religion in schools could undermine pupils interest in Christianity.
Link
- Joined
- May 23, 2003
- Messages
- 4,580
Lord Carey as featured in that staunch promoter of Christian values The Sun:
Don't let Christianity be airbrushed out of Christmas, by Lord Carey
THE starting gun has sounded on the Christmas shopping rush and the yuletide chart battle is already hotting up. Supermarket shelves are stacked high with tempting foods and everywhere you turn there are festive lights and displays.
But how much do we really stop to think about the Christian story which underpins Christmas?
Traditional school nativity plays, Christmas decorations and greetings cards are being stripped of Christian content.
Lord Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991-2002, is determined that Christianity should not be "airbrushed" out of society. He is backing the "Not Ashamed" campaign by pressure group Christian Concern urging British believers to embrace their faith.
Here Lord Carey explains why he is not ashamed to be Christian and is happy to stand up for the silent majority.
I'M not ashamed. I don't know about you but I am immensely proud of our country. I'm proud of our Parliamentary democracy under our Monarchy.
I'm proud of the sense of fairness and fair play that runs throughout our nation. I am proud of our tradition of tolerance and our historic commitment to welcoming the stranger.
Yet what many people don't realise is that it is the Christian faith that underpins these great strengths and that has enriched our nation in so many ways.
Roman Catholic adoption agencies are closed down under new laws. Christian marriage registrars who cannot, in good conscience, preside over civil partnership ceremonies are summarily dismissed.
This attempt to "airbrush" the Christian faith out of the picture is especially obvious as Christmas approaches. The cards that used to carry Christmas wishes now bear "season's greetings".
continues
Link
Interesting to note the ongoing and erroneous references to cross-bearing Christians being told not to wear their bling at work. Once a persecuted minority always a persecuted minority, I guess. Not to mention the failure to grasp the concept of consumer choice.
Don't let Christianity be airbrushed out of Christmas, by Lord Carey
THE starting gun has sounded on the Christmas shopping rush and the yuletide chart battle is already hotting up. Supermarket shelves are stacked high with tempting foods and everywhere you turn there are festive lights and displays.
But how much do we really stop to think about the Christian story which underpins Christmas?
Traditional school nativity plays, Christmas decorations and greetings cards are being stripped of Christian content.
Lord Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991-2002, is determined that Christianity should not be "airbrushed" out of society. He is backing the "Not Ashamed" campaign by pressure group Christian Concern urging British believers to embrace their faith.
Here Lord Carey explains why he is not ashamed to be Christian and is happy to stand up for the silent majority.
I'M not ashamed. I don't know about you but I am immensely proud of our country. I'm proud of our Parliamentary democracy under our Monarchy.
I'm proud of the sense of fairness and fair play that runs throughout our nation. I am proud of our tradition of tolerance and our historic commitment to welcoming the stranger.
Yet what many people don't realise is that it is the Christian faith that underpins these great strengths and that has enriched our nation in so many ways.
Roman Catholic adoption agencies are closed down under new laws. Christian marriage registrars who cannot, in good conscience, preside over civil partnership ceremonies are summarily dismissed.
This attempt to "airbrush" the Christian faith out of the picture is especially obvious as Christmas approaches. The cards that used to carry Christmas wishes now bear "season's greetings".
continues
Link
Interesting to note the ongoing and erroneous references to cross-bearing Christians being told not to wear their bling at work. Once a persecuted minority always a persecuted minority, I guess. Not to mention the failure to grasp the concept of consumer choice.
Lord Carey said:
So says the Christian. In my opinion, it is these great strengths that have moulded and shaped Christianity in Britain and, for the most part, kept at bay the religious and religion's natural tendencies to seek power and impose overbearing control over the population.
Incidentally, as far as I can recall, "Season's Greetings" has appeared on cards for the best part of 40 years, if not a lot longer. To use that as a current example of the erosion of Christianity seems a little disingenuous.
ramonmercado
CyberPunk
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2003
- Messages
- 58,356
- Location
- Eblana
Was his article on page 3?