Ian Ellis: A new era in religious education would demand new steps from the churches

I pointed out that it was “an affront to current RE teachers to frame them as indoctrinators”, as indoctrination, at least in everyday language, implies imposing belief. Indeed, the Supreme Court's ruling accepted that the word “ordinarily has negative connotations”.

That is because the word “indoctrination” often conjures up images of totalitarian states where citizens are coerced by sometimes extremely harsh threats and other means not to question official stances, or are even subjected to brainwashing.

Yet, regarding the word “indoctrination”, the Supreme Court went on to state that “in the context of the Christian faith it is a synonym for evangelism or proselytising”, but I have never encountered anyone in any of the churches holding such a view of the practice of their denomination.

Indeed, in 1988 the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops initiated a Decade of Evangelism for the 1990s, in which other Protestant churches shared, and the Roman Catholic Church observed a parallel Decade of Evangelisation, and neither process was presented by either as indoctrination.

The explanation for the Supreme Court's approach, which included the assurance that it was using the term “devoid of any negative connotations”, appears to be that the word “indoctrination”, despite its capacity to bring about accusations of being inflammatory, has a particular and narrowly defined meaning in human rights law, reflecting the more benign dictionary definitions, namely, and quite simply, that it is teaching that fails to be “objective, critical and pluralistic”.

Dictionaries give a range of definitions of the word. Just three provide a sense of that range:

My old Oxford Dictionary defines the verb 'indoctrinate' as, "Teach, instruct; imbue with a doctrine, idea, or opinion."

Dictionary.com gives three definitions: "1. to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., especially to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view. 2. to teach or inculcate. 3. to imbue with learning." It also gives 'propagandize' and 'brainwash' as synonyms.

The Cambridge Dictionary explains the UK meaning of the word “indoctrinate” as “to often repeat an idea or belief to someone until they accept it without criticism or question”.

There is somewhat of a mismatch between the word as it is used on the one hand by the Supreme Court along with the more benign of the dictionary definitions, and on the other hand in general parlance.

Even if declared as without negative connotations, this hardly mitigates the offence of the terminology to teachers who have been subjected to labelling that, to the ordinary person, means something not only negative but actually reprehensible.

Promoting a particular faith can be done in a way that is critical, in so far as it encourages questioning. In fact, encouraging questioning and exploring is part of how faith should be taught.

Yet, if RE is to be presented in a wholly objective and pluralistic way, the approach may tend to undermine the faith of a child of a particular religious tradition, by an essentially relativistic approach.

So, in exchanging a distinctly Christian curriculum for an objective and pluralistic one, a wholly new problem has been created, because the latter can create an ethos which in turn has its own influence.

Moreover, Article 2 of the first protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights affirms that the State shall respect the parental right to ensure that children's education is “in conformity” with parents' religious and philosophical convictions.

However, teaching religion in an entirely objective and pluralistic manner could be said to conflict with the State's duty to provide religious education that is “in conformity” with parents' convictions.

This is so, not because the State is denying the truth of any faith, but because such a syllabus introduces children of particular beliefs to serious counter truth claims, flattening out the doctrines of the different religions they are being told about.

All of this potentially creates deep confusion in the mind of a child.

No doubt, those who are promoting the new syllabus will see this as a necessary trade-off, so the issue then arises as to what the churches in particular are to do in light of such a new curriculum.

Children will have to contend with conflicting faith claims and therefore the churches will have to take extra care to present the Christian faith to their children in a clear and reasonable way, and in a way that equips them to face other opposed faith claims.

Everyone needs to be able to account for their faith but learning about different faiths will not tend to develop any particular faith, so the call to the churches is clear.

As the BBC has reported, the Supreme Court ruling “is not going to mean the end of RE in Northern Ireland's schools or ban hymns or prayers in school assemblies”, but such a new era in RE would demand new steps from the churches.

Canon Ian Ellis is a former editor of The Church of Ireland Gazette