Ian Ellis: It is not indoctrination to teach the doctrine of the Trinity in a subjective, uncritical and non-pluralistic way

It has always been a happy aspect of my ministry.

The recent judgement of the Supreme Court finding that the way religious education has been conducted in Northern Ireland was unlawful has raised many issues for teachers in particular.

It is for lawyers to argue the details of the judgement, but one comment by the Supreme Court was particularly striking for me, namely, that “conveying knowledge in a manner that is not objective, critical, and pluralistic amounts to pursuing the aim of indoctrination”.

That is a question I have thought a lot about over the years, particularly in a church context, so the question I seek to address here is: “Is teaching in Sunday school indoctrination?”

This is not what the Supreme Court was dealing with, but it is a relevant question in light of what the Supreme Court has said about religion in schools that are seeking to fulfil the state's requirements.

For example, by teaching our children in Sunday school that the world we inhabit is the creation of a loving God, that God exists in three persons, and that the second person of this Trinity is Jesus Christ who is the saviour of the world, is one engaging in indoctrination?

The first thing to consider here is the word “indoctrination”. Words are important and must be used carefully.

From what I understand of explanations of its meaning, the word "indoctrination" indicates the teaching of beliefs or world-views without allowing those being taught to question what they are being told.

Indoctrination thus is akin to what is sometimes called “brainwashing” and I would instinctively abhor any such practice.

It is an assault on an individual's human dignity.

So, if a person who is being taught that the Trinity is three persons in one God asks how that can possibly be, the indoctrinator would tell that person not to dare to question the teaching and just to accept it – and possibly would apply a penalty to the questioner for having had the audacity to raise the question at all.

I therefore find the Supreme Court's comment both surprising and, without intending any pun, injudicious.

It should be clear that indoctrination is not the same thing as teaching particular viewpoints “in a manner that is not objective, critical, and pluralistic”, because indoctrination also requires the silencing of questioning.

It is therefore not indoctrination to teach the doctrine of the Trinity in a subjective, uncritical and non-pluralistic way, but it is indoctrination to teach it in such a way whilst forbidding any questioning.

Any good Sunday school teacher, or any good teacher in whatever context, would welcome children's questions and would not want any child to feel that questions are not allowed or even could lead to punishment.

This does, however, raise the question of teaching children articles of faith while they are still very young and are not yet able to formulate appropriate questions.

In such a context, the teacher has the upper hand, as it were. There is a certain imbalance.

Teaching young children in particular demands an awareness of that imbalance and the avoidance of any intellectual exploitation of it.

So, can one rightly tell a young child, for example, and that God is the creator of the world?

I would say, yes, provided that it is not done in a forceful way.

I say this not least because, by telling a young child that there may or may not be such a creator God, one is already communicating a certain ambivalent attitude.

If young children are influenced towards religious ambivalence or agnosticism that, equally, is to instil a world-view.

The main thing to be aware of in the context of Sunday school teachers, or indeed parents, communicating the Christian faith to children is that it should be done in a gentle way that does not ignore the fact that the child is still a child and will not have the capacity to argue deep theological points.

I remember from my own childhood my mother reading me Bible stories.

It is a precious memory, and while it may have had some influence on me to believe the Christian faith, I would honestly say that if my parents had had nothing much to do with the church and had been ambivalent about the Christian faith, that possibly would equally have had its influence on me.

So, no matter what approach is taken, it may have an influence in a certain direction.

For that reason I do not see the communicating of one's religious faith to children, be it the Christian faith or another faith, as wrong.

What is wrong is to seek to force a faith on children and to deny them the opportunity to ask questions about the faith they are being taught.

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