The British Council of Churches’ influence on the ‘Radical Rethinking of Religious Education’ in the 1960s & 1970s
Doney, J
Date: 3 June 2019
Journal
Studies in Church History
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP) / Ecclesiastical History Society
Publisher DOI
Abstract
It is widely accepted that during the later 1960s, Religious Education in English statemaintained
schools underwent a significant transition, moving from a Christian
‘confessional’ approach to an academic study of world religions. A detailed
examination of the activities of the British Council of Churches’ Education
Department ...
It is widely accepted that during the later 1960s, Religious Education in English statemaintained
schools underwent a significant transition, moving from a Christian
‘confessional’ approach to an academic study of world religions. A detailed
examination of the activities of the British Council of Churches’ Education
Department during the period reveals examples of an active promotion of this study of
world religions, something that hitherto has been absent from the historiography of
Religious Education. For example, the Education Department organized key
conferences, meetings, and consultations, at which future directions for Religious
Education were considered and discussed. A research project undertaken for the
department in the later 1960s, which lead to the 1968 report ‘Religion and the
Secondary School’ (edited by Colin Alves), was prompted by the identification that
‘Today the needs of children and young people demand a radical rethinking and
reshaping of the purpose and method of religious education’. This report included a
statement specifically encouraging the study of non-Christian religions, a statement
repeated in later key documents. This paper will show how the British Council of
Churches’ Education Department played a role in the development of the ‘nonconfessional’
study of world religions in English state-maintained schools from as
early as the late 1940s.
School of Education
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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