Faith Schools: Bring Down the Wall

We often hear from religious people that faith teaches acceptance of others, tolerance, social cohesion, community. So then why do we still have faith schools, in a supposedly liberal society, which by definition teach exclusion of others, tolerance only of faith, social disconnection and segregation? What is the defense for such institutions? The answer is there is no legitimate or rational defense, but that doesn't surprise me. When has faith ever been legitimate or rational?

This debate about faith schools once came up on BBC's The Big Debate, and I recall one of the main arguments for them being that they are not as prescriptive as people assume and that they are largely tolerant of a variety of different faiths.

Doesn't this sound rosy? So why the need to identify it as a 'Faith' School. Why not just a school? I'll tell you why. Because what they're really saying is:

'Yea, ok, we'll admit a minority of children who are not of our faith. They're wrong, but we'll tolerate their ignorance. Our way is the right way, and they'll eventually come to see this'.

Another dimension to this is the question of how religion should actually be taught in school. Personally, I don't believe that a certain faith should be enforced upon any child, full stop. Let alone in an institution funded by public money put up by the average taxpayer. Whether you think religious indoctrination is a private matter for the home is a separate point (and obviously one I oppose), the point is that it has absolutely no place in school. Children should be educated about religion, not indoctrinated by it. Religion is inextricably linked with history, philosophy, literature, art etc. and in that sense it cannot be ignored. I'm all for this. As a matter of fact, I think that if children were taught more about the Crusades and the Inquisitions detached from a subjective faith imposed upon them that this would work largely in favour of souring some of the oft-quoted values of religion.

Now, what about the social consequences? Aren't faith schools just a milder manifestation of apartheid? They are absolutely divisive by nature, and strive to separate children in a multi-faith society. The organization of faith schools in fact implies and pretty much endorses an Us versus Them mentality. Children at these schools are often too young to have even started to make up their own mind about religion, whether it is which religion they find most suited to them or whether or not they want religion at all. So what faith schools do is label these children, and in effect make up their own minds for them. They can preach about tolerance of a spectrum of attitudes and opinions all they want, but at the end of the day what they are arguing for is an institution based around one particular belief, and this kind of a system will always be divisive, prescriptive, exclusive, and biased.

So what I say is break down the walls. No more faith schools. Educate, don't indoctrinate. Teach about the diversity of religions, not unilateral faith. Teach children to question, analyse, apply and reason - not adhere.