The Government policy of wholesale immigration of people from other lands, particularly heathen lands, has now borne fruit in the attitude taken up towards religious education in schools. The view now being pressed from many different quarters is that religious education should not consist only of Christian teaching, but that Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and possibly Buddhism should be taught because of the growing number of people of such faiths now living in Britain. In classes in some schools in our country today there are more immigrant than native pupils so that the pressure against Christian teaching is likely to increase. The latest body to recommend the teaching of non-Christian religions in schools is the Government-backed National Foundation for Educational Research. Mr John Hull, a lecturer in theology at Birmingham University school of education, who is part-author of the report put out by the Foundation, also suggests that Communism and humanism should be included in religious education syllabuses. He would have the legal obligation to give religious instruction in schools waived and would have changes made in the compulsory religious assembly.
The trends so far as religious education in schools is concerned are alarming and this is a matter to which the Church would do well to give serious consideration. The secularising of education has gone on apace for many decades but never so rapidly as in recent times. It has, of course, gone hand in hand with the growing apostasy of the nation from the worship of the living and true God.