Andrerson on the BCSE

[a_haworthroberts]

A while ago someone on the BBC Religion mb referred to a Riverside Church, which visited local schools and 'questioned evolution'.

Perhaps it's THIS Riverside Church in Exeter: http://www.riversideexeter.co.uk/index.php They appears to belong to the Assemblies of God.

[Roger Stanyard]

A while ago someone on the BBC Religion mb referred to a Riverside Church, which visited local schools and 'questioned evolution'.

Perhaps it's THIS Riverside Church in Exeter: http://www.riversideexeter.co.uk/index.php They appears to belong to the Assemblies of God.

Possibly as the Exeter Riverside is a big, influential, church. However there are several churches called Riverside dotted around the YK.

[cathy]

Peter wrote: In England maybe, but the Catholic church has it's own set of fundamentalist beliefs. Witness the ROI where abortion and divorce are not only banned, the ban is written into the state's constitution

Sorry Peter forget what I wrote about the catholic church in England (its benign cos it hasn't got a hold on our constitution yet). Looks like the morons we seem to have elected to destroy the country must find the ROI appealing cos in todays Guardian I read the LIFE has been drafted in instead of the brilliant BPAS to advise on matters of sexual health and education!!! And Richmond council has given the catholic childrens something or other £89,000 to advise on teenage pregnancy and contraception!!!! Under the govts lets get faith groups to mop up spending cuts. Whaaat. Oh and they''re looking at faith groups help give contraceptive advice with a faith based message. Hmm. Actually what happens at present is fine. Give kids (girls) the confidence to say no until they feel ready, and to say no to coercion, whilst educating them to do it safely when they are ready and not coerced. Not authoritarian abstinence for abstinences sake which really doesn't work.

Oh and it looks like we're importing yet more American christianity. US christian groups, it would appear, are calling on their deep reserves of compassion, humanity and sympathy to come and try make women feel guilty when at their most vulnerable and distressed by protesting outside abortion clinics in Britain, like they do over there. To the credit of the people walking by, they did seem to be calling the protestors a disgrace. Wonder how long before we allow them to intimidate or shoot a few doctors? So Roger is right about a theocracy and looks like the Tories are in favour. The toothless spineless evil lib dem liars may yet attempt something, but I doubt it.

Anyway this is way outside the remit of bcse, and political, so I hope dannyno and the gnu atheists are actually on to it. And that they are prepared to actually accomodate to ensure something happens rather than sit on their ideological high horses and refuse to work with any non atheist that just might agree with them. I think the world has gone mad. I knew the tories would be awful but even I didn't envisage this (oh and on the need for spending cuts there was also something in the paper about how much their ideological reforms were costing ie health reforms and free schools-fair few millions in these days of cuts-given that all are a waste of money).

[cathy]

Possibly as the Exeter Riverside is a big, influential, church. However there are several churches called Riverside dotted around the YK.

Check the older newsletters on the St Peters website. The RE dept seems to have drafted in what look like youth outreach workers to help with each year group. Haven't had time to suss out what it is by year11 someone for Riverside Christian C, year 10 Exeter Vineyard, year 9 Belmon Chapel, year 8 ISCA and year 7 Pinhoe Road Baptist church. All the RE sections of the newsletter are written by the same person who is the Subject leader for RE (head of). The newsletters are quite illuminating compared with others I've read which are usually about visits to places of worship or trips to unis

[jon_12091]

Looks like the morons we seem to have elected to destroy the country must find the ROI appealing cos in todays Guardian I read the LIFE has been drafted in instead of the brilliant BPAS to advise on matters of sexual health and education!!! And Richmond council has given the catholic childrens something or other £89,000 to advise on teenage pregnancy and contraception!!!! Under the govts lets get faith groups to mop up spending cuts. Whaaat. Oh and they''re looking at faith groups help give contraceptive advice with a faith based message. Hmm. Actually what happens at present is fine. Give kids (girls) the confidence to say no until they feel ready, and to say no to coercion, whilst educating them to do it safely when they are ready and not coerced. Not authoritarian abstinence for abstinences sake which really doesn't work.

I assume we're ultimately talking about the dangerously clueless Nadine Dorries.

[00Laura00]

Check the older newsletters on the St Peters website. The RE dept seems to have drafted in what look like youth outreach workers to help with each year group. Haven't had time to suss out what it is by year11 someone for Riverside Christian C, year 10 Exeter Vineyard, year 9 Belmon Chapel, year 8 ISCA and year 7 Pinhoe Road Baptist church. All the RE sections of the newsletter are written by the same person who is the Subject leader for RE (head of). The newsletters are quite illuminating compared with others I've read which are usually about visits to places of worship or trips to unis

Apart from Pinhoe Baptist Church of which I have no knowledge, these are all FC churches none of which are in the CoE community. I know I should be aware of this but I wasn't, not even sure what a year helper does or is - kids haven't mentioned it.
Laura

[00Laura00]

I

do not know whether Philip Bell actually heard John Spicer but I did not pick this up from my telephone conversation with Bell.

Don't think so I understand they were in seperate rooms apart from brief 5 min introduction.

[cathy]

Apart from Pinhoe Baptist Church of which I have no knowledge, these are all FC churches none of which are in the CoE community. I know I should be aware of this but I wasn't, not even sure what a year helper does or is - kids haven't mentioned it.
Laura00Laura00

i haven't read all the newsletters but I wouldn't be happy if what seems to be going on in your childrens school was going on in my childrens schools I know that. The churchs above were in the Dec 2010 newsletter (I think) The folk involved were appointed as Honorary Asst Chaplains to assist in worship. In addition it looks like most of the RE news seems to involve things like the Exeter Network Church (which doesn't sound CofE) and ISCA, ICE (looks like integrated christian education?) Also South West Youth MInistries. I have one child in an RC high school and have never seen anything like that. The only reference I can find to other religions so far is when the school had a PGCE student in RE. Then they seem to study HInduism, Sikhism etc/

[Brian Jordan]

In addition it looks like most of the RE news seems to involve things like the Exeter Network Church (which doesn't sound CofE) and ISCA, ICE (looks like integrated christian education?) Also South West Youth MInistries.

I hope that ICE isn't actually ACE - Accelerated Christian Education - which is a fundie home-schooling system which has no place in any publicly funded school.
EDIT: no, it looks like the Exeter Initiative in Christian Education. A member of the Evangelical Alliance, which is a biblical literalist organisation which believes in

The divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God—fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.(my emphasis)

Our wiki described them in 2007 as "sitting on the fence". Their own web site, around the same time, seems to rely on the difference between Creationism and a belief in Creation to blur the issue but is certain that religion has a place in the science classroom:

Dr Justin Thacker, Head of Theology at the Evangelical Alliance and medical doctor, said: “The wider danger, here, is that science becomes cut off from other disciplines that are relevant. Science can only be properly understood or applied when it is put in its social, historical, philosophical, ethical and religious context.

“The history of science has shown that there are serious dangers involved in isolating science from these other subjects, and we hope that this latest guidance will not increase the likelihood of this.”

Trevor Cooling, Director of Transforming Lives, an interdenominational project that promotes teaching as a Christian vocation, said: “What is really important is that we don’t ban conversation about God from the science classroom in an over-reaction against creationism.

“It is vitally important that children learn to set science in the wider context of beliefs and values. If we are going to achieve community cohesion in a multifaith society, children have to learn to talk about religion in all areas of life, not just in RE lessons.

“Creationism is a controversial issue, which millions of people believe in, whatever atheists may feel about that. Government guidelines are clear that controversial issues should be taught in a balanced, not biased, way in every subject.” (my emphasis)

Which sounds to me like people in danger of falling off that fence. http://www.eauk.org/media/creationism-in-schools.cfm

[cathy]

I didn't check all the newsletters Brian, but the only time names from the groups I've listed weren't mentioned was when they had a PGCE student in RE. That was the only mention I could find of other non christian religions being studied. Not only that but musical members of those groups (ISCA etc) were even invited in to help children with music for worship. The school has a music department!!!! Its usually the music dept that co-ordinates music in a school, whether its for carol concerts or masses or anything else!!! Well in every school I've ever known anyway. Something is seriously odd there. Thats a very unbalanced RE dept if you want my opinion.

Checked the RE news in the newsletters I get from my kids' schools. For the secular school the last lot of RE news I could find was year 7 visiting various churches in Kings Heath (where the school is) year 8 visit St Martins in the Bull Ring. Year 10 Central Mosque and the Gurdwara. Year 11/12 trip to Rome, Fair trade stalls. Year 12 an AS conference at B'Ham uni.

For the Catholic one year 9 visit Buddhist centre (which was ok according to my year 9), Year 10 Central Mosque. Year 7 learnt about Jewish festivals. visit from fair trade lady to talk about fair trade and sell things. Fair trade stalls, leavers mass,sponsored walk on their saints day. No strange sects given undue preference and no creationist sects. Is this a CofE thing? I doubt it.

I'd certainly be withdrawing my kids from worship and RE if they were at St Peters. Apart from RE is a gcse subject so impossible to withdraw from.

[jon_12091]

“Creationism is a controversial issue, which millions of people believe in, whatever atheists may feel about that. Government guidelines are clear that controversial issues should be taught in a balanced, not biased, way in every subject.” (my emphasis)

Which sounds to me like people in danger of falling off that fence. http://www.eauk.org/media/creationism-in-schools.cfm

To my mind that statement suggests that they've fallen off the fence - though their distinctly literalist lean suggests to me they may only have sat on the fence so as 'not to scare the horses'. The fact that the only bunch of people they can think of who might have an issue with creationism are atheists also suggests a certain narrow idealogical POV. As for the issue of 'sciences social context' one of my main gripes is creationism IS going to get Christians ignored in any future ethical debates because we won't be taken seriously. It sounds suspiciously like the school were relying rather heavily on a single outside group for support in matters of RE with a rather narrow focus.

[Michael]

It is INCORRECT to say that "the Evangelical Alliance, which is a biblical literalist organisation which believes inThe divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God—fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.(my emphasis)"

The EA is evangelical and covers a wide range of perspectives and many are not biblical literalist any more than I am. I can accept their statement on the bible - now get banned into out darkness When the EA was founded in 1846 most of the leaders were not biblical literalists and in fact a higher proportion than now. It is only in the last 20 years that more members of the EA have been YEC. People like Thacker have a delicate balancing job.

However there is much in the EA which has given me cause for concern over the alst 20 years and the same for groups like the Assoc of christian Teachers (ACT) which was excellent until the end of last century.

What we are witnessing is the creationismisation of much of the evangelical wing of the churches.

[a_haworthroberts]

The 2007 Guidance is now very hard to locate online (searching on the DFE website is a total waste of time I found): http://www.mmiweb.org.uk/srsp/new/guidance_science.html

The key sentences are "Creationism and intelligent design are sometimes claimed to be scientific theories. This is not the case as they have no underpinning scientific principles, or explanations, and are not accepted by the science community as a whole. Creationism and intelligent design therefore do not form part of the science National Curriculum programmes of study".

Also: "Is creationism a valid scientific theory?
‘Creationism’, a term commonly used as a shorthand for ‘young-Earth creationism’, is the belief that the Earth and its many species did not gradually come into being over billions of years but were created suddenly and within the last 10,000 years. This proposed timescale can be investigated scientifically with the scientific evidence indicating a much older Earth (between 4,000 and 5,000 million years). The existence of a ‘creator’ is not scientifically testable".

And: "The theory of evolution lies at the heart of biology and should be taught at key stage 4 and in GCE advanced level biology. Creationism and intelligent design are not scientific theories and do not form part of the science National Curriculum or the GCSE and GCE A level subject criteria."

This seems quite clear. The term 'creationism' clearly extends wider than young-Earth creationism because - for instance - old-Earth creationism is normally anti-evolution (as is ID much of the time) and is not the 'creation plus evolution' belief of the theistic evolutionist/biologos supporter.

Not sure why the 2007 EA statement/press release made such a meal of it.

[Brian Jordan]

Sorry Michael, I understood Biblical literalism to include the belief that the Bible is the actual words of God. It seems a bit Jesuitical to then consider them as allegorical. I'll put it down to semantics because I can't do theology.

[psiloiordinary]

I posted a link ti the guidance on the blog here

http://bcseweb.blogspot.com/2011/04/gov ... ng-of.html