24.10.1996

Opt religion out

As a matter of principle, communists stand for the separation of church and state. As a logical corollary, we believe that religion should be an entirely private matter. Therefore, we defend the democratic right to religious worship and the right to promulgate atheist propaganda. Concretely, this means defending the right of religious sects like the Jehovah’s Witnesses or L Ron Hubbard’s Church of Scientology to voice their beliefs without fear of state repression or oppressive legislation.

All this means that communists are passionate advocates, and defenders, of a secular schooling system. There should be no religious or denominational schools or colleges of any description, and children must have the right to an education free of religious dogma or bigotry. If parents feel that their children should have a religious upbringing, then they can provide it at home - or in the church, temple or mosque of their choosing. Such is their democratic right. But religion - in the sense of promoting, advocating or defending ‘faith’ - should be kept out of the schoolroom.

In this light, we regard the decision of Gillian Shephard, the education secretary, to offer state funding to the Seventh Day Adventist sect as a profoundly retrogressive step. The John Loughborough school in Haringey is about to opt into the grant-maintained state system, which will see it receive an annual revenue of about £500,000 to teach 250 pupils - plus a £130,000 capital grant to upgrade science and technology facilities. Significantly, this would see the first ever state religious school not run by an establishment church.

This is no trivial matter. The adherents of the Seventh Day Adventist church, founded in the US in the mid-19th century, are eagerly waiting for the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ, reject the theory of evolution and abstain from all intoxicants. Dr Clinton Valley, the school’s headmaster, has stated: “The ethos of the school is that the teachers see themselves as missionaries” - and he means it.

Obviously this decision sets a precedent, opening the door to ‘opting in’ by all manner of religious schools. It would hardly be ‘fair’, or logical, to fund a Seventh Day Adventist church whose members total about 19,000, while spurning Muslim schools with vastly more. That would be clear discrimination - in favour of Seventh Day Adventist members. In the words of Dr Valley, “There should be no distinction between the Church of England or Roman catholic schools and other faiths”.

Communists agree wholeheartedly - all faiths should be treated equally. This is why we stand explicitly for the immediate abolition of all religious educational institutions. If we go down the Gillian Shephard road, the country will inevitably start to fracture along religious lines, which would be disastrous. It would also limit the development of children, who will find it harder and harder to escape from the grip of superstition and mysticism - whether it be the cult of Christianity or the cult of Islam.

Unfortunately, this process of religious fracturing is taking its first steps. Local consultations are nearing completion for the Al Furqan school, a Muslim primary in Birmingham, in order for it to ‘opt’ into the grant-maintained state system. Four more proposals for Muslim schools are in the pipeline in Brent, and the Guru Nanak school, a Sikh institution, wants to get its piece of the pie. A religious free-for-all could easily develop, as the Enlightenment slips further into the background.

There should be no favouritism or discrimination in the school system - all our children should be treated equally, regardless of faith or religion. This means they should be getting the same education, which must be scientific and of the highest quality. Only then can society as a whole advance and mature, and individual human beings develop their real potential.

This is something that the Socialist Labour Party, in particular, must fight for. Encouragingly, the general thrust of the May 4 draft policy statements point in this direction. Correctly, they state that the “size and influence of the private/‘independent’ sector is a serious obstacle to the development of a truly comprehensive system”, and commit the party to the “abolition of these schools and using their resources for the benefit of the community as a whole”. Gillian Shephard’s recent decision clearly runs in contradictory to the progressive, anti-discriminatory ethos outlined above.    

All religion, ultimately, stands against this progress and its imposition must be resisted - not by state power and oppression, but by argument, persuasion and openness.

Paul Greenaway