Time to review religious instruction in schools

Religious education in government schools is a hot topic in Australia. Whenever we have conducted consultations with diverse religious communities the most frequent request we have received is for education about diverse religions to be included in the curriculum from the first years of schooling.

Second annual examination of the Sunday School for Religious Instruction of Israelites in Philadelphia : held at the synagoge Mikveh Israel ... 29th of March, 1840

together wirth a prayer by Isaac Leeser and an adress by Moses N. Nathan

Mr. Websters̓ speech in defence of the Christian ministry, and in favor of the religious instruction of the young. Delivered in the Supreme Court of the United States February 10, 1844, in the case of Stephen Girards̓ will.

Mode of access: Internet.

The social, educational and religious state of the manufacturing districts; with statistical returns of the means of education and religious instruction in the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire; in two letters to the Right Hon. Sir Robt. Peel, bart., with an appendix containing a letter to the Right Hon. Lord Wharncliffe, on Sir Jas. Graham's factory education bill; also the objections to the amended bill.

Includes tables.

Loans to institutions for religious instruction and worship : hearing ... Seventy-fourth Congress, first Session, on S. 1433, a bill to authorize the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to make loans to aid in the operatic and maintenance of institutions for religious instruction and worship and for other purposes. July 25, 1935.

Mode of access: Internet.

The infant school teacher's assistant; embracing a course of moral and religious instruction, adapted to the minds of the children, and designed to draw answers from them.

Mode of access: Internet.

Proceedings of the Meeting in Charleston, S.C., May 13-15, 1845, on the religious instruction of the Negroes : together with the report of the committee, and the address to the public.

"Published by order of the meeting".

End and essence of Sabbath school teaching. A family religious instruction.

Mode of access: Internet.

The peep of day: or, A series of the earliest religious instruction the infant mind is capable of receiving ; with verses illustrative of the subjects.

Mode of access: Internet.

Heroic lives in universal religion : a manual for religious instruction in junior grades, for pupils eleven years of age,

Issued also under title: Heroic lives.

The story of Jesus, a manual for religious instruction in the intermediate grades,

"Books for the teacher's library": p. xxix-xxx.

Governance and Religious Diversity in Australia: Multifaith relations and religious instruction in the State of Victoria

Australia, like many societies, is grappling with the reality that its population is becoming at once increasingly religiously diverse and non-religious. This is evident in a number of contentious public and policy debates, including those centred on religion and education. At the turn of the twenty-first century, and particularly after the events of 9/11, religion has featured prominently in the global media and been frequently associated with violence. This had led to the development of a number of strategies by state actors and religious communities aimed at the ‘management’ (Bouma, 1999) or ‘governance’ (Bader, 2007) of religious diversity; sometimes in partnership and, at other times, at odds with one another. The Australian state of Victoria has implemented a number of progressive policies and practices promoting positive multifaith relations and community resilience. Yet, it is still struggling with how best to oversee religious instruction and provide education about diverse religions and non-religious worldviews in government schools.

Teaching or preaching — Max Charlesworth and religious education

In this essay I elaborate on the theoretical framework – that of Millian liberalism – that Max Charlesworth brought to many public issues, including that of the relation between education and religion. I will then apply this framework to a debate in which I have been recently involved myself: a debate around the provision of religious instruction in public schools. In the first section I expound Charlesworth’s rejection of secularism in education in a liberal pluralist state and his defence of faith-based schooling. In the second section I uncover the religious motivations behind the Victorian government’s 1950 amendments to the apparently secularist Victorian Education Act of 1872. In section three, I explore the notion of secularism more fully and suggest that the struggle between those who espouse religious instruction in state schools and those who oppose it while advocating a more general form of education about religion is a symptom of a deeper tension between liberalism and communitarianism within the culture of modernist, liberal states.

"Politiikka on kirkossa" : Keskustapuolueen kirkkopoliittisten tavoitteiden muotoutuminen vuosina 1966–1978

This study in church history deals with the formation of aims in the church politics of the Centre Party during a period of extensive politicisation in Finnish society – 1966 to 1978. The focus is on the processes of creating political input within the party organisation. The most important source material consists of the records of the highest party organs as well as material from the party office and the party’s committee for church politics. In the late 1960s, at a time of leftist radicalism in Finnish society, issues concerning the Church were seldom dealt with in the highest party organs, even though informal discussion took place within the party. This phase was followed by a conservative reaction in society during the 1970s. The rightist trend as well as the ongoing politicisation process substantially strengthened the role of church politics in the party. An aim of great importance was to prevent those supporters who belonged to the Lutheran revival movements from moving into the Finnish Christian League. Therefore it became increasingly important to prove that the Centre Party was defending the Church as well as so-called Christian values in state politics, e.g., by advocating religious instruction in schools. The Centre Party also defended the independence and legal status of the Church, at the same time positioning itself against Finland’s Social Democratic Party. Many party members were of the opinion that the church politics should have been about defending the Church and Christian values in state politics instead of defending the proportional share of the party’s seats in the ecclesiastical decision-making system. Nevertheless, the struggle for hegemony between the Centre Party and the Social Democrats was reflected in the Evangelical Lutheran Church particularly since 1973. Thus the aims of church politics were increasingly directed towards ecclesiastical elections and appointments in the 1970s. To justify its activities in church elections, the party stressed that it was not politicising the Church. To the contrary, it was asserted that the church leaders themselves had politicised the Church by favouring the Social Democrats. These alleged efforts to affiliate the Church with one political party were strictly condemned in the Centre Party. But when it came to the political parties’ activity in church elections, opinions diverged. Generally, the issues of church politics resembled those of the party’s trade union politics in the 1970s.