{"id":7751,"date":"2014-07-03T13:25:37","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T12:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=7751"},"modified":"2014-07-03T14:06:01","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T13:06:01","slug":"ditch-christian-school-assemblies-says-nga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/ditch-christian-school-assemblies-says-nga\/","title":{"rendered":"Ditch Christian School Assemblies says NGA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"schoolprayer\"<\/a>The\u00a0National Governors\u2019 Association (NGA) has suggested scrapping\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>Christian assemblies in state schools<\/a><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The NGA, which told Christian Voice that one-fifth of state school governing bodies are members, says\u00a0staff are \u201cunable or unwilling\u201d to lead pupils in prayer and that worship is ‘meaningless’ to non-Christian schoolchildren.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a policy statement, the body said\u00a0schools were \u201cnot places of worship but places of education\u201d and \u201cthe worship of a religion or religions in all schools should not be \u2026 compulsory.”<\/p>\n

\u201cFew schools can or do meet the current legislative requirement for a daily act of collective worship, partly because there isn\u2019t space in most schools to gather students together and often staff are unable or unwilling to lead a collective worship session,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is also the added issue that worship implies belief in a particular faith \u2013 if the \u2018act of worship\u2019 is not in your faith then it is meaningless as an act of worship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NGA said dropping collective Christian worship from schools\u2019 remit would \u201cnot prevent them from holding assemblies that address a whole range of topics, including faith and belief.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Church of England said dropping Christian assemblies would \u201cdeny children the opportunity to experience something they wouldn\u2019t experience elsewhere in their lives\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Welsh Evangelical Alliance\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/span>National Assembly Liaison Officer Jim Stewart<\/a><\/strong> said of Christian worship in schools:<\/span>\u00a0\u201cIf this right were taken away from us it would lead to further marginalisation of Christianity in public life. This is not just something that is beneficial to us though \u2013 it is for the common good and other faith groups in Wales are supportive of it as are people who don\u2019t have a particular faith.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Naturally, the British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society welcomed the NGA\u2019s comments, with the BHA saying schools should be \u201cholding inclusive assemblies that forward the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all pupils and staff\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, it isn’t at all clear what ‘spiritual, moral, social and cultural’ values would qualify as ‘inclusive’ nor whom or what they could be founded on if not on the God who brought this nation victorious through two world wars.<\/p>\n

It is no good appealing to ‘multi-culturalism.’ \u00a0Even though Islam is the UK’s fastest-growing religion, its practitioners still only number 5% of the population. Our African and Caribbean populations are overwhelmingly Christian. \u00a0Britain is not ‘multi-cultural’ in any meaningful sense.<\/p>\n

For some fifteen hundred years, as they became converted, rulers in this nation increasingly rooted their laws and morality in what Almighty God revealed in the Bible<\/a><\/strong>, revering Jesus Christ as King of kings. \u00a0This process culminated in the late-ninth-century law-code of King Alfred the Great, who based his ‘dooms’ on the laws of God in the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses.<\/p>\n

In a country with such a rich Christian heritage, who defines what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ if not Almighty God? \u00a0The school head? \u00a0The school governors? \u00a0On what basis?<\/p>\n

A collective act of worship has been a statutory requirement in state schools<\/a><\/strong> since the Education Act 1944 stated that \u2018the school day in every county school and every voluntary school shall begin with collective worship on the part of all the pupils in attendance\u2019. \u00a0The\u00a0Act gave parents the right to withdraw their child, perhaps in favour of separate arrangements. \u00a0The\u00a0<\/span>Education Reform Act 1988 reaffirmed that position and reinforced it, stating that the act of worship should be\u00a0\u2018mainly of a broadly Christian character\u2019.<\/p>\n

Children in state schools should engage in a collective act of worship because ours is constitutionally and demographically a Christian country. \u00a0As we lose respect for the sacred, we lose respect for each other. \u00a0Britain would become just a bit more brutal, crass and disrespectful as a result.<\/p>\n

The elimination of school prayer would rank alongside amoral sex education and the silencing of any possibility of creation as a prime motivator of antisocial\u00a0behaviour. \u00a0It would be irrational for anyone to ask why God permits this or that outrage of violence \u00a0in schools which have legislated God out of the door.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0National Governors\u2019 Association cannot claim to represent anything approaching a majority of school governors. \u00a0But if it is true that staff are unable or unwilling to conduct an act of Christian worship, the way is open for a local church to offer the services of its pastor, youth leader or another committed member of the congregation. \u00a0So there is an opportunity in the present situation for closer relationships between schools and churches.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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The\u00a0National Governors\u2019 Association (NGA) has suggested scrapping\u00a0Christian assemblies in state schools. The NGA, which told Christian Voice that one-fifth of state school governing bodies are members, says\u00a0staff are \u201cunable or unwilling\u201d to lead pupils in prayer and that worship is ‘meaningless’ to non-Christian schoolchildren. In a policy statement, the body said\u00a0schools were \u201cnot places of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1035,86,184],"tags":[1295,1296,1298,1297],"class_list":["post-7751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-children","category-secularism","category-uk-christian-constitution","tag-national-governors-association","tag-nga","tag-school-collective-worship","tag-school-worship"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Stephen","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/stephen\/"},"rttpg_comment":21,"rttpg_category":"Education & Children<\/a> Secularism<\/a> UK Christian Constitution<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"The\u00a0National Governors\u2019 Association (NGA) has suggested scrapping\u00a0Christian assemblies in state schools. The NGA, which told Christian Voice that one-fifth of state school governing bodies are members, says\u00a0staff are \u201cunable or unwilling\u201d to lead pupils in prayer and that worship is ‘meaningless’ to non-Christian schoolchildren. In a policy statement, the body said\u00a0schools were \u201cnot places of…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}