Bishop Pritchard wants Church of England schools open to all and sundry
Over the past 25 years and more, the place of the Church of England has diminished in our national life.
Congregations have dwindled, though recently the trend has been resisted in many cathedrals and some parish churches, particularly evangelical ones.
The Established Church so often fails to speak with a clear or united voice on important moral issues, and seems sometimes even to doubt the truth of the gospels it is called to proclaim. Unable or reluctant to make headway against the rising tide of secularism, some of its bishops and clergy have grown disheartened and defeatist.
But there is at least one area in which the Church of England maintains a strong presence in our national life: church schools. There are some 4,700 of them, attended by one million children. Twenty five per cent of all primary schools in England come under the umbrella of the Anglican Church, and more than six per cent of secondary schools.
Educationally, they constitute a remarkable success story, generally producing significantly better results than non-faith schools. Children fortunate enough to attend a church school are offered a grounding in spiritual values which, in a secular age, is absent from most homes and only available in a very watered-down form, if at all, at non-church schools.
So you would have thought that the Church of England would be proud of its schools and anxious to maintain its otherwise quite fragile foothold in our national life. You would be wrong, at any rate to judge by recent remarks made by the Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend John Pritchard, who is chairman of the Church of England’s board of education.
He wants a shake-up in admission policies which would lead to church schools reserving no more than 10 per cent of their places for practising Anglicans. He even says that he would be in favour of this radical change were it to lead to a fall in academic standards, though he adds that he doesn’t believe it would. I should be astonished if it didn’t.
If church schools were forced to admit 90 per cent of children from non-Anglican backgrounds, they would very soon cease being faith schools in any meaningful sense. Non-religious parents would dominate and many of them would probably resent their offspring being offered an overtly Christian education. These schools would no longer provide children with that precious spiritual grounding which many of them take through their lives.
What are they thinking? You would have thought that the Church of England would be proud of its schools and anxious to maintain its otherwise quite fragile foothold in our national life
Some people have welcomed the Bishop’s proposals. They include the campaigning columnist, atheist Polly Toynbee, who is President of the British Humanist Association, and other secular opponents of church schools. By contrast, some Roman Catholic and Muslim leaders, as well as a few Anglican clergy, have expressed amazement that the Bishop of Oxford should be advocating a policy that would weaken the Church of England as a force for good.
I don’t want to be beastly about the Bishop, in whose diocese I happen to live. I am sure he is a decent man who means well. But the immediate favourable response to his remarks by humanists and secularists should make him ponder. They probably can’t believe their luck that this seemingly rather limp prelate should be shooting himself — or his Church — in the foot.
The Bishop rightly argues that the Church of England should reach out to everyone, not least to the poor. But that is, of course, exactly what it is doing with its church schools. There are many poor children attending them and they are given something which purely secular schools do not offer. If the Bishop believes that faith schools could preserve their identity having thrown open their doors to all and sundry, he is deluding himself.
Reminder: On Friday, believers and non-believers will be reminded that the Church of England and its rituals still play a central role in our national life when William and Kate marry at Westminster Abbey
Moreover, faith schools are important to the life of the Church in another way. They attract people to services and to good works in the parish. If some parents go through the motions of appearing to be Anglicans so that their children may attend church schools, that is not edifying. But some of them may end up by being sincere Christians. And there are, of course, many genuine worshippers whose desire to have their children educated at a religious school is being imperilled by the Bishop.
It is true he has no power to force church schools to follow his path to oblivion, and his remarks are only advisory. But they will serve to increase the pressure on these schools. For the Bishop to have joined hands with the secularists and humanists in Holy Week of all weeks is difficult to credit.
Roman Catholic or Jewish or Muslim authorities would not volunteer to weaken their institutions and deprive their faithful of the right to a religious education. Why is the Church of England often so peculiarly feeble? It spends much of its time arguing with itself over issues such as women bishops or homosexual priests which, while doubtless significant, are not going to increase the strength of its mission in society.
'Much of the Church of England has been taken over by defeatism and despair'
That many people are yearning for clarity and moral leadership was underlined by the response to Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain last year, when he warned us not to lose sight of our Christian heritage in our ‘multi-cultural’ and ‘aggressively secular’ society.
Yesterday, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, used his Easter message to make a passionate attack on secularism and what he described as the enemies of the Christian faith in Britain and the power they currently exert.
When did you last hear a Church of England Bishop speak like that? Clever and holy though he unquestionably is, our own Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, frequently comes across as wilfully opaque and obscure. These may be admirable qualities in a don, but not obviously ideal in a leader of the Established Church.
Much of the Church of England has been taken over by defeatism and despair. It continues to close down churches in the inner cities and countryside even though there is a group called Alpha — a robust evangelical movement with its roots in the Anglican Church — which strives to keep them open, and sometimes succeeds.
And yet yesterday I attended a rousing service which in its form and liturgy would have been perfectly familiar to our great-great-grandparents. The church was full, and we were preached an inspiring sermon by an Anglican clergyman for whom a belief in the Resurrection is evidently the very cornerstone of his faith.
On Friday, Prince William and Kate Middleton will be married in a glorious religious ceremony in Westminster Abbey. Believers and non-believers will be reminded that the Church of England and its rituals still play a central role in our national life.
So it should be with church schools. And yet when I hear the Bishop of Oxford proposing what would amount to handing them over to the secular authorities — who have hardly made a startlingly good job of running education in this country — I wonder whether the Church I love is not in the grip of a death wish.
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