Time to take the Church more seriously

Ray

I believe the Chinese used to call them 'rice Christians' - people who only attended church for what material benefit they could derive from it.

Then along came Mao Zedong to sort the wheat out from the chaff, and - hey presto - China today has more committed, Bible-believing Christians that all of Western Europe put together, despite (or should that be because of) sixty years of ruthless persecution of their faith.

True Bred Pomponian

Why shouldn’t parents who bring their children up decently be allowed to send them to schools where all the other youngsters are decently brought up? Why should decently brought up children be expected to civilise the undisciplined youngsters? It is not their job, it is the job of the parents and paid adults.

IM

Is this the most self-regarding piece ever posted on Coffee House? "Enabling people like me to take the national church more seriously", indeed.

Come to think of it, I detect the pen of Craig Brown in all this...

Pot Head

I think the C of E realised that if middle class parents could no longer get their children into church schools by pretending to be religious, that church attendances would fall even faster than they are now.

Yarnefromhorsham

In these days of mutilculturalism I presume we can expect state supported Muslim faith schools also limiting their intake to 10%.

Perry

Theo - I think the words you are looking for are 'dumbed down', - for instance, the Anglican attempts to dumb down liturgy, hymnody, and fine harmony. In short, 'decently and in order' and 'with due reverence' are, in general, no longer sought.

Pushy parents - well, that's their problem. Our Lord spoke eloquently about those that push through this world.

Dennis Sewell

Theo,

You are absolutely wrong about this. More important to the success of any school than the leadership skills of the Head or the quality of the teachers is the quality of the pupils. All schools will have some pupils keen to learn and others who are borderline feral. Success is a question of which group achieves critical mass.

Most CofE schools do well because the majority of their pupils are taught manners by their polite, churchgoing parents. Where most parents are 'aspirational' (from whatever social background they come), the more likely it will be that the general tone of the school will be conducive to academic development.

Those Church of England schools that have allowed themselves to become overrun by near-feral, whose parents do not give a damn about anything, end up no better than the worst sink comps. Look at the CofE school Ms. Birbalsingh used to work in - now, mercifully, headed for oblivion because no one wants to send their children there.

A school with at least 60% well-behaved churchgoing folk can carry quite a few ferals and tame them. Disturb the balance and it becomes the ferals who set the tone and exercise the peer-pressure.

By no means all non-churchgoers, of course, are ferals. But in the absence of academic selection, the churchgoing "test" is the best available to ensure that the school is weighted in favour of those who want high standards.

If the CofE wants poor academic performance in its schools and drug-dealers in the playground, this is the way to go. It will destroy many schools that currently work, and it won't do anyone any favours. Poor kids who want to get on will be the chief victims as the middle-class always has the option of either going private or moving to a leafy suburb entirely populated by like-minded folk.

TomTom

I am more interested in Theo Hobson's views on St Paul's School. Whether one can really be a Christian and attend such a financially exclusive institution. What is his personal view ?

Noa

Ahh, the Church of England; otherwise the theological wing of the Labour Party.

Of course parents will always look to provide the best education possible for their children, regardless. No doubt in the future that will be provided through the mosques and temples, but not by a sooon to be defunct christian educational system.

Peter From Maidstone

This blog is utter drivel. Utter, utter drivel. And it is content like this which is the reason why, as a lifelong and committed Christian, I never ever visit the Faith Based section of the Spectator, which usually has as much in common with Christianity as a blog produced by Prince Charles might.

The conflation of liberal Anglicanism with 'the Church' is a mistake. It is clear that many traditional Anglicans do not share the views of the Bishop at all. Certainly traditional Christians generally do not. I am happy to be sending my son to a local Catholic School next year, and I also had to show, as a non-Catholic and non-Protestant, that I had sufficient Christian commitment to be able to support the ethos of the School. This is why it is attractive. Only someone wishing to destroy the good which remains would complain about such an arrangement. It is a witness to a better way of schooling.

Robert Eve

The C of E is an even greater mess than I thought.

Tiggy

Take the C of E seriously? You are having a laugh Mr Hobson. The Church I left 30 years ago has done nothing but spiral downhill.It stands for nothing, it believes in anything. It is one almighty mess. It is so sad.

sinosimon

surely this is satire? if the writer sincerely believes that attracting caring parents by running successful schools is a sin he really needs to visit a psychiatrist not a vicar. parents who love their children are not responsible for the drug addled, alcohol soaked failures of the swine who treat their broods as pay-cheques from the state.

the church has a place in helping those in need. deliberately sabotaging one of the few sections of the state system that helps in the battle against falling standards is lunacy. and it is wicked.

and as for supposed biblical support...what about the parable of the talents where Jesus excoriated those who let their abilities and opportunites go to waste? or do only those excerpts that comfort marxists in vestments count?

Perry

Oh yes, - a few days ago someone mentioned our well-read Boris and Cicero trying to look 'umble.

The C of E may be wandering about trying to find direction, but this ridiculous affectation hardly becomes it.

anyfool

until the people in the upper reaches of the CofE actually believe in God then you will continue to get drivel like this newish thinking taking hold it will continue to decline in attendance and regard

Church Mouse

There are a few facts which are relevant to this debate, which have been sadly absent from both Bishop John's comments and the surrounding analysis. All of this is found on the Church of England website:

More than 50% of Church of England schools are Voluntary Controlled schools - these are schools where admissions are controlled by the LEA, as with other state schools, and not by the school governors. As such, this issue relates only to a minority of Church schools.

Of the minority of Church Schools which are Voluntary Aided, and do have control of their admissions, they still have to abide by the government's Admissions Code and are only allowed to use any selection based on church attendance when they are oversubscribed.

I am yet to see any data setting out how many schools use this mechanism, and to what extent, so at the moment we are debating based on abstract principles and anecdotal evidence.

The Church overall has the same proportion of its schools defined as having 'severe' disadvantage (>30% of pupils eligible for free school meals) as the national average.

Many VA schools have no reserved places based on church attendance, and others use 'fair banding' to ensure that where they do reserve places to preserve the Christian ethos of the school, this is not a bias towards the middle class.

HJ

What is all the fuss about?

My wife used to work in an independent school sited on land owned by the C of E cathedral immediately adjacent and which had a stated C of E ethos.

It accepted pupils without even asking their children's parents about their religious beliefs or otherwise. It just made it clear that it was run on C of E lines and that so long as parents respected this, the school would respect any religious beliefs they held.

There was never any problem.

John Richardson

"This blog is utter drivel. Utter, utter drivel. And it is content like this which is the reason why, as a lifelong and committed Christian, I never ever visit the Faith Based section of the Spectator, which usually has as much in common with Christianity as a blog produced by Prince Charles might."

Peter from M.

Correct in every almost detail.
I would argue that things are even worse than simply 'drivel', though.

This 'Coffee House' writer, whoever he is, is infected with a diseased spirituality that equates to blasphemy. I am not exagerating for effect.

It is blasphemous to: inverse the moral order; to claim that which is 'good' is actually 'wicked' or visa versa. Blasphemous to do this in the name of Christ and/or 'in relation to the Christian Gospel'.

Right....let's check his name....Theo Hobson eh?.

Mr Hobson, you are going to receive exactly what you deserve. As do we all.
It is sad, however, that your innocent children are being denied the education a Christian child deserves as a consequence of your personal moral cowardice
masquerading as principle that has metastasize into into this empty and destructive anti-Christian gibberish.

Destructive to any fool who would follow your lead.
Yet, you explain, you do not attend your 'local Anglican church' so I suppose there is some positive outcome.

P. from M.

Not only am I a church attending, church cleaning, 'Confirmation Programme' leading*, prayer saying Christian....but I also NEVER EVER visit the 'Faith Section' of this publication.
What are the odds?
Ain't it peculiar?

Would two football fans never visit the 'Sports Section' of a publication I wonder ?

Well no. Not if all they could expect to read there were recipes or weather reports.

Someone is utterly wrong and it ain't the Christians.

I'm an old fashioned, utterly unreconstructed Roman Catholic & a teacher. It would be a pleasure to teacher your children in their new school if I happened to work there. I'd wish your children 'good luck' at their new school but, with God's Grace, they will not need any luck.

*For teenagers becoming Roman Catholics.

--------------------------------------------

Frank P.

I hope you have read the above article.
Only yesterday you stated how 'we suspect the motivation' of 'The Spectator' magazine.

The values revealed above are surly not just suspicious, they are hilarious.

Dennis Sewell

Church Mouse

others use 'fair banding' to ensure that where they do reserve places to preserve the Christian ethos of the school, this is not a bias towards the middle class.

You appear to making an assumption that the children of the middle class will always have higher IQs than the children of the working class. Surely one of the chief lessons of the success of the Grammar schools was that this ain't necessarily so. Fair banding does ensure the school spans the ability range, but it cannot be relied on to deliver a social mix. The marked stupidity of a fair number of the English aristocracy down the centuries is surely proof enough that high social status and high intelligence don't always correlate. Sadly, many left-wing teachers share this somewhat eugenics-derived assumption, which is why the life chances of so many poor (and black) pupils are stymied by the 'soft bigotry of low expectations'.

John Richardson

'sinosimon'

Well said.

___________________

Churchmouse.

Smart for a mouse, but you miss the real point of this whole issue.
The facts that you bring to the debate are irrelevant to the enemies of Christianity.
They do not care about free school meals or a child's class background.*
They are enemies of The Faith and wish to attack Christianity by targeting the children, targeting the schools.
I feel sure you know this.

*Or the fact that the number of children in private education has risen 33% since '97. Demonstrating that it is not only Christians who are fleeing the disaster of 'inclusive' state education.

TomTom

"to preserve the Christian ethos of the school,"

Round here 10% "Christian" would be an achievement, so many "Church Schools" are 90% Muslim

Will J

Denis Sewell is bang on here. Pritchard went to a private selective school - no sin, but certainly not something that places him well to tell normal churchgoers that their one chance of sending their kids to a better than bog-standard school is now to be denied them.

There are two basic reasons why Pritchard is wrong on this, both of which have been covered amply by the comments but which Hobson seems to deliberately ignore. First, his idea that a school with only 10% reserved places would be an effective place of mission (whether you understand that in terms of faith or attitude) is extraordinarily naive, and surely in defiance of evidence. And second, he completely forgets that these are first and foremost church schools, i.e. schools run by the church for those who go to church. While widening intake is a worthy aim, it certainly should not be allowed to override the schools' primary function: education in a Christian environment for the children of churchgoers.

John Montague

@ Dennis

You appear to making an assumption that the children of the middle class will always have higher IQs than the children of the working class.

I thought that as it applies statistically rather than individually, this was uncontested fact. There is obviously some regression to the norm, but overall, intelligence is mostly inherited, even if more variation than we currently understand may be due to perinatal factors.

The correlation between membership of higher IQ and higher income groups is fairly uncontroversial, if not necessarily linear; high IQ may have decreasing marginal value.

bojimbo

As with all religions : if you don`t attend , you will go to hell . ( Oh , Goody ) .

dorothy wilson

As a first step, the CoE should take itself more seriously.

The Laughing Cavalier

The enemies of Christianity can relax, the Bishop of Oxford will do their job for them.

Frank P

Theo

The coupling of your headline and the picture of Archie Cuntstbury is, I am sad to report, oxymoron of the year.

I prefer the days of my youth when the Church was just - well - there! And when it did not shove itself down your throat; at least not my chapter of it, though as years have passed, one learns quite a lot of shoving down throats occurred - with the choir boys as recipients and the priests doing the shoving - in some denominations, apparently. Just what did go on under the skirts of Mother Church is the question that must be addressed.

The particular skirt displayed above looks rather amply designed - which also raises questions from some cynics. As for myself, I regarded the Church as something that you took, or left, according to your degree of self-confidence, which varied according to the amount of superstition pumped into you by forebears. Very useful for the rituals of hatches, matches and dispatches - and then make up your own mind about the Great Scheme of Things, or the 'Sorry Scheme of Things Entire' as the Persian piss-head put it. Why should your guess be better than anyone else's? Another question that also has to be addressed is: is the threat and madness of the egregious cult of Islam exacerbated by the assertions of other religions? As for the prophets? Well, I look upon that as having to choose between the Krays and the Richardson's: "Join my gang or suffer tortures and hellfire."

Why do we need Archie in his frock to mediate? A plague on all their houses! Ecrasez l'infame!

Pray to whoever or whatever you think does the trick. At the moment St Mark of Steyn, St Melanie of Jerusalem and St Nicholas of the Coffee House Wall do it for me, though, as with Jesus, or big Mo, I doubt they approve of me.

Sorry to be a disappointment to you, John R. But I'm probably nearer to passing through the curtain than you. If you don't get a report back on this blog, from upstairs or downstairs when my number is called, I should settle for oblivion if I were you, because I'm a determined old sod and if there is a good message to communicate, I'll find a way. If it's a bad one - well best you don't know and keep hoping. Having seen a glimpse of earthly bliss and hellish pain on this mortal coil, to be blunt, I think it's all we're gonna get. Make the best of it and try to endure the worst. And FFS smile - it's the best weapon you have in your kit bag.

In the meantime I shall go along with the rituals of others when it doesn’t do anybody any harm and sing the hymns lustily to clear my chest. As for the hursuit old Druid? I’ll bet he loves all this attention.

Dennis Sewell

@ John Montague

The correlation between membership of higher IQ and higher income groups is fairly uncontroversial

True - neurosurgeons tend to be smarter than burger-flippers. When it comes to their children, however, the distinction is less marked. As you say, there is some regression to the mean. Also, whatever proportion of intelligence may be genetic, it's polygenetic and may also depend on strength of gene expression rather than simple inheritance of particular alleles - so the outcomes will be anything but straightforwardly linear.

But even supposing all you say is true statistically across large populations, in a population as small as 25 (a typical band size in a secondary school intake of 100), the bigger picture isn't really helpful.

Better to treat applicants as individuals rather than imagined representatives of a social demographic.

alexsandr

get religeon out of state education. education is a secular activity and no religion has any right interfering in it.
that includes NI too, by the way..)

for once the french have it right.

Peter From Maidstone

alexsandr, it might have helped you if spelling and punctuation had been part of your education.

Why should religion not be part of education as it is part of life. It is tiring to have secularists banging on all the time about how THEIR religion must always be allowed to dominate everyone and everything.

Baron

Peter from M @ 12.115 & sinosimon @ 12.56: harsh words, sirs, deadly right though, I second them.

Theo, I cannot fathom why, having destroyed what was good, albeit inadequate in scope, with grammar, you’re now determined the kick into long grass what remains of the rest of the good. You mad or what?

and another thing: Frank P @ 5.23, you should count yourself a part of the saintly triumvirate, you richly deserve it, you modest man, this posting of yours for inst., superb.

Michael

Thank God for private education...

John Richardson

Hello Frank P.

Thanks for the response
Sorry if it I appeared that I presumed to know your view on Eternity.
Re-reading my words addressed to you above; it does seem that I did make such a presumption. I did not mean to.
As for what is beyond the curtain? Well, neither of us could know who will pass beyond there first. Here is a strange thing though Mr P.
Due to my own direct personal experience I actually do know. Sure as I know

John Richardson

....er....

That's strange.

I was about to very briefly mention my own experience of the Devine. Also of Evil.
I never have before on a blog & did not know if I should.

The message just sent itself in mid sentence.
I was nowhere near the 'enter' key.

Well.

Perhaps I should stop.

Peter From Maidstone

John Richardson, thanks for your interesting post, with which I wholeheartedly agree. I used the words 'drivel' and 'utter drivel' because I do not like to use bad language. I am aware that the word 'drivel' barely begins to scratch the surface of how awful such views are.

It is very interesting that you and I, as serious, signed up Christians, cannot bear to visit the Spectator Faith Based section. Why is that? Or rather it is clear why we do not visit that section. The question is why the Spectator thinks that committed Christians, the sort of people who might well want to read the Spectator, want to be subjected to the Christian equivalent of New Labour ravings?

Why is that? Why are potential customers being treated like this? Why is it that the intersection of Christianity and Politics here always take place in a socialist/liberal context? I don't remember it always being like this. The reason I started reading the Spectator years ago was the attraction of interesting articles by serious conservative Christian thinkers and commentators.

I don't expect the Spectator to become religious at all, but Christianity is part of the conservative culture in England. So why are we denied a proper representation?

John Richardson

....oh....didn't see P. from M.s post....

Hi Peter from M.

The answer to your questions is that...

The MSM has been weaponised against Christianity.

We should take comfort from the fact that

1) This same forum/magazine, whilst giving space for this nincompoop above
(I feel the same way that you do about strong language)
,studiously ignores the fact that the Police Service are arresting people for singing
'Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting'.
This matters.
It demonstrates the madness and spite at the heart of our current regime.
'The Spectator' has not noticed or does not think it matters.

Either way I am glad that they find my views and opinions alien.
It is a relif to know that we have nothing in common.

2) This puny liberal rag, skulking under the once great title; 'The Spectator' actually seems to hope that we will not notice that it is now alien to us.
They seem to hope constant distortion of the 'news agenda' will disorientate us.
That's good news as the MSM now has zero credibility.
All it does have is fake authority.

These may be dark days but the future belongs to the truth.

Regards.

JR

Divine.

Peter From Maidstone

I have nothing against Theo Hobson as a person, who is loved by God. But why is someone who describes himself as below being employed to write on faith in the Spectator? Why does the Spectator persist in treating conservative people with such contempt?

Theo Hobson

Hello! I'm a Christian theologian.

[P from M: I don't think so]

I'm 'liberal', in that I believe that secular liberalism is a good thing, and that authentic church should clearly affirm it, and therefore reject establishment, Christendom. Also, I think that church should clearly reject moral legalism, including on homosexuality. On the other hand, I reject the liberal Christian tradition that wants to identify faith with rational humanism.

The proper business of church is Jesus Christ-communication, in which 'worship' merges with 'art' and 'theatre'. Liberals must develop a new sacramentalism.

My church allegiance has been blurry since I decided I couldn't stomach the Church of England. For some years I advocated 'post-ecclesial' Christianity, in which anarchic public festivity replaces institutional worship, but I guess that was unrealistic. Now that I'm living in Brooklyn, New York, my interest in, and involvement in, Anglicanism, seems to be rekindling.

chevron

"The correlation between membership of higher IQ and higher income groups is fairly uncontroversial"

Not uncontroversial, but flatly wrong. I think most researchers (especially in the sciences), journalists and academics are on extremely low pay relative to their likely intellectual capabilities. Extreme financial success is, I would have thought, more likely with a lower IQ: such success is largely the result of luck and risk-taking, personal connections aside, and this would, I suggest, often put off those who have the IQ to soundly analyse their situation before acting.

As to the content of this blog, I would go along with PoM's assessment of it being "utter, utter drivel". How can anyone argue that a uniform mediocrity for the masses is preferable to a minority being allowed to excel, even if this inequality happens to be divided along class-lines (which is itself debatable)? Education is about developing the INDIVIDUAL and providing tools to enable success in life (which is not the same, incidentally, to financial success, whatever the pressures of modern society seem to imply), not engineering a fair society and national social policy. Anyone who thinks otherwise should be writing for the Guardian, not the Spectator.

Baron

chevron: “Extreme financial success is, I would have thought, more likely with a lower IQ: such success is largely the result of luck and risk-taking”.

How come those betting on horses or whatever ain’t extremely successful then? Don’t they all take enough risk, have they all no luck?

also, you reckon Gates, Buffett, just to name the two from the world of business, are IQ pigmies?

Frank P

Baron

Hahahahahah! I'm afraid that whoever, or whatever, God is; if there is an Original Cause, it did not intend that I should be canonized. Shot by - or even from - a cannon, may be! But thank you for your kind comments.

On another blog - I think it was the Daily Ablution - I once summed up my thoughts on religion in three verses of rhyme that my muse forced through my fingertips in the dead of night; if any of the regulars here remember it (doubtful), forgive me. But a reprise seems appropriate to this thread (or perhaps not, in the eyes and hearts of some):

The Last Word

On completing his tract the philosopher purred,
"This treatise will alter the way that God thinks."
God heard, but demurred; then averred "That's absurd!
In fact I believe your hypothesis stinks!"

The philosopher bristled, "But this is unique.
The words travelled straight from my heart to my quill."
"You danced when I whistled!" yelled God, now in pique.
Please learn to accept that your work is My Will!"

"Wee-e-ll ... if that is the case", said the sly slippery sage
"For my odorous conjecture, You carry the blame
If you prompted the words that appeared on my page."
God grinned. "Yeerrrss! I know. But that's part of My Game."

As you can see, baron, I am well beyond redemption.

But if, by some strange happenstance, in some other lifeform, somewhere out there in the Great Mystery, I do manage to get accorded sainthood by some perverse cult, rest assured that Saint Francis will not be a sissy!

Frank P

John Richardson (8.02pm)

Not wishing to be pedantic and JR already drew attention to the typo, but I hope the 'experience of the Devine [sic]' you speak of was not Devine Brown of Hugh Grant fame: now that would qualify you for eternal damnation.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Devine+Hugh+Grant&hl=en&prmd=ivnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=pQu6Ta6RCoSo8QPW7uxF&ved=0CDYQsAQ&biw=800&bih=485

I suppose You could always plead Gladstone's M.O. when questioned about his penchant for ladies of the night. "I was attempting to save their souls."

They tell me St. Pete is up for that alibi.
And I don't mean Yasmin Alibi Brown - DEVINE Brown. Even St. Peter wouldn't be up for Yazzer. [Cue Pally agitprop}.

Andrew Fletcher

Where I used to live in Poole, Dorset you had to be prepared to spend a few boring Sunday mornings listening to all the supernatural "God" nonsense if you wanted to get your kids into the posh Church schools and keep them away from the oiks (whilst at the same time not having to spend your cash on private schools)
Seemed like a fair enough deal. A bit of suffering on a Sunday so you could still afford decent wine, holidays, better car etc
That's the deal all over the country !!

Andrew Fletcher

As the old saying goes "if you don't want to pay, you're going to have to pray!"

TomTom

"That's the deal all over the country !!"

You are arrogant. It is not "all over the country" maybe in The South, but in Muslim Britain Church Schools are full of Muslims - up to 90% in this area....only Catholics seem to have an advantage. It is better to be Catholic than C of E - C of E is open to all-comers and round here they want them re-designated as Muslim Schools with an Islamic Curriculum

http://www.bmef.co.uk/

Fergus Pickering

I must say that a church that appeals to the likes of you, Theo, is a church I can do without.

John Richardson

Frank P.

Ha.

Andrew Fletcher

TomTom - move down south then and get away from the situation if you don't like it