Bishop warns RE loss will hurt arts
DOWNGRADING the teaching of religious education in schools risks excluding pupils from appreciation of the arts and music, the Bishop of Exeter has warned.
RE, along with the arts, is set to be excluded from the list of subjects in which pupils will take English Baccalaureate Certificates from 2015.
At present the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), a performance measure introduced in 2010, recognises English, maths, history or geography, the sciences and a language.
Bishop Michael Langrish said in a House of Lords debate that the exclusion of an art strand from the EBacc “suggests an over-narrow focus and a certain kind of Philistinism that values only those subjects seen, perhaps mistakenly, as contributing overtly to our economic life”.
He added: “Alongside that general concern about downplaying the arts, it will come as no surprise that I have a particular worr y about the other exclusion; namely, religious education. I hope that I do not need to rehearse the reasons why inclusion in the EBacc is essential for the continual well-being of the subject nor, more fundamentally, why RE must be retained as a core element of the education of every pupil in our schools.
“Understanding the impact of, in this country, Christianity and, in the rest of the world, all major faiths on life and culture, on history and politics, and on the moral and legal codes is fundamental to living as an engaged, articulate citizen, such as a healthy society requires.
“But religion is also inextricably connected to the arts. For western culture, that means predominantly Christianity. How can one understand and appreciate the music of JS Bach without a knowledge of the Christian faith and the context out of which his music sprang? Think of the Passions, the cantatas, the Mass.
“Similarly, with the great masters: a huge amount of western art is shaped by the Christian story, the Biblical record, and the life and history of the Christian church. Much great drama is dealing with the existential themes of redemption and salvation, the cost of human living, the nature and existence of God, and the challenges of the moral life.
“Students who are ignorant about Christianity are locked out of a crucial part of understanding and experiencing art and culture. The relationship between the other world faiths and the arts is different but the understanding of faith as a driver for and outcome of artistic expression of all kinds is fundamental to arts education and cultural development across the board.”