Abstract
This article argues that, in the twenty-first century, there has been a sharp decline in ‘religious literacy’. Evidence for this is drawn from a decline in A level and GCSE courses in religious studies and in changing patterns of Sunday worship.
One piece of good news is that Coexist House has set up a programme of ‘Religious Literacy for Organisations’: ‘Whatever your organisation does, the growing importance of religion and belief is a challenge that will materially affect your future success.’ 1 After ‘other protected characteristics, such as race, gender and sexual orientation’, religious literacy is now to be seen as ‘a key to inclusive diversity practice’. 2 Whether or not we are familiar with ‘key concepts of teamwork, relationship management and cultural insight’, or recognize ‘religious literacy’ as integral to working successfully ‘with the ever more diverse religions and beliefs we all encounter in everyday work and life’, in the light of the changing circumstances revealed in recent news items and reports, those concerned with religious and theological literacy with respect to the Christian tradition might well learn from this particular initiative.
This is because the bad news with which we need to become familiar runs beyond ecclesial boundaries and requires attention beyond such issues as the disparity in cash resources between different dioceses and the funding of courses and colleges responsible for at least the initial preparation of laity/ordained persons, with predictable anxiety affecting future planning. The issues to which we surely need to attend also affect educational institutions from ‘beginnings’ to ‘higher education’ (HE), as well as the minority of the population engaged in ‘ministerial training’.
The statistics show a decline in both the numbers taking A level Religious Studies (RS) and the number of schools offering GCSE RS – or, indeed, allegedly failing to offer ‘religious studies’ at all beyond an initial level, and certainly not offering school students the opportunity to take public examinations in RS. 3 This represents a significant and noteworthy shift from around the turn of the millennium, when there was clear evidence that RS was the fastest-growing of all A/AS/GCSE-level subjects, but even then some problems were coming into view. For instance, whereas one might have expected around 28 per cent of those studying RS at school to ‘transfer’ to Theology/Religious Studies (T/RS) in a degree-awarding institution, the transfer rate was only about 11 per cent as compared with many other subjects. Furthermore, subject teachers in schools were shifting to offer courses in ‘philosophy of religion’ or ‘ethics’ (neither of which should be identified with philosophical theology or theological ethics, areas that were developing in HE).
The key point here is that, in the latter years of the twentieth century, philosophy departments found themselves vulnerable for a variety of reasons in both well-established and new universities. However, ‘philosophy’ was reviewed by the University Grants Committee in 1989, with vigorous attention to the problems and the publication of a valuable statement: ‘The place of philosophy in the humanities’. This made a strong case for philosophy construed very broadly at all levels of education, and ‘critical thinking’/philosophy has flourished. 4 Nothing comparable has been produced as yet for T/RS. In addition, once HE departments or subject groupings looked at the numbers they were recruiting (crucial for ‘replacement’ positions as well as for developing new areas), they readily opted for ‘pick and mix’ degree programmes that did not necessarily secure knowledge of biblical, doctrinal or historical studies, as might well have been expected in the past, and which in principle could provide a ‘template’ for the appreciation of other major religious traditions. It is common enough to encounter such phrases as ‘the three Abrahamic faiths’, but there is little preparation to make the phrase intelligible. Graduates entering the teaching profession could not and cannot be expected to teach biblical knowledge, for example, unless they specifically opt for further study out of their own interest or for their own personal professional development.
All that apart, some crucial ‘reforms’ introduced by Michael Gove in his role as Secretary of State for Education (2010–14) have had a disastrous effect on RS in schools, since ‘short course’ RS GCSE is excluded from both the ‘performance indicators’ by which schools are ‘monitored’ and the EBacc (English baccalaureate), according to the Religious Education Council of England and Wales. 5 Thus, in the decade from 2009 to 2019, whereas the numbers of ‘full’ GCSE candidates increased by 39.7 per cent, the number taking the short course declined by 90.3 per cent (with an overall decline of 41.4 per cent). The number of A level RS entries has declined from 26,086 in 2017 to 19,406 in 2019 (a drop of 25.6 per cent), bearing in mind that the one-year AS level course ended in 2016. The effect of the decline has now received attention in the 2019 British Academy document Theology and Religious Studies Provision in UK Higher Education, which, among other details, reveals that there were 6,500 fewer students on courses for T/RS in the UK in 2017–18 than in 2011–12. 6 The details of this report should receive serious attention from anyone concerned with the future of theology, not least the theological literacy of both laity and clergy, whatever their role within or without specifically ecclesial institutions. Nothing has appeared from a representative of the Church of England that is comparable with the article produced by Ashley Beck, president of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, who has advanced a robust argument for the importance of theology in all its variety. 7
Admittedly, there are cultural factors that have long influenced whether UK HE candidates in the humanities embark on, for example, postgraduate or post-doctoral studies or graduate teaching fellowships, given their likely accumulation of debt, notwithstanding successful competition for funding. In addition, the possibility of jobs in HE in any area, let alone T/RS, continues to be affected by decisions by HE administrations to diminish and eliminate subject groups, irrespective of the international excellence, teaching and ‘management’ skills of those affected. Like it or not, the numbers count – and, of course, so do sources of funding. Nor are jobs in HE necessarily attractive, given the career-long necessity of contributing to ‘research assessment’ and the allocation of financial resources that flow from this, depending on what counts as ‘research’ and the pecking order produced by the ‘assessment’. Whether or not HE institutions have ever calculated the cost of the time and energy required to produce the necessary documentation (thus eroding the much-needed time available to those involved for working on their own publications), such calculation is unavailable at present; however, in principle it could provide information about whether the money received even begins to outweigh the expenditure. Research assessment apart, the pressure to apply for funding from a range of sources also necessarily impinges on the skills needed to survive, let alone flourish, in HE, and indeed on prospects for promotion.
There are many implications for ecclesial institutions given the present and likely future situation as it affects T/RS, quite apart from finding well-qualified members to join college teams and courses responsible for ‘ministerial’ training; theologically literate members of the laity are likely to decline in numbers as well. Theology is inextricably involved in relationships with all kinds of communities. In the Church of England, the situation requires sustained and constructive attention at all levels, not least from those bishops who apparently do little if anything to encourage the development of theological literacy, which some clearly cannot exemplify in their own persons, let alone give a lead to develop such literacy in their dioceses. One annual weekend study course to develop or update competence would hardly be considered satisfactory in many walks of life where people have serious responsibility for the lives of others. Some bishops do indeed work hard during their lives and shifts in employment to complete part-time further qualifications, including doctorates, and are probably those most likely to recruit theologically literate clergy to their dioceses. It would be helpful for both a list of such dioceses and (twice-yearly?) programmes of study to develop theological literacy to be made publicly available, making possible a ‘portfolio’ of progress, with bishops taking the lead. Fortunately, it is still possible for some well-qualified clergy to find places in cathedral chapters where they may be able to secure study time, however demanding the cathedral, and that might, once again, facilitate transitions between Church and HE.
In addition, there is one further matter of importance to which ecclesial institutions need to pay urgent attention. No doubt with the best of intentions, and not foreseeing the likely effect of the changes any more than the results of the ‘Gove reforms’ might have been predicted, the focus on ‘Eucharist’ and the demise of morning prayer/matins and evening prayer/evensong have been disastrous for even minimal familiarity with biblical texts and with prayers learned and used in common. These changes have also resulted in the loss of flexibility that such basic patterns of worship could, in principle, allow, so even that ‘prompt’ to pay attention to church calendars has been lost. In addition, for traditions expecting to worship in the ‘vernacular’, the loss of the psalms available for centuries in one translation or another has deprived people of resources for their own devotions. Psalms in singable ‘verse’ remain readily available, but losing the ‘poetry’ of Scripture is a disaster. Furthermore, the chances of hearing a sermon (or a homily or an address) on a ‘First Testament’ text are now remote, let alone one on a text from the Fourth Gospel, given the construction of current lectionaries. No doubt, for some time to come, the Wiley-Blackwell commentaries exemplifying ‘reception history’ and ‘reception exegesis’ could provide rich resources for reflection, should anyone care to consult them.
It is also unfortunate, to say the least, that some congregations seem to operate on the principle not only of ‘children should be seen but not heard’ but also of ‘children should be neither seen nor heard’; they are hardly welcoming to hard-pressed families and family networks. In principle, the experience of taking a child for baptism could be an occasion for warm welcome and celebration, but there are difficulties here too. At present, congregations without morning or evening prayer have little or no opportunity to learn or value the framework provided by the Apostles’ Creed and used at baptism, which then becomes as baffling to the usual congregation at a baptism as the Nicene creed at the ensuing Eucharist is for the baptism party, the latter sensibly departing during the liturgical shuffle of the ‘Peace’ and unlikely to return.
All in all, it is no wonder that some teachers in schools are unfamiliar with any form of Christian tradition, let alone competent to engage the interest of their pupils. How anyone is supposed to introduce pupils to another religious tradition from scratch, in complete ignorance of their own, is beyond comprehension; is it better to abandon the attempt altogether? How, then, might the Church of England, in the closest possible cooperation with other ecclesial groups, be able to argue for and insist on changes to the ‘Gove reforms’, help reinstate RS in schools, sustain and develop theological literacy at diocesan level, fund both clergy and laity through further study (beginning with the Archbishop’s Examination in Theology programme), 8 and reinvigorate liturgy and ‘festival’? Unless the matters raised in this article – and no doubt many others – receive attention, theological literacy will be even less in evidence in our societies than seems to be the case already, and the teaching of T/RS will very largely if not completely have disappeared from HE. 9