The recent debate about teaching ‘ethics’ instead of ‘special religious education’ in public schools has been an opportunity for public Christians to proclaim the gospel. Unfortunately, the opportunity has been neglected!
Much of the debate has let people think that Christian faith is about ethics, when it is very much not so. One looks to Christians to behave ethically, because they have a different take on life to those who think it all ends here (quoting a lyric by Bruce Cockburn), but Christian faith is not so. If anything, it is about the failure of ethics to produce ethical behaviour (think of Paul in Romans 7).
My line of criticism of the ethics courses would be in reference to ethical failure: how are people to make sense of their actions when they fail to live up to their own standards; and whence forgiveness, which is the very point of Christian faith?
The whole area of moral epistemology was also ripe for attack, but was not taken up, so the Anglican church in particular just looked like it was blustering about a ‘lost’ monopoly and probably failed to influence anyone, or attract interest with its sage and compassionate grasp of the underlying issues.
In connection with this matter, a few letters to the press from parents of children in scripture classes have been unhappy with the curriculum. One example was a young child who came home questioning if her parents would ‘go to hell’. If a curriculum or SRE teacher was so blunt with a young child, I’d want to avoid it too. When dealing with ‘heaven and hell’ with children, a better approach is along the lines of explaining that God’s friends will live with God forever, and anyone can be God’s friend by believing him.
A child then asks: “what about people who aren’t God’s friends?” The answer could be “if people aren’t God’s friends, why would they want to be with him? But, they might become God’s friends later.”
