Faith schools are now under attack from the interfaith community

It’s depressing to read of yet another attack on faith schools in today’s papers, this time from a self-appointed ‘Commission’ set up by something called the Woolf Institute – an organisation dedicated to ‘interfaith research, teaching and dialogue’. It has just published a ‘report’ on ‘religion and belief in British public life’ called ‘Living with difference: community, diversity and the common good’.

I will leave it to others to comment on the substance of the report, but at first glance it reads like a product of the ‘Thought for the Day’ school of theological discourse. In other words, the usual wishy-washy, Kumbuya, inter-faith bilge, overlaid with a thick layer of Jewish and Christian self-loathing, as well as craven praise for ‘the religion of peace’. Incredibly, one of its recommendations is to make ‘Thought for the Day’ more ‘diverse’ and include secular contributions, as well as religious ones. You can just imagine some hand-wringing, apologetic, liberal Bishop arguing on ‘Thought for the Day’ that ‘Thought for the Day’ has become too doctrinaire and sectarian – and isn’t ‘inclusive’ enough.