Church and state in religious education 1944-1984: a critical survey of trends in England from the point of view of the Christian parent with special reference to the Christian schools movement

Abstract

At the end of the forty year period 1944-1984 a minority of Christian parents in England and Wales were expressing their disquiet at trends in Education in general, and Religious Education in particular. The five year research project 1979-1984 was primarily aimed at communicating their concept of events, and their aspirations, to those who, having had their attention drawn to the actions of the dissenting parents, wondered what sort of thinking inspired those actions. For those inclined to regard the parents as on the Christian fringe, evidence is presented to show that on the contrary they were mainly the orthodox, and in line with mainstream Christianity, as delineated by the historic creeds. The argument of this thesis is that the parents were a grass-roots reaction to a creeping revisionism that affected Christian thinking on education in the Protestant sector, but did not similarly affect the Roman Catholic sector.