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“…St Alban’s people will not wonder at St Alban’s defects and shortcomings, when they know how long it had to struggle to maintain its life … at what great hazard we have maintained such helps to reverence, and such ways of honouring God as we now enjoy. And no sane person will wonder that those who guide the work at St Alban’s feel the duty of preserving a consistent and unaltered course. May the Mission never suffer loss or be wrecked by any change in this respect!”

James S. Pollock (1890). Vaughton’s Hole: Twenty-five years in it. Chapter I.

AgapeIn the New Testament the Greek word αγάπη refers to the Love of God for us, and of Christians for one another. But also to the love of darkness (John 3: 19) or of the world (2 Timothy 4: 10). It describes in fact love of a higher degree of intensity.

In its plural form this word is used in the New Testament to describe meals eaten by early Christians, as in Jude v12. In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul tells off the community of Corinth for abuses during these liturgical meals.

The agape and the Eucharist appear to be two separate moments of a single liturgical function. The meal, as understood by the Christians, was a real supper, which followed or preceded Holy Communion. Some Roman frescos show early Christians supping and communicating. The guests recline on a couch that serves as a seat, but — if they are in the attitude of those who are at supper — the meal appears to be finished. They have reached the moment of the Eucharistic Communion, symbolized in the frescos by the mystical fish and the chalice.

The Christian author Tertullian (d 225) in his Apologies described at length these Christian suppers and gave a detailed account of the agape, because it had been the subject of so much calumny by the general non-Christian public.

From the fourth century onward, the agape rapidly lost its original character.

The political liber-ty granted to the Church made it possible for the meetings to grow larger, and involved a departure from its primitive simplicity, giving rise to flagrant and intolerable abuses. The Council of Laodicea (363) forbade the clergy and laity who should be present at an agape to make it a means of supply, taking food away from it, at the same time forbidding the setting up of tables in the churches. In the fifth century the agape became an infrequent occurrence, and between the sixth and the eighth centuries it disappeared altogether from the churches.

At St Alban’s we celebrate the Eucharistic meal every Sunday morning (as well as twice more on weekdays and at some other special occasions). I hope that as we do that we do not forget where we come from. In fact, in the ancient tradition of which we are part, Holy Communion is not just our personal communion with Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic bread and wine, but also a banquet in which we partake and where others sit with us in anticipation of the final banquet with the Son of God and all His people at the end of time.

The fact that it involves food, one of our human basic needs like water and air, is also a pointer to the humanity we share

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with people of all time and places, to the needs of all human beings, to the scandal of hunger and deprivation.

May we never forget that the Agape we celebrate is not only spiritual nourishment

for each one of us individually, but has its roots in Love, and Love to its highest degree.

Introduction To The Scriptures20. Introduction to Daniel

The book of Daniel was probably written in the second half of the second century BC at a time when Israel was under the dictatorship of King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, just about a century before the Roman occupation of Palestine in 63 BC. Therefore, the message of the book is intended to bring comfort to a people often persecuted for its faith by a regime that had betrayed Judaism and espoused Greek culture and influence, and to encourage them to remain faithful to the religion of their ancestors. It does so by showing that God is in charge of history in its unfolding, even in times of great crisis and apparent confusion.

Being such a late book within the Bible, it contains theological principles often not found elsewhere, and that make it closer to the theological sensitivities of the New Testament. For example, we find clear references to the Messianic figure of the “son of man” (7: 13), although most probably this category does not refer here to an individual, but to an entire people, the holy ones of God; we also find a developed spirituality of angels seen as ministers of God and unequivocal references to the resurrection of the dead (12: 2).

Daniel is not the author of the book, but its main character — probably taken from ancient Jewish folklore — who lived at the time of the Babylonian exile, in the sixth century BC. His name means God has

judged, or God is my judge. We can then immediately realise how the author (or, most likely, authors) of the book employed this background of persecution and of threat by a foreign culture, to encourage the Jews of the second century again under threat of persecution and foreign influences.

The book can easily be divided into two equal parts: chapters 1 – 6 (mainly written in Aramaic) and 7 – 12 (mainly written in Hebrew). Section 3: 24 – 90 and chapters 13 and 14 are in Greek and they are certainly later additions. For this reason they are not considered part of the Biblical Canon by the Jews and by some Protestant and Orthodox churches.

The first six chapters are characterized by a series of stories with a strong moral teaching. The second part of the book is characterized instead by prophecies about the future. They are prophecies not because they reveal the future, given that the authors were already living in the future in relation to the timeline in the narrative; they are prophecies because they read the unfolding of history with the eyes of God.

Most of the material contained in this article is based on Louis F. Hartman, Alexander A. Di Lella. “Daniel” in Raymond E. Brown at al. (ed.). 1994. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. The Bath Press, Avon (UK). 25.406 – 420.

Fr Nicholas

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BCAG in action!The name of the group ‘Birmingham Climate Change Action Group’ (BCAG) is pretty self-explanatory except that we somehow haven’t managed to include the word Anglican.

How did we come about? A group of us from across the diocese attended an Operation Noah meeting in June 2014 and heard Revd Giles Goddard of Southwark diocese recount his experiences of presenting a motion to General Synod suggesting the C of E should disinvest from fossil fuels. We learnt that although the motion was not passed the EIAG (Ethical Investment Advisory Group) of the C of E would be reviewing its climate change policy with a report to be published sometime in 2015. And so BCAG came into being with the aspiration of building on the work of the Southwark diocese.

Our first action. In November 2014 Oxford diocese passed a motion calling for a ‘staged approach’ to disinvestment to go to the general Synod in July 2015 and so, wouldn’t it be a great idea if we, Birmingham diocese, could do likewise and submit our own motion!

Deaneries were approached, motions were formulated and debated and passed (sic) and finally Moseley and Sutton Coldfield deaneries submitted motions for debate at the Birmingham Synod in March. A single ‘combined’ motion was agreed, passed and submitted to General Synod — we were overwhelmed to have such support.

The result. The working group on climate change published its report in March 2015. In May 2015 the C of E National Investing Bodies agreed a new ethical policy on climate change and investment that committed them to

exclude investment in companies that derive more than 10% of their revenues from the extraction of oil sands or thermal coal.

A whole day was given to the environment at the July 2015 session of General Synod.Both Oxford and Birmingham dioceses were thanked for their submissions but they were not debated. A motion brought by the Environmental Working Group was debated which affirmed very positive action from the C of E in the future with regard to climate change but it was felt that, in view of the Paris talks later in the year, further disinvestment would not be appropriate at this time. (The motions passed at General Synod are not yet on the C of E website but these two sites publish them http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/007025.html andh t t p : / / e c o c h u r c h s o u t h w e s t . o r g.uk/2015/07/14/general-synod-tackles-climate-change/).

The future — so far!The July General Synod motion ‘encourage parishes and dioceses to draw attention to the initiative supported by members of the Faith and Climate network encouraging Christians to pray and fast for climate justice on the first day of each month’. We will seek to make this a true reality. Will you support it? (www.prayandfastfortheclimate.org.uk/).

Riding Lights touring theatre company present ‘Baked Alaska’ on Tuesday October 20th at All Saints, Kings Heath, Birmingham. For more details and tickets — http://ridinglights.org/baked-Alaska.

Pilgrimages are being arranged to Paris to coincide with the talks in Paris. But as not everyone is able to participate in

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these it is hoped to organise a ‘Pilgrimage around Birmingham’ — details yet to be finalised.

We hope to promote and encourage church members to meet with their MPs to encourage them to be proactive about the UN Climate change Conference in Paris November 30th – December 11th. (Hope for the Future www.hftf.org.uk.)

Malawi is our link diocese in Africa,

(they have suffered devastating floods in recent months as result of climate change) and so we will be suggesting to the Malawi Task Group the possibility of helping with the installation of solar panels in rural villages where there is currently no electricity supply.

For further information contact Diane Littler: dlittler2.0@gmail.com.

Saturday October 10thIn line with the “House of Bishops Declaration” published in June 2014, by November 2016 our parish, through a vote by the PCC, will have to have decided on a very important matter: “whether to remain under the full pastoral and administrative jurisdiction of the Bishop of Birmingham, thus accepting the possibility that in the future women clergy may be appointed to serve in the parish, or — for theological reasons alone — request alternative episcopal oversight as far as pastoral care — and pastoral care alone — is concerned”.

Our PCC has decided that on Saturday October 10th at 10.30 a.m. it will hold a consultation on this matter, extended to all the adult members of our congregation. A panel of invited speakers will consist of the Revd Catherine Grylls (Vicar of S Mary and S Ambrose, Edgbaston, and of S Paul’s, Balsall Heath, and Area Dean for Moseley Deanery), Fr Oliver Coss (Vicar of All Saints, Small Heath), Mr Mark Gregory (Principal of S Alban’s Academy).

There will be an information and comment sheet available at the meeting and for a short time afterwards. Please make sure that you obtain one and please complete and return this by November 15th so that all the comments can be put together (anonymously) for the Parochial Church Council to consider.

Please NoteOn Sunday October 18th Morrisons will be closing roads involving the Queensway – Pershore Road – Maryvale Road and Broad Street — the area between the city centre and Bournville, for the great birmingham run. Please take a careful look at the map in S Patrick’s room and ensure that you are able to navigate your way around the closures in

order to get to church.

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Children’s PageEvery month on this page we publish some work by the children of our Sunday Club. This month we have the children’s own music compositions of two songs (with musical scores) and lyrics that were rapped.

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Heritage Open Days — September 2015As usual the church was open and available to visitors for the whole of Saturday and Sunday September 12th and 13th. This year, however, was marked by the recognition of Kate and Myra Bunce by the Birmingham Civic Society, with the erection of a blue plaque on the south facing wall of the tower in Conybere Street.

The unveiling ceremony with the Lord Mayor and Bishop Mark Santer, former Bishop of Birmingham, took place in front of the Bunce reredos in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. Both Bishop Santer and the Lord Mayor gave short speeches and these were followed by a talk by Dr Sally Hoban, which is reproduced here.

I’M delighted to be here today as we celebrate the unveiling of this Blue

Plaque to Kate Bunce. Kate Elizabeth Bunce was born in 1856

and died in 1927. She was an important member of Birmingham’s artistic community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and her work made a notable contribution to Birmingham’s reputation in the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Followers of the Movement set out to rediscover the use of traditional materials and techniques in the decorative arts, at a time when increasing industrialisation and mass production were seen by many artists and designers as having a detrimental effect on the quality of metalwork, jewellery, textiles and stained glass.

Kate Bunce lived in Birmingham throughout her life and was a member of a prominent Birmingham family. She was born in Aston on August 25th 1856 to John Thackray Bunce, who was editor of The Birmingham Daily Post from 1862 to 1898, and his wife Rebecca Ann (nee Cheesewright). The family went on to live in an Arts and Crafts inspired house called Longworth in Priory Road, Edgbaston.

John Thackray Bunce had a long and important association with Birmingham’s Museum and Art Gallery and The Birmingham Municipal School of Art. He was granted freedom of the city of Birmingham for his services to art in 1899.

Although little documented evidence has survived, it seems that both Kate and Myra’s talents in the decorative arts and paintings were encouraged and supported by their parents.

Kate had four sisters but two died in infancy and a third, Edith, died as a young woman. Her surviving sister Myra Louise, who was born in 1854 and died in 1919, was also a painter and designer, and as we can see here today her metalwork is particularly noteworthy.

Kate primarily devoted her career to painting and was a follower of Pre-Raphaelitism, particularly the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Her surviving paintings have a rich, highly decorative quality. Over several decades she was to exhibit work at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (she was elected an Associate Member of the society in 1888), the Royal Academy and other major venues including galleries in Liverpool and Manchester. Kate was associated with the revival of Tempera

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painting in Birmingham, along with the painter Joseph Southall, and in 1901 she was a founder member of the Birmingham based Society of Painters in Tempera.

Kate trained at the Birmingham Municipal School of Art (BMSA) in Margaret Street in the 1880s, at a time when the school began to be recognised internationally for the quality of its art instruction and the work of its pupils. The School’s Headmaster, Edward Taylor, revolutionised art instruction through his emphasis on teaching pupils the practical skills they needed to make jewellery, stained glass and metalwork whilst they were training at the school, rather than simply producing designs on paper. He called this system ‘Executed Design’. Edward Taylor also encouraged women students such as Kate and Myra Bunce into the school and gave them access to the life class. Many of these women students went on to win local and national prizes for their work and the training they received at the School gave them the practical skills they needed to go on to work professionally as artists and designers. Kate’s father, John Thackray Bunce, was closely associated with the Birmingham School of Art and was close friends with Edward Taylor. The work produced by the students at the School of Art certainly contributed to the city’s international reputation in the arts at the time. Indeed, when the American critic Alfred St Johnston visited the city, he called Birmingham ‘the most artistic city in England’.

The beautiful reredos screen that we can see here at S Alban the Martyr, provides a fitting location for this Blue Plaque. It is a wonderful example of the joint work of Kate and Myra Bunce, consisting of panels painted by Kate which are mounted in decorative metal frames worked by Myra.

The reredos was donated to the church by Kate and Myra in memory of their parents and sisters. It was installed in 1919 and poignantly is also a memorial to Myra, who died in that year.

A number of other works by Kate Bunce still survive in Birmingham. Two of her best known paintings, Melody (or Musica) and The Keepsake are in the permanent collections of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, as is a large watercolour of a young girl (possibly Myra) entitled The Sitting Room. Two of her painted murals survive in S Mary and S Ambrose Church in Edgbaston. Important ‘lost’ works are two paintings she provided as part of a decorative scheme for Birmingham Town Hall. In 1893, Kate was one of ten artists associated with the Birmingham Municipal School of Art who were commissioned to produce a series of large scale paintings depicting the history of Birmingham for the Town Hall. These canvases remained at the Town Hall until the 1920s. They were eventually transferred to the then Birmingham Historical Museum in Cannon Hill Park where they were last documented in a photograph taken in 1939. Their whereabouts are currently unknown and I am currently undertaking research to try and find them!

Kate Bunce died on December 24th 1927 and was buried at Edgbaston Old Church. Her professional reputation as a painter is documented, but very little is known about her personal life. Both Kate and Myra would be excellent subjects for a future research project — not only to discover more about their lives, but also to bring their work (and the work of other women designers and decorative artists in Birmingham at the time) to a wider audience. Sally Hoban

(Continued on page10)

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After the unveiling, the plaque was taken into the street and mounted in its prepared location on the south side of the tower to the right of the entrance door, where it is plainly visible from Conybere Street. Passing residents must have been very curious about a large group of photographers, partially blocking the road, vigorously snapping multiple pictures of a man up a ladder fixing an aluminium plate on to a brick wall. Obviously just

another Anglo-Catholic ritual! And so, nearly one hundred years since

the reredos was presented to the church, here, fully displayed to all, is recognition for Kate and Myra.

Bishop Santer and theMayor, Alderman Raymond Hassell

Kate Elizabeth Bunce1856 – 1927

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Visitor AppreciationThe Saturday and Sunday of the weekend were also highly successful. There were over fifty visitors, people who under normal circumstances would never have entered the building.

Many said they passed by almost every day but had never been inside, while we even had someone from North Carolina. It was also obvious from these written remarks that all our visitors much appreciated the building and thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with us:“Wonderful building — inspiring.”“Beautiful building — very precious in this community. Thank you.”“Beautiful church. Thank you.”“So interesting. Thank you.”“Very interesting. We learned about some history of the building and people.”“Very interesting church as my father grew up in the area in the 1920s. Lots of interesting information.”“An excellent and interesting visit.”“Very beautiful church.”“Stunning art work… a gorgeous place to worship. Thank you.”“A wonderful chance to see inside a church I have driven past for many years — very welcoming.”“Such a beautiful church so splendidly displayed.”“My childhood memories rekindled. Thank you for this opportunity.”“This has been a fascinating memory for me visiting S Alban’s Church once again after such a long time. The church looks so well cared for. All the people were so nice and informative. Excellent time — 10/10.”“A wonderful experience and so unexpected. An unknown gem in inner city Birmingham.”

“What an amazing place! It was just by random coincidence that I came to this church. Learned a lot, especially about the symbolism of pelicans. Thank you for your warm welcome.” (This one from North Carolina.)“A privilege to spend time in your beautiful church. Thank you for your warm hospitality.”“Excellent.”“An incredible building of great beauty and tranquility. For many years I have wondered if I would ever be able to visit to see it in all its glory — and incredibly thankful for the ability to do so. Truly one of the finest pieces of architecture in the entire city and much overlooked.”“Thank you for the chance to explore this great church.”“Splendid.”“Glorious in its beauty.”And this most fitting tribute was the last entry in the book this year. “Thank you all, and the Bunce Sisters!”

Open Day ConcertOn the Sunday afternoon of the Open Weekend we once again enjoyed a concert of music given by young members of the congregation and their friends. Organised by Catherine Wainwright, this is the third year that this event has taken place, an important part of our attempt to invite more people to experience the wonderful acoustics of the building and the joy of playing in such surroundings. At the same time, it gives the performers the chance to play before an audience comprising more than just their immediate friends and family.

Thank you to all who volunteered to help for HOD. Next year’s Open Days will run from September 8th – 11th.

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Nina Kumin (Violin) Robert Jones Bethan Pinnock and Adriana (Saxophone), (Flute and Oboe)

Catherine Wainwright (Organ) Jeanne Claude Meurisse (Piano)

The Choir Oliver Hubbard (Piano) Jonathan Hubbard (Accordian)

Sara lo Polito (Soprano)

This very enjoyable concert once again proved how lucky we are to have the services of such a talented group of young people. We thank them and wish them all great success in whatever careers they eventually find themselves.

We also thank Catherine and Dianne Wainwright for organising this third Open Days Concert for us, which was much appreciated by all those who attended, and which helps in yet another way to make known the presence of this church in Highgate.

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AsymmetryTom and Jerry got it right:

Action started when Jerry pinched the cream:And was it different when the faulty electron

Started off the universe?Imbalance causes it —

The heavier child on the see-saw,The lover tickling the beloved,

A nation claiming a further stretch of land.The attempt to right a wrong,

To redress, a new-born child to keep the balance,The apple that should never have been eaten.

O happy fault deserving of so great a redeemer!David Craig

The Barnabas FundYou may have already heard of the Barnabas Fund. If so and you have not yet sent them a donation I highly recommend that you do so, preferably as a gift aid.

The fund is based in Coventry and is closely involved in keeping in touch with and helping those persecuted Christians of the Middle East and Africa. They send a report every two months on the plight of these Christians. Their plight makes disturbing reading: much of these Eastern Christians’ suffering is not reported in the press.

I have telephoned the Barnabas centre in Coventry and they have assured me that they do their best to make sure these persecuted Christians maintain their traditional way of worship. There is no attempt to bring them to worship in any Western form.

Their magazine tells us of these Christians’ plight and how the fund spends the aid we contribute. Other useful information is also given.

The Barnabas fund has, for example, been instrumental in trying to persuade governments to provide permanent or

temporary homes in European Christians’ houses. So far only the Polish government has volunteered, despite pressure from Archbishop Carey. Things have now changed for the better after the tragic death of the family leaving Turkey. Still the UK government, in its obsession with political correctness, will not give preference to fleeing Christians who have nowhere to go other than Europe, where fleeing Muslims have more choice, though that may not be true for Shia.

Only last year I had the unhappy experience of Pakistani Christians, who were only too willing to settle in the UK and integrate, being sent back to Pakistan without their parents, while at the same time Muslim families arriving in the same city[Liverpool] were allowed to stay.

I do hope you will contact Barnabas aid and request their brochures. Address:Barnabas Fund, 9 Priory Row, Coventry CV1 5EX Telephone: 0800 587 4006barnabasfund.org/donate

David Craig

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Stella WaldronMany at S Alban’s will be saddened to learn of the unexpected death at the end of June of Stella Waldron, who was a member of our congregation and of our church choir through the 1990s and across the turn of the millennium. Stella was 82 and had had the usual health problems but had made little of them; when Liz and I spent a day with her in May this year we had no idea that that would be the last time we would do so. We were already making arrangements to her to join us, as she always did, for the Musica Deo Sacra festival at Tewkesbury Abbey in August. Again, that was no more to be.

Stella came to S Alban’s with Roy, her rather colourful, combative and irascible husband, who was on his own long, difficult spiritual quest. Once having found, as he thought, his spiritual home at S Alban’s, he threw himself into church life, became a dedicated server at the altar, sat on the PCC and came to take a staunchly traditionalist stand on church affairs. Stella was also a traditionalist, though in a more nuanced and — dare we say? — more ladylike manner.

She was confirmed, alongside myself and Fay Wilson, by Bishop Mark Santer at S Alban’s, on S Jude’s Eve in October 1994. Some may see that as a vintage event. Others, perhaps, not. Of the eight S Alban’s candidates confirmed then, only two are still members of our congregation. S Jude, of course, is traditionally the patron saint of lost causes.

Roy had already become a close friend of mine as he had of Dennis Clark, despite holding many different views from my own, and having a very different temperament from Dennis. I think we both still miss him. But, with our wives, we both maintained

contact with Stella, after Roy’s early death from leukaemia and after her move from Redditch to Worcester, where she joined the congregation of Old St Martin’s.

Stella was, in her own quiet way, rather an independent thinker and, again, quietly and without show, had a determined streak to her which led her to take action to solve problems — whether personal, financial or spiritual — rather than just to worry about them. She was a great choral singer — an alto with church choirs and with the Redditch Choral Society. She wrote, drew and painted — at all of which she had some talent; she read widely, cooked and was an imaginative and successful small-scale gardener. In recent years she led a senior citizens’ walking group in Worcester. She maintained an interest in things she had shared more actively with Roy; she was still very knowledgeable, for instance, about vintage British sports cars.

At the same time Stella did have something of a fey side and she always had business pending with crystals and pendulums, herbal remedies, auras, chakras and alternative therapies. She saw these, like her Anglo-Catholic religion, as a way to reach through the natural world to that greater world beyond in which the natural and the spiritual achieve their latent unity. She was already somewhat intuitive. When John Waterhouse, our much-loved churchwarden in the 1980s, had his stroke, she was one of the few members of the congregation who could make immediate, easy contact with him.

Stella had a full, eventful and useful life in this world and she had a full church for the funeral service that would send her fondly on to the glories of the next world and to her longed-for reunion with Roy,

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who, like a true Brummie, will be sure to have found some cause for complaint and to need Stella’s calming touch.

Meanwhile, still here below, we send our

condolences to her children Kate, Rick and Rex and to their children and step-children. On whom, of course, she doted.

Stephen Wycherley

It’s All The Same To ThemAn article by Theo Hobson, theologian and journalist, from The Tablet magazine of December 13th 2014, page 13. Reproduced with permission of the Publisher. Website address: http://www.thetablet.co.uk

RECENTLY I have been doing a spot of school teaching — religious

education among other subjects. It got me thinking. What — if anything — should children be taught about religion at school? In the United States for example, it is left out of the syllabus altogether. That does not strike me as disastrous, given my experience in the classroom.

In one class of 13-year-olds I took, we looked at the story of Abraham. “What other religions beside Judaism see Abraham as a founding figure?” I asked. A tentative hand went up: “Buddhism, sir?” Another: “Is it Sikhism?”

Come on, I thought. I tried a different approach. “What two religions come out of Judaism?” “Is Hinduism one?”

In recent years, the religious education of children has been focused, or rather unfocused, on the multiplicity of religion. This, it seems to me, has turned the whole subject into random guesswork. Children have been encouraged to see the various traditions as equally odd, and equally irrelevant. Had RE focused on the Judeo-Christian tradition, instead of trying to cover other faiths as well, some of the children I taught would surely have known that Christianity and Islam emerged from Judaism.

Instead, their religious education had been guided by a dispiriting textbook

with the sole aim of instilling respect for diversity. It takes a theme, such as prayer, or marriage, or meat eating, and briefly tells what each of the great religions thinks about it. Here are some pictures of people in funny-looking religious costume; here is an elephant god; and here is an ancient fable from Iran or Japan. The brighter pupils come away thinking that religion is faintly comical nonsense — nonsense that must of course be “respected”, at least outwardly. Officially, the message is: religion matters, it is crucial to how very many people live their lives. But the message that actually gets through to children is: religion is a bit weird, with little or no relevance to the average British person’s life.

What is the alternative? Should we give more time to teaching Christianity, as in the past? A new report by the Bible Society found that most RE teachers are unwilling to focus on the Bible in class, even occasionally, for fear of seeming to disparage other religious traditions. A previous report found that children’s knowledge of the Bible had halved over the past 20 years.

The Bible Society would say such things, would it not? But even Ofsted, the independent body that inspects schools, admits that there is a problem. A year ago it found that the teaching of Christianity was “one of the weakest aspects” of RE lessons

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in English state schools. It also found that it was “not uncommon” for RE lessons to be almost devoid of religion altogether. Teachers increasingly prefer to focus on some aspect of being nice to each other and being nice to the planet. A few years earlier, Ofsted had warned that “too many pupils were leaving school with a very limited understanding of Christianity”.

There is an unwillingness to confront the problem. The tendency is to nod, look concerned, and then say something along the lines of, “Yes, the teaching of religion should be made relevant to today’s multi-faith Britain.”

But this is not the issue. The problem is that our main religious tradition is being neglected in the classroom. And the only possible solution, which of course Ofsted did not dare to propose, is for teachers to ignore the diversity-worshipping textbooks and to try instead to get some basic knowledge of Christianity across. That means reading some bits of the Bible in class, and resolving to stand firm if some parents complain.

Last month, the Government proposed a new “more academically rigorous” religious studies GCSE syllabus: pupils would study “the beliefs, teachings and sources of wisdom” of at least two religions for the first half of their GCSE, chosen from a list of six, and then in the second half the syllabus will allow pupils to study one or both of their chosen religions in greater depth.

This sounds reasonable — but in the light of that Ofsted report, surely it would make sense to insist that one of the six be Christianity. Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, said: “By ensuring that young people learn about more than just one religion, this new GCSE will better prepare students for life in modern Britain.” This

misses the point. It is not that British teenagers are too narrowly attached to Christianity and must be urged to see the point of other traditions. The problem is that they have insufficient grasp of the basic Scriptures and teachings of Britain’s core religious tradition.

Predictably, perhaps, the main criticism of the Government’s proposals came from humanists. In a joint letter, about 100 of them argued that the way to make religious studies relevant would be to include humanism as one of the optional modules. I think they have a point, or half a point. Pupils should indeed be taught about secular humanism, the dominant ideology of the day, alongside religion. In particular, they should be encouraged to ponder the overlap of religion and humanism: to see that the ideals of equality and liberty have Christian roots. Humanism is, in a broad sense, part of our religious tradition.

My proposal is that, in younger years, religious education should be mostly concerned with the teaching of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Its influence on the emergence of humanism should be included. This privileging of Christianity should continue into GCSE, with Christianity always being included as one of the two religions studied, alongside Judaism, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism — and the Christian roots of humanism should also be part of the common syllabus.

Without such reform, religious education just becomes an annex of human geography, to be regarded by children as a polite, rather pointless tour of the practices of people who do not enjoy their access to secularism. If we dare not ramp up its Christian content, maybe we should have the honesty to go the American way and boot out the teaching of religion from our schools.