One of the UK’s oldest public schools has demolished its chapel and replaced it with new science classrooms.
Oh my god somebody call the cops!
The decision has upset the Church of England and brought complaints that the institution is turning its back on its Christian heritage in favour of a more secular approach to education.
Yes, and? A secular approach to education is bad or wrong why, exactly?
We’re always being told how liberal and mild and lukewarm and basically harmless the C of E is. But what’s mild and harmless about thinking theocratic education is better than secular education? What’s mild and harmless about protesting secular education?
Churches don’t do education. Religion doesn’t do education. Churches and religion do religion, which is different from education. Education is what schools do. It is fundamentally secular – it is about the world, and exploring and learning about the world. Like newspapers, like forensics, like medicine, like so many human institutions, it is supposed to get things right. It is supposed to teach what is true, not what is false. Churches and religions are not. That is the fundamental radical difference between them. A secular approach to education is the only legitimate approach there is. A god-inflected approach is not education properly understood.