Evangelicals Now reports that “parents could be forced to report Sunday School attendance” to the authorities. This offers a helpful example of being careful about how we report and react to news stories. The headline might give the impression that the state are about to start prying into all of our private and religious lives with echoes of communist China or the old Soviet Union. A closer look beyond the headline suggests something a little different.
First, EN report that:
A statutory obligation could be imposed on parents to report if their home-schooled child is attending Sunday School and other forms of church education, under the wide-ranging Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.”
This links to a proposal within the bill that those who educate their children at home should register their children as such. The basis of the suggestion that the parents might be required to register Sunday School attendance then come from the following:
Under the provisions, registration onfChildren Not in School registers will be required in England where a child is receiving all or part of their education outside of school. The register will require parents to specify the amount of time the child spends receiving education from each parent. The register ‘must’ also include the names and addresses of any individuals and organisations that provide the child with education.”
In other words, the Bill is requiring home schoolers to also give a bit more detail about how their child is receiving an education. It is Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute’s interpretation that:
“It appears that home-educating parents will have to report if their child attends Sunday School, including names and addresses of the Sunday School teachers.’”
Well, I guess that this is a possible interpretation but its rather tenuous. Perhaps there might be mendacious officials who seek to interpret the act like that and further, then have a desire to litigate. However, the purpose of requirement seems clear, as described above, to ensure accountability of how education is delivered.
It’s therefore important to consider how we think about church attendance for children. Do we see it as an outsourcing of part of our children’s education? I would hope not. It is rather about something a whole family does together as they gather with God’s family to worship him. Indeed, to make that clear, many churches dropped the name “Sunday School” nearly 30 years ago!
We need to be careful about reporting speculation, especially when that speculation is based on some serious spin work and we need to be cautious about over reacting. We also need to be clear about the thinking and ideology that underpins the spin. You see, at times, there is a confusion between underlying Christian concerns and underlying philosophical/ideological concerns which may or may not be right but aren’t in and of themselves Christian.
In a similar vein, some people have been quick to treat the taxation of private schools as persecution of believers because some private schools are Christian schools. To be honest, though I’m on the centre right and though I have no problem with private provision, I see no problem with the Government choosing to tax it, nor frankly do I have much sympathy for parents complaining that they are having to move their kids into state schools that don’t teach Latin and have larger class sizes. Once you go into the private world and pay money, you are accepting that this is a choice where price is a factor. Such prices could go up beyond your reach for all kinds of reasons.
In terms of the Home Schooling debate, John Denning, also from the Christian Institute’s comment is telling. He says:
‘A compulsory register of home educators implies that parents need permission from the state to educate their own children. It’s not hard to imagine it turning into a scheme to impose conditions for registration, where a parent effectively has to educate in a state-approved way.’
Well, first of all, it obviously is not about having permission “to educate their own children.” First because it is not about applying to do so but about registering the fact, secondly because there is nothing to stop you from teaching your children. The question is whether or not you can also withdraw them from school. In other words, it is making clear that you do not have permission to withhold an education from your children. And that is one of the concerns, that we do not end up ina situation where education is denied to some children under the cover of “home education.” And no, I don’t think that getting your children to help with baking is teaching them science or that going to the shops is a way of learning maths.
The crucial question of course is to do with the level of involvement that the State should have in a variety of things. The assumption that you should decide your children’s education arises out of a specific view, often referred to as Lex Rex, that Church, state and family have distinct spheres of authority. This shapes a particularly libertarian outlook and this also influenced some responses to the COVID pandemic.
However, it is not a specifically Christian perspective, nor the only Christian perspective. For example, one view of the modern State is that it functions more like the extended family, replicating the role of clan and tribal heads on more traditional societies. In such a case, if it takes the whole village to raise the child, then there are others beyond the nuclear family who have a legitimate interest in what and how children are taught.
Now, your own inclination may lean more into the Lex Rex model. There may be identifiable weaknesses with both and other approaches, but this does not mean that you can claim your position to be the Christian one nor see yourself as persecuted as a Christian when one secular ideology collides with another.
What I would also ask you to do is to not bring churches and their activities into your dispute in a way that might in fact in the future create challenges for what we do.
Faithroots 
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