The Bishop of Shrewsbury has attacked the Government for trying to impose on children “British values” that are rooted in a secular political mentality.
Bishop Mark Davies lamented at Mass on Easter Day that “almost a third of British children now believe that today marks the Easter Bunny’s birthday” – despite the country having been formed by Christianity.
He voiced concern at the Government’s attempts to counter extremist ideology by identifying “British values”.
The then-Education Secretary, Michael Gove, announced last year that every primary and secondary school in England would be expected to promote British values such as religious tolerance and the primacy of British law in the wake of the Trojan Horse scandal in Birmingham. He had the backing of the Prime Minister, David Cameron, who summed up British values as tolerance, freedom, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility, and respect for British institutions.
Bishop Davies said: “It has left many uneasy because our values cannot be arbitrarily formulated by any passing generation of politicians, even if they have the best of intentions. Our values will always emerge from what we truly believe about ourselves and beg the question why do we believe that every human being has innate worth and is endowed with equal rights and dignity?”
He said that real values came from Christianity. “In other words, it is by faith in what a human being is, rather than by what any political leaders says we are, that human rights are truly safeguarded.”
Looking forward to May’s General Election Bishop Davies said that it was not the job of the Church to formulate policy, rather to shine “the gentle light of Christ” on questions that confront British society.
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