Two papers debate the 2024 AGM’s change of the Network’s purpose to ‘religion and worldviews as human creations for this life’: Dave Francis argues for it, David Boulton against, with editor David Chapman’s introduction.
Dave Francis argues that the rise in elective home education, unregulated and rarely including religion and worldviews, threatens children’s religious education, and calls for monitoring while noting Oak Academy’s RE provision.
Dave Francis reviews John Pearson’s collection As I Please, drawn from his Sofia columns: travel pieces, opinions on politics and the Church, and longer reflections on self and faith, including his move from ‘God’ to...
Dave Francis and Denise Cush trace the Solarity education project from 2006: religion and philosophy clubs website, links with Big Ideas for RE and Religion and Worldviews, and funding from the Network.
Dave Francis reviews The House of Islam by Ed Husain.
Dave Francis welcomes the proposed renaming of RE as ‘Religion and Worldviews’ and explains what the Commission on Religious Education report means for what pupils should study.
Dave Francis says RE is declining and proposes renaming it ‘Religion and Worldviews’, built on the Six Big Ideas. He argues for a Solarity contribution drawing on the Network’s out-of-school clubs resource.
Dave Francis suggests non-believers can still keep Lent as a time of self-discipline, study and generosity, and Easter as a story of hope and self-sacrifice, while doubting that the surrounding theology adds much.
Dave Francis doubts that mission statements inspire, then proposes ‘for this life’ as a statement of purpose for the Network, drawing on Honderich, Porritt, Armstrong’s mythos and logos, and Cupitt’s account of life as outsideless.
Dave Francis reviews Dominic Kirkham’s From Monk to Modernity, which weaves the author’s own journey from religious commitment through modernity to a ‘human spirituality’ into a history of modern and post-modern thought.
