We are apparently in danger of becoming a society segregated along religious lines, so says the new campaign group Accord. The Rabbi of Maidenhead - not noted for its ghettos -fears that the current system damages community relations.
A long time ago, the Catholic school in which I taught was broken into and vandalised one weekend. The statues and crucifixes dotted around the school were well and truly Cromwelled. One colleague gave an assembly to the pupils containing slides depicting the damage done. I was very interested to note that the pupils who were most indignant and indeed hurt by these scenes were Islam. I was interested and surprised because of Islam's strictures against idolatry - I would have predicted that our Hindu pupils would have been more upset than the Muslim pupils. Perhaps they could see through their differences and recognise a shared sense of the sacred that had in some way been violated.
Yes - that's right Muslim and Hindu kids going to a Catholic school. If faith schools promoted bigotry - why on earth would Hindus, Muslims, Jains and Pentecostal Christians do such a thing?
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