Sweden to Suppress Religion in Schools - Proposal That Britain do the Same
Religious ideas can be taught, but not as though they are true

  By Hilary White

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, October 23, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The government of
Sweden has announced it will be banning any religious activities in schools
except for those directly related to religion classes. It is also directing
that in religious education, religious ideas must not be taught as though they
are objectively true. A columnist in the UK’s far-left Guardian newspaper has
urged Britain to follow suit, implying that Britain’s Catholic and Jewish
schools are a terror threat.

Swedish Education Minister Jan Bjoerklund told reporters that religious activity
“can take place ... but only outside of coursework”. He said that teaching
should “not be influenced” by religious beliefs.

The move by the government is being defended as a reaction to the rise of
violent Islamic extremism that police have identified with many Muslim schools
in Britain and Europe. As such the move is supported by the Swedish Christian
Democratic party.

“Pupils must be protected from every sort of fundamentalism,” said Björklund.

Björklund used the example of the origins of human life, which, he said, must be
taught from a “scientific” point of view, not a religious one.

“This is naturally brought about by the fact that different viewpoints are being
discussed, for instance about the creation of the world - one based on science
and one on religious views,” Björklund told a news conference.

Björklund told reporters that the Intelligent Design theory would be banned from
Swedish biology classes even as a proposed theory. The rules will make it
illegal even for faith-based schools to teach that religious doctrines are
objectively true on the grounds that this would be “prosetylising”. Prayer,
including religious services or assemblies, will remain legal, as long as no
teacher in a classroom teaches that there is any reality behind it.

“Teaching in school must have a scientific basis,” he said at a news
conference.

Although its advocates are careful to point out that the theory called
Intelligent Design is not the same as the religious opinion that God created
the world in six days, the powerful anti-religious element in the scientific
community, the media and most secularist governments have branded the theory
with the smear term “creationism”.

Included in the proposals was a pledge that rhe Swedish National Agency for
Education will double the number of inspections for both private independent
and state-run schools. Schools will also be required to report their funding
sources. Schools that fail to adhere to the new standards could face fines or
even government-enforced closures. 67 elementary schools and six high schools
have a religious confessional orientation in Sweden. The new rules will require
Parliamentary approval and are set to come into effect in 2009.

Commenting in the far left Guardian newspaper, British columnist Andrew Brown
said the British government should follow suit and force Britain’s Jewish,
Muslim and Catholic independent schools to treat religion as though it were not
true under the guise of addressing the threat of terrorism.

Brown wrote that although the willingness of Anglican schools "by and
large, to teach religion as if it were not true” makes them no threat to the
state, he implied that Jewish and Catholic schools are an equal threat as those
fundamentalist Islamic institutions that have been identified by British police
as nuturing violent extremism.

While “no one supposes that society is threatened by a terrorist movement
nurtured in [Church of England] primary schools,” he said the British
government might be well advised to follow the Swedish example and force
Jewish, Muslim and Catholic schools to adopt similar position.

Brown wrote, “Demanding that Muslim, Jewish, and Catholic schools stop teaching
their own religions as if they were true, which is essentially the Swedish
position, looks an impossible task for a British government. But I think it
might also be a necessary one. It is certainly the only way to discover whether
the parents of such schools really want the ‘ethos’ or the pseudo-factual
beliefs and what exactly it is that the people who fund them think they are
buying with their money.”

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
UK: Religious Schools May Not Teach Christian Sexual Morals "As if They
Were Objectively True"
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/mar/07030504.html ;

Atheist Scientists in Uproar over Movie Showing Intolerance of Evidence for
Intelligent Design
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/oct/07100505.html