Morality and religion

Sir: John Linklater's attack on "a report published under the auspices of the National Foundation for Educational Research" (September 6) should not go unanswered. The publication in question is in fact not a report but a symposium called Progress and Problems in Moral Education, edited by Monica Taylor and consisting of a score of contributions of which only the last four concern the subject of Dr Linklater's attack, religious education in schools. The main paper in this section

is by John Hull, who is a Christian and has been a schoolteacher; what he and the other three contributors are seeking is not — as Dr Linklater claims — to replace the present system of compulsory religious instruction by a new system of "instruction in other beliefs and political doctrines such as marxism, humanism and fascism", but to replace indoctrination in a single religion — Christianity — by education about the various religious and non-religious beliefs which are held in this country.

It may once have been true — as Dr Linklater claims — that "our philosophy of life is based, ultimately, on Christian doctrine"; but this is not true of a growing minority today. Ours is an increasingly pluralist society, in which there are more and more people with different religions or none, and all John Hull and his fellow-contributors are saying is that what is taught in schools should reflect this fact. Dr Linklater claims that "it serves no useful purpose" and "only confuses the child" to teach comparative religion rather than simple Christianity, and he wishes to exclude "alternative systems of morality"; but for thousands of parents and children (and teachers) Christianity is itself an alternative system, and may even seem useless and confusing.

Dr Linklater claims that humanism is "an alternative, relative morality based on transient expediency"; this is a caricature of an ideology which is after all older and wider than Christianity. Dr Linklater even claims that to teach humanism "is to sow the seeds of severe mental stress and moral disorientation"; this is an argument for which he gives no evidence and which, if true, would surely apply just as much to teaching non-Christian children about Christianity.

Dr Linklater claims that we should recapitulate in our psychological as in our physical development the evolutionary history of our ancestors, and that children should therefore be taught Christianity until adolescence; surely the only reason for teaching Christianity on its own is the belief that is true, which many teachers and parents no longer hold and would be hypocrites to pretend to hold. Dr Linklater claims that a child Drought up without Christian education "finds that he has nothing to rebel against when rising hormone levels bring him to adolescence" and that the denial of Christian education "would cheat a child of his right, ultimately to declare his independent individuality, and of his adolescent self-discovery"; humanists would say that the child has the right to r^bel, to declare his individuality, and to make his self-discovery, at any time. Dr Linklater claims that "a child who does not fear God and hold his parents and schoolmasters in healthy respect cannot, when he matures, respect himself either"; humanists would say that a healthy respect has to be earned rather than enforced, and that a child who is brought up to fear God and honour his parents and teachers without good reason will have difficulty in respecting himself and his children.

Dr Linklater assumes that we should preserve "our Christian heritage" and should "return to thesChristian faith"; that makes sense to believers and half-believers, but not to unbelievers. As Dr Linklater says, "It is surely not necessary to teach children lies in order that they may have a wider understanding of what constitutes truth." But it is necessary to teach them how to

distinguish truth from lies. The only way to find the truth is through the free use of reason,Nand it is surely wrong for the state schools to impose any particular system of belief on children in a pluralist society. Dr Linklater says it would be silly to throw out the baby with the bathwater; it would be just silly to drown the baby in the bathwater.

Nicolas Walter Rationalist Press Association, 88 Islington High Street, London NI

The Pentateuch

Sir: Professor Lloyd-Jones wrote on August 23 that it was agreed by "common consent" that none of the Pentateuch can have come into existence before 950 BC, long after the time of Moses, its traditional author. I pointed out that much modern evidence, some of which I cited, pointed to an early and unified authorship of the Pentateuch, quite consistent with Mosaic authorship, and that the Wellhausen theory which Lloyd-Jones was implicitly citing was out of date. Professor Lloyd-jones's answer (September 20) was merely to state that the "standard works" which he had consulted all backed him up.

Originally Professor Lloyd-Jones claimed that all the world "by common consent" shared his views: now this has shrunk to the narrow compass of an unspecified number of unnamed "standard works". I could mention many standard works which maintain the Mosaic authorship of the books traditionally ascribed to him, but confine myself to three: Introduction to the Old Testament (1969) by R. K. Harrisons; Introduction in Libros Veteris Testamenti (1958) by B. Mariani; and 'the edition of the Pentateuch annotated

by the eminent Jewish scholar and Chief Rabbi J. H. Hertz.

Wellhausenism was based in part on

progress: the people of today must be so better than those of Moses' time that

Moses and his associates must have been illiterate superstitious primitives. The advent of Hitler and Stalin has thrown some doubt on progress, while archaeological discoveries show that there was no reason why Moses should not have been literate and cultured and well capable of writing the Pentateuch, or a large part of it. Wellhausenism is on the way out among sholars, but it has lingered a little longer in Britain than in many other countries, and of course standard works, if mere compilations, tend to be years or decades out of date.

G. J. A. Stern

6 Eton Court, Shepherds Hill, London N6