In the news again, on the BBC's Today programme this morning [jump forward to 1.31], theBishop of Oxford had trouble in answering John Humphries' question whether or not Jesus was the Son of God. In fact, the interviewer had to labour the point to get an answer as to whether Jesus should be featured at all in school assemblies. 'Reflection, silence and singing' were OK but care was needed to strike the right balance in multi-cultural schools.
Bishop Pritchard was particularly impressed with an ONS figure which showed that 71% of the population 'identifed' with Christianity. 'Identified' does not put bums on pews but perhaps this is part of his plan to speed the decline in church attendance. What really irked a friend in Wales who emailed me this morning (the former Bishop of Oxford is leading a team managing the decline of the Church in Wales under the leadership of their current Archbishop) was the statement that 100% of pupils in some Church of England schools are Muslims. Ignoring the financial implications for the church, this suggests to the bishop that parents of Muslim children send them to Church schools because they know that God will be taken seriously!
So there we have it. If God is to be taken seriously we should make all Church Schools 100% Muslim even though they do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. They believe in their God (Allah) and that everyone else should too so that would put an end to the multi-culturalism our church leaders and teachers care so much about without ever having to worry again about mentioning the name of Jesus.
