ABSTRACT
Problems of authority arise at many points in the teaching of religious education. Pupils at both junior and secondary schools frequently ask their teachers about the sort of authority which passages from the Bible are thought to possess, and sometimes the teacher’s own authority to say anything definite about religion is strongly challenged. In an independent school attached to a religious tradition, or in an aided or perhaps a controlled school, teachers may feel that they are expected to see themselves as representing the church. Indeed, this is often the case with teachers of religion in wholly maintained LEA schools. The introduction of integrated studies is certainly going to lead to some kind of change in the authority of the present Agreed Syllabuses. No teacher of any subject can take part in the planning of an integrated project if he knows from the beginning that what this document contains and nothing else may constitute his constribution to the topic.
