ABSTRACT
In the 1944 Act religious instruction meant instruction in the Christian religion. When the word ‘religion’ is used in a religiously plural society, it has changed its meaning. A ‘religion’ which is simply one of a class, is no longer an ultimate commitment, a stance for living. The Birmingham Syllabus insists that religions are not to be studied with the idea that one is superior to the rest, but ‘objectively and for their own sake’. Religion, like science and history, is an expression of the human attempt to understand and respond to what is really the case. A pupil will advance in this understanding, and will develop the proper critical faculties in the field, by a process which must begin with the uncritical acceptance of models which are part of the culture and experience into which the pupil is growing up.
