SACRE - Agreed Syllabus

POST 16

Pupils should not just learn

about religion but also

about themselves from religion.

Post 16

The law and this Agreed Syllabus require schools to provide RE for all students at KS 5. Schools should allocate funds for the provision of adequate specialist staffing and resources. Departments will need to devise appropriate schemes of work and methods of delivery.

RE SHOULD BE TAUGHT CONTINUOUSLY THROUGH THE KEY STAGE AND THE TIME ALLOCATED FOR IT SHOULD BE NOT LESS THAN 5%.

Many schools provide ‘A’ level, AS courses or other external courses in Religious Studies. This is to be encouraged. Students should not be prevented from taking this option through lack of provision.

RE for post-16 students should reflect their increasing maturity and assist them in considering their own place and purpose as adult members of society. Students should be provided with learning opportunities which allow them to develop their own thinking on important religious, philosophical, social and ethical issues drawing on principal world religions and, where appropriate, secular world views.

Teachers should present materials in such a way that students have the opportunity to deepen insight into their own beliefs, values and attitudes and are enabled to interpret religious and non-religious views and perceptions of life, purpose and world order. Teachers should build on the learning experiences of previous stages and provide opportunities for students to apply their knowledge.

It is important to continue the process of evaluating source material by further developing the skills of critical awareness, interpretation and analysis. Pupils should be given the opportunity to address issues of immediate interest and perennial concern.

Throughout KS 5 students should have increasing opportunities to:

1. Learn about religion (AT 1)
2. Learn from religion (AT 2)

Schemes of work should take account of the five concepts - Belief, Worship, Deity, Authority and Commitment - outlined on page 4.

IN ORDER TO ENSURE A BROAD AND BALANCED EXPLORATION OF RELIGION DURING KS 5 STUDENTS SHOULD COVER AT LEAST 6 TOPICS, 2 FROM EACH OF THE 3 AREAS OF STUDY OUTLINED BELOW. CARE MUST BE TAKEN TO ENSURE THAT THE CHOSEN 6 TOPICS AND CONTENT SHOULD BE SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT.

1. Religious Experience
2. Miracles
3. Mysticism and Meditation
4. Religion and Nature
5. Religion and Sexuality
6. Apocalypse
7. Death and the Afterlife
8. Incarnation and Resurrection
9. Myth, Symbol and Story
10. Religion and the Arts
11. Religion and the Media
12. Religion and Literature
13. New Age
14. Historicity and Religion
15. Faith and Commitment

1. Fundamentalism
2. Liberation Theology
3. Saints and Martyrs
4. Religion and Conflict
5. Religion and the Environment
6. Religion and Politics
7. Religion and Race
8. Religion and Science
9. Religion and Psychology
10. Religion and Materialism
11. Religion and Secularisation
12. Religion and Social Justice
13. Religious Minorities
14. Unity and Diversity in Religion

1. Arguments for and against the existence of God
2. Atheism, Humanism and Existentialism
3. Freewill and Determinism
4. Ethical Theories
5. Ethical Dilemmas in Medicine
6. Evil and Suffering
7. Post Modernism
8. Happiness & the Meaning of Life
9. Religion and Women
10. Religion and the Paranormal
11. A Current Moral/Ethical Issue

THE FOLLOWING CONTENT IS SUGGESTIVE – IT IS NOT INTENDED TO BE PRESCRIPTIVE OR EXHAUSTIVE, BUT STIMULATING.

Suggested Guidelines

A. God And Spirituality

A1.Religious Experience

“And the word of the Lord came to me, saying...”

Suggested Content

• Special revelation and general revelation.
• Life changing effects of conversion experiences and modern examples, e.g. Nicky Cruz, Toronto Experience.
• The meaning and effects of prayer.
• Musical experience.
• Enlightenment.
• Visiting speakers, e.g. clergy, to discuss their religious experience, non-evangelistically.
• Psychological explanations for religious experience.

Basic Questions

• What is religious experience?
• Can experience be trusted?
• How do people claim to have experienced God?
• How would you authenticate religious experience?
• What effect might my experiences have on others, or the experiences of others on me?

A2.Miracles

‘And for my next trick...’

Suggested Content

• Examples of types of miracles: ancient and modern.
• Miracles and the nature of God.
• Purpose of miracles.
• Naturalistic interpretations.
• Miracles of Jesus: nature, healing and raising the dead.
• The resurrection.

Basic Questions

• What is a miracle?
• Do miracles still happen?
• Will science ever explain all miracles?
• Why do miracles happen - what do they prove?
• Are miracles answers to prayers?

A3.Mysticism and Meditation

Do you need a licence for Yogic flying?

Suggested Content

• Mystical elements in world faiths e.g. Kabbalah in Judaism; Sufism in Islam; Vajrayana in Buddhism.
• Julian of Norwich; Meister Eckhart; Theresa; Hildegard of Bingen; Ven. Bede Griffiths; Ven. John Main.
• Use of drugs to ‘enhance spiritual experience’.
• Links between meditation and social action e.g. socially engaged Buddhism, Thich That Hanh.
• New Age and spirituality.
• Silence, reflection and stilling exercises.
• Transcendental meditation: the Beatles

Basic Questions

• Is there more to it than contemplating your navel?
• Is meditation and the search for a higher plane a reaction to a superficial age?
• Is silence empty?
• What is mysticism?
• Is there a place for mystical experience in the rational world?
• Are there messages we can miss through hyperactivity -do we need to tune in?
• Did our ancestors know something we don’t?

A4.Religion and Nature

Have you hugged a tree today?

Suggested Content

• James Lovelock’s Gaia Theory.
• Nature religions and religions revealed through nature.
• Native American and Australian Aboriginal cosmology, prophecies and religion.
• ‘Old Age’ religions in Glastonbury, fertility myths, pantheism.
• Role of poetry e.g. Wordsworth.
• Grisedale forest sculpture walks.
• Darwin and evolution.
• Teilard de Chardin and Creation Spirituality e.g. Matthew Fox
• Music-‘Earth Mass’

Basic Questions

• Are we part of or distinct from nature?
• Does nature say anything about God?
• How immanent is God?
• Should we redefine patriarchal ideas about God?
• Mother Earth or Father God: which is the most powerful image?
• Does nature still inspire creativity?
• Which came first, chicken or egg?

A5.Religion and Sexuality

What does God look like? She’s Black!

Suggested Content

• Male gender dominance in religion.
• The perfection of Mary as a role model and female guilt.
• Role of New Age in affirming sexuality.
• Homosexual acts as preference, inclination or perversion.
• Sexual experimentation among teenagers
• Hinduism: affirmation of sexuality in the Tantric tradition.

Basic Questions

• Is sex outside marriage a sin?
• Should the church allow gay priests?
• Is celibacy realistic in today’s world?
• Is it religion, culture, or tradition which defines men’s and women’s roles?
• Should the church affirm homosexual relationships?
• Is God male or female?
• Does it matter whether religious leaders are male or female?

A6. Apocalypse

The End is nigh!

Suggested Content

• Fulfilment of prophecy.
• Prophetic visions.
• Apocalyptic imagery in the arts.
• Nostrodamus.
• Millenarianism.
• Religious teaching about end of time e.g. Jewish ideas about the Messiah; historical and modern interpretations of Book of Revelation; Mark 13.

Basic Questions

• Will the end of the world be brought about by God or humanity?
• Will I be judged and by what criteria?
• Will Jesus return? When? Why are some people fascinated with the idea of the end of time?
• Is it possible to predict the future?

A7.Death and the Afterlife

“You lived your life like a candle in the wind” - Elton John.

Suggested Content

• The nature of the afterlife e.g. Christian ideas of heaven, hell, resurrection, purgatory and limbo; ideas of reincarnation/rebirth in Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism.
• Survival of death in films and popular culture.
• Near death experiences.
• The nature of the soul.
• Attitudes to death and beyond in contemporary society.
• Definitions of ‘death’

Basic Questions

• How do we know when someone is dead?
• Can we look forward to death?
• What is the evidence that life does not end with death?
• Is death an end or a beginning?
• What form does immortality take?
• Resurrection or reincarnation?
• Individual soul or rejoining the eternal?
• What is meant by heaven and hell?
• How do people express their beliefs in life after death?
• Does a part of us survive after death?
• Can we communicate with the dead?

A8.Incarnation and Resurrection

Jesus: born to die or dying to live?

Suggested content

• Orthodox Christian view that Jesus was fully human and fully God.
• Incarnation and Avatar.
• Resurrection in Christianity in contrast to Platonic immortality.
• Early heresies: Arianism; Nestorianism; Docetism.
• Views of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Unitarians.
• Biblical evidence of the Trinity and developing Christology.
• The nature of the resurrected Jesus e.g. physical or spiritual; gospels and Paul; subjective experience; hoax and revival from coma.

Basic Questions

• Was Jesus God?
• Did Jesus know he was God? Was he merely following a script?
• When did Jesus begin?
• Did Mary need to be a virgin?
• Does the crucifixion/atonement lose significance if Jesus wasn’t fully human?
• Is the resurrection historical? If so, what form did it take?
• Is the resurrection linked to the divine nature of Jesus?
• What happened to the body?

A9.Myth, Symbol and Story

Have you heard the one about...... ?

Suggested Content

• The meanings behind the ideas in Creation stories in world faiths.
• The inadequacy of language when describing the transcendent.
• Ethics, good and evil in folklore.
• Symbolism in religion and fiction e.g. the heroic voyage; sacrifice; Tolkien; CS Lewis; Star Wars.
• Philosophical parables and their meanings.

Basic Questions

• Genesis: fact or plagiarism?
• What’s the point of fairy tales?
• What are myths and legends?
• Is truth more important than meaning?
• What makes a symbol powerful?
• How does this story effect you?

A10.Religion and the Arts

‘Would you Adam and Eve it?’

Suggested Content:

• Stained glass-the earliest form of story telling.
• Sculptures and other carved images.
• Dance and Drama in different religious traditions e.g. Indian storytelling, Muslim Whirling Dervishes, Mystery Plays.
• Calligraphy
• Paintings, e.g. Pre-Raphaelites; Augustus Egg; religious paintings depicting scenes form the Bible; icons; tangkas; Hindu Gods etc.
• Music from different religious traditions & in popular culture (e.g. Hindu and Sikh music reflecting the cyclical nature of time; music in Christianity from the Messiah to Superstar).

Basic Questions

• How effectively is religion portrayed in the Arts?
• Why has religion been a source of inspiration to the artist, dramatist and musician?
• How and why is religious symbolism and allegory used?
• How Catholic is God’s taste in Music?
• What is special about Medieval mystery plays?
• Is it helpful to portray God in art form?
• How is the Hindu temple a microcosm of the universe?
• Is it right to dance in a place of worship?
• What effect does this piece of music, dance, art or calligraphy have on you?

A11.Religion and the Media

Coronation Street takes over the God slot.

Suggested Content

• Analysis of current newspaper treatment of religious issues.
• Consider the religious content of appropriate films e.g. Sleepers; Star Wars, Ghost.
• The treatment of religious issues and people in soap operas
• Religious programmes/magazines/newspapers

Basic Questions

• Is there a place for American style tele-evangelism on British TV?
• What difference does/should the fact that we live in a multi-faith society make to religious broadcasting and reporting?
• Does religious reporting in the media deter or encourage faith commitment?
• How is religion portrayed in the media, with sympathy or scorn?
• What about the Watchtower?

A12.Religion and Literature

Apart from the bible, there’s......

Suggested Content

• Appropriate literature and plays: e.g. The Narnia Chronicles; Tolkien books; Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’, Flaubert’s ‘A Simple Heart’; etc.
• The distinction between religious and secular literature.
• Reference to, and use of religion in literature.
• Literature and religious stereotypes

Basic Questions

• How influential is religion in literature?
• How are religious believers portrayed?
• How are religious minorities portrayed?
• Are there any common stereotypes?
• Is ‘The Lord of the Rings’ a suitable book for Lenten reading?
• Is the ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ a modern religious epic?
• What has Zen got to do with motorcycle maintenance?
• Is the ‘Mahabharata’ just a long poem?

A13.NEW AGE

Give me that ‘New Age’ Religion......

Suggested Content

• New age in popular culture - crystals, music, clothes, environment.
• New age and spirituality - meditation, nature, interest in ‘old world’ religions, people as ‘divine’.
• New age expressions in church worship.
• Places - Glastonbury and contrasts with Christianity.
• New age and the Self - self-development, affirmation of human nature esp. individual development, positive view of femininity, alternative medicines

Basic Questions

• What is the new age?
• Who is part of it?
• How is it to be recognised in today’s society? What are the effects?
• Why are religious believers often ‘anti’ new age?
• What might religious believers learn from the new age?
• Is ‘Old Time’ religion making a comeback?
• Did our ancestors know something we don’t?
• Is it all in the stars?
• Was God an astronaut?

A14.Historicity and Religion

What do you mean Jesus’ birthday isn’t 25th December?

Suggested content

• Different types of religious writing e.g. symbolic, allegorical, historical, prophecy, teaching, etc.
• Liberal and Conservative approaches to interpretation and dating of scripture.
• Idea of ‘leap of faith’.
• David Hume on miracles: The testimony of barbarians.
• Literal truth and spiritual truth.
• Arguments for and against miracles, the resurrection, the virgin birth.
• Reaction criticism, source criticism.
• Archaeology and religion.

Basic Questions

• How do we know Holy books are not made up?
• The Bible has been translated many times-hasn’t it been changed?
• Beliefs, opinion, truth and fact: what’s the difference?
• How are we to interpret miracles, the resurrection, the virgin birth?
• Are scriptures literally true or symbolic?
• Is meaning more important than fact?
• Why do parallel accounts in the gospels contain both similarities and differences?

A15.Faith and Commitment

‘Until my feelings change’ or ‘until death do us part’?

Suggested Content

• Analysis of the nature of faith.
• Faith and deception/verification.
• Faith and healing.
• Effects of fanaticism.
• The place of ambiguity and contradictions within faith.
• Comparing faith with trust relationships e.g. parents, friends, partner - based on trust and not proof but central in our lives.
• People who have overcome obstacles through faith and commitment, e.g. Gandhi; Mother Teresa; Martin Luther King; Terry Waite.

Basic Questions

• Why do people believe without proof?
• Why does religion inspire commitment?
• How influential is faith in life?
• Is faith difficult today?
• Does it make sense to have faith in something we cannot fully understand?
• What do people have faith in besides religion?
• How is faith to be understood?
• Is suffering the result of sin?
• Is an obstacle to faith the rejection of the possibility that we might be sinners?
• Why do people take a ‘leap of faith’?
• Is science about proof or theory?
• Is there a purpose to life?

B. Religion and Society

B1.Fundamentalism

Back to Basics......

Suggested Content

• Meaning of religious fundamentalism.
• The attraction of fundamentalism.
• Fundamentalism in politics, e.g. in Islamic states; Israel; Ireland; right-wing America.
• Fundamentalist interpretation of scripture.
• Effects of religious fundamentalism on society, e.g. women’s lives, establishment of cohesion, cultural and religious rules.

Basic Questions

• How can a rational person be a fundamentalist?
• Why is fundamentalism popular today?
• Why are religious fundamentalists often political activists?
• Is ‘Fundamentalist’ a compliment or an insult?
• Is fundamentalism dangerous or beneficial?

B2.Liberation Theology

‘The poor you will have with you always’.

Suggested Content

• Definition of Liberation Theology.
• Key people and places, e.g. Central and South America; Oscar Romero; Gustavo Gutierrez; Helda Camera.
• Role of the prophets in social justice - should the church continue to be a prophetic voice?

Basic Questions

• Should Christians get involved with politics?
• How should faith affect our actions?
• Do Christians have a practical responsibility to help the poor?
• Is the Kingdom of God a spiritual concept and does it relate to the material world?
• Should we re-interpret theology to meet the needs of the age?
• What is freedom?
• How can serving the needs of others increase one’s freedom?
• Is there a reward in heaven?
• Was Jesus middle class?

B3.Saints and Martyrs

Is a principle worth dying for?

Suggested Content

• Concept of sainthood.
• Motives behind martyrdom.
• Mary as a model for female sainthood.
• Key figures e. g Augustine; Francis of Assisi; Guru Nanak; Buddha; Catherine.
• Modern ‘saints’: Gandhi, Elizabeth Fry, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela.
• Unrecognised and uncelebrated examples in daily life.

Basic Questions

• Why do some people stand against the crowd?
• What makes this person special?
• Are religious ideas worth dying for?
• Should we revere figures of religious authority?
• What makes a saint? Are there different roles for men and women?
• Which people have influenced me most? How?
• Do you have to be perfect to be a saint, or merely a virgin?

B4.Religion and Conflict

‘I have not come to bring peace but a sword...... ’

Suggested Content

• Northern Ireland.
• Middle East.
• Conflict within religion, e.g. role of women, crusades, sectarian disputes.
• Biblical examples of warfare and pacifism.
• Conscientious objectors.
• Concept of a just war and applications to modern warfare.
• Quakers and the Peace Testimony.
• Jihad: What is it’s true meaning?

Basic Questions

• Is religion to disturb the comfortable or comfort the disturbed?
• Whose side is God on?
• Was Jesus a pacifist?
• Is religion the cause or consequence of conflict?
• Should you always obey the law?
• Does any crime deserve death?
• What do people mean by an educated conscience?
• What makes some people more law abiding than others?
• What did St Augustine mean: ‘Love God and then do what you like?
• Is a school with many rules better than a school with few?
• Should religious teaching ever be used to justify a war?
• Are pacifists cowards?
• Are the means justified by the ends?

B5.Religion and the Environment