The Place of Religious Education in a Pluralistic Society

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• When you think of the pupils in your schools, what’s the first word that comes to mind to describe the society they’re growing up in?
  Fragmented? Diverse? Polarised? Something else?

That’s really what we’re talking about today.

What is the place of RE in a society as plural and polarised as ours?

Part 1. Naming Our Context

We live in a pluralistic society. And that means:

• multiple religions and worldviews in close proximity,

• a deepening secularisation,

• a rise in hostility and intolerance,

• and, perhaps most striking, a polarisation of values.

Hostility and intolerance.
Across Europe, hostility around religion is rising. In the UK, reported hate crimes against Jews and Muslims have sharply increased in recent years.

Ireland and Poland are secularising at speed. Only a generation ago they were among the most Catholic countries in Europe. That cultural shift is reshaping what children bring into classrooms.

Here in Britain, we see deep divides between socially conservative and socially progressive norms: family, tradition, and community on the one side; individuality, identity, and rights on the other. And our classrooms contain both.

In this world of hostility, secularisation, and polarisation — what is RE for?

Part 2. The Aims of RE

I believe RE today must do at least four things.

1. Help children see traditions as sources of truth and meaning.
   Not just information. Wisdom. Guidance. Patterns for living.

2. Teach the skill of finding overlapping agreement, not just winning arguments.
   Think of your last staffroom debate — it’s easy to argue. Harder to seek common ground. Pupils need practice in that.

3. Create a laboratory for disagreement.
   A good RE classroom is where children learn to disagree well — respectfully, thoughtfully, without fear.

4. Offer glimpses of spiritual wholeness.
   Because flourishing is not only intellectual. It’s also spiritual.

If RE is only about information, we’ve missed the point.

Part 3. Living in the Worldviews flux

Pluralism means more than “lots of religions.” It means living in a world where we must navigate in and through competing worldviews.

A worldview is not the same as a religion, but is much more like aa perspective, informed by politics, philosophy, experience, culture and language: it gives meaning, shapes choices, defines what matters.

That’s why things like climate activism, Pride marches, “taking the knee,” or arguments about pronouns feel almost religious. They deal with moral and metaphysical claims. Our pupils live inside these collisions every day.

So the question becomes: How can RE help young people recognise, navigate, and even grow through this worldviews flux?

I don’t think worldviews means the same thing as religious traditions (which must remains at the centre of study in RE) but in society we navigate a plurals space which includes multiple kinds of influence. We must become worldview navigators.

Part 4. Five Missions for RE

I can frame things as five “missions” for RE.

1. The Civic Mission
RE equips children with religious literacy. That’s not just facts — it’s skills of attentiveness, humility, and dialogue.

And crucially, it’s about disagreeing well.

Let me ask you: when was the last time you saw pupils disagree without anger? That’s a civic skill. RE can teach it and it matters for worldview navigation.

2. The Moral Mission (3 mins)
RE must reconnect with freedom of religion or belief.

This is a heritage issue — hard-won freedoms. And it’s a live issue — with religious bullying on the rise, and with pupils caught between conservative and progressive moral frameworks.

So RE needs to say: freedom of belief matters. Consent, dissent, assent and conscience are at the heart of the subject. Too often they are not articulated.

3. The Community Mission
RE acts as a bridge.

Imagine one context where a Church school serving a poor white working-class area, RE could be used to soften hostility towards outsiders.
In another, largely Muslim community, Church school RE could help to connect those families with wider British values through a hospitable Christian ethos, inspiring bridges between traditions.

Different contexts. Different bridges. Same community mission.

4. The Meaning Mission
We are living through a “truth convulsion.” Everyone has ‘their own facts’!

So RE must restore truth to the centre of education — showing how theology, philosophy, and ethics sit alongside science and history as ways of knowing.

If we don’t, we risk sending the message that science is real and religion is nonsense.

5. The Spiritual Mission
Finally, spirituality.

Spiritual health is linked to wellbeing. The HBSC study found strong connections between spirituality and mental health in young people across Europe.

So RE cannot sidestep spirituality. Pupils need more than critique. They need glimpses of what it means to live spiritually.

Which of these five missions feels strongest in your school’s RE right now? And which feels most fragile?

Part 5. Challenges and Opportunities

Of course, RE is under strain.

• Many young people have no experience of religion at home.

• Theology and religious studies university departments are closing.

• Teachers enter the profession with less subject knowledge than before.

So yes — it’s hard. But it also means RE matters more than ever. Because if schools don’t teach pupils how to live with difference, search for truth, or seek meaning… who will?

Conclusion

We live in a society of hostility, secularisation, and polarisation. RE cannot solve these problems. But it can equip children to navigate them.

If it does its job well, RE will:

• help pupils see religious traditions as sources of truth and meaning,

• teach overlapping agreement and respectful disagreement in the worldviews flux

• protect freedom of belief,

• restore the search for truth,

• and open the door to spiritual flourishing.

RE, at its best, is a bridge — between communities, between worldviews, between past and future. And in a fragmented society, that bridge is more necessary than ever.

Professor Bob Bowie, Director of NICER where you can download many research reports.
bob.bowie@canterbury.ac.uk