Thinking About How to "Do God" in the Context of Diversity

• In Event: Doing God in Education

Abstract

Cooling concludes his report by telling us that religious and non-religious can come together for the common good in education. Drawing on the thought of John Rawls, I develop the theme of fairness in Cooling’s report, proposing a way that such consensus can be conceptualized.

I argue that although Cooling advocates fairness, he fails to demonstrate how we can ‘do God’ fairly in compulsory collective worship, or how faith schools are fair. He does not show satisfactorily how common ground can be found – between those of different religions and those of none – in these contentious areas.

In order to think about how, or whether, such common ground can be found, I develop a Rawlsian thought experiment based on a hypothetical contract. Adopting Rawls’ concept of a ‘veil of ignorance’, I argue that persons who had adequate knowledge of religions, non-religious belief systems, and education systems and principles, but did not know their own position on religion, would choose a way of ‘doing God’ that abolished compulsory collective worship, but maintained state funded faith schools.

Author

• Daniel Peter Moulin, Oxford University Department of Education