Sylvia Baker

Psychological-type profiles of churchgoers in England

A sample of 1156 churchgoers (651 women and 505 men) from a range of Christian denominations in England completed the Francis Psychological-Type Scales. Compared with psychological-type profiles published for the UK general population, both male and female churchgoers showed greater preferences for introversion over extraversion and judging over perceiving. Overall, there was a preference for sensing over intuition, but in both sexes this preference was less marked than in the general population. Female churchgoers showed a strong preference for feeling over thinking that mirrored that in the general population. Male churchgoers showed no preference for feeling or thinking, which was in marked contrast to the strong preference for thinking among men in the general population. The predominant types among female churchgoers were ISFJ (22%), ESFJ (15%) and ISTJ (12%), and among male churchgoers ISTJ (24%), ISFJ (14%), INTJ (8%) and ESTJ (7%). These results are compared with similar studies elsewhere in the UK and in Australia.

Experiencing education in the new Christian schools in the United Kingdom: listening to the male graduates

The new independent Christian schools developed by parents and evangelical churches in the United Kingdom since the late 1960s remain controversial among both Christian and secular educators. In response to this controversy, the present study traced 106 men who had graduated from these schools between 1985 and 2003 and analysed their evaluation of the education they had received in these schools within four main themes: the quality of the education, the context of Christian and moral nurture, the quality of relationships (among the pupils, with the teachers and with the wider world) and preparation received for life after leaving school. Although there were some issues of criticism, the balance of opinion among the former pupils within all four areas was generally supportive of the new independent Christian schools, which were generally perceived as having prepared them well for life.

The Theos/ComRes survey into public perception of Darwinism in the UK: a recipe for confusion.

A survey of the general public in the UK, conducted in 2008, suggested that more than half of the British population are unconvinced by Darwinism. That survey, conducted by the polling company ComRes on behalf of the theological think-tank Theos, reported its full findings in March 2009 and found them to be “complex and confused.” This paper argues that the confusion identified may have been partly engendered by the way in which the survey questionnaire was constructed and that the survey itself, not simply its respondents, was confused. A source of the confusion, it is argued, could be found, first, in the definitions used for the four positions of young earth creationism, theistic evolution, atheistic evolution and intelligent design. Second, a failure to define the key terms “evolution” and “science,” used in some of the survey questions, resulted in responses that were difficult to interpret.

Creationism in the Classroom: A Controversy with Serious Consequences.

O 16 September 2008 the Revd Professor Michael Reiss resigned from his position as Director of Education at the Royal Society. The immediate context of his resignation was the furore created by the media in the wake of an address that he had given on Thursday 11 September 2008 in Liverpool, at the annual Festival of Science organised by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The story seemed to be of universal interest, with several papers next day devoting full-page spreads to it, under large, eye-catching headings. For example, the Times (12 September 2008) headlined with ‘Royal Society and the case for creationism: leading scientists at odds with Government over religious education’, claiming that the Royal Society was supporting Professor Reiss in his ‘heretical’ views, while the Guardian’s banner headline on the same day was ‘Teach creationism, says top scientist. Both Reiss and the Royal Society itself moved quickly to declare that he had been misunderstood. In numerous statements and letters to the press they stressed that what he had actually said in the lecture had been misrepresented, as shown by the statement issued by the Royal Society on Friday 12 September:

Defining and Assessing Spiritual Health: A Comparative Study among 13- to 15-Year-Old Pupils Attending Secular Schools, Anglican Schools, and Private Christian Schools in England and Wales.

This article argues that the nations commitment to young people involves proper concern for their physical health, their psychological health, and their spiritual health. In this context the notion of spiritual health is clarified by a critique of John Fishers model of spiritual health. Fisher developed a relational model of spiritual health, which defines good spiritual health in terms of an individuals relationship to four domains: the personal, the communal, the environmental, and the transcendental. In the present analysis, we make comparisons between pupils educated in three types of schools: publicly funded schools without religious foundation, publicly funded schools with an Anglican foundation, and new independent Christian schools (not publicly funded). Our findings draw attention to significant differences in the levels of spiritual health experienced by pupils within these three types of schools.

Faith-Based Schools and the Creationism Controversy: The Importance of the Meta-narrative

The recalcitrance of some creationist pupils when they are presented with evidence for Darwinian evolution cries out for an explanation and for a solution and in recent years a measure of mutual understanding has been provided by positioning the controversy within the context of worldviews. This chapter argues that now is the time to take that understanding further, especially in the light of the finding that such pupils in certain educational settings may be suffering anguish. What is the worldview inhabited by creationist pupils and what is its relation to science? The chapter contends that many creationist pupils view the world in the same way as did the founders of modern science and that science teachers need to understand this in dealing with them. Within the United Kingdom a research population exists which is ideally placed to investigate the matter further. A network of small independent Christian schools have been in existence for up to 40 years which, generally speaking, are ‘creationist’ in their foundation. The teenage pupils attending the schools have been extensively surveyed for their beliefs concerning both religion and science. One important aspect to emerge from the survey concerns the significance of the Christian meta-narrative of ‘creation/fall/redemption/restoration’ which influenced early modern scientists and which creationist pupils may regard as providing a coherent framework within which scientific data can be interpreted. Once the data have been described, the relevance of this finding to the teaching of creationist pupils in other settings is then explored.

Reasons given by UK churchgoers for their stance on evolution

A sample of 661 churchgoers from a range of Christian denominations in the United Kingdom was asked about Darwinian evolution (defined as the common origin of all species, including humans). Respondents were categorised as those who accepted the idea, those who rejected it, and those who were unsure or neutral. People in each category were given a number of statements that related to reasons why they might have held their particular stance, and responses were used to create summated rating scales. Reasons for accepting or rejecting evolution could be classified as broadly relating to the theory itself or to the religious consequences of the theory. Accepters saw the theory as rational and attractive, and one that allowed a role for God in shaping evolution. Rejecters saw the theory as unsupported by evidence and one that denied a role for God and/or contradicted Scripture. Those unsure or neutral seemed to be so because they lacked sufficient knowledge about evolution or the Bible, and/or because they were disinterested. Predicting which reasons were likely to be chosen by an individual was difficult, though there were significance differences in some cases between denominations and between those with or without education in biology or science.

The Christian Schools Campaign: What Were Its Long-Term Consequences?.

T past forty years have seen the emergence of a new phenomenon on to the scene of British education. Beginning with the founding of the Cedars School, Rochester, in 1969, a network of small, independent Christian schools has come into being, founded by Churches or by groups of concerned parents. The schools aim to provide a strong Christian foundation to the education that they provide and a tangible Christian ethos to the educational environment (Deakin, 1989; Walford, 1995a; Baker and Freeman, 2005; Francis, 2005; ap Siôn et al., 2007). The new Christian schools belong to what Geoffrey Walford has described as the reluctant private sector (Walford, 1991, p. 115) in that they cater for families many of whom would not normally consider paying for the education of their children (Walford, 2000a, p. 31). The movement has received very little fi nancial backing from Churches and effectively none from the government (Baker and Freeman, 2005, p. 13). It has been attended by a sense of struggle and sacrifi ce, particularly on the part of the teachers, who frequently work for a very low salary or in some cases for no salary at all (Baker and Freeman, 2005, p. 22). Parker-Jenkins et al. (2005, p. 6) sum up the situation: