Faith schools

After the Atheist Bus Campaign, people have been asking, "What next?" Now you have an answer; the Billboard Campaign.

Richard Dawkins famously said that there are no Catholic babies, or Protestant babies, or Muslim babies, or Hindu babies – they are all just babies. In the Observer in December 2001 he wrote,

Where we might have said, “Knowing his father, I expect young Cowdrey will take up cricket,” we emphatically do not say, “With her devout Catholic parents, I expect young Bernadette will take up Catholicism.” Instead we say, without a moment’s hesitation or qualm of misgiving, “Bernadette is a Catholic.” We state it as a simple fact even when she is far too young to have developed a theological opinion of her own.

Education Minister Ed Balls made a speech at the Institute of Directors yesterday. This is some of it:

It is now just over two years since we launched our Faith in the System document at the British Library.

It was a hugely important event.

And it came just a few months after I began this job – in fact, the speech I made then was one of the very first speeches I gave as Secretary of State.

I was very much a novice then.

I’m now a veteran – in fact, in the next few weeks, I’ll become the second longest serving Secretary of State since Kenneth Baker.

But I do believe – and I hope you all agree – that Faith in the System was a landmark document.