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Bombay School is one of the most recent to remove religious instruction classes from their classrooms. It is really encouraging to see how teachers stood up against the religious bias, lack of professional teaching and supported the principle of secular education, welcoming to all children.

The Churches Education Commission (now known as Launchpad) seems to carry on accessing schools despite harsh criticism from parents about their methods and syllabus content. They do this by infiltrating school boards of trustees with sympathetic church-goers who ignore the rights of non-Christian children to promote their own religious faith.

Parents who object to religious instruction need support from other parents to effect change. Without strength in numbers, pro-religious instruction staff and parents tend to think that they can do whatever they like and dismiss anyone against RI, no matter how clear-cut the argument is that children and families are being discriminated against.

The kind of moral “cherry picking” that religious instruction advocates ignore is exposed most painfully by the subversive introduction of “hell”. Of course, they are not meant to teach it themselves but zealous Christian teachers seem to ignore this sometimes and playground evangelism is also an inevitable issue resulting from the introduction of religion to the school.

When his Daughter came home and told him that her Bible teacher had told her that she was “going to hell” because she didn’t believe in God, Paul Bennett took action. After several years of campaigning, the Point View School Board of Trustees has agreed to remove bible classes from the school. But is the fight really over or do we need changes to legislation that allows boards to bring favoured religious beliefs into our schools?

This is an interview with Jared Brandon, author of the website Waking Up – Once Christian, now turned Atheist. Jared was raised in a strongly Christian family but through his own research into religion, decided to turn away from religious beliefs and declare himself an Atheist to his family and friends.