Understanding religion needs to be an integral part of our diplomatic armoury.
As BRIN bring to us the grim – but expected – news of the decline of Religious Education due to the Government’s introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), the following snippet taken from the first ever course run by the Foreign Office on religion and foreign policy, signals the danger of this development:
I personally believe that an understanding of the dynamics of religion and faith in global society is not only a legitimate and important tool of foreign policy practice, but an increasingly essential one for our diplomats and foreign policy advisers in a modern world in which religion is ever more important as a driver of political, social, cultural and even economic motivation. In the same way that we expect diplomats to develop a keen knowledge of international economic issues, or the intricacies of multilateral negotiating techniques in areas from disarmament to climate change, we cannot ignore religion. Unlike in much of the world, most British school children or students do not regularly attend a place of worship, even if a large majority of British people still express a religious affiliation. So our new recruits, and more experienced diplomats, need training to engage a world where faith and religiosity is more common and evident than at home. Whether a diplomat agreed or disagrees with the values expressed by faiths, not understanding them puts him or her at a great disadvantage across the globe, from Khartoum to Karachi, Rio to Riyadh.
And of course, it’s not just diplomats that need this knowledge and understanding in our increasingly interconnected world.
And note this is not an back-door argument for Christian evangelism in our schools, as this should be handled by the Church and family, and not an arm of government. This is an argument for religious literacy in order to more fully understand and appreciate the cultures we work with economically, politically, and in all ways.
Tags: Education, Religion Society
January 24th, 2013 at 11:37 pm
Surely the casual assumption that all “religions” are the same, which underlies this quote, is much more likely to lead a diplomat into trouble (because it isn’t true), than the lack of state-run teaching about it to children? Unless the idea is that our diplomats go to secondary schools for their training?
Sounds a bit like special pleading for RE, to me.
January 25th, 2013 at 11:17 am
The foreign office is not the only participant in this type of thinking – which does have some virtue in it anyway. The Chinese Communist party has taken a great interest in Christianity, due to the succes of its work ethic in America. A number of papers have been produced for the party (see the introductory chapter ‘God is Back: How the global rise of faith is changing the world’ by Micklethwaite and Wooldridge).
The authors mention how one member of a church house group in one of the larger cities in China told him how belonging to a church group enhances business opportunities in China. He did not seem to be alone on that issue, encouraging the authors to visit other large city house groups, where he would find the same sentiments would be expressed.
The American model is, it seems, popular elsewhere.