Sunday Schools

What we’ve lost

SUNDAY SCHOOLS

Reading, writing and redemption

BBC4, 58 minutes, July 3

As our country scratches its head and agonises over teenaged pregnancies, gang culture and questionable educational standards among young people, this documentary looked at the good influence Sunday Schools used to exercise in Britain.

Presented by BBC news anchorman Huw Edwards, it began by reminding viewers of history. Sunday Schools truly got going through Robert Raikes, a Christian newspaper man, who, in 1780, seeing the chaos in his home town of Gloucester caused by out-of-control children, started, on the Lord’s day, to teach poor children the rudiments of Christian faith and literacy. The Sunday Schools idea soon spread. But the French Revolution of 1789 led to setbacks. The ruling classes were suspicious of educating the lower classes – it might lead to revolution. The converted playwright, Hannah Moore, faced such opposition to her Sunday School in Cheddar ‘spreading Methodism’ that she suffere a breakdown. Prime Minister William Pitt drafted a bill for Parliament to outlaw Sunday schools. Thankfully it was never adopted; other crises intervened.

The 19th century saw phenomenal growth, all explained in somewhat sociological rather than spiritual terms by the BBC. Women saw becoming a Sunday School teacher as a way of gaining recognition in the community etc. As they grew, Sunday Schools became centres of social life, not just promoters of faith and education. There was film of thousands of Edwardian children on Sunday School marches through Manchester. There were outings and sports. Everton FC began life as St. Domingo’s Sunday School Football Team. Various people, including politician Anne Widecombe, cartoonist Bill Tidy and actress Patricia Routledge reminisced fondly. But perhaps too much of a social element led to an eye being taken off the spiritual ball.

What happened?

A century ago 50% of children attended Sunday School in Britain, now it is less than 5%. What happened? (We believed the great lie, contradicted by Romans 1, that a secular society can be a decent society.) Belief in Christianity declined. Affluence gave youngsters a consumer lifestyle. The perceived hypocrisy of churchgoers put people off. Interestingly one historian suggested that the idea of the church ‘family service’ actually undermined Sunday Schools.

‘Does it matter?’ asked Huw Edwards, himself brought up in a Methodist Sunday School in the 1970s. He concluded that it does. As a nation the finish of Sunday Schools as a national movement has left the country much poorer. ‘One day we will wake up and realise what we’ve lost’, he said.