In 2014, thousands of schoolchildren across the Australian State of Victoria received Christian religious education provided by the Access Ministries organisation. However, this particular ministry is under severe pressure due to the activities of very influential lobby groups consisting of parents and social activists.
The first school in Victoria had its curriculum set as early as 1840. That curriculum embedded religious instruction among the broader range of subjects, at a time when such integration of faith instruction with secular subjects was widely accepted. In order to build a sense of unity in the crucial area of the educational formation of young Australians, the Joint Council for Religious Instruction in State Schools was established in 1920. It was the forerunner of today’s Access Ministries.
Twelve denominations
Access Ministries has long been the largest provider of special religious instruction (SRI) in Victorian schools, reaching a peak of 130,000 children participating in 940 schools in 2011. In this program, Access Ministries has received the support of 12 Christian denominations including mainline Protestant, evangelical and Pentecostal groups. It has received significant government funding over the years. In addition, other faiths have also received government funding for providing special religious instruction in schools on Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and so forth.
Access Ministries teaching programmes have been delivered by several thousand instructors from Victorian churches, under the supervision of qualified teachers. They also obtain endorsement from their churches and formal approval from the Victorian State Minister.
Victorian government documentation explains that ‘SRI … is not to be confused with general religious education (GRE). GRE is education about religions… whereas SRI programs are instruction in a particular religion and may include scriptural studies, and instruction on how to live and behave according to the tenets of the particular faith.’
In a widely secularised society such as Australia, the inclusion of confessional studies of religion such as SRI faces significant obstacles, in contrast with the more officially favoured GRE. The opposition to Access Ministries programmes in recent years has led to a decline in the extent of its reach into Victorian government schools, from a high water mark of 70% in 2011 to less than half in 2014.
Opt out to opt in
In August 2011 the Victorian Department of Education changed the basis of SRI classes from parents opting out by choice to one where parents opt in by choice. This contributed to a process of decline, which has been sustained by lobbying from some parent groups and what is at times very hostile media reporting.
In early 2014 much media discussion surrounded a booklet entitled The Biblezine that was distributed by one SRI instructor to students. It identified homosexuality as a sinful practice and advocated sexual abstinence outside marriage. An energetic campaign to highlight this incident by opponents of Access Ministries triggered a Victorian Department of Education investigation, which concluded that the incident was in breach of SRI policy.
Support from the 12 churches which are represented on the Access Ministries Council has not been watertight. The Synod of the Uniting Church of Australia in Victoria threatened to withdraw its support from Access Ministries unless the group acceded to a number of requests by 1 July 2015. These requests require Access Ministries to adopt ‘an inclusive and consultative approach to the development of the SRI programme materials, a commitment that these materials will be theologically broad and pedagogically sound and that this is reflected in the training of SRI instructors’.
Tricky future
Challenges lie ahead for the essentially evangelical Access Ministries in its relationship with the Uniting Church of Australia, described by Wiki as ‘a progressive-liberal church, ordaining gay people and women, and supporting progressive causes’, and with many in the Uniting Church inclined to focus the attention of the church on the GRE programmes.
But beyond that specific issue, there is a much greater challenge to the very concept of special religious instruction in Australian schools, in the face of efficient and well-funded lobbying by groups determined to enforce pluralist religious perspectives at best, or more often non-religious atheist perspectives, in the educational formation of 21st-century Australian schoolchildren.
