IT IS becoming a commonplace that in matters of belief and religion, Western societies are disintegrating into micro-communities that struggle to understand each other. A Babel-like array of introverted faith groups and a secular majority struggle to co-exist, without knowing or even wanting to know much about one another.

Awareness of that danger underlies a report published this week by two influential figures in the field of religious education in England: Charles Clarke, a former education secretary, and Linda Woodhead, a sociology professor. As they put it,

We are living through the single biggest change in the religious and cultural landscape in Britain for centuries, even millennia. It is not simply that the number identifying with non-Christian religions has been growing and the number who identify as Christian falling, but that those who say they have “no religion” (but are not necessarily…Continue reading
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