On 3 August 1944, the Education Act received Royal Assent. Eighty years on, when religious education sometimes feels like one more political football, Sarah Lane Cawte reflects on why RE – and education in general – still matters to the URC

For ‘Rab’ Butler, the architect of the 1944 Education Act, politics was ‘largely a matter of heart’. Eighty years on, the 1944 Act’s legacy is still apparent in today’s educational landscape. Churches have a history of involvement in both the provision and servicing of education in this country, but do the Free Churches, particularly those in the Reformed tradition, still have a heart for schools, colleges, universities and those who teach and learn in those institutions? Or, in more theological terms, ‘educate and become’…

Sarah Lane Cawte is the Free Churches Education Officer. She is Convenor of the URC’s Mission Committee, and Chair of the Religious Education Council of England and Wales.

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This is an extract from an article published in the July/August 2024 edition of Reform

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