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What is a controversial issue?

Implications for the treatment of
religious beliefs in education
a
Trevor Cooling
a
National Institute for Christian Education Research, Canterbury
Christ Church University , Canterbury , UK
Published online: 12 Sep 2012.

To cite this article: Trevor Cooling (2012) What is a controversial issue? Implications for the
treatment of religious beliefs in education, Journal of Beliefs & Values: Studies in Religion &
Education, 33:2, 169-181, DOI: 10.1080/13617672.2012.694060

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 Journal of Beliefs & Values
Vol. 33, No. 2, August 2012, 169–181

What is a controversial issue? Implications for the treatment of

religious beliefs in education
Trevor Cooling*

National Institute for Christian Education Research, Canterbury Christ Church University,
Canterbury, UK

An important debate in the literature on controversial issues concerns how to

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identify them. This matters for teachers because settled issues should be taught
directively and controversial issues should be taught nondirectively. Teachers are
professionally accountable for this decision. This article examines the contribu-
tion of Michael Hand to the debate with particular reference to religious beliefs.
Hand criticises the behavioural and political criteria for their lack of attention to
reason-giving and champions the epistemic criterion. Hand applies the epistemic
criterion to reasoning in moral debate that relies on scriptural authority, which
he argues is inadmissible because such reliance is unreasonable. The article
argues that this reveals the weaknesses of the epistemic criterion because of
over-reliance on the decisiveness of reason and failure to attend to the need for
fairness. The diversity criterion is proposed as an alternative and the attitudes
and dispositions that follow from it are described.
Keywords: controversial issues; epistemic criterion; Michael Hand; fairness;
faith; rationality

Introduction
In recent years, governments around the world have expended significant resources
on providing teachers with guidance and direction on dealing with religious contro-
versy.1 In a section on personal and professional conduct, government-endorsed
professional standards require teachers in England ‘to show tolerance and respect
for the rights of others,’ not to ‘undermine fundamental British values’ and not to
express their own beliefs in ways ‘which exploit pupils’ vulnerability’ (DfE 2011).
For those who are themselves religious, these standards may well create heightened
anxiety given the perception that their personal beliefs may present a particular
‘problem’ given sensitivities about objectivity and indoctrination (Revell and
Walters 2010). It is therefore important that teachers know how to decide between
‘what to teach as controversial and what to teach as settled’ and to distinguish when
directive and when nondirective teaching in matters of religion is required (Hand
2008, 213). There is advice available on how to manage controversial issues once
they are identified;2 the challenge is in identifying them. In the final analysis, a
career could depend on this judgment.
Current educational thinking on controversial issues is shaped by two fundamen-
tal principles. The first is the importance of rationality. Teachers and students are

*Email: trevor.cooling@canterbury.ac.uk

ISSN 1361-7672 print/ISSN 1469-9362 online

Ó 2012 Taylor & Francis
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 170 T. Cooling

expected to give due regard to sound reasoning and to distinguish between those
matters which are settled on rational grounds, and are therefore to be treated as
knowledge, and those things which are open to rational debate and are, therefore,
controversial. To teach as settled something that is controversial is indoctrination
and to teach as controversial something that is settled is irrational. The second is
the importance of fairness. This captures concerns relating to community cohesion
and state impartiality in matters of religion. It is generally accepted that, in the
government-funded education system, to teach only one perspective on a controver-
sial issue would be unfair (Cooling 1994). Teachers are therefore expected to make
a balanced presentation of the opposing viewpoints on a controversial issue.
Commitment to public standards of reason and to the democratic principle of fair-
ness are, then, the two foundations of a professional approach to controversial
issues and both are found in the documentation published for teachers (e.g. Citizen-
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ship Foundation 2003; Teachernet 2006; OCSE 2007). The challenge is to achieve
an appropriate balance between them.
This article evaluates Michael Hand’s proposal for an epistemic criterion for
identifying controversial issues (2007, 2008), giving particular attention to his
discussion of scriptural authority because of its significant implications for the treat-
ment of religious belief in education and for teachers, pupils and parents who are
themselves religious. Most people would probably assume that religious beliefs
should be taught as controversial and not as settled. In this case Hand disagrees,
arguing that the epistemic criterion dictates that appeals to scriptural authority are
contrary to reason; teachers should therefore be directive in teaching pupils this.
Here it is argued that his treatment fails to achieve an appropriate balance between
the fairness and rationality principles. A fourth criterion is therefore proposed which
offers a better balance.

Three criteria for identifying a controversial issue: behavioural, political and

epistemic
Hand rejects two currently influential criteria; the behavioural and the political. The
behavioural criterion was explained by the philosopher Charles Bailey saying: ‘that
an issue is controversial is, of course, a matter of social fact. That is an issue is
controversial if numbers of people are observed to disagree about statements and
assertions made in connection with this issue’ (1975, 122). It was reiterated in the
influential Crick Report that established the framework for the teaching of Citizen-
ship in English schools (Advisory Group on Citizenship 1998). There the definition
used was: ‘A controversial issue is an issue about which there is no one fixed or
universally held point of view. Such issues are those which commonly divide soci-
ety and for which significant groups offer conflicting explanations and solutions’
(1998, 56). This echoed the definition offered 14 years earlier in a widely used
book on the subject (Stradling, Noctor, and Baines 1984, 2). The behavioural crite-
rion is a common sense application of the aspiration for fairness. An issue is
deemed controversial when, in fact, people do disagree about it, because that is the
only way to honour fairness.
However comparison of Bailey’s and Crick’s definitions indicates an underlying
problem. Crick introduces the notion that it should be ‘significant groups’ holding
to minority views and that the issues should be ones which ‘commonly divide soci-
ety’ before they are accorded controversial status. The purpose of these refinements
 Journal of Beliefs & Values 171

is to distinguish trivial disputes from those which are worthy of serious consider-
ation as controversial issues. Brian Hill makes this point by referring to his dispute
with his wife as to the gastronomic merits of the cucumber, suggesting this is not a
controversial issue because it is not one about which ‘the discussants feel particu-
larly strongly about the beliefs and values which are in dispute’ (2004, 199–200).
For Hill, to be regarded as a controversial issue the clash of opinion must be central
to the disputants’ personal identities and their associated commitments. Hand makes
a related criticism, citing the research of Oulton et al. (2004) that showed that reli-
ance on this criterion has resulted in issues that should be dealt with in a directive
fashion, for example bullying and racism, being deemed controversial simply
because teachers saw them as reflecting contrary views present in society. The prob-
lem for teachers is to sift the genuinely controversial from the many issues that
may present as apparently controversial.
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The political criterion is a response to this challenge, making a distinction

between public and private values so that issues are only deemed controversial
‘when answers to them are not entailed by the public values of the liberal demo-
cratic state’ (Hand 2007, 71). Public values are settled and must be taught directive-
ly. The Citizenship Foundation’s advice to teachers illustrates this:

…it is important for them to distinguish between public and private values.… The
kind of values that characterize a pluralist democracy, such as ours, include: social jus-
tice; political equality; tolerance; human rights; respect for the rule of law; and a com-
mitment to negotiation and debate as the ideal way of resolving public conflict.…
Thus, although teachers have no legal right to promote their own personal opinions in
school, they may quite legitimately condemn and prohibit injustices which contravene
our community values, such as racism and human rights abuse – wherever they take
place. (2003, 5–6)

The political criterion often features in politicians’ speeches, for example when
David Cameron (2011), the British Prime Minister, advocated the promotion of
‘muscular liberalism.’ It also underpins the previously noted reference to ‘British
values’ in the standards document for teachers in England (DfE 2011).
Hand’s overriding concern with both the behavioural and the political criteria is
that they fail to take note of the rationality principle. Both focus on fairness and, in
the case of the political criterion, the necessary limitations that may have to be put
on that to protect liberal values. There are at least two problems that result. First,
both criteria allow debates to be treated as controversial which should not be so
treated. The morality of homosexual behaviour is the example that Hand discusses
at length and to which we shall return. Another would be the creationism debate.3
Secondly they depend on a view of truth where ‘consensus, rather than evidence or
argument, is the proper warrant for belief’ (Hand 2008, 218). For example, in 1996
the National Forum on Values drew up the values to underpin the English National
Curriculum and which teachers could pass on with confidence as settled matters.4
The values were generated through an extensive consultation process and it was the
consensus which emerged that was considered to justify these values being treated
as uncontroversial. In contrast, Hand maintains that it is not consensus but ratio-
nally compelling evidence that allows a debate to be deemed as settled. Furthermore
a debate should not be deemed controversial just because of lack of consensus; the
disagreement must also be reasonable, meaning that the contrary views are each
rationally defensible.
 172 T. Cooling

Hand therefore champions the epistemic criterion whereby teachers should

‘teach as controversial those matters on which contrary views are not contrary to
reason, and as settled those matters on which only one view is rationally defensible’
(2008, 228). This means that rationally-compelling beliefs are taught directively
whereas disputed, but rationally-held, beliefs are taught as controversial. Irrational
beliefs like racism or creationism are dismissed. The fairness principle is therefore
tempered by the requirement that a debate can only be treated as controversial
where more than one contrasting opinion is rationally defensible.

A concern with Michael Hand’s epistemic criterion

Hand illustrates the application of the epistemic criterion by considering whether
the debate as to the morality of homosexual acts should be treated as controversial.
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His conclusion is:

It is not the case that contrary views can be held on the morality of homosexual acts
without these views being contrary to reason; the only view that enjoys rational sup-
port is the view that homosexual acts are morally legitimate. We ought therefore to be
unapologetic in our commitment to promoting this view in the moral education of
children and young people. (2007, 84–85)

A consideration of how Hand reaches this conclusion will reveal a concern with his
use of the epistemic criterion in relation to religious beliefs.
Hand discusses three objections to the morality of homosexual acts which, if
any one were sustainable, would require them to be treated as controversial in an
educational context. Here, the discussion will only focus on the first, since in that
he deals with an explicitly religious belief, namely the appeal to scriptural authority.
Hand asserts that the objection to homosexual acts derived from scriptural authority
rests on appeal to a number of biblical injunctions, examples of which he quotes.
For this objection to be valid, Hand asserts that the premise ‘all biblical injunctions
are morally sound’ has to be accepted (2007, 77).
To demonstrate that this premise is rationally indefensible, Hand cites a num-
ber of other biblical injunctions, for example the subordination of women (Ephe-
sians 5: 22–24), that are ‘self-evidently not morally sound’ (2007, 77). The
problem, Hand argues, is that such reliance on the authority of scriptural injunc-
tions rests on the assumption that ‘biblical writers were passive conduits for the
voice of God rather than active story-tellers, law makers and theologians whose
writings are infused with the presuppositions and prejudices of the ancient
Hebrew and Greek worlds’ (2007, 78). Hand links this literalistic attitude with
the notion of biblical inerrancy, which he judges is decisively refuted by the
wealth of evidence that the books of the Bible are documents of their time.
‘The Bible cannot but be seen as a human composition, rooted in and respon-
sive to particular historical contexts and shot through with moral and political
assumptions that we do not share and cannot justify’ (78). It is simply a mis-
take to think that the Bible is God’s ‘mouthpiece.’
If this argument were meant to establish the indefensibility of appealing to par-
ticular texts that condemned homosexual acts, then the appropriate response would
be an exegetical debate about the legitimate interpretation and application of those
texts. However it appears that Hand is dismissing the legitimacy of any appeal to
final scriptural authority in any religion. Thus he writes:
 Journal of Beliefs & Values 173

I take it that similar considerations could be advanced to show the rational indefensi-
bility of assigning final moral authority to any of the sacred texts venerated by the
faith communities of the world. Attempts to settle moral questions by appealing to the
Qur’an, the Talmud, the Adi Granth, the Vedas or the Tripitaka are no more rationally
persuasive than attempts to settle them by appealing to the Bible. (2007, 78)

On this basis Hand concludes that arguments from final biblical authority ‘quickly
buckle under the pressure of rational examination’ (2007, 84).The implication is
that in school classrooms, teachers must promote as settled the conclusion that final
authority should not be ascribed to any Scripture because the reasons against that
idea are compelling. Given the role that scriptural authority plays in many religions
this is an astonishing conclusion, reached in just over one page of text. Two things
stand out. First is the confidence in the power of rationality to deliver decisive con-
clusions in matters of religious belief. Second is the disappearance of the fairness
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principle in this application of the epistemic criterion. It simply does not figure.
That this is a dangerous place to have reached in the name of the exercise of
reason is illustrated by the case of Michael Reiss, Professor of Science Education at
the Institute of Education at London University and an Anglican clergyman. In a
public lecture in October 2008, given when he was Education Officer for the Royal
Society, Reiss suggested that if a student asked a question about creationism in a
science lesson, the teacher should not dismiss it outright as wrong-headed, but
should engage with the question as a legitimate exploration of a worldview. This
created a media storm and subsequently Reiss stepped down as Education Officer
because his views were ‘open to misinterpretation’ and therefore potentially damag-
ing to the credibility of the Royal Society.5 As far as the Royal Society is con-
cerned, the matter is settled; creationism has no ‘scientific basis and should not be
part of the science curriculum.’ By suggesting that teachers treat creationism as a
controversial issue in the science classroom, Reiss was compromising this position.
However, this incident was not just a debate about science education. What
actually concerned some Royal Society members, among them Nobel Prize win-
ners, was that Reiss was ordained. In a letter to Lord Rees, then President of the
Royal Society, Sir Richard Roberts wrote:

We gather that Professor Reiss is a clergyman, which is in itself worrisome. Who on

earth thought he would be an appropriate Director of Education who could be
expected to answer questions about science and religion in a scientific, reasoned
way?6

This illustrates confidence in the decisiveness of rational, scientific argument in

overcoming religion that appears to be based on the assumption that scepticism
about religious belief is demanded of reasonable people.
The discussion of this case is not in any way meant to suggest that Michael
Hand approves of how Reiss was treated. It is only meant to illustrate the danger of
over-confidence in the power of reason to override religious belief decisively when
it is unchecked by a commitment to fairness and a willingness to admit that there is
more than one reasonable way of interpreting evidence. It therefore throws into
doubt the adequacy of the epistemic criterion as a tool for identifying controversial
issues. What is needed is a different assessment of the decisiveness of reasoning in
relation to religious beliefs, which can, as it turns out, be found in Hand’s own
writings.
 174 T. Cooling

Religious rationality, the secular/post-secular debate and controversial issues

For Hand, ‘part of what it means to think and act rationally is that beliefs are
formed or adopted on the basis of good reasons’ (2008, 218). The problem is, I
suggest, that Hand draws on two contrasting attitudes to the rational status of reli-
gious beliefs and reasoning which I shall call the secular and the post-secular. It is
impossible to do justice to these two terms in this brief article, so they will simply
be used in a ‘catch-all’ way to contrast two different perspectives which impact sig-
nificantly on this discussion of controversial issues. The secular understanding
would be associated with the new atheists like Richard Dawkins and represents the
view that human intellectual progress has shown religious belief to be irrational. It
makes a sharp distinction between knowledge, where the arguments are rationally
compelling and decisive, and religious faith, where they are not. In this view, reli-
gious beliefs are never compelling and are decisively overcome by rational argu-
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ment. They are not controversial, they are simply irrational. In the classroom, the
teacher’s job is to teach directively against them. Hand’s assessment of scriptural
authority seems to reflect this view, because he regards it as entailing irrational, lit-
eralist and inerrant readings of the text and the irrational belief that no human
agency was involved in creating that text.
However, in an article on faith schools, Hand (2003a) expounds a different
understanding of religious beliefs, arguing that they are not known to be true,
because ‘the truth or falsity of religious propositions is a matter of disagreement
amongst reasonable people’ (93). It is a matter of contingent fact that they have not
been ‘decisively verified’ (93). They are ‘a matter of faith rather than knowledge’
(93). This is what I shall call a post-secular view because it allows for the rational-
ity of religious faith and therefore is open to treating religious beliefs as controver-
sial rather than as simply irrational.
This talk of the rationality of religious faith would be an alarming concession to
those who take the secular view (e.g. Law 2002). Hand defends the rationality of
faith in his response to Peter Gardner’s concerns about the consequence of applying
the epistemic criterion. Gardner argues that it could give pupils the impression
either that rational people should not reach conclusions on controversial issues or,
worse, that reason has to be abandoned when entering the arena of the controversial
leaving little but ‘subjective preference’ (Gardner 1984, 379). Hand answers this
concern by arguing that Gardner wrongly equates the notion that reason cannot be
decisive with the notion that reason can get no purchase (2008, 220). He suggests
rather that it is quite rational either to remain agnostic on the grounds that the evi-
dence is inconclusive or to make an informed judgement on the grounds that the
evidence one way is more persuasive than the other. In the latter case it is quite
possible to be ‘simultaneously confident about my own reading of the evidence and
willing to recognize that other readings are both possible and rationally credible’
(2008, 220). This is not because reason cannot get a grip, as Gardner suggests, but
because reason is not always decisive or compelling, which is what creates contro-
versial issues in the first place. Using this argument, Hand has given in-principle
recognition to the rationality of religious faith. What remains true however is that
‘no religious belief currently qualifies as knowledge’ (2003a, 94) since knowledge
is supported by compelling and decisive evidence.7
On the basis of this conclusion, Hand makes a significant point about the pro-
fessional responsibility of teachers when it comes to controversial issues.
 Journal of Beliefs & Values 175

My recognizing that there is room for rational disagreement on a question should not
stop me from committing myself firmly to what I judge to be the correct answer, but
it should stop me from attempting to ensure that my students come to the same con-
clusion. Here my identification of the question as epistemically controversial should
take precedence, so to speak, over my own assessment of the evidence and arguments.
(2008, 220)8

The question is why does Hand not utilize this important insight in his discussion
of scriptural authority, instead asserting that the arguments against it are in fact
decisive? Why does he not treat belief in it as a ‘not known to be true’ belief and,
therefore, controversial?
The answer, I suggest, lies in his assumption that appeals to scriptural
authority in moral debates rest solely on finding injunctions in the text that are
treated in a literal fashion and are regarded as inerrant expressions of God’s
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will. He discusses no other possibility. There are of course people who see
scriptural authority in this way, but Hand has seemingly ignored the fact that
there are other understandings discussed in the literature. For example N.T.
Wright, an influential biblical scholar, has developed a sophisticated understand-
ing of biblical authority which is linked to the narrative nature of the text
(1992, 139–43; 2005). In this the authority does not primarily lie in proposi-
tional injunctions, or ‘timeless truths,’ but in the story told by the text which
the faithful seek to live in the light of. Wright develops his argument by com-
paring the task of Christians seeking to live by the authority of the Bible to that
of actors trying to complete the final act of an unfinished Shakespeare play.
There are no right answers to look up, but there is a story to consult, the
authority of which shapes how that final act is written. There is not the space
here to develop Wright’s argument in detail, but it is sufficient for our purposes
to point out that this is a far more sophisticated understanding of authority than
the literalism Hand describes.9 Likewise Anthony Thiselton’s extensive work on
biblical hermeneutics (e.g. 2009) offers a very different model of authority from
the crude notion that the text operates as God’s mouthpiece.
It may be true that a literalist understanding ‘buckles’ under rational scrutiny,
but that does not thereby settle the question of biblical authority in the way Hand
assumes if there are other more rationally credible understandings available. Hand’s
own advice is: ‘My awareness of the fact that different answers to a question can
reasonably be inferred from the same evidence trumps my confidence in the answer
I favour and obliges me to teach the question nondirectively’ (2008, 220). This is
wholly applicable to the question ‘is seeking biblical authority in moral debate rea-
sonable?’ Whether such an approach would lead to regarding homosexual acts as
morally acceptable or not is an open question and well beyond the scope of this
article. The point is that the appeal to biblical authority is not settled in the way
Hand argued it was.
It would be speculation to attempt to explain why Hand has taken such a scepti-
cal view of an appeal to scriptural authority. Certainly from a secular perspective,
such appeal is regarded as irrational. The assumption is that rationality is decisive
in dismissing religious beliefs; they are guilty unless proved innocent (Norman
2004). There is then a tendency to see compelling arguments against religious
beliefs when in fact the opposing religious views in the debate are reasonable in the
judgement of others who don’t take scepticism as normative. It may be that Hand
has un-revealed sympathies with the secular view. But that is speculation.
 176 T. Cooling

The post-secular view offers a different perspective, which is more sympathetic

to religious belief. It is less confident about the compelling nature of reason when it
comes to assessing religious belief. Innocent until proved guilty would be the start-
ing point. This is because it recognises the contribution of worldview beliefs in peo-
ple’s assessment of the truth, meaning and significance of knowledge claims. The
post-secular standpoint is influenced by the work of scholars like Michael Polanyi
(1958) who argued for the role of ‘fiduciary frameworks’ and ‘tacit knowledge’
over and against the positivist view of knowledge. Thomas Kuhn’s work in science
(1962) and his thesis that ‘normal science’ operates within a ‘paradigm’ which
defines what compelling arguments look like is another key influence. The Austra-
lian educationalist Brian Hill (2004, 4–7, 24–27) argues that rational thought is
dependent on what he calls ‘Reasonable Initial Bets’ whereby people invest their
trust in a worldview in an act of reasonable faith and from which perspective they
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interpret the world.10 To be rational is to hold this trust in a manner that is open to
reason, taking account of the evidence available and the arguments of others. This
is not therefore a descent into subjectivism or relativism which denies the impor-
tance of reasoning, sound argument and rationality. In Hand’s terminology, these
beliefs are ‘not-known-to-be-true’; the evidence for them is not decisive or compel-
ling because judgments about decisiveness will be different from within different
interpretive paradigms. The implication is that probably more of our cherished,
firmly held beliefs than we might like to think are ‘not-known-to-be-true’ and there-
fore controversial, rather than compelling and decisively established.11

A new criterion
Hand, rightly in my view, points to the importance of starting with the aims of edu-
cation given that any criterion derived from them will be normative for teachers.
His treatment of the epistemic criterion rests on the claim that ‘the central aim of
education is to equip students with a capacity for, and inclination to, rational
thought and action’ (2008, 218). His justification for this is two fold. First he take
it as a given that this ‘is widely accepted by educational theorists and practitioners.’
Secondly he asserts that rationality is ‘both constitutive of and instrumental to
human flourishing.’ But are these claims valid? No doubt there would be wide-
spread acceptance amongst teachers, parents and other stakeholders that promoting
rational thought and action are important. However the claim that rationality is con-
stitutive of such flourishing is debatable because that entails a judgment about what
it means to be fully human, and people will differ on this depending on their world-
view. For example, for a Christian flourishing would probably be understood in
terms of relationship with Christ and for a Muslim in terms of submission to Allah.
Furthermore Hand’s definition of education is not comprehensive enough. For
example the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence aims to promote four capacities;
that each young person should become a successful learner, a confident individual,
a responsible citizen and an effective contributor.12 Developing rationality is clearly
important to attaining these; but clearly so too is learning to behave well towards
other people. Hand’s focus on rationality as the central aim, although important, is
too restricted because it does not address the totality of the knowledge, skills and
attitudes required for being a positive contributor to the civic community in the
context of a diversity that can easily generate conflict. There should, surely, be
another central aim if fairness matters in education.
 Journal of Beliefs & Values 177

A pragmatic suggestion from the Humanist Philosophers’ Group (2007, 14–16)

is helpful at this point. This draws on the idea of social contracts and emphasizes
the disastrous consequences of people falling out over controversial issues. As the
philosophers put it, ‘the lesson to be learned is that if people with different sets of
religious and non-religious beliefs cannot learn to live together, the results are
appalling for all parties’ (2007, 14). Their suggestion is that focusing on common
interests is healthier and more beneficial all round than taking a final stand on our
own beliefs. Their ideas resonate with the assumption that the priority in handling
controversial issues is ‘the will and ability to live well with those whose social
space we share’ (Backhouse 2007, 50) and to foster the development of people
who are ‘capable of envisioning and creating just, truthful and peaceful societies’
(Volf 1996, 21).
This pragmatic approach ultimately stakes its success on the hope that people
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will be persuaded to take account of the needs of others with whom they share
social space despite their differences because the alternative of attempted domina-
tion and resultant conflict always turns out worse for everyone. The best case sce-
nario is that they will do so for ethical reasons recognizing the importance of the
fairness principle in a democracy. For many people, justification for such an ethical
stance will be readily available within the resources of their own worldview. The
bottom line however is the pragmatic position that no-one benefits if we tear society
apart by fighting each other over controversial issues.
In the final analysis Michael Hand also advocates, albeit reluctantly, a degree of
pragmatism (2008, 228). Taking the example of teaching evolution in schools serv-
ing creationist communities, he concludes that contextual constraints sometimes
make it impossible to teach in accordance with the epistemic criterion. The contex-
tual constraint in question is the need of schools to recruit students in a situation
where many families are creationist. In doing this he has acknowledged that the epi-
stemic criterion of itself is inadequate as the sole criterion and needs supplementing.
At this point a new criterion will be proposed, which I shall call the diversity
criterion for identifying religiously controversial issues. It draws on two principles
which reflect two aims for education that have emerged in this discussion. These
are the development of the knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable students: (a)
to value and practise fairness by embracing pragmatism in community building and
a commitment to working alongside other people despite fundamental differences in
belief; and (b) to develop rationality by valuing evidence, reason-giving and taking
careful account of the arguments of others.
Drawing on these aims, the diversity criterion maintains that we should teach as
controversial those matters where significant disagreement exists between different
belief communities in society where those communities honour the importance of
reason giving and exemplify a commitment to peaceful co-existence in society and
teach as settled only those matters where there is demonstrable consensus in society
which derives from wide agreement and compelling evidence.
The diversity criterion embraces the other three criteria but significantly modifies
them by: (a) incorporating the need for reason-giving into the behavioural criterion;
(b) adjusting the political criterion by emphasizing the importance of commitment
to peaceful co-existence rather than to liberal principles; and (c) tempering the epi-
stemic criterion by recognizing that reason is decisive less often than we might wish
because it inevitably operates within a paradigm or intellectual tradition, meaning
that more issues are controversial than we might desire was the case.
 178 T. Cooling

In conclusion, there will be certain attitudes that will need to be nurtured in

teachers and pupils if the diversity principle is adopted.
First, Graham Haydon emphasizes willingness to compromise if peaceful
co-existence is to be achieved (1997, 50–56). However compromise is often viewed
as a negative outcome in that it suggests lack of faithfulness to the priorities derived
from one’s own worldview. An alternative is what I call courageous restraint which
is a positive, ethically-inspired decision to stand back from what is reasonably our
first priority in order to respect the interests, needs and integrity of other people and
achieve peaceful co-existence with them. It means being willing to let fairness tem-
per one’s advocacy of truth as you judge it. It means holding to the golden rule that
one should treat other people as you hope they would treat you in similar circum-
stances. It means being willing to accept that the truth you personally hold dear is
contestable in wider society. It means honouring the pragmatic importance of work-
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ing alongside those with whom you may fundamentally disagree for the health of
society as a whole. The adjective courageous to describe this restraint is appropriate
because the investment of personal identity that people make in their beliefs is such
that it does take courage to restrain oneself from seeking their advantage.13
Secondly is epistemic humility. At the heart of the understanding of rationality
underpinning the diversity criterion lies acceptance of Hand’s point that my per-
sonal judgement that an argument is compelling does not mean that it is necessarily
compelling for all reasonable people. A post-secular perspective heeds this warning
given by Robin Richardson: ‘Certain interests are served by maintaining that there
is no controversy, no difference of opinion, no protest or discontent, that we’re all
one happy family.’ (1986, 27).
The fact that we, quite reasonably, judge certain reasons to be decisive and com-
pelling and therefore hold them as true for everyone else, should always be tem-
pered by a recognition that they are still contestable by other rational people and
that change of mind is logically possible. Epistemic humility accepts that interests
can never be separated from beliefs. As humans we all have a tendency to believe
those things that are in our own self-interest. Epistemic humility recognises a need
to temper our own convictions with a dose of the hermeneutics of self-suspicion.
Thirdly is a willingness to accept that the current state of knowledge is always
governed by the prevailing paradigms and traditions of interpretation which are
judged to be compelling by the majority of people. It is therefore true to say that,
to some degree, knowledge is determined by consensus. This has two implications.
Firstly, those who hold a minority position in relation to a particular controversial
issue have to accept that their view will probably be presented as less rationally
secure than those of the majority. The task of minorities is to seek to persuade
others by effective reasoning, by offering evidence and by persuasive argument.
Secondly, those who hold to the majority position need to remain vigilant in their
willingness to listen to counter arguments and evidence on the grounds that
paradigms always reflect a consensus and paradigms can change.

Conclusion
Michael Hand’s epistemic criterion for identifying controversial issues has therefore
been found wanting. This is not because it is wrong in identifying the need for a
debate to be between rationally defensible positions before it is deemed controversial,
but because he relies solely on this criterion. His position betrays over-confidence in
 Journal of Beliefs & Values 179

rational arguments being decisive and compelling in relation to religious controver-

sies in a way that fails to take account of a post-secular understanding of the relation-
ship between knowledge and belief. The result is unfairness, because views are
treated as rationally indefensible when that judgement is unwarranted. The diversity
criterion proposed here as an alternative attempts to draw on the strengths of the epi-
stemic criterion whilst balancing it against the proper concern for fairness displayed
in the other criteria which Hand rejected.

Notes
1. For example, in Australia in 2002 a federal programme of values education based around
the promotion of distinctively Australian values was launched (http://www.curriculum.edu.
au/values/values_homepage,8655.html). In 2007 the Organization for Co-operation and
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Security in Europe (OCSE) funded the development of the Toledo Principles for teaching
about religions and beliefs in public schools. In 2009 in Britain the REsilience programme
was launched with a view to building the confidence of Religious Education teachers in
handling the contentious issues that arise from religiously inspired violent extremism
(http://www.re-silience.org.uk/index.php/en/what-is-resilience).
2. See the RE Council for England and Wales Code of Practice for an example (http://
www.religiouseducationcouncil.org/content/blogcategory/50/80/).
3. The word creationism here describes the position which asserts that God created the
world literally as described in Genesis. The views of AC Grayling are an example of
such a concern. See his pod cast at http://www.richarddawkins.net/videos/4890.
4. See http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/uploads/Statement-of-values_tcm8-12166.pdf.
5. See http://royalsociety.org/News.aspx?id=1153&terms=Michael+Reiss for the official
statement.
6. See http://richarddawkins.net/articles/3119-letter-from-sir-richard-roberts-asking-reiss-to-
step-down for correspondence and comment.
7. See also Hand (2003b) and Hand and White (2004) for other articles in which Hand
argues that religious faith can be rational.
8. This resonates with my own suggestion that teachers should distinguish between public
secured truth and public controversial truth (Cooling 2007).
9. See also Christopher Wright (2005) for another narrative based approach to biblical
authority
10. The critical realist approach to religious education developed by Andrew Wright (2007)
is an example of an approach drawing on a post-secular view.
11. A dramatic example of how someone can change their judgement is that of the philoso-
pher Anthony Flew who took a secular view of religion for most of his life and then
dramatically changed his position (Flew and Varghese 2008).
12. http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/understandingthecurriculum/whatiscurriculumforexcellence/
thepurposeofthecurriculum/index.asp.
13. It has to be accepted, though, that there may come a point when such restraint can no
longer be justified, at which point someone ceases to be able to participate willingly in
the system and has to campaign against it. That is why society should always pursue
negotiation with different faith groups and should never take restraint for granted, as
majorities tend to in their relationships with minorities.

Notes on contributor
Trevor Cooling is Professor of Christian Education at Canterbury Christ Church University
and Director of the National Institute for Christian Education Research.

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