ABSTRACT
I knew, to begin with, that I had no wish simply to paddle in the shallow waters of multi-faith sociology. Instead I focused on the question, ‘What is religion?’— not ‘religions’ in the plural-that is, organized systems with observable phenomena-but that which constitutes the essence of them all. For it seemed to me, quite reasonably I believe, that religious education ought to concentrate not on morality or law and order (although these are the issues which one suspects primarily motivate Parliament to legislate) but on religion. I opened my introductory paragraph as follows: ‘The Department considers the spiritual (rather than the moral or the sociological) to be the basis of religion’.
