Pembroke Chapel Visit

Let me start by saying that Pembroke College is absolutely gorgeous.  It is a small-ish campus with absolutely lovely gardens and fantastic architecture.  This may sound silly, but it looks intellectual, like the kind of place where great authors sat and were inspired.  Being wholly unfamiliar with the history of Pembroke, I'm not sure if that's true; but its still nice to think that way.
However, the grounds and architecture were not what brought my Religion and Global Culture class to Pembroke.  It was the chapel.  My class has spent some time church hopping, so it was not simply the fact that it is the college church that brought us there (although it was the first classical chapel in Cambridge and was donated by Christopher Wren) but the dean of the college.  The dean at a Cambridge College Chapel plays a very interesting role.  He joked that he was payed to be religious, but its a lot more than that.  He does conduct services in the chapel, but he also provides advice and comfort (both secular and religious) to the students of the college. In that respect he functions a bit like a school counselor.  However, his primary duties are to the chapel and to the Anglican Church.  At the Pembroke Chapel, one can attend a morning prayer service, commemorative prayers (like the Veterans Day Memorial Service), holiday services (at Christmas, the college crams 300 into their little chapel), weddings, christenings, funerals, and services commemorating the induction of new fellows and students.  At its heart, a college chapel brings the community together to celebrate and commemorate moments of transition.  It is deeply embedded in the traditional structure of the college regardless of the religious affiliation of its students and faculty.
Some of the most interesting points that the Dean made were about modern Anglicanism.  This happens to be a subject that fascinates him, and so we spent a good amount of time talking about it.  In 2001 71.8% of British citizens declared themselves to be Christian and all but 1.5% declared themselves religious.  The firm nonbelievers that make it seem like we are all becoming secularized to the point of making religion obsolete make it seem that way because they are over represented in the media.  Religion is a part of UK society, but not of UK politics.  The Queen is appointed by birth to believe on behalf of the nation, but that is the only way in which politics and religion co-mingle.  It is true that church and state are not necessarily separate in the UK, but any candidate for public office that spoke to strongly about his faith would be totally unelectable in the UK (we're looking at you Sarah Palin; you'd be totally unelectable in the UK).  Conversely, we seem to look for that in a candidate stateside.  Nixon (setting aside the whole impeachment thing) would be totally unelectable in the USA today because he never talked enough about God.  I think this is a really interesting trend.  In the nation in which Church and State are not separate, there is a trend towards secularizing politics; whereas in the nation in which Church and State are separate, there is a trend towards making politics much more about religion.
The dean also made some interesting points about religious education (RE).  Religion should most definitely have a place in the education system as the absence of understanding leads to vulnerability.  In the UK there are a significant number of religious schools (1/3 of primary and 10% of secondary schools are religious), but these are not sufficient.  Children there get a weak dose of comparative study in primary school and almost none in secondary school, which leads to their inoculation - so to speak - against religion itself.  Which is rather unfortunate, because - as the dean believes - people are naturally religious.  Not understanding the differences and the options makes people vulnerable to the first person to come along and provide an explanation.  I definitely agree with this idea.  I think there should be more RE in the states, not as a practice of indoctrination, but as one of information.  Children should know more about the non-Abrahamic religions and more about religions different from their own.  Its important to understand the world through this lens and to inoculate children against the fear of different beliefs.  The "Stranger-Danger" campaign of my childhood created a generation of children terrified of people who look different from them, and the current climate of Islamophobia is creating a generation of children convinced that anyone who believes differently must be evil and wrong.  This is not only sad but dangerous.  I think we need to beef up RE with an emphasis on comparative study; it is important that we create a new generation that is willing to understand different belief systems and accepting of differences while looking for similarities.  Maybe I'm biased given my focus in the Global Scholars program, but I think this is a really important issue that needs to be discussed further.  Perhaps in the comments...