The Christian Institute
The Christian Institute was set up in 1990 as a right-wing Anglican evangelical body whose aims included promoting Christian education and Christian aims in the UK. However, the founders included John Burn who later was head of the Vardy school, Emmanuel College and still retains links with the Emmanuel Schools Foundation. It looks as if what the Institute meant by education at the time was fundamentalist protestant evangelical education with a very strong element of creationism in it.
Indeed, the Institute’s web site to this day includes a number of papers and pamphlets which show that it is heavily in favour of old-fashioned educational practices including corporal punishment.
Based in Newcastle, the Institute is seen as a major player in the battle within the Church of England between the liberal and the conservative evangelical arms or the organisation.
There is a major problem in education in the UK and Wales that this battle brings up. It isn’t clear how far fundamentalism (including creationism) has spread in the Church but one source within it (Rev Michael Roberts) has suggested that about 10% of Anglican clergy in the UK are now creationists, up from virtually zero thirty years ago.
The problem is that about one third of state schools in England and Wales are Anglican (CofE aided). If, as some expect, the well organised and growing evangelical wing of the Church takes control of the Church in a few years time, that leaves to door open for pushing creationism in an awful lot of state schools.
Indeed, such a development questions whether the CofE’s role in education is tenable in the medium term. The Christian Institute which played a major role in establishing the Vardy schools, indicates that the evangelical wing is pretty ruthless in getting its way. (An alternative scenario is that the Church actually splits into two separate organisations.)
Moreover the Institute has gone way beyond its original remit to indulge in political activities. This appears to put it on a par with the Republican fundamentalist right in the USA although we must add, the Institute claims to have only 10,000 “members”.
The Institute is registered with the Charity Commission. Nominally this prevents it from engaging in political activities. Unfortunately it didn’t and in 2001 the Charity Commission criticised the Institute for breaching the terms of its charitable status. It ordered the Institute to change its subtitle, "influencing public policy", and accused it of engaging in politics. Following complaints and a formal investigation, the commission told the Institute that its aims of furthering and promoting the Christian religion and the advancement of education in accordance with certain Christian doctrines and principles have not been obvious in its campaigns.
It’s clear that the Institute has taken up a number of evangelical right-wing causes leading, for example, to widespread claims that it is homophobic. The Charity Commission commented that "It is not acceptable for a charity to declare particular purposes which stray from [its] stated objectives. Normally a charitable research body is required to analyse and assimilate all the evidence ... there were occasions when the link between the charitable object and the publication was not always clear."
The Commission met the Institute in May 2001 after complaints that it was a political lobbying association for conservative Christian values, and that some of its publications were "of a political or propagandist nature". Though there is no absolute prohibition on charities' undertaking political activities, their work must be "reasonable" and any associated publications must be "balanced and unemotive". After its meeting with the Commission, the Institute removed its subtitle, "influencing public policy", from its website. The Commission urged caution in using terms like "think tank" and "research organisation", and advised the Institute that it was not acceptable to list its stated aims as being to "challenge humanism, relativism and other ideologies", as this strayed from its objectives.
Dislike of humanism and relativism is standard fundamentalist boilerplate stuff.
However, since then the Institute has remained strident in pushing its agenda including lobbying over the renewal of the BBC’s Royal Charter.
John Burn has clearly been a major mover and shaker behind both the Vardy schools and the Christian Institute. We recommend you click onto his name for more information about him and the Institute and the 2002 Estelle Morris letter. Its web site is at http://www.christian.org.uk/.
