John Burn
John Burn, a North East of England schoolteacher, appears to be, perhaps, the most influential creationist in the region if not in the UK. It appears that he played a major role in convincing Peter Vardy to invest in schools in the region and was one of the leading names (if not the leading name) behind the establishment of the right wing Christian Institute in Newcastle. The Institute was set up in 1990. Burn also went on to become principal (headmaster) of Emmanuel College and then chief academic advisor to the Emmanuel Schools Foundation.
However, it is clear that both reflect social aspects of society in the North East of England. Burn was already a well-established high-profile Tyneside teacher before he got close to the Vardy schools and helped to found the Christian Institute. Burn appears to have been well connected with the key players behind both and already had a clear idea of how he thought a school should be run. Apparently Burn knew Peter Vardy through his church.
He had been headteacher of a Tyneside comprehensive for 14 years and a senior lecturer in science at a teacher training college. He has been president of the Newcastle Branch of the National Union of Teachers. He was a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Urban Priority Areas which in 1985 produced the report Faith in the City. Until September 1995 he was a member of the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority. He was a member of the National Curriculum Council and the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education. In 1994 he was awarded the OBE for services to education. He has also been a long serving local magistrate.
He is currently chairman of the Christian Institute.
It does therefore appear that Burn had important connections within the Anglican church and amongst schools in the district. To this day he is a lay preacher at the inner city church of David Holloway who also helped found the Christian Institute.
Strangely, though, the whole saga seems to centre on the Church of England, a denomination not noted for the sort of extreme literal fundamentalism pushed by both Burn and the Christian Institute.
Why this all happened in the North East of England isn’t clear either. It may be that the region is years behind, politically and socially, the more prosperous parts of Britain and that this is reflected in the conservative (with very much a small “c”) outlook of the main protagonists. People in Southern England see the Northeast as fairly seriously backward and behind the times. It’s a place of emigration, not immigration. It’s not quite what Americans would call a rustbelt but it still has the legacy of old, industrial Britain.
Moreover, the initiatives don’t appear to have entirely come out of the area’s leafy prosperous suburbs. Both the Rev David Holloway and the Rev George Curry represent inner city parishes where there isn’t much money. And Burn was headmaster at what appears to have been a tough inner-city school.
The Christian Institute is now a high-profile and well-established evangelical organisation with some 12 staff and an annual income of around £700-£800k. It claims to have some 10,000 supporters. Of its trustees and founders, the Rev George Curry chairs the council of the Church Society, the leading evangelist body in the Church of England. The Rev David Holloway is also a founder member of Reform, an evangelical pressure group within the Church of England, and in the 1980s proposed that bishops should face a "heresy test".
Nominally, the Christian Institute has no formal links to the Vardy schools but it is clear that the “informal” links have been very influential from day one – not least because Burn was head of Emmanuel College. Moreover, Burn remains as a trustee of the Vardy schools and is currently Vice-Chairman of Directors at Emmanuel College (see http://www.emmanuel-schools.org.uk/hattrick.htm). Moreover, it looks clear that Burn’s 1987 approach to Vardy which eventually resulted in Emmanuel College, was prompted by Burn’s keenness to establish a school run on traditionalist and literalist biblical lines.
It is also understood that the head of Emmanuel Schools Foundation, Nigel McQuoid, is a close personal friend of Burn.
David Walton, a long-serving trustee of the Christian Institute, was also one of the signatories to the 2002 Estelle Morris letter. This is significant because the Christian Institute itself is highly active in lobbying and trying to influence public policy to support its religious agenda. Indeed, so much so that it was censored by the Charity Commission.
Burn’s ambiguous PR on his position on creationism can be seen in a report in the Guardian, 15th January 2005 (see http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1389937,00.html) The report was on a failed attempt by the Emmanuel Schools Foundation to create an academy in Doncaster.
“When parents asked Burn about creationism, he appeared baffled – “he just said, “I don’t know what you mean by creationism” He asked what it was. During the parents’ consultation meeting, one parent quoted a speech Burn had given in which he had said that teachers at Vardy schools should be full time Christian workers. He replied that this was a personal view not “necessarily” reflected in the Foundations plan for the proposed school.
At another parents’ meeting David Vardy (Peter Vardy’s brother and a trustee of the Emmanuel Schools Foundation) was asked why they were donating only £2m whilst the government was set to add much more. He replied “Well I can always take my money elsewhere. I can go and buy myself a yacht.”
David Vardy’s flippancy went down like a lead balloon, we are told.
Burn is basically a hard-line fundamentalist as this extract from a paper of his, co-authored with Nigel McQuoid shows:
“There are those who argue that Science and Christianity can be harmoniously reconciled and that no significant tension remains. We cannot subscribe to this view. It seems to us that attempts to reconcile evolutionary theory with the Biblical account of creation strain and distort scripture and that they introduce a symbolic reading of Genesis which cannot logically deny the symbolic reading of the Virgin Birth, physical Resurrection of Christ or the Second Coming.”
(From the web site of the Christian Institute at http://www.christian.org.uk/html-publications/schoolcu.htm; it was written in 1995.)
The paper also states “Clearly schools are required to teach evolutionary theory. We agree that they should teach evolution as a theory and faith position. Again it is important to distinguish between evolutionary theory and the faith position of evolutionism. Clearly also schools should teach the creation theory as literally depicted in Genesis. This too is a faith position of which young people should be aware.”
“We believe that schools, in the interest of a true education, should help young people see the issues and the evidence base for the Creation/Evolution debate. We do not believe that Evolution is an unimportant side issue. Nor is the tension between science and religion.”
“Young people must also be helped to understand that science cannot deal directly with the past. Scientists cannot go back in time to directly examine the animals and rocks of long ago. They cannot observe the past or test it and young people should be made aware that whilst the majority of the scientific community hold to evolutionary theory some atheistic scientists cast significant doubt upon it. Both Creation and Evolution provide ways of explaining the past that are beyond direct scientific examination and verification. Ultimately, both Creation and Evolution, are faith positions.”
“We believe that the science teacher should provide opportunities to demonstrate this.”
This is standard fundamentalist boilerplate. What Burn and Nigel McQuoid are trying to convince their audience is that because science contradicts their religious opinions, science is nothing more than religion and should thus be treated accordingly. Science, though, is not based on religious faith. It’s independent of religious faith. To confuse the two is about the most dangerous game in history. It’s extreme sectarianism. It is spectacularly wrong. Bad science, bad religion and bad education.
