The Church of England’s attempt to defend collective worship (Letters, 31 July) should be recognised as a self-serving effort to uphold Christian privilege. Nigel Genders says worship offers children time to pause in their busy days. But secular, ethical assemblies provide a more meaningful opportunity for reflection than exclusive Christian assemblies do – and genuinely include children of all religious backgrounds and none.

The C of E also dismisses claims that its assemblies represent religious indoctrination. But the church is clear that its taxpayer-funded schools provide an opportunity to try to reverse the long-term decline in its attendance numbers. And what are assemblies built around enforced prayer and re-enactments of Bible stories if they are not attempts to teach children to be Christians? Laws that require schools to hold acts of worship are indefensible and should be abolished.

Stephen Evans

Chief executive, National Secular Society

• Nigel Genders appears to confuse his terms. If a “collective” act of worship is offered in an “authentic” Christian way, how can it be truly inclusive of all the faiths (and none) represented in any school community? I have often over the years had to try to repair the damage done to children and families by over-evangelistic collective worship, which sought not to examine the “big questions”, but crudely to make disciples for Jesus.

In a society that is increasingly culturally diverse, it is surely time for the 75-year-old collective worship requirement to be rigorously and urgently reviewed to reflect the way in which our national understanding on matters of faith has developed since 1944.

Rev Stephen Terry

Chair, the Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education

• How very ironic that Rev Genders should claim that “what happens in schools must be evidence-based”.

And where is the evidence for the extraordinary claims made by the Church of England? Where is the evidence for the fact that one lives after one dies? Of course, if they are asked for evidence to support their extraordinary beliefs, religionists claim that faith supplants the need for evidence. So why does Mr Genders speak about the need for evidence? He cannot have it both ways.

Paul Hall

Hatfield, Hertfordshire

• Upon arrival at a new teaching post in the 1980s, I asked the head whether assemblies must be moral. “No,” he responded, “as long as they’re not immoral.”

David Feintuck

Lewes, East Sussex

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