World Religion Day is celebrated every January on the third Sunday of the month. Its aim is to promote understanding and peace between all religions, encouraging people to learn about other faiths and their followers.

Whilst we are a Methodist school, the Grove is very much a diverse and inclusive community, with many of our Grovian Values underpinning the sentiment behind World Religion Day.

At the Grove, we are Inquisitive & Curious and eager to learn about the beliefs of others.

We are Honourable & Respectful of these beliefs.

And we aim to be Kind & Generous to all people, whoever they are.

Thank you to our Reverend, Vicky Atkinson, who has written the following blog to celebrate World Religion Day….

Scholars struggle to agree on a definition of ‘religion’ for good reasons, definitions tend to be too narrow and omit many belief systems and others are vague and nebulous and a catch all for any and every belief system. As with most things, the more a subject is studied the more complicated it is to define it. But what if I told you that the root of the word religion comes from the Latin word ‘Religare’ which means to ‘bind together, to unite in harmony’. What a simple and thoughtful definition, it certainly breathes new life into the idea of interreligious communities.

The aim of World Religion Day is to promote inter-faith understanding and harmony, or in other words ‘religare’, to celebrate how our different religions are bound together.

Despite my limited understanding of the worlds different religions I understand that we all follow what is known as the ‘The Golden Rule’ which is essentially the principle of treating others as you want to be treated. If we spent a bit more time focusing on our commonality and our conviction to follow this principle, then we would be more united. I believe that the message of unity and healing that can be found in our different world religions can inspire us to become better neighbours to one another.

Prejudice and ignorance about the beliefs and practices of other religions unfortunately provoke conflict and so at Woodhouse Grove education about different religions is something we take seriously. The school equality and diversity group are currently exploring how we might encourage greater interfaith dialogue in school.

The only way for us to break down barriers between different religions is to be curious and interested. The more questions we ask the more we learn and relationships are grown and nurtured. Why not in support of World Religion Day this year commit to learning something new about a different religion, I will guarantee the more you discover about other faiths the more you will realise how little you actually know.

Rev Atkins

I am an individual, yet I am part of something incredible.

I am Grovian.