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June 20, 2006
The Silver Ring's the Thing
I've blogged about the Silver Ring Thing before, a long time ago in heady late spring of 2004.
Silver Ring Thing is playing a dangerous game with the health and wellbeing of teenagers, wrapping an evangelical recruitment drive in health terms. It would appear that the real message is "Follow our way and be saved. Ignore it and be lost", where "lost" equates to suffering the health consequences of HIV and other STDs and the social and mental consequences of unwanted teen-pregnancy. Adoption of an abstinence-only approach will actually have proven negative effects, and will do nothing to reduce our ever-increasing teen-pregnancy rates.
I even went so far as to write to the Archbishop of Canterbury expressing my concerns, though without any reply.
In June I highlighted the problems Silver Ring Thing were having with their crusadetour.
The UK Today - Silver Ring Thing
What is needed now is a more realistic and open approach to both sex education and contraception. Firstly we need to accept that young people are going to experiment with sex, as generations before have done. In which case, we should try and ensure that young people today are equipped with the knowledge to practice safe sex, and thus avoid the risks of both unwanted preganancy and infection by sexually transmitted diseases. My sincere hope is that this tour is a resounding failure, and that Silver Ring Thing departs these shores, taking its dangerous dogma with it.
Unfortunately, it would appear that Silver Ring Thing actually met with some degree of success, in so far as some teenagers are now having problems when wearing their ignorance naivety purity rings in school.
Schoolgirls are forced to take off chastity rings - or be ordered out of lessons
It is only a band of silver, imprinted with a Bible verse, worn by a schoolgirl.
But the decision by one of the country's top state schools to ban American-style 'purity rings' - increasingly worn by Christian teenagers to symbolise a pledge not to have sex before marriage - has prompted not just a standoff with local parents, but a debate over religious expression and sex education.
Heather and Philip Playfoot have spent almost two years in dispute with Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, over their 15-year-old daughter Lydia's ring. While the school's uniform rules forbid jewellery, they argue that the rings - given to teenagers who complete a controversial evangelical church course preaching sexual abstinence - hold genuine religious significance.
'The ring is a reminder to them of the promise they have made, much the same as a wedding ring is an outward sign of an inward promise,' said Heather Playfoot.
Well I hate to disillusion Mrs Playfoot, but there are a couple of points that need to be made:
1. The Silver Purity Ring is not an acknowledged religeous symbol and to demand its acceptance is about as justifiable as allowing someone to wear the Scientology Cross in school. Silver Ring Thing is more of an evangelical cult than a mainstream religeous body, and its symbols should be treated as such.
2. A wedding ring is not a symbol of an inward promise. I can only assume that Miss Playfoot has never attended a wedding, or didn't pay attention to the service. All that stuff that the bride and groom say? That's a public i.e. outward promise of commitment to each other.
3. There are times and circumstances when it is inappropriate to wear a wedding ring for health and safety reasons. I don't bitch about it, as it doesn't change my commitment to my wife.
But poor Miss Playfoot needs to open her eyes:
Lydia has now stopped wearing the ring in school. 'It makes me feel quite upset and angry as well, and in a way betrayed a little, because the school are always teaching us to be safe and we are trying to stand up for something,' she told The Observer.
There is nothing in the Silver Ring Thing teaching that encourages safety. In fact its message of abstinance could potentially leave teenagers ignorant of the risks of unprotected sex. Thankfully the national curriculum does include lessons on sex education, covering legal and health aspects, so the Playfoots (or is that Playfeet?) should be thankful that their daughter is receiving necessary information in addition to the naive and dogmatic outpourings of Silver Ring Thing.
Now, I'm Vice Chair of the Board of Governors at a local Anglican primary school. We have a school uniform policy, we have a religeous inclusion policy, in fact as a consequence of DfES requirements, we have a policy for nearly every single aspect of school life. Our policy on school uniform precludes certain types of jewelery and the Purity Ring would be caught by it. And I would argue that banning the wearing of the Purity Ring is a) our right as an independant body and b) not in contravention of our religeous inclusion policy.
Silver Ring Thing promotes a highly suspect doctrine, in a manner that is almost cult-like. To try and use legislation in the manner suggested in the article would be to set a dangerous precedent, and I would give my whoelhearted support to the governors of Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex
Posted by Clive on June 20, 2006 1:13 PM in the category Education
Comments
Good to see something sensible and realistic written about this matter. The daughter of a leader of an organisation that proclaims itself to be a Church finds herself in the limelight. Again, again and again. The parents proclaim that they did not seek publicity in the national press - they didn't say no though. I wonder why? Did the press just stumble on the story or did someone think it would place greater pressure on the school to bend the school rules? Daughter now has a 'scholorship' to attend SRT training in the USA and guess what? A few appearances on TV in the USA.
Posted by: Pip at June 23, 2006 11:02 PM
Please read my article regarding this as I believe I have a little more understanding of Mr Playfoot's motivation. Whilst I agree in principal with the schools standing on the ring issue that is not what this is really about and is not really what Phil is saying, the media tend to focus on a particular aspect. What is so 'controversial' about teaching young people the biblical stand on sex before marriage. This has been the christian message all along. ThE SRT is just a new youth oriented way of teaching it. The excuse and quoting stats about keeping the pledge etc.. and saying it increases the chance of pregnancy is ingnorant since the youth are bombarded today with info on contraception the same as anyone not doing the SRT.
Posted by: Andrew at June 29, 2006 11:09 AM
Personally, I don't like the Silver Ring Thing much because I don't think 'the package' it's delivered in relates to our culture. But perhaps its 'packaging' (aside from its message, another issue) is not too surprising - there is much in American culture that Brits find difficult to relate to. What I think your blog does show is very little understanding of what an evangelical is. The Church of England has many evangelicals in it - as it does anglo-Catholics and liberals. Evangelicalism is not a cult - it is rather a belief in the importance of scripture and in the experience of personal conversion.
As for abstinence programmes, in the light of the rest of the messages teenagers get about sex - perhaps these just provide some teenagers with food for thought that at least means overall there is a more balanced approach. I know several women who made a choice to save sex for marriage. They considered this a positive lifestyle choice - and one made from a place of high self-esteem. It's not a choice given much profile these days!
Posted by: Christine Miles at July 12, 2006 3:44 PM
The message of safe sex has not worked. Fact. We have the highest teenage pregnancy statistics in Europe. Being a youth worker for 17 years I have to say I'm all for promoting abstinence. It won't potentially put teenagers at risk of unprotected sex... they do that now WITH sex education. It may just make some think about waiting, and that it is ok to wait (a message the media doesn't promote now and the pressure from magazines, film, celebs alone tells them they should be having sex and more sex and now). We need more public voices from all backgrounds promoting abstinence.
Posted by: k morley at June 22, 2007 10:15 PM
If you think that the degree of experimentation with sex is roughly equal in different cultures and periods of history, you are either uninformed or deluded. There are vast differences and our own age/culture is not typical. It is only treated as normal by people whose horizons are limited to their own age and country. Who are not people of the sort of IQ one would need to be worth a hearing.
Posted by: Christopher Shell at June 23, 2007 1:18 PM
The playfoot's child is noted in the news as free thinking?
Apparently Lydia's mother, Heather Playfoot, is a director of Silver Ring Thing (UK) Ltd - which might just be considered as an influence.
And what about the father, Phil? Oh, he's the Parents' Programme Director of, wait for it, Silver Ring Thing (UK) Ltd.
So they force their own child into putting this cult into the public eye calling themselves christians when in fact their church is not a real church anyone can set up a cult.
What about when lydia gets married? Well it won't be in her parent's church where her father phil,is paster ,no he cannot perform marriages.
Posted by: justiceleague at June 27, 2007 2:56 PM