Written by Jonny Tridgell
Jonny began his career as a secondary school teacher in 2009 and has since been a head of sixth form, head of department and lead practitioner for EDI. He has also worked in teacher education as a mentor, curriculum tutor and general tutor on the University of Oxford PGCE. He completed his MSc in Education (Digital and Social Change) at Oxford in 2024. He is currently working as Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Data and Insights Officer at Jesus College, Oxford, alongside roles as a teacher, teacher educator and researcher.
Imagine you are planning a GCSE lesson on Christian beliefs about homosexuality, but you don’t feel confident about the topic. You might have a theology degree and a PGCE in religious education, but have never really studied queer theology, or maybe you are one of the many non-specialists delivering these lessons in the UK (Orchard, 2024). You’re not sure where to begin planning your lesson. Do you do a debate with the students? Perhaps you could do some textual study, but then which texts? You know that Christianity has often the basis for homophobia, but you also don’t want to suggest to your students that Christianity is prejudiced or bad. So, what do you do next?
You might look for shared resources made by a colleague or look online. You might use AI. One solution would be to use a textbook or revision guide endorsed by your exam board. Jackson et al (2010) found that many teachers used textbooks just for that and in my experience as an educator and researcher, many teachers (including me), still do. Textbooks are helpful for pitching, but also, geared as many are to exams, provide a great deal of reassurance. However, there is a risk to this, because RE textbooks in the UK tend to sanitise and essentialise Christian beliefs about homosexuality and to present these through a Eurocentric lens.
In a recent paper for The British Journal of RE (Tridgell, 2025), I found that textbooks represent Christian approaches to homosexuality in a way that has been sanitised, excising those churches that promote explicitly anti-LGBTQ+ views. These textbooks also generally excluded African Christianities and churches, portraying African Christians as recipients of aid or evangelism only, not as theologians. One reason for this might be a desire to promote community cohesion by only presenting socially acceptable or “positive” views of Christianity as real Christianity (see arguments made by Smith et al, 2018), even if this presents a view of Christianity that is false. The Eurocentric approach here is perhaps even more troubling, given the way this might exclude those whose experience of Christianity is not reflected in these textbooks.
As a gay RE teacher who studied Christian approaches to homosexuality, I can plan these lessons carefully and accurately, and I feel confident about balancing the need for academic integrity with keeping students (and myself) safe in the classroom. My years teaching about Christian attitudes to homosexuality have taught me hard lessons about framing; in my view, it is always best to treat this as a theology lesson, rather than an ethics one – that is, thoughtfully examining different Christian views across the breadth of the religion but never debating whether it is okay to be LGBTQ+ or if homophobia and transphobia are allowed. Importantly, I am not trying to criticise those who lack this confidence or this experience – I understand why someone might reach for a textbook to help plan this lesson – but I am critical of publishers who put out resources that fail to properly help with this planning. RE/RS teachers – especially those who have other specialisms – need proper support and guidance about what to teach and how to teach it. In short, RS/RE textbooks should:
- Include the full range of Christian views of homosexuality, including those that advocate for conversion therapy or other forms of anti-LGBTQ+ violence
- Include Christianities (both anti-LGBTQ+ churches and those that are affirming, along with those in between) from across the world, including Africa across all areas of Christian life.
- Recognise the inherent “messiness” of religion, and that belonging to a denomination does not mean someone’s personal beliefs necessarily fully align with its official teachings
- Frame lessons on LGBTQ+ people through theology rather than ethics; it is not safe to debate the existence of LGBTQ+ people nor is it reasonable to ask whether Christianity as a whole is homophobic; better to evaluate how a text is being used, for example, or ask why churches might have different views.
If you are the teacher I described, I would advocate caution and some reflection on whether the resource you are using really reflects the full story. If you are a textbook publisher or academic resource-maker, I hope this serves to call you in; community cohesion requires us to do epistemic justice (Fricker, 2003) to all those in our community – it is not served by pretending the world is not as it is. After all, how can we champion LGBTQ+ liberation and decolonisation if we only tell half the story?
Jonny’s article “Sanitised, essentialised and Eurocentric: an analysis of the (mis)representation of Christian beliefs about homosexuality and African Christianity in English RE textbooks” has been published Open Access here.