Secularists have likened the Archbishop of Canterbury to Adolf Hitler for commenting on the pitfalls of secular education.
During a debate in the House of Lords, Justin Welby said “confidence in any personal sense of ultimate values has diminished” in secular schools.
The National Secular Society (NSS) compared his comments to a 1933 quote in which Hitler said that “secular schools can never be tolerated”.
‘Utilitarianism rules’
During the debate, Welby argued that successive Governments have attempted to introduce a “weak, secular and functional narrative” to replace the UK’s Christian heritage.
He said: “We live in a country where an overarching story which is the framework for explaining life has more or less disappeared.
“We have a world of unguided and competing narratives, where the only common factor is the inviolability of personal choice.”
Holocaust
“Utilitarianism rules, and skills move from being talents held for the common good, which we are entrusted with as benefits for all, to being personal possessions for our own advantage”, he added.
The NSS accused the Archbishop of “channelling Hitler” by “attacking secular schools”, in a Twitter post that has now been taking down.
Hitler was responsible for the genocide of about six million Jews during the Nazi Holocaust.