Lesson video

Hello, theological superstars and thank you very much for joining me for another religious education lesson.

Today, we are going to focus on doing some revision on the peace and conflict unit, in particular, focusing on applying what we've learned to exam style questions.

Now, in order to do that, please make sure you have the essential four things for me, a pen, a different colour of pen, some paper to work on and of course your theology brains.

If you need to go and get any of those things, please do that now.

So, just before we begin, a little warning that the lesson we're about to complete contains references to the effects of war and weapons of mass destruction.

For some people that will be sensitive topics.

And if that applies to you, you may want to do the rest of this lesson with a trusted adult nearby who can support.

So, here is a big list of everything that's been covered in this unit on the Oak National Academy.

You can see we started off with key concepts, peace, justice, giving and reconciliation.

Then looked at violent and nonviolent protests.

Reasons for war, terrorism, just war theory in both Christianity and Islam, Holy war, nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, pacifism, and responses to the victims of war.

Today, we're going to have a look at applying our knowledge of those things to examination questions that could come up for this unit.

And it will be inclusive of different examination boards as much as possible.

So, we're going to focus firstly on some low value questions.

A normal exam board always has specifications which have lower value questions on them.

For AQA, there's one-mark and two-mark questions, for Eduqas, WJEC, they're two-mark questions and at Edexcel and OCR have three-mark questions.

So, let's start off with some one-mark questions.

So, you can see there's four one-more questions on your screen.

They are multiple choice.

All you need to do is note down the correct letter, A, B, C, or D to identify the correct answer.

So please pause the video now and have a go at that for me, please.

Here's four more.

So again, just pause the video and have another go at that for me, please.

Excellent, let's do some feedback then.

So first one, which key term is best defined by bringing about what's right and fair? The correct answer was B, justice.

The second one, which key term is best defined by the absence of war or conflict? That was A, peace.

The third one, which key term is best defined by showing grace and mercy, pardoning someone for wrongdoing? That was D, forgiveness.

And the fourth one, which key term is best defined by the restoration of friendly relations after a disagreement or conflict? That was C, reconciliation.

So just quickly check your work, pause the video to make sure you've got them all correct.

and then unpause it once you've done.

And the next one, which key term is best defined by the outward struggle to defend the faith? That was lesser jihad.

Which key term is best defined by acting to prevent harm to yourself? That was C, self-defense.

The third one was A, pacifism, the belief that violence can never be justified.

And the final one was Holy war, that's fighting for a religious cause, probably God, in a conflict controlled by a religious leader.

So again, please just pause the video and check that you have the correct answers for me.

So, let's do some three-mark questions.

So, I've put three, oh sorry, four three-mark questions on your screens now.

State three conditions of the Christian just war theory, three conditions of the Islamic just war theory, three possible causes of war and three examples of conflict that could be considered as Holy Wars.

So pause your video and have a go at those four, three-mark questions for me please.

Excellent, good effort.

Let's do some feedback then.

So, the first one was three conditions of the Christian just war theory, if there were any three from the list on your screens now, just cause, started by the correct authority, right intention, last resort, chance of success or proportional force is used.

So make sure you've got three of those conditions please.

And the next one was the three conditions of the Islamic just war theory.

So, just cause which could be self-defense, defending another country under attack or defending the tyrannised, started by the correct authority, right intention and last resort.

So please just pause the video and make sure you've got three of each list, if not add and correct for me please.

So, let's have a look at the next couple of three-mark questions.

Three possible causes of war.

The three that we've looked at in this unit are agreed self-defense and retaliation, and the three examples of conflicts that could be considered as Holy Wars from the Holy war as seen by Oak National Academy, you would have seen these three being used as examples, the Battle of Badr, the crusades, and the Battle of Jericho.

So again, just pause the video, check if you've got everything you need and then unpause it and we'll move on together once you've done that.

Now, let us focus on some explaing questions now.

And the explain questions will be slightly different for each example, it'd be useful to ask your teacher which exam board you are sitting.

And of course they'll also have some helpful tips of how to go about answering those specific questions for you.

The question we're about to do, best fits with the AQA and ed Edexcel.

You might be expected to write a little longer than I'm going to expect in a moment for question for Eduqas and WJEC, but we will also cover some longer explaining questions afterwards.

And the question style might look slightly different if you are doing the examination with OCR.

So, here you can see a question to ask you to explain two religious views on pacifism.

So that's the aim, two views on pacifism, and it tells us that we need to include a point and a development of the point.

So within the point, what we're trying to do is name the religion.

Are you Christianity or Islam and state the view, whether it's something that they support or don't fully support.

And then you develop the point, give some relevant details to support it.

And in this case around four sentences would probably be enough to support the point, a sentence, a development, a sentence, then repeating that structure.

In the pink box on your screen, you can see some suggested sentence to help make sure you're giving enough detail.

So some Christians or Muslim, state what the view is.

And then tell me why that is, say this is because, then you can repeat that structure to form another small paragraph.

You should end up with two delightful small paragraphs explaining two views on pacifism.

So please pause the video now and have a go at that for me.

Excellent effort, let's see how you got on.

So you may have started off by talking about some Christians being pacifists, believing that violence can never be justified.

That'd be your point.

One available mark there, then your development, telling me why that is, well that's because they believe the teachings of Jesus, always insisted upon nonviolent responses to injustice.

Remember things like love your enemies, let them slap you on the other cheek too, these teachings are interpreted by some Christians as accepting or dictating that violence is never, ever, ever acceptable.

And therefore all resolution to any disagreement has to be peaceful.

And then if you're referring the Islamic view, you might have said many Muslims would not consider themselves to be pacifists.

And this is because although peace is the ideal, lesser jihad allows the use of force when necessary, in order to defend the faith.

You might have explained that slightly differently.

You might have spoken about the example Mohammed in the Battle of Badr.

Just useful there to put that key on the bottom of your board, the black text you can see is the point which I'm making and the pink text is the development of that point.

So, I'd like you please, just to pause the video, check your work against the ones you can see on the screen and make sure that you've got the same sorts of things that you're making a point, and in that point, you've stated the name of the religion that's crucial, and that you've given a view point that is actually aligned to that religion.

And then you've explained that you've given that detail as well.

Pause the video to do that for me now, please.

We're going to have a go now at a explain question, which is going to require a bit more explanation and it's going to require a bit more explanation so that bit you can see what you've underlined on your screen.

Refer to scripture in your answer.

The question, explain two reasons why religious groups are strongly opposed to terrorism, refer to scripture in your answer.

So our answer's going to be longer.

It's going to be more detailed.

It's going to have scripture included in it.

So going to need to be two paragraphs, and each paragraph wants to contain a point.

In this case, that's going to be a reason which is used to strongly oppose terrorism from either Christianity or Islam.

They're going to need some evidence.

Essentially that's a scripture reference, but it's not just restricted to a scripture reference, it could also be a key religious story or example, like for example, the actions that Mohammed in the Battle of Badr, or it could be a wider religious teaching such as just war theory from either Christianity or Islam.

So we're going to need an explanation.

And within the explanation, what we're doing is explaining how the scripture reference supports our point.

So in the pink box, you can see some helpful sentence starters to get you going if you need to.

So start off by saying some Christians or Muslims, then tell me their view.

Then tell me what that supported by giving us scripture reference in the example or indeed the wider teaching, and then tell me what that evidence shows and what I mean there is explain how the evidence supports the point that you've just made.

That would be one paragraph you'd then need to repeat that structure to form another paragraph.

Now to make feedback easier and better for everyone, what you'll be able to do is use these two key quotations.

You can see there's one from Bible there on the left, do everything possible to live at peace with everyone.

There's one on the right there from the Quran, fight the cause of God against those who fight you, but do not transgress.

So please use those for your evidence.

Obviously you can then use those to frame your point and your explanation.

So please pause the video now and have a go at that for me.

Excellent, so let's see how you managed to get onward.

So the first paragraph, I'm going to talk about is the Islamic paragraphs.

So making it clear, Muslims are opposed to terrorism as the use of force in Islam has very strict conditions, which must be obeyed.

And those rules are aimed at preserving life.

And then giving the evidence, that quotation that I had on your screens a moment ago, in the Quran, it says fight for the cause of God, against those who fight you but do not transgress.

That explain that same point, that would oppose terrorism as any fighting must be for the cause of God, which is to defend the faith.

When in conflict, any force use must obey the rules of lesser Jihad, that's transgress part, saying do not transgress.

Transgress means breaking the rules.

So terrorists do not do that.

They're not defending the faith and they have no respect for innocent life.

The rules of lesser jihad, remember, as we've mentioned earlier on in this lesson, seek to protect innocent life.

So don't kill children, don't kill women, don't kill the great.

don't kill the unwanted children.

So those aren't rules that are obeyed by terrorists.

So please pause the video now and check your paragraph on Islam to make sure you've got those three parts of your answer.

So, now we'll have a look at our second paragraph.

This is the paragraph from the perspective of Christianity.

So, hopefully you started off by saying, Christians are opposed to terrorism.

The teachings of Jesus are aimed at peace and reconciliation, and then you've used that quotation there, that in the Bible, Jesus followers are told to do everything possible, to live at peace with everyone.

And then told me that that shows Christians are called to live a peaceful life.

Terrorist actions are in direct opposition to peace.

They seek to do harm and divide communities rather than reconcile communities.

Can you see a useful key there? The black is the point, the pink is the evidence and the blue is the explanation.

Please again, just pause your video and make sure that your answer looks similar to that.

And then unpause the video once you've had a good go at doing that.

So, let's have another go at a more developed explanation question.

So here, we're looking for two religious views on the use of self defence as a reason for war and again, we went to the scripture to refer.

So we want to refer to scripture in our answer.

So our paragraphs needs to be two paragraphs.

Again, each paragraph will contain a point, some evidence and an explanation and the sentence structures are there in the pink box for you again.

A reminder that you have to do that twice to form two paragraphs and the teachings you can use this time , are on your screen, so you can use the Aquinas' just war theory.

And then that quotation we've just looked at from the Quran in the prior question, fights the cause of God against those who fight you but do not transgress.

So please pause the video now and have a go at that for me.

Excellent, so let's have a look at how you got on.

So, hopefully start off by saying many Muslims would accept that self defence is they just cause for war.

And you use that quotation from the Quran and fight for the cause of God against those who fight you, but do not transgress.

And then unpack that saying, according to the rules of lesser jihad a just cause would be to defend the faith from aggression.

And that's what we're talking about by the cause of God defending the faith from aggression.

Muslims, therefore state that where necessary it is acceptable to use force.

Again, the key there, black is the point, pink is the evidence, blue is your explanation.

So again, please pause your video, check your Islamic paragraph matches closely to the points, the evidence and the explanation that you can see on your screen and use that as an opportunity to add any detail or any corrections that your work might need.

And now let's have a look at the Christianity paragraph.

So hope you've noted that some Christians may also accept self-defense as a just cause for war.

And then unpack the consequences of just war theory like this, these Christians may refer to St.

Thomas Aquinas' just war theory, which gives six conditions that need to be met for war to be considered just.

One of these conditions is there must be a just cause then unpacking that a just cause is one which corrects an unjust situation.

And this can include either defending yourself or a another state.

So again, please just check your paragraph to make sure it's similar to that and use that as an opportunity to add, improve or correct.

Excellent work again today, well done.

You've caught a lot of content from the unit there.

Please make sure you attempt the summary quiz to check you can recall all the key information.

If you wish to share your work with the Oak National Academy, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, using the information you can see on your screens there.

Thank you very much for joining me for another lesson, well done for all your effort and all your terrific work.

I hope you have a very good day and I look forward to seeing you again soon, goodbye.