Children should be taught to understand the Jihadi mindset if they are to make sense of why people commit terrorist acts, the Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested. Speaking to an audience of headteachers, the most senior cleric in England’s state church said that as society becomes increasingly secular, it is “essential” to give children a good religious education so they can understand extremists on their own terms. While many analysts prefer to explain the rise of Islamist extremism in sociological or political terms, they will never understand the religious beliefs behind the ideology. The Telegraph reports that the archbishop told the Anglican Academies and Secondary Heads Conference: “The heart of their theology – which is the heart of their propaganda, so this is the driving force – is an apocalyptic understanding of human history, not as a loose term but in its strictest technical terms: they believe that the world is about to end, that the Prophet will return with Jesus, and will defeat the western powers.” “It’s very difficult to understand the things that impel people to some of the dreadful actions that we have seen over the last few years unless you have some sense of religious literacy,”