Evaluation questions in Christianity

In Higher Christianity, you could be asked to Evaluate the relevance, significance, or impact of a belief of a practice. Or to be specific, here’s what we could see:

• Evaluate the significance/relevance/impact of beliefs about God. (2024)
• Evaluate the significance/relevance/impact of beliefs about the nature of human beings. (2022)
• Evaluate the significance/relevance/impact of beliefs about Jesus. (2023)
• Evaluate the significance/relevance/impact of beliefs about judgement.
• Evaluate the significance/relevance/impact of beliefs about Heaven and Hell.
• Evaluate the significance/relevance/impact of living according to the Gospels. (2021)
• Evaluate the significance/relevance/impact of Christian action.
• Evaluate the significance/relevance/impact of the Christian community.
• Evaluate the significance/relevance/impact of worship to Christians. (2025)

Each of these questions is worth 20 marks – 10 knowledge and understanding marks, 5 analysis marks, and 5 evaluation marks. There is no pattern to whether they ask about significance/relevance/impact – it’s just whatever ‘sounds’ right. So my advice is to ALWAYS use the language of the question for your evaluation.

I work backwards through questions like there – and always put ‘and analyse’ in before I start writing! I usually do this using the colours of skittles – I use a highlighters to draw a line down the side of my page in red, then orange, then green. This reminds me to keep my structure and not miss out skills. Please believe me when I say, the SQA markers do not want to give out 32 KU points – but no analysis or evaluation. If you don’t show a second skill then you’d be capped at 8 and all that wonderful knowledge would be even more of a waste!

                      and analyse

• Evaluate ^ the significance of Christian beliefs about the nature of human beings. (20) 10KU

Three key aspects of the nature of human beings are free will, sin, and stewardship.

Free will is the ability to make our own decisions. Christians believe that God wanted them to have freedom and not be programmed like robots. (KU) Freewill means that a genuine relationship with God is possible because it’s a choice and not forced. (KU) Humans have the ability to choose between good and evil i.e. to follow God or to sin. (KU) Free will is seen as a gift from God and something that should be valued. (KU)

Free will does mean freedom but it also means that Christians might feel they have a responsibility to reflect God’s attributes in the world and this might feel like a big burden. (A) However, it also means that each human has been gifted by God and therefore can be seen to have worth. (A)

Therefore, I believe that this is an incredibly significant belief because believing every single person has value led to the creation of human rights and the belief that everyone deserves to be treated equality. (E) However, I don’t think that it is significant because God has given very clear instructions on how to use our free will so it’s not really difficult to figure out how to behave and does not to need to be a daily focus. (E)

Sin is the act of going against God’s wishes i.e. the commandments found in the Bible. (KU) An example of this is Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge after God told them not to. (KU) Sin separates humanity from God and damages relationships. (KU) Forgiveness for sins is possible through repentance (saying sorry) and because of Jesus’ death on the cross. He was punished in the place of humanity. (KU)

These beliefs have a number of consequences: firstly, Christians might be motivated to pray to God for forgiveness and could attend Church to do this. (A)Secondly, they might spend more time reading the Bible so they can understand how to avoid sin to begin with. (A)

I think that sin is a very significant belief to hold because it is important to understand how damaging it can be. For example, the Adam and Eve story shows that there are consequences for sin that can’t be undone and this is true today. If you kill someone (a sin) you can’t make up for that! (E) I also think that it is significant because through forgiveness for sins we can appreciate how much God loves us and how important Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross really was. (E)

Christians believe that God commanded mankind to “subdue” and “have dominion” over the earth. (KU) This means not exploiting or abusing the earth but rather, to be a caretaker by protecting and nurturing it. (KU) Examples of stewardship include: recycling, shopping from ethical companies, giving to charity, volunteering in the community and fighting climate change. (KU) The Church of Scotland said that to be a good steward is the same as worshipping God. (KU)

One implication of this belief is that Christians will have to make very careful decisions in their day to day lives to ensure they are having a positive impact. (A) A positive aspect of stewardship is that a Christian might feel like they have a clear purpose for living i.e. to look after others. (A)

I think that this belief is very significant because so often it can be difficult to answer the question ‘what is the meaning of life’ but believing in stewardship solves this because the meaning of life is to worship God. (E) Additionally, I think it is significant because there is a huge problem with global warming and this could have a real impact on the world if more people lived this way. (E)

This topic neatly divides into three because these are the headings that come after the colon (:) but obviously the others don’t have that! So maybe think about some natural splits yourself – for example, in relation to judgement, you could split an essay in two looking at Protestant beliefs and Roman Catholic beliefs.