The Government hopes to recruit a new generation of RE teachers who have no personal faith and who know next to nothing about the Bible.
So desperate is the national shortage of RE teachers in schools that the Teacher Training Agency has written to humanities graduates to tell them that today's religious instruction "bears little resemblance to the subject taught when you were at school."
As part of a £3 million campaign launched this month, thousands of letters have been sent to graduates considering careers as teachers, saying that RE is no longer just about learning the Bible.
It says: "RE is a subject that encourages lively debate in the classroom. Gone are the days of learning the Bible by rote. Today RE focuses on exploring a diverse world of faiths and examining real issues from an ethical standpoint. Class debates might, for instance, revolve around topical issues of the day, such as genetic engineering or the right to asylum.
"RE is anything but boring. It is a broad, all-encompassing subject with particular relevance for young people growing up in a multi-faith society." It adds: "There is no requirement whatsoever for RE teachers to practise a faith themselves."
To underscore the breadth of modern RE, applicants are also sent a poster which includes 16 pictures of different religious deities. Only two of the images - one of Christ, taken from the Turin shroud, and a picture of a Black Madonna - have any direct connection with the New Testament.
The images are given equal billing with pictures of Chacmool, a Mayan fertility God, and an unnamed deity who demanded human sacrifice from the ancient Olmec civilisation of South America.
The poster also includes pictures of a Monkey God from Japan, in addition to images of Moses, Adam, the Prophet Mohammed and Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion.
Traditionalists have accused the agency of downgrading God. Nick Seaton, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: "Religious education is an important part of the school curriculum. It should be taken seriously by the TTA, not turned into a free-for-all. RE is becoming a mishmash, consisting of issue-based, sociology teaching and a misguided attempt to cover all the world's religions, with the consequence that children know nothing substantial about any of them - including Christianity."
The Rev David Banting, the national chairman of the evangelical group Reform and himself a former RE teacher, said Christianity should be the focus of any religious instruction in schools.
"Christianity has shaped so much of our culture, our heritage, our literature as well as many of our national institutions. If we do not understand Christianity we do not understand ourselves." He said that the Bible should be "unashamedly" part of the classroom work on RE.
"If children come out of schools knowing about the Haj and being able to name three Muslim festivals, yet they don't know the significance of Good Friday, then something has clearly gone wrong."
Although RE is compulsory in schools, it is not a national curriculum subject and local authorities have some discretion in what is taught, resulting in a huge variation of style and content. To address concerns about this, national guidance on RE was published last year.
It says that children should learn about the six principal religions represented in Britain - Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. Minority faiths and humanism must also be covered.
Schools are also supposed to have a daily act of collective worship that is "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character". Many schools ignore this statutory duty, however, and it is not enforced by Ofsted, local authorities or by the Department for Education and Skills. Christianity, as a result, has no special place in many state schools.
RE, along with mathematics, modern languages and science, is on the government list of teacher shortage subjects, which entitles new recruits to a £6,000 golden handshake.
As a result of the shortage, it is common for RE lessons to be taken by non-specialist teachers. Present teaching of the subject reflects this, according to the Ofsted, which found that a third of schools did not have a satisfactory RE curriculum in place.
In this year's Ofsted report, inspectors said that a lack of subject knowledge led to superficial teaching and negative attitudes to the subject. "Teaching tends to reflect a stereotypical view of religions, often skewed to the more 'colourful' religions to the neglect of others," it concluded.
Graham Holley, the executive director of the Teacher Training Agency, said: "The literature to attract people into RE teaching reflects the way in which it is taught in schools today.
"The national curriculum guidance for RE states that students should be taught to 'investigate, study and interpret significant religious, philosophical and ethical issues. . . in light of their own sense of identity, experience and commitments.'
"So the direct mail piece features thought-provoking imagery representing the six major world religions, and describes how religious education is about understanding the diverse faiths of people across the globe."