Neither Private nor Privileged - The Role of Christianity in Britain Today by Theos

source: http://campaigndirector.moodia.com/Client/Theos/Files/NPNP.pdf via http://www.humanism.org.uk/meet-up/events/view/147?page=1

Free pdf booklet, reflects Theos overall aim of putting God “back” into the public domain'.

cf. BHA Secularism booklet: http://www.humanism.org.uk/shop/62

One Day conference 23rd July 2011: http://www.humanism.org.uk/meet-up/events/view/147?page=1 -

The Place of Religion in Public Life

source: http://www.atheist.ie/2011/06/dublin-declaration-on-secularism-and-the-place-of-religion-in-public-life/

Dublin Declaration on Secularism and the Place of Religion in Public Life

By MICHAEL NUGENT | Published: JUNE 8, 2011

On Sunday 5 June 2011, the World Atheist Convention in Dublin discussed and adopted the following declaration on secularism and the place of religion in public life. Please discuss and promote it with your friends and colleagues, and if you are a a member of an atheist, humanist or secular group, please discuss and promote it with your fellow members, and with the media and politicians.

1. Personal Freedoms

(a) Freedom of conscience, religion and belief are private and unlimited. Freedom to practice religion should be limited only by the need to respect the rights and freedoms of others.
(b) All people should be free to participate equally in the democratic process.
(c) Freedom of expression should be limited only by the need to respect the rights and freedoms of others. There should be no right ‘not to be offended’ in law. All blasphemy laws, whether explicit or implicit, should be repealed and should not be enacted.

2. Secular Democracy

(a) The sovereignty of the State is derived from the people and not from any god or gods.
(b) The only reference in the constitution to religion should be an assertion that the State is secular.
(c) The State should be based on democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Public policy should be formed by applying reason, and not religious faith, to evidence.
(d) Government should be secular. The state should be strictly neutral in matters of religion and its absence, favouring none and discriminating against none.
(e) Religions should have no special financial consideration in public life, such as tax-free status for religious activities, or grants to promote religion or run faith schools.
(f) Membership of a religion should not be a basis for appointing a person to any State position.
(g) The law should neither grant nor refuse any right, privilege, power or immunity, on the basis of faith or religion or the absence of either.

3. Secular Education

(a) State education should be secular. Religious education, if it happens, should be limited to education about religion and its absence.
(b) Children should be taught about the diversity of religious and nonreligious philosophical beliefs in an objective manner, with no faith formation in school hours.
(c) Children should be educated in critical thinking and the distinction between faith and reason as a guide to knowledge. Science should be taught free from religious interference.

4. One Law For All

(a) There should be one secular law for all, democratically decided and evenly enforced, with no jurisdiction for religious courts to settle civil matters or family disputes.
(b) The law should not criminalise private conduct because the doctrine of any religion deems such conduct to be immoral, if that private conduct respects the rights and freedoms of others.
(c) Employers or social service providers with religious beliefs should not be allowed to discriminate on any grounds not essential to the job in question.

Evan Harris Secularist Manifesto

source: Guardian

Evan Harris was an MP who lost his Oxford Libdem seat at the May 2010 Election. He did some great work for Humanism and Secularism whilst he was an MP. Harris is a humanist, and is a Vice President of the British Humanist Association. He was also a vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, before his defeat in the 2010 general election.In addition, he is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society

Secularism is unfairly characterised and attacked by religious leaders as a way of seeking to protect their privileges.

Secularism is not atheism (lack of belief in God) and nor is it humanism (a nonreligious belief system). It is a political movement seeking specific policy end-points. Many secularists are religious and many religious people – recognising the value of keeping government and religion separate – are secular.

Secularism seeks to defend the absolute freedom of religious and other belief, seeks to maximise freedom of religious and other expression and protect the right to manifest religious belief insofar as it does not impinge disproportionately on the rights and freedoms of others. This is essentially a summary of article 9 of the European convention on human rights. In addition secularism aims to end religious privileges or persecutions and to fully separate the state from religion which is a necessary means to that end.

A manifesto for secularist change would look like this:

1. Protect free religious expression that does not directly incite violence or crimes against others or publicly and directly cause someone distress or alarm.

This is why secularists:

• Led the battle against Tony Blair's over-broad religious hatred bill working alongside some religious people who wanted the freedom to attack other religions and against some religious organisations.
• Achieved a singular success with the abolition of EnglishChristian-only blasphemy laws.
• Seek to abolish public order offences that lead the police to question religious people for speaking their minds, short of direct abuse of someone else.
• Oppose a defamation of religion law that has been proposed at the UN by some Muslim-majority states.
• Oppose burqa bans except where it is necessary for security, safety or effective delivery of public services
• Support the right of Muslims to build mosques subject to normal planning rules

2. End discrimination against nonreligious belief systems or organisations by ending their exclusion from:

• Protected religious broadcasting slots.
• Committees that draw up the syllabus for religious studies.
• Bodies that advise the government on matters relating to religion.

3. End unjustified religious discrimination by:

• Stopping faith schools from sacking or rejecting a teacher based on his/her religion or marital status.
• Preventing state-funded faiths schools from discriminating against, and segregating, children on religious grounds.
• Allowing royals to marry Catholics by amending the anti-Catholic Act of Settlement.

4. Where religious organisations join others in delivering public services, ensure they do so without:

• Discriminating against their employees.
• Withholding services from users on religious or sexual grounds.
• Proselytising when delivering that service. 

5. Limit the right of religious people delivering public services (for example marriage registrars, judges, pharmacists, or care workers) to conscientiously object to carrying out lawful parts of their job to rare and specific exemptions (eg doctors and abortion) agreed by parliament.

6. Allow for reasonable adjustment to cater for religious practice in employment or in facilities (eg Sikh turbans in the police force, the hijab or kara in uniform policies, and prayer facilities in the workplace) but not to extend this to a blanket religious exemption based on subjective feelings, nor to impose religious practice on nonbelievers.

7. Cease religious inculcation by the state by ending compulsory worship in schools and making religious education the study of what religions and other belief systems believe, rather than instruction in what to believe.

8. Disconnect religion from the state by:

• Disestablishing the Church of England.
• Ending prayer in the parliamentary or council chamber.
• Abolishing bishops automatically sitting in the House of Lords. We are the only country outside Iran to have reserved seats in parliament for clerics. Religious people can and do stand for election in the normal way.

9. Resist the imposition of parallel legal systems based on scripture, or the legal presumption that religious people are any more or less moral than nonbelievers.

10. Work to end segregation of people based on religious dividing lines.

None of this involves anything to do with doctrinal matters such as women bishops, gay priests or Latin masses, which are matters for religions. Nor does it involve the banning of religious opinion from the public square.

None of it engages with what families get up to in their home, or religious leaders within their own families.

If you agree with all the above, while you may be an ardent secularist, you are in no way "militant" or "aggressive". If you agree with only most of that manifesto, you may well be a vicar. If you oppose it all then you are probably archbishop material.

The worst excesses carried out in the name of secularism – neither of which are supported by UK secularists – involve a proposed burqa ban in France and bans on religious dress in Turkish universities. They are wrong but they hardly rank compared to what is carried out by religious regimes.

Denham's misplaced 'faith group' faith

source: Guardian

John Denham pours scorn on secularists with his plans for an advisory body which represents less than 10% of the population

Anthony uses his barbed wit to lampoon John Denham, our government's minister for communities.

53. Comment #432102 by Richard Dawkins on November 16, 2009 at 9:48 am

The Times today (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6918059.ece) has an article headed "Labour gives up on 60 vulnerable seats." The Labour Party has decided not to waste money on 60 seats that they have no hope of winning at the next election, in order to pour money into other seats, which would normally have been considered safe, but which have now become vulnerable. Among the 20 formerly safe seats that have now become most highly at risk is Southampton Itchen. That is John Denham's seat. In other words, there is a good chance that John Denham could be thrown out of Parliament at the next election.

I have never voted Tory in my life, and I don't think I could bring myself to, even if the opposing candidate were John Denham. But if you live in Southampton, or close enough to get there easily, please consider canvassing against John Denham, perhaps for the Lib Dems, or another party, or just to persuade Labour voters to refrain from supporting John Denham. This could be a real chance to get politicians to wake up to the fact that there is a secular interest out there, which might just be worth considering alongside their normal sucking up to the 'Communities' (code for 'Muslim') vote. And it is a real chance to get John Denham thrown out on his ear.

Richard 

56. Comment #432107 by gcdavis on November 16, 2009 at 10:19 am

I have just created an e-petition, please take a moment to sign.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/secular-humanist-atheist-voice/

In the light of the announcement that Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government John Denham is setting up a new panel of religious “experts” to advise the Government on making public policy decisions I propose that for each faith group member there be an additional secular/humanist/atheist member.

To resist this proposal would leave the government open to the charge of ignoring balance and fairness and would also leave it open to challenge under the Equality and Human Rights legislation. 
Comments (167)

AC Grayling
guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 November 2009 14.00 GMT

John Denham, our government's minister for communities, is going to have an advisory body made up of representatives of "faith" groups, further eroding the de facto secularism that has kept our society relatively stable and collegial, at least until recently. He pours scorn on secularists, which means the majority of the population who, whatever their faith or lack of it, are secularist in the sense that they do not wish religion, still less any one particular religion, to be in the driving seat of policymaking in this country.

Apart from the fact that the "faith groups" represent less than 10% of the population – namely, the less-than-10% who go to church, mosque, temple or synagogue regularly each week, and therefore represent no one but themselves and a tiny minority – what does Denham think he is going to learn from them? Are their points of view not extremely well-known and entirely predictable?

Evidently, Denham does not know enough about this. Let us therefore ask him a few questions about what he expects to hear from the faith groups on such matters as community cohesion, discrimination, the rule of law, the treatment of gay people, the rights of women – on all of which, of course, the faith groups have spectacularly marvellous attitudes calculated to maximise peace and inclusion across society.

So, Mr Denham, on community cohesion: do you take into account the fact that the major faiths officially blaspheme one another? For Christians, Muslims are followers of false prophets, and for Muslims, Christians repudiate the teachings of the Prophet. They once went to war with one another repeatedly and bloodily for centuries over these differences. Now – for the time being – they sit at the government's table side by side, their hands eagerly stretched out for our tax money for their faith-based schools and their "community initiatives".

And on the question of faith schools, Mr Denham, this oh-so-intelligent policy of government funding for division and ghettoisation of children into more entrenched versions of their communities, following the glowing example of Northern Ireland where this exact-same policy fostered mutual hostility and even murder. Is community cohesion to be achieved by separating children and teaching them fundamentally different outlooks on the world, in which all other communities are wrong and misguided in their metaphysical and ethical outlooks, needing conversion at least – or something worse if they refuse?

And what, Mr Denham, of the rule of law as this will be viewed by your faith advisers? Is each citizen of this country equal before the same law for all, or will injustice and discrimination thrive behind the closed doors of faith-based courts? Are each of the faiths to be allowed exceptions and exemptions – for example, so that any faith school can exclude well-qualified teachers because they do not share the ancient superstition with which a particular school seeks to brainwash small children's minds?

Also Mr Denham, why is your policy so discriminatory in itself? What of the Buddhists, the Zoroastrians, the Mother Goddess worshippers? What of the Druids, the White Witches, the Pagans, the astrologers, the Satanists? Are these not "faith groups" whose outlooks have precisely as much credibility and evidence-base as the Christians and Muslims? Are you going to include them and give them some of our tax money too? Can I start an "I Believe in Fairies" church and can I come to your meetings and get some government hand-outs too? If not, why not?

What is the difference, in your mature, rational, evidence-based and carefully thought-out view, between utterly spurious claims about the existence of supernatural entities requiring their votaries to indulge in irrational, discriminatory, divisive and sometimes violent behaviour, and those that putatively are not? Have you got an answer?

Somehow, Mr Denham, I doubt that you have an answer, because if you did, your actions would not be prompting these questions.

Obama - a Secularist?

29': “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.” —Sen. Barack Obama, 28th June 2006

Source: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/faith/

In June of 2006, Senator Obama delivered what was called the most important speech on religion and politics in 40 years. Speaking before an evangelical audience, Senator Obama candidly discussed his own religious conversion and doubts, and the need for a deeper, more substantive discussion about the role of faith in American life.

Senator Obama also laid down principles for how to discuss faith in a pluralistic society, including the need for religious people to translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values during public debate.

Barack Obama, Yoism.org
http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/377#BarackObamaOnReligion
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/faith/
President-Elect Barack Obama speaks on faith and religion in 2006. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odsDYodanxQ




Here is the full video of this speech (39:45):
At 10'.40": "I was not raised in a particularly religious household ... my father was born a muslim but as an adult was an atheist" ... my mother grew up ... was one of the most spiritual people I knew .. she grew up with a healthy sceptism of organised religion ... so did I... faith does not mean you don't have doubts .. in Chicago i felt Gods spirit beconing me, I submitted myself to Gods will and dedicated myself to discovering his truth...
(21'): ...I do not believe that religious people have a monopoly on morality, I would rather have someone who is grounded in morality and ethics, and who is also secular, affirm their morality and ethics and values without pretending that they're something they're not. They don't need to do that. None of us need to do that.
But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase "under God." I didn't. Having voluntary student prayer groups use school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs - targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers - that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems. "

I love his face when he tells the listeners about people beleiving more in angels than in Evolution. He raises his eyebrows and nods slightly, as if saying "Oh yes, believe it or not, that's true."
... but secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before they enter the public square - this is a practical absurdity. 26': we are not just a christian nation but also a nation of buddhists and a nation of muslims and a nation of non believers ... people are tired of faith being used as a device of attack.. I say a pray every night - that we can reconcile the beliefs of everyone for the good of all.

Source: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/faith/
Another 2 minute speech: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1358313999/bclid933143286/bctid1078637745
- big divide between those who go to church and those that don't.

Comments at Richard Dawkins.net.

A secular world is a sane world

I don't believe it -Terry Sanderson

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor takes a patronising line on atheists - and reveals he doesn't even understand the nature of secularism

Profile

All Terry Sanderson articles

May 9, 2008 12:00 PM

Where does on start with a speech as specious and self-serving as the one given by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor in Westminster Cathedral yesterday?

The BBC headed its report of the event: "'Respect atheists', says Cardinal". Can you imagine anything so utterly patronising than the leader of some rapidly diminishing religious sect (in the UK at least - with a 40% decline in attendance in a generation) telling a huge proportion of the population that he's prepared to tolerate them? And why is he prepared to tolerate them? Well, because even if they say they don't believe in God, God is still with them and, really, atheism is just a "distorted kind of Christianity".

But more worrying than that is Murphy-O'Connor's caricature of secularism as some kind of threat to people's personal beliefs. He conflates atheism and secularism, either through ignorance, or more likely deliberately, and then says that it is trying to rob people of their spirituality.

That is not what secularism is about.

Murphy-O'Connor is nearer the mark when he says that secularists want to "privatise religion" and reduce its influence in the public arena.

There is a difference between individual believers bringing by their version of morality into the public debate, and a Church wanting to write its dogmas into law.

Faith is about believers having a personal relationship with their God. Religion, on the other hand, is about organising those believers and bidding for temporal power in their name. Secularists have no problem with the former, but they have a lot of problems with the latter.

And as for the claim that Christians are "denied a voice", take a listen to the Today programme, as broadcast this morning. Richard Dawkins, who was personally attacked by Murphy-O'Connor in his speech, was given three minutes to tie John Humphrys in knots about the BBC's automatic deference to religious leaders. An hour later Murphy-O'Connor was allotted seven and a half minutes to repeat the unfounded assertions about non-religious people being incapable of living a full life, and about religion being denied a voice. Hopefully spurred by Dawkins' chiding, Humphrys did give the Cardinal a harder time than is usual with clerics on the BBC.

Murphy-O'Connor also speaks with forked tongue when he tries to portray the Catholic Church as some persecuted institution that means harm to no one. He says the Catholic Church is caricatured as "some heartless, insular institution that wants to deny people their freedom".

Cardinal - this is not a caricature. It is the truth. Your own actions and pronouncements confirm it.

You have tried to deny human rights to homosexuals, you have tried to rob women of the right to choose contraception and abortion and thereby take control of their lives, you have tried (and continue to try) to interfere with scientific research that may lead to the alleviation of enormous suffering. You have attempted to manipulate the political process by pressurising Catholic MPs. On a personal level you - and your church - try to control every aspect of your followers' lives, from telling them what to think, what to eat and when to eat it, to telling them who they can sleep with and even what they can and cannot do when they get between the sheets.

You have argued that Christian leaders should have privileged input to government policymaking. You have said that you should have unchallenged access to the BBC.

You are a politician as much as a priest, but no one has elected you. It is you and your church - not secularists or atheists- which are out of step with the people of this country.

Just how remote Catholic bishops are was illustrated in a YouGov poll (pdf) for Catholics for Choice in November. Only a seventh of the population agreed with the Catholic bishops or Vatican position on abortion law, and only just over a quarter (27%) of Catholics. And there is little doubt that the bishops' line on contraception and homosexuality would be even more out on a limb. Yet it is the Pope's three-line whip that the Catholic MPs are forcing the government to accept.

You ask why the government continually thwarts your will - the answer is that they are elected to represent the people, while you take your orders from an unaccountable central source in another country.

You may bleat that people no longer believe - but that is their choice and choice is the one thing that the Catholic church fears. As far as you are concerned, there is only one way - the Catholic way. Well, the country at large, and increasingly your own congregations, are telling you that the Catholic way is not their way, as this poll so clearly reveals.

Archbishop and Pope blame secularists for their failing faiths

by Terry Sanderson, NSS President, 25 April 2008
1. The Archbishop.
"The Secularists" (that's you and me and anyone else who doesn't trust religion to behave properly when it gains any kind of power) have been given a new adjective to go before their name. We're familiar with the "militant" secularists, "fundamentalist" secularists and "extremist" secularists tags, but the Archbishop of Canterbury has decided that he will call us "principled secularists". We are the people he seems to fear most, the ones who he claimed in a speech last week, are staging an organised assault on all religion.

Rowan Williams was talking about the drift away from the churches and the increasing embrace instead of an undefined

"spirituality" – a sort of internalised and private connection with all those things you can't buy with your credit card.

But, naturally, being the cheerleader for organised religion, the Archbishop doesn't think that this is necessarily the answer.

He still thinks organised religion is the best way to make the world work as a unified whole, rather than tribal parts. History doesn't support him in that, but hey, the man's got a living to earn.

However, what is clear from the speech is that the Archbishop doesn't really know what secularism means.

He thinks secularism means attacking the core doctrines of religion and trying to destroy them (a la Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens). But I think secularism means simply persuading religious people that their beliefs are a private matter and that they must not be permitted to dictate policy in the spaces that we all have to share.

I have no problem with religious people holding whatever strange and fantastical beliefs they want – so long as they keep them inside their heads or in their homes or places of worship. Once they leave those places, and believers reach the conclusion that everyone must share their faith, that's when the problems begin.

That is why I think the growth of personal spirituality is a good thing, and should be encouraged.

When people say they are "spiritual but not religious" what do they mean? I don't know, and I'll wager they don't, either. But their vague ideas of "spirituality" are unlikely to harm anyone. If it just means that they will do their best to behave in ways that do not harm or disadvantage others, then what more could one ask?

Let's all be "spiritual not religious". It could save the world.

2: The Pope.
The Pope, too, is very worried about secularism. He gave a very similar speech to that of Rowan Williams during the papal trip to New York last week. He told 250 Christian "faith leaders" about the

dangers inherent in "the rise of 'individualism' in the modern world". Mr Ratzinger said that "rapid changes resulting from globalisation" threatened their collective faith. "Also of grave concern is the spread of a secularist ideology that undermines or even rejects transcendent truth,"

he said.

What can Mr Ratzinger have thought, then, of the speech before his appearance at the United Nations by the UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, who declared

"The UN is a secular organisation, with six official languages but no official religion. We do not have a chapel, but a room for meditation".

Let us hope it can be kept that way. But the invitation of religious leaders to give contentious speeches which cannot be challenged or questioned does not bode well for claims of a secular ethos at the UN. Every religion in the world is represented there, so how come the representative of only one denomination of one of them is given this privilege?

Thought for the World - Julian Baggini - Secularism

Julian Baggini

from Think Humanist by Humanist Society of Scotland

Thought for the day - Monday

Original audio source

Transcript of Thought For the World's thought for the day

Julian Baggini

18th February 2008

How strange it must feel to be Rowan Williams right now. On the one hand, almost everyone has come down like a ton of bricks on the Archbishop of Canterbury for saying that the introduction of some aspects of sharia law in Britain was unavoidable. But on the other, almost everyone has prefaced their condemnation with remarks to the effect that they greatly respect his humanity and intelligence.

Bishop-baiting may be in, but special respect for religion is not yet out. As it happens, I have rather less respect for Dr Williams, but I also think that, on this issue, he so nearly said something both true and important.

The question he was addressing was how to accommodate deep and real plurality in society without threatening its essential unity. The wrong answer to this is that there should be different laws for people who hold different beliefs. This is a clear non-starter. For one thing, who is to decide to whom such laws would apply? We can't bind people by the religion, or lack of it, of their parents. So the only alternative would be for people to choose themselves which legal code to opt into. This is just absurd. Spirituality has already become something of a pick-and-mix supermarket: law cannot go the same way.

But Williams doesn't want this. For all the stones hastily cast in this debate, the right to throw literal ones was not on his agenda. As has become clearer in recent days, all he meant was that people should have the option of settling some civil disputes through voluntary means of arbitration, and agree to be bound by its conclusion.

There is, and should be, room outside the law for some diversity in how we choose to relate morally to one another. The key distinction here is between laws we all must obey, and practices that can be legally recognised but do not need to be followed by everyone.

A good example of this is gay marriage: the law could recognise this, but that wouldn't, of course, mean there was one law for gays and another for heterosexuals; or that gay marriage was being forced upon the straight community.

Williams's mistake was failing to make clear that the principle of one law for all is sacrosanct.

Secularism requires a neutral public space in which people of all faiths and none can come together to debate and legislate as equals. As long as we maintain this, there is plenty of room in private and community life for people to live by their very different, deeply held beliefs.

Defending the privilege of religion

Sir, The attempts to defend the Archbishop of Canterbury’s views are doomed before they start (report, Feb 11).

The debate about whether religion should be privileged with special treatment under the law has been raging for decades. In the context of Islamic values in a British context, it has raged since the Ayatollah’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, when we saw some British citizens parading in the streets demanding the death of another British citizen because he wrote a book they didn’t like. To suggest Dr Williams is now bravely kicking off the great debate of our times is fatuous in the extreme.

There is, sadly, no “wriggle room” for the Archbishop. We already know through his arguments for taxpayer-funded faith schools and for exemptions under equality laws that he wants belief in God (any one will do apparently) to be privileged. I have a duty to my fellow citizens as prescribed by British law as laid down by Parliament, while Dr Williams clearly argues that there must be times when he is allowed to vary his duty to me in accordance with his religious dogma, and he has 26 seats in the House of Lords at his disposal with which to achieve it.

That is no longer acceptable.

Alistair McBay
National Secular Society

Removing the state from Dr Rowan Williams

By Janet Daley, Daily Telegraph

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 11/02/2008

The Archbishop of Canterbury said something stupid. What is to be done about it? There is now a fusillade of demands for his resignation rather as if he were a Chancellor of the Exchequer whose fatally bad judgment had undermined the economy.

Synod turns on Rowan Williams in sharia row

Brassneck: Another reason for Dr Williams to resign

In almost any other country in the world, this would seem bizarre but here, the parallel is apt.

	Dr Williams has discredited the position of the established Church

The head of the Church of England is a political figure. Founded as a conscious bulwark against the Roman outfit to which the nation's enemies owed allegiance, the Anglican Church must play out its uncomfortable, anomalous role.

Dr Rowan Williams's latest pronouncements are, in a sense (or should I say, "in a very real sense"?) a peculiarly frank expression of the messy overlap between matters of state and of faith that is its remit. And, as so often happens with well-intentioned attempts at appeasement and compromise with the unacceptable, Dr Williams's intervention has made it clear how untenable all this now is.

The archbishop has discredited not just himself, and the über-tolerant multicultural lobby that he sought to support, but the position of the established Church.

Why say this, when so many other members of the Anglican hierarchy - including his immediate predecessor - have countered his remarks with eminent good sense?

Indeed, you may think, if the former archbishop Lord Carey can enunciate so neatly and forcibly, as he did at the weekend, everything that was wrong with Dr Williams's stated view, then surely the problem is just with the man who currently heads it and not with the institution itself?

Perhaps, perversely, I would argue that

the dilemma that Dr Williams thought he was addressing was a genuine one and that it goes to the heart of this matter.

Being an unworldly scholar, he was profoundly wrong in his understanding of the political implications of what he was saying,

but actually quite right (from the point of view of a spiritual leader) in his concern about the place of religious belief in a modern democratic society.

What he was suggesting was that, for the genuine believer who takes adherence to his faith seriously, the concept of the secular law whose authority must take precedence over all other authorities is a problem. And that is true. It is also true that the law - secular though it is - makes allowances for the sensibilities of religious believers.

Although this notion can be overplayed: the obvious example is Roman Catholic doctors not being forced to perform abortions, but in a life-threatening crisis I doubt that religious scruple would constitute legal protection to a medical practitioner who refused to intervene.

The law generally takes the view that an individual's religion should be respected wherever possible, but that it should not be permitted to over-ride other people's basic human rights to life and liberty.

In a contest between the principles of modern democracy and doctrines of faith, democracy and the rule of secular law must always win. And that is the solution to the problem with which all of the great faiths that survive in freedom have made their peace.

But that is exactly the assumption that Dr Williams was challenging because, I presume, it seemed to him that it relegated religion to a private sphere - a matter of personal taste or preference - which somehow trivialised it.

What Dr Williams presented was a clear-cut distinction between what he called "a universal Enlightenment system" with its concept of "one law for everybody" and what he described as "plural jurisdiction" in which different communities within one country are permitted to follow their own codes of justice.

He was, in effect, casting doubt on the most fundamental premise of modern political life: that freedom and equality under a universal rule of law is the most advanced and just system of government in which human beings may live.

This doctrine is now considered so utterly irrefutable that it is paid lip service even by the tin-pot dictators who attempt to crush its exponents: to be explicitly opposed to it is to rule oneself - either as an individual or a party - out of consideration on the world stage.

Yet this is what the archbishop chose to dispute. Not only did he exacerbate ethnic tensions in our society and do almost immeasurable damage to the cause of moderate Islam but his disservice to his own Church was immense.

He has laid bare the question that should never have been asked if the prevailing fuzzy compromise between established church and state was to remain tenable: how can a revealed religion officially accept that its position is subservient to secular law? Answer: it can't - not without surrendering its understanding of absolute truth.

By definition, the rules of a democracy are subject to majority opinion. They are negotiable, amendable and retractable - providing that they accept the basic principle of liberty and equality.

So religious beliefs and doctrines will always be in potential conflict with forms of law that evolve with social attitudes, and what Dr Williams saw was that Islamic doctrine had a particular problem because it had no history of adapting its theology to being a minority religion within a liberal society. It has no official doctrine for coming to terms with diaspora (as the Jewish religion has).

So the archbishop turns this into a virtue: faced with people who take their religion very seriously, he seems embarrassed by what has been the historical readiness of his own Church to compromise and hints that maybe we could all learn something from the commitment of Muslims to a higher truth.

Being the head of a national church, he is determined to defend the value of faith in general, not just Islam, against the encroachments of the profane concerns of political life. Just because he is a political figure, and because he takes philosophical dilemmas seriously, he cannot evade the question.

So he feels he must repudiate the Enlightenment altogether: the problem becomes secularism itself and the belief that there is one universal system of law which must apply to everyone equally.

In fact, as is being proved once again in the United States where Christianity of a very muscular kind indeed is a formidable political force in the presidential race, religion - far from being threatened by the secular state - can flourish in it.

It is not the primacy of secular law that threatens the survival of religious faith but the unedifying equivocations that a church feels obliged to make when it is a branch of the state.

Archbishop sparks Sharia law row

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has said he believes adopting parts of Sharia law 'seems unavoidable' in modern British society.

Archbishop sparks Sharia law row

Dr Williams made his comments in a BBC Radio interview Dr Williams interview (10 mins)

Leading politicians have distanced themselves from the Archbishop of Canterbury's belief that some Sharia law in the UK seems "unavoidable".

Gordon Brown's spokesman said the prime minister "believes that British laws should be based on British values".

The Tories called the archbishop's remarks "unhelpful" and the Lib Dems said all must abide by the rule of law.

Dr Rowan Williams said the UK had to "face up to the fact" some citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

He said adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law could help social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

'Changes'

But the prime minister's official spokesman said Sharia law could never be used as a justification for committing a breach of English law, nor could the principle of Sharia law be applied in a civil case.

He added that Mr Brown had a good relationship with the archbishop, who was perfectly entitled to express his views.

The spokesman also said:

"There are instances where government has made changes - for example on stamp duty - but the general position is that Sharia cannot be used as justification for committing breaches of English law nor can its principles be used in civil courts."

All British citizens must be subject to British laws developed through Parliament and the courts Baroness Warsi Conservatives Sharia law in the UK Religious courts already used

Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said: "To ask us to fundamentally change the rule of law and to adopt Sharia law, I think, is fundamentally wrong."

For the Conservatives, shadow community cohesion minister Baroness Warsi said: "The archbishop's comments are unhelpful and may add to the confusion that already exists in our communities.

"Of course the important principle is one of equality and we must ensure that people of all backgrounds and religions are treated equally before the law.

Freedom under the law allows respect for some religious practices.

"But let's be absolutely clear. All British citizens must be subject to British laws developed through Parliament and the courts."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said: "Whilst having an enormous amount of respect for Rowan Williams, I cannot agree with his conclusions on this issue.

"Equality before the law is part of the glue that binds our society together. We cannot have a situation where there is one law for one person and different laws for another.

"There is a huge difference between respecting people's right to follow their own beliefs and allowing them to excuse themselves from the rule of law."

'Sensational'

Dr Williams said Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".

In an interview with BBC correspondent Christopher Landau, he argued this relied on Sharia law being better understood. At the moment, he said "sensational reporting of opinion polls" clouded the issue.

READ THE FULL TEXT Islam in English law [54KB] Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader Download the reader here

He stressed that "nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states; the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well".

But Dr Williams said an approach to law which simply said "there's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts - I think that's a bit of a danger".

"There's a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law."

Dr Williams added: "What we don't want either, is I think, a stand-off, where the law squares up to people's religious consciences."

"We don't either want a situation where, because there's no way of legally monitoring what communities do... people do what they like in private in such a way that that becomes another way of intensifying oppression inside a community."

Multiculturalism 'divisive'

Under English law, people may devise their own way to settle a dispute in front of an agreed third party as long as both sides agree to the process.

Muslim Sharia courts and the Orthodox Jewish courts which already exist in the UK come into this category.

HAVE YOUR SAY and Here on BBC.

There is, and should only be, one law which covers all people and to suggest it can be otherwise is to seriously damage our rights

Patricia London, UK

Send us your comments

Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, welcomed Dr Williams's comments, saying they "further underline the attempts by both our great faiths to build respect and tolerance".

He added: "Sharia law for civil matters is something which has been introduced in some western countries with much success. I believe that Muslims would take huge comfort from the government allowing civil matters being resolved according to their faith."

Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "We're looking at a very small aspect of Sharia for Muslim families when they choose to be governed with regards to their marriage, divorce, inheritance, custody of children and so forth."

He added: "Let's debate this issue. It is very complex. It is not as straight forward as saying that we will have a system here."

But Mark Pritchard, Tory MP for the Wrekin, in Shropshire, said

the archbishop's comments were "naive and shocking" and he accused him of "pseudo-theological appeasement".

He said: "The archbishop should be standing up for our Judeo-Christian principles that underpin British criminal law that have been hard fought for.

"He should be concentrating on winning souls into the Church of England rather than getting involved in politics."

Next stop disestablishment - Religious Secularism

Calls for the removal of the blasphemy law must be seen in the context of its original relation to the established church

Christian Theo Hobson calls for Secularism.

reposted from: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/theo_hobson/2008/01/next_stop_disestablishment.html

Chris Street comments are in bright green;

highlights in yellow blockquotes.

Theo Hobson

January 9, 2008

British revolutions happen very slowly. This is probably a good thing on the whole, but it feels incredibly frustrating to those of us involved in keeping the momentum alive. The likely repeal of the blasphemy law, pending today's vote, is part of a revolution that started centuries ago - perhaps as early as the 1640s. We British revolutionaries are patient.

This slow revolution is called disestablishment. Since the Reformation, the English empire has had an established church, an official religion. It has been central to state power, in particular to the power of the monarch. The blasphemy law exists to defend this official church in particular, not Christianity in general. In reality, a blasphemy law has to be the tool of a particular religious institution: it otherwise lacks all coherence.

So what we are really seeing here is another very belated chapter in the demise of our established church.

The question of the blasphemy law should be seen in the context of this story.

It is tempting to launch into an attack on the very idea of an established church, an official national religion; to insist that it contravenes the basic principles of cultural freedom. We should be more nuanced. In reality, the Church of England was instrumental to the emergence of our liberal political tradition, and consequently that of the west in general.

In Tudor times, it was simply necessary to have a state church, if you were going to get rid of Rome. By creating a national church, the English also enabled the steady growth of political liberalism, under Elizabeth I and her successor James.

And so was launched the paradox of our religious history. The national church gave rise to a liberalism that began to corrode the idea of a national church. On one level the alliance of throne and altar protected English liberty from the reactionary Catholic superpowers - but on another level it was itself prohibitive of real liberty.

Why should the king and his bishops stop people from thinking freely? A free state should tolerate a plurality of creeds.

Among the Puritan revolutionaries of the 1640s were the pioneers of secular liberal thought. Cromwell himself wanted a new degree of religious freedom: he wanted disestablishment. The forces of conservatism frustrated this desire. In 1656 the fundamentalist lobby secured the conviction for blasphemy of a maverick Quaker, who dressed up as Jesus. (I have written before about this ancestor of the Jerry Springer controversy.)

After the failure of Cromwell's regime, the old alliance of throne and altar was reinstated. Dissenters from the Anglican monoculture were second-class citizens. Liberty was again held back by establishment. But again we should note the paradox: the state church ensured a higher degree of liberty than was found elsewhere in Europe - especially when France was taken over by militant atheism. (This side of the story will obviously be swept aside by atheist commentators such as AC Grayling, who would have you believe that the cause of liberty was anti-religious.)

In the 19th century the Anglican monoculture began to be thinned out by the progress of liberalism (more thanks is due to Protestant dissenters than to atheists for this). By the early 20th century the established church was a relic of a previous era, for secular liberal principles had more or less triumphed. But the nation still wanted to cling to this relic, to invest it with symbolic importance. It strengthened the monarchy, and provided a reminder of our Christian heritage. There seemed little harm in this piece of constitutional conservatism: if the church was now devoid of real political power, who cared if it retained its established status?

And then everything changed, changed utterly. 9/11 woke us from our cosy constitutional nostalgia. The rise of Islamic extremism called for a total reassessment of the religious landscape. It was suddenly necessary to affirm secular liberalism, and to end the old narrative of Anglican privilege, to affirm the basic principle of liberalism: that all must be treated equally, irrespective of religious belief. The established church was suddenly standing in the way of the renewal of our national identity. It was no longer a pretty relic, but an ugly hindrance.

It was 9/11 that made me realise that I could not condone an established church. I could not subscribe to a religious institution that contravenes the principle of secular liberalism. I found that my fellow Anglicans were complacent and evasive on this issue, and so I had to renounce my Anglicanism.

So I am against the blasphemy law, because I am against the established church. Establishment was necessary in the past; it enabled the growth of a uniquely liberal culture. But that chapter is long over. For many decades it has been an unhelpful relic, preventing us from moving on. What we must insist upon now is that our real national creed is liberalism. This is what unites us, not Anglicanism. This is not an anti-religious declaration (I am a Christian). It is a reassertion of the liberal strain within our national story.

Let all Britons be as religious as they want, as long as their religion falls within the limits of liberalism. This, and this alone, is the way out of the present mess: "Religion within the limits of liberalism alone."