The UK that goes to the polls on 4 July will be the most religiously diverse in election history. Less than half the population of England and Wales describe themselves as ‘Christian’. Most people in Scotland are now non-religious. And there are now more Catholics than Protestants in Northern Ireland, but even here we are seeing more and more people turning away from religion.

This sustained shift in demographics demands a radical response from the state. Entrenched Christian privilege and a laissez-faire approach to social cohesion are ill-suited to a religiously diverse, pluralistic population. That’s why the National Secular Society is calling on the next Government to seriously rethink the role of religion in public and political life.

Here’s what we want to see from the incoming Government.

Secular, inclusive education

Schools play a key role in shaping future generations and fostering a culture of tolerance and understanding. But faith schools build division into the system.

A third of all schools are faith schools. This isn’t sustainable. Already, the prevalence of religious schools means many nonreligious families have no choice other than a faith-based education for their children. This needs to be addressed.

Dividing children by religion leads to ethnic segregation, too. The next Government should commit to phasing out faith-based education to better encourage integration and ensure that every child can receive a secular education.

The calling of the election means that the outgoing Government’s plans to abolish the 50% admissions cap in faith-based academies hit the buffers. The Conservative manifesto revives plans to lift the cap and allow faith schools to apply 100% religious selection, paving the way for yet more discriminatory faith schools.

Worryingly, Labour didn’t oppose plans to scrap the cap and will come under pressure from regressive religious groups to reinstate this policy. They should resist.

Religious selection means faith schools are not only less religiously and ethnically diverse; they admit fewer children from poorer backgrounds, children in care, and children with special educational needs and disabilities. Any government interested in tackling unfairness and discrimination in education can’t afford to ignore the pernicious effects of faith-based admissions. That’s why it is alarming that Keir Starmer has said a Labour Government would be ‘even more supportive of faith schools’ than the current Government.

In all state-funded schools, even the two-thirds without a religious character, daily acts of ‘broadly Christian’ collective worship are required by law. This law, dating back to 1944, has no moral or educational basis. Teachers don’t support it and many schools flout it. Imposing worship in schools undermines children’s freedom of religion or belief and opens the door to evangelism in schools. We will encourage the next Government to support its repeal as soon as possible.

England’s outdated model of religious education dates back to a similar era. Labour’s plans to modernise the school curriculum must not shy away from reforms to liberate this subject area from the inappropriate control of religious interest groups. All children and young people should have an equal entitlement to an objective and critical education about worldviews, citizenship, and ethics.

We will also push for new legislation to boost Ofsted’s powers to crack down on unregistered religious schools operating illegally. The creation of a register of children not in school is a key part of this. During their time in office, the Conservatives made plenty of encouraging noises but ultimately failed to tackle the problem. The required legislation for a register was in the Schools Bill which was ditched by the Sunak Government in 2022. The Tory manifesto promises to revive the register plans.

Labour’s manifesto makes no such commitment, but the Shadow Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, has previously signalled her support for a home-school register to deliver better oversight of home education, which in too many cases leads to children being indoctrinated with fundamentalist dogma in unsafe and illegal schools. She also says she wants ‘every child to receive a world-class education’. To achieve this, the next Government will need to stand up to religious lobbyists who impede attempts to protect the educational rights of children in independent and unregistered religious schools by spuriously claiming that such attempts violate religious freedom.

Free speech

For all its faults, the Conservative Government has shown willingness to protect the right to free expression. It was slow to do so when Islamic fundamentalists descended on a school in Batley in 2021. But after a parent was left pleading for mercy after her son was involved in the scuffing of a Quran in Kettlethorpe last year, the Home Secretary robustly asserted: ‘We do not have blasphemy laws in Great Britain, and must not be complicit in the attempts to impose them on this country.’

A recent recommendation for the creation of guidance to better protect schools and teachers facing blasphemy accusations should be adopted and implemented—as should the recommendation from Sara Khan, the Government’s Independent Advisor on Social Cohesion and Resilience, to create a special unit tasked with responding to ‘flashpoint incidents’ such as blasphemy protests.

The next Government needs to find ways to address anti-Muslim prejudice in ways that don’t impede the freedom to scrutinise and criticise Islamic beliefs, ideas, and practices. It needs to be clear that there is no right not to be offended—and no legal obligation to be reverent towards any religion.

In opposition, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, and the Greens have all shown a worrying disregard for free speech by uncritically adopting a definition of ‘Islamophobia’ proposed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)  for British Muslims. The concept of Islamophobia unhelpfully conflates hatred and discrimination against Muslims with criticism of Islam. This blurring is intentional. The silencing of scrutiny, criticism, mockery, and anything deemed ‘offensive’ has been a long-term aim of Islamist groups, some of which have been too close to Labour for comfort. Labour has promised to reverse the Conservatives’ decision to downgrade the monitoring of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate incidents that fall short of criminality. There are also fears that a Labour Government will seek to incorporate the APPG definition into law.

Hindu groups have jumped on the bandwagon, calling on the next Government to criminalise ‘Hinduphobia’. Any attempt to do so will be met with fierce opposition from secularists and free speech campaigners. Resisting the politics of competitive grievances and sectarianism is something the next Government needs to do if Britain is to avoid becoming increasingly fraught with ethnic and religious tensions.

Towards a secular democracy

It makes no sense for one of the most diverse and secularised nations in the world to retain an established religion.

One manifestation of the Church of England’s established status is the twenty-six unelected Anglican clerics sitting as of right as legislators in the House of Lords. In 2022, Keir Starmer called the Lords ‘undemocratic’ and ‘indefensible’. He launched plans drawn up by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to replace the upper chamber with an elected Assembly of the Nations and Regions. The plans would bring a welcome end to reserved seats for bishops.

Despite originally suggesting the plans be implemented within the first five years of a Labour Government, the party is now promising a much more incremental approach. Replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber remains the goal, but the manifesto commits only to ‘immediate modernisation’ of the Lords by introducing an upper age limit of 80 and scrapping hereditary peers. Secularists will be arguing that any immediate modernisation must also include the removal of the archaic, unfair, and undemocratic bishops’ bench.

But we need to go further. A state religion is incompatible with a democracy in which all citizens of every religion and belief are equal. The announcement of the election unfortunately spelt the end of a bill backed by the National Secular Society to disestablish the Church of England.  But we’ll urge the next Government to engage with this long overdue democratic reform to transform the UK into a fully secular democracy, free from religious privilege.

A new administration will bring fresh hope for other necessary reforms, such as assisted dying, making wedding law fairer for all, outlawing caste discrimination, removing the advancement of religion as a charitable purpose, and effectively protecting children from abuse in religious settings.

Ultimately, Britain needs a new political framework to foster unity and keep religious fundamentalism in check by balancing religious freedom with other fundamental human rights. Secularism offers such a framework.

That’s why we’ll be urging the next Government to adopt secularist principles and policies which move us towards a freer and fairer society, where people can live by the creed they choose but where no particular religion or belief is privileged or imposed.

Related reading

Faith schools: where do the political parties stand? by Stephen Evans

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

Religion and belief in schools: lessons to be learnt, by Russell Sandberg

The case for secularism (or, the church’s new clothes), by Neil Barber

Three years on, the lessons of Batley are yet to be learned, by Jack Rivington

Secularism is a feminist issue, by Megan Manson

Blasphemy and bishops: how secularists are navigating the culture wars, by Emma Park

Bad Religious Education, by Siniša Prijić

Silence of the teachers, by Nath Jnan

The perils of dropping a book, by Noel Yaxley

Britain’s blasphemy heritage, by David Nash

Cancel culture and religious intolerance: ‘Falsely Accused of Islamophobia’, by Steven Greer, by Daniel James Sharp

‘This is not rocket science’: the Disestablishment of the Church of England Bill 2023, interview with Paul Scriven by Emma Park

The post What secularists want from the next UK Government appeared first on The Freethinker.

We all remember Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ in which charlatans convince the vain Emperor that only clever people can see the clothes they make for him. Everyone goes along with this delusion for fear of looking stupid, including the Emperor’s advisers. Until, that is, they parade through the town one day and a little boy shouts, ‘The Emperor has no clothes!’ Thus the spell is broken and the people laugh at their Emperor. Feeling embarrassed, the Emperor continues on with his parade, for now he fears looking foolish.

There is a parallel here with the religious mindset. Religious people often need everyone else to share their beliefs. Why? Are they just so enraptured with their faith that they feel they are doing everyone a favour by proselytising? Or could it be that a part of them knows their beliefs are, shall we say, unscientific at best? Who knows—perhaps these itchy doubts are soothed by the participation of all?

The Bible itself, not atypically, gives mixed messages on this need to ‘witness’ private beliefs. Jesus extolls Simon and Peter to leave behind their nets and become ‘fishers of men’ rather than of fish. And yet Matthew 6:5 says that ‘when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.’  

Which is it? And where do we draw the line in a modern, secular society? Freedom of religion and freedom FROM religion is an important principle for secularists. The right to hold religious beliefs and not to be persecuted or discriminated against is paramount, but sometimes the invocation of ‘religious freedom’ is used as cover by the religious to make special claims and demand special platforms for themselves. Examples of this are endless so forgive my summarising of some of the more egregious examples in modern Britain:

• We have unelected clerics in national and local government (bishops in the House of Lords and, in Scotland, religious nominees on council education committees). Embarrassingly, this makes the UK one of two countries to have unelected clerics in government. The other is Iran.
• Taxpayer-funded faith schools can often select their students using religious criteria and are allowed exemptions from many equality laws, notably in their teaching of sex education.
• There is compulsory religious (Christian) observance even in state schools. (Note that this is very different from Religious Education classes, which teach about, rather than preach, religion.)
• In Scotland under the new Hate Crime Act, religious belief (a choice) is a ‘protected characteristic’ on a par with immutable personal identities like race and sexual orientation.
• We allow the mutilation of children’s genitals for non-medical reasons—so long as the mutilators are convinced that they are carrying out a religious duty. Why is religious custom a protection from activities which would normally be criminal?
• Religion is given automatic stewardship of events like Remembrance Sunday. If important civic events like this are to be chained to an ever-diminishing Christianity, there is a real danger that both will be forgotten together.
• Religions are given privileges in charity law: to become a registered charity (with accompanying tax breaks), ‘the promotion of religion’, however controversial the views in question, is de facto in itself sufficient to qualify.
• The state pays for hospital chaplains. Why should a niche service which only serves a minority be paid for by all?
• Churches are empowered by the state to solemnise marriages and yet many, notably the established Church of England, retain the power to decide the marriages of which they approve.

Here, we must distinguish between secularism and atheism. Atheism is a metaphysical position which holds that there is no good reason to believe in any gods. Secularism is a principle of social administration by which the state is kept separate from religious influence (and vice versa).

For secular campaigners, this is an important line. Secularists campaign for secularism, not for atheism: a distinction which too many still fail to appreciate. Secularists do not seek to impose state atheism. So when the religious argue that ‘you just want to impose your atheism in place of our religion!’, the proper response is to compare this to a noisy neighbour arguing that ‘you just want to impose your silence in place of my noise!’

Last year in Scotland there was an SNP leadership election; the winning candidate would become First Minister. That one of the candidates, Kate Forbes, declared her opposition to marriage equality on account of her religious beliefs flagged up an interesting nuance in the argument about ‘religious freedom’.

Ms Forbes, I assume, did not rise to her political position because of her Christianity so there was no unfair religious privilege involved here. She was entitled therefore to allow her religious views to inform her political views, as she did. Similarly, the public was entitled not to vote for her because of her views. No arguments so far, but the problem arises from the fact that her defenders argued that to reject her candidacy because of her homophobia was to discriminate against her Christian beliefs! This clash of ‘protected characteristics’ has come up before (remember the gay cake). [Update: Forbes is now Deputy First Minister – Ed.]

For various reasons, including (but far from limited to) the need to fill in explanatory gaps and the human impulse to seek agency where there is none, religious belief has been and remains incredibly tenacious. But tenaciousness is not a testament to worthiness, nor does it mean that religion ought to be privileged in public life. It might bring comfort to many, and no secularist would wish to deny this comfort to those who need it, but religious freedom should not grant a seat next to the Prime Minister. 

Like the mythologies of all the many world religions, the Bible might still contain comfort and wisdom for some, but Christian belief has declined precipitously in the UK—and that trend shows no sign of stopping. Historic churches are falling into disrepair and rightly being taken over by the state to be used as premises for all. Christianity no longer represents Britain, and Christians must now act with grace: they must decouple from local and national government and they must relinquish their privileges. In short, they must be content to be treated equally under the law. The same, naturally, applies to all other religions.

Nobody begrudges the faithful their private beliefs but if they expect religious freedom to mean religious privilege, they risk being humiliated by any little boy who shouts, ‘The church has no clothes!’

Further reading

Atheism, secularism, humanism, by Anthony Grayling

Disestablishment and Bishops in the House of Lords

‘This is not rocket science’: the Disestablishment of the Church of England Bill 2023, by Emma Park

Bishops in the Lords: Why are they still there? by Emma Park

Religion in schools

Faith schools: where do the political parties stand? by Stephen Evans

Religion and belief in schools: lessons to be learnt, by Russell Sandberg

The Scottish Hate Crime Act

From Satan to the Hate Monster, by Emma Park

Faith Watch, March 2024, by Daniel James Sharp

Is the spirit of liberty dead in Scotland? by Noel Yaxley

Genital mutilation

Circumcision: the human rights violation that no one wants to talk about, by Alejandro Sanchez

Religion and charity law

Faith and charity law: time for a rethink and Secularism is a feminist issue, by Megan Manson

The post The case for secularism (or, the church’s new clothes) appeared first on The Freethinker.

Know your place, woman!

In February, the National Secular Society (NSS) complained to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator about a sermon given to the good folks of Rosyth Baptist Church, a registered charity, in which the ‘reverend’ Chris Demetriou clamped down on any uppity women who might be among his flock. As the NSS reported: ‘[In the sermon, Demetriou] explains a wife “should submit to her husband’s leadership” because “that’s the Lord’s pattern for us”. She submits to him “out of obedience to Christ”.’ (It should be noted that Demetriou has belatedly—and rather lamely—responded to the NSS’s complaints.)

So, there you have it. From now on, should any women disagree with anything I write in the Freethinker or elsewhere, I shall simply employ Demetriou’s Defence: know your place, woman! [Praise the Lord! – Ed.]

Know your place, infidel!

In a new report for the UK Commission for Countering Extremism, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens warns that ‘Anti-blasphemy activism in the UK is gaining momentum and showing signs of becoming increasingly radicalised.’ Meleagrou-Hitchens has provided a valuable summary and analysis of the threats posed by Islamists to free thought in the UK. It is eye-opening even for those of us who pay close attention to this sort of thing. And, as he astutely notes, it is not just non-Muslims like the Batley schoolteacher who face Islamist intimidation, but ‘heretical’ Muslims too—Ahmadi Muslims in particular, one of whom was murdered in Glasgow in 2016 for his beliefs. At a time when gay MPs have been scared by Islamists into giving up their seats, and when even the Speaker of the House of Commons is more or less openly expressing his fear of Islamist violence against MPs, Meleagrou-Hitchens’s analysis is essential, if also alarming, reading.

From Pakistan with terror

Meleagrou-Hitchens reports that much of this ‘anti-blasphemy activism’ is linked to ‘the emergence of a UK wing of the extremist Pakistani anti-blasphemy political party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP).’ This is unsurprising, given the long and ignoble tradition of Pakistani Islamists’ interference in other countries (the Pakistani government’s support for the Taliban in Afghanistan being the most disgraceful example)—not to mention the equally ignoble tradition of persecuting infidels within Pakistan itself.

Just this month, the BBC reported that a young man has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for the crime of sharing images and videos offensive to Muslims. Despite all this, Pakistan remains a ‘major non-NATO ally’, thus sullying the name of an organisation that, for all its past and present crimes and follies, is now one of the world’s great bulwarks of liberal democracy. So it goes.

A note on ‘extremism’

Michael Gove has produced a new official definition of ‘extremism’ that is both broad and vague, and therefore a threat to free speech. There are many problems with having the state define what constitutes ‘extremism’ in the first place—it is a contested word and concept, one liable to misuse by governments wishing to muzzle the opposition. What business is it of the state to define the limits of acceptable political discourse? What business is it of anyone to do so, unless they want to shut their critics up?

But the Gove definition is particularly dubious. As the NSS put it, it could include ‘those who seek to “undermine” the country’s institutions or values’, a group which would include opponents of the established Church of England and the monarchy (the NSS spoke before the definition was made public on 14 March, but its concerns still apply). On the one hand, then, the UK Commission for Countering Extremism (!) is rightly concerned about Islamic ‘anti-blasphemy activism’; on the other, the government seems to want to erode free speech in this country even further.

By the way, would blasphemy not be considered ‘extremist’ by the votaries of the various faiths? Indeed, it was not so long ago that we had an official blasphemy ban on the law books. The government’s attempts to counter the phenomenon nebulously described as ‘extremism’ is a little too close for my liking to a ban on blasphemy—even on free speech tout court.

The Scottish Hate Monster

Meanwhile, Scotland’s long-delayed and authoritarian Hate Crime Act will come into force on (appropriately) 1 April, with ‘non-crime hate incidents’ also being recorded. Thankfully, a Police Scotland video has resurfaced to put us all in our places. The narrator, in condescending faux chummy Scots, informs us that the ‘Hate Monster’ will grow within us every time we commit a hate crime. The criminal urge can just creep up on you, it seems: one moment you’re a bit peeved and ‘then, before ye know it, ye’ve committed a hate crime.’ A sound basis for prosecution…

Being Scottish, I have long had concerns about the Hate Crime Act. In 2022, I went so far as to say how shameful—and terrifying—it was. And this in one of the heartlands of the Enlightenment, no less! I can easily see how things I have written (including in this very Faith Watch), and things which have appeared in the Freethinker generally, might fall afoul of the Act or be seized upon by some offence-seeking enemy of free thought.

With Michael Gove and Humza Yousaf fighting for our freedoms, who needs tyrants? All I can say is that we at the Freethinker have no intention of being silenced.

Of rum and Ramadan

The month of Muslim fasting and prayer began on 10 March. There is no objection to people freely practising their religion, of course, but let us not forget the closeted apostates and liberal or non-practising Muslims around the world forced into doing so on pain of ostracisation—or worse. In Nigeria, for example, 11 Muslims have already been arrested for the crime of eating during the hours of fasting. That is why it is nice to see the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) planning to have a picnic in defiance of religious bullying this month.

Apparently, 23 March is Atheist Day, which I would normally find very silly except for the happy coincidence that it falls within Ramadan this year and is the date on which CEMB invites everyone to ‘take a shot of Rum for #atheists and #exMuslims across the globe’ using the hashtag #AtheistDayRUMadan. I for one will join in, though probably with whisky rather than rum. Happy Rumadan!

Ramadan and the Uyghurs

While Ramadan can inspire Islamic bullying and tyranny, it is also a good time to remember the Uyghur Muslims, who are facing genocide at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. Their plight has faded from the media as other horrors have risen up to capture our attention, but they should not be forgotten.

For them, Ramadan is a dangerous time indeed. As the Campaign for Uyghurs put it:

‘The blessed month of Ramadan is also synonymous with the extreme torture and hardships perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as it wages a brutal war on Islam amidst the ongoing Uyghur genocide. The CCP ludicrously deems any public expression of the Islamic faith as “religious extremism” [there’s that word again] and outlaws religious practices among the Uyghurs, including fasting, owning a Qur’an, and praying. During Ramadan, Uyghurs are forced to abandon their fasts, consume non-halal (prohibited) products, and engage in other activities that contradict their faith. If they refuse, they are subject to severe punishment.’

So even as I have no sympathy with religious belief and practice, I feel a little softer towards Ramadan these days than I normally would. Of course, the only thing is to be consistent in one’s advocation of liberty: just as nobody should be compelled to practice religion, nobody should be prevented from doing so if they freely choose it.

Alexander and Hephaestion redux

In happier news, one of the most famously gay places in all of history has legalised same-sex marriage. Despite the best efforts of the Greek Orthodox Church, the first-ever gay wedding in the Athens City Hall was conducted on 7 March. Nearly three thousand years after Achilles and Patroclus, and more than two thousand after Alexander and Hephaestion, it’s about time! Perhaps now is a good moment to revisit Mary Renault’s beautiful novel about the latter pair, Fire from Heaven (1969); it is a personal favourite of mine, and its sequels, The Persian Boy (1972) and Funeral Games (1981), are also well worth reading.

I can’t resist an apt quote from Fire from Heaven here. Alexander has just expressed his love for his closest friend: ‘Hephaistion had known for many ages that if a god should offer him one gift in all his lifetime, he would choose this. Joy hit him like a lightning bolt.’

The continued decay of subcontinental (and global) secularism

In last month’s Faith Watch, I wrote of Narendra Modi’s ‘assault on India’s rich secularist history’. Well, here we are again. Less than two months after Modi opened a new temple to Ram in Ayodhya, his government has announced that it is set to fulfil another Hindu nationalist dream by enacting the anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which was passed in 2019. Even the name of the act sounds slightly sinister.

As the writer and Modi critic Mukul Kesavan wrote in 2019, when the act was just a bill, ‘Couched in the language of refuge and seemingly directed at foreigners, the CAB’s main purpose is the de-legitimization of Muslim citizenship.’ He went on to describe it as one of ‘the greatest institutional threats to Indian democracy today.’

With Modi and his party up for re-election later this year, it is no wonder they are so flagrantly pandering to their Hindu nationalist base. Modi is likely to win a third term, so for how much longer will India be able to retain the title of the world’s largest secular democracy? Meanwhile, with Donald Trump, darling of the Christian nationalists, tying with and sometimes even surpassing Joe Biden in the polls, the world’s oldest secular democracy might also be preparing to self-immolate this year.

Perhaps nations like India and the US have forgotten the value of secularism. They should look to Iran, where a poll run by the state found a huge majority in favour of secular government. And, in a rebuke to all those who so vacuously celebrated World Hijab Day on 1 February, it also found that most Iranians are opposed to the mandatory hijab.

Should India and the US choose to abandon their hard-won secular democracies, they will miss them dearly—and they will have to fight for them all over again. At least the ideals of secular democracy will survive among those who most appreciate its worth.

Yet more papal piffle

The above words could be applied to almost everything every pope has ever said, including Pope Francis’s recent intervention wherein he might as well have told the Ukrainians to surrender to annihilation (having forgotten his church’s historical complicity with fascism, Francis has now reportedly joined Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping in congratulating Putin on his recent election victory), but I have in mind a book released earlier this year: The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger. I read (though ‘endured’ might be a better word) this book, intending to review it more fully, but it is so bad that it is not worth the effort. Instead, I shall limit myself to a few reflections.

First, why is a respected university press publishing a book almost entirely composed of theological waffle written mostly by committed theological wafflers? They may as well publish a Cambridge Companion to Scientology written by L. Ron Hubbard fans. If Catholics (or Scientologists) want to publish this stuff, they are free to do so – and they certainly have the resources with which to do it. And there is no reasonable objection to the publication of historical-analytical volumes on religion and theology.

But a serious academic press printing what amounts to mumbo-jumbo? I look forward to a future Cambridge Companion to John Frum Worship consisting entirely of pseudo-sophisticated analysis by Melanesian acolytes of the eponymous cargo cult. (Again, anthropological study is an entirely different thing.)

The Ratzinger book opens breathlessly, with the editors placing their subject alongside Aristotle and Shakespeare in the depth of his influence (in his case, on Catholic theology rather than philosophy and literature). He is also compared with Augustine and Aquinas (of course), but at least that pair had the excuse of living in periods of relative ignorance. The editors and contributors clearly think of Ratzinger as a great and humane scholar. A useful tonic to this hero worship is Daniel Gawthrop’s 2013 book The Trial of Pope Benedict, which (so far as I am concerned, anyway) exposes Ratzinger as the nasty, authoritarian, reactionary old bigot and bully that he was.

Here is an example of theo-waffle from Joseph Ratzinger, as quoted by a contributor to the Companion, so that the reader can judge for him- or herself this towering intellect:

‘The truth cannot unfold except in an otherness open to God, who wishes to reveal his own otherness in and through my human brothers and sisters. Hence it is not fitting to state in an exclusive way: “I possess the truth.” The truth is not possessed by anyone; it is always a gift which calls us to undertake a journey of ever closer assimilation to truth… truth is disclosed only in an encounter of love.’

As with so much theology, this babble is reminiscent of the worst stylings of the postmodernists. It is an irony that conservative theologians like Ratzinger, who abhor postmodernism and the like, sound so much like them—and carry about as much intellectual weight, assuming as they do all the things that they need, and have signally failed, to prove before they even begin and building an absurd and abstruse system on top of those assumptions. Change a few words here and there, and the most sophisticated Christian theology can be rendered into a postmodernist, or even a cargo cult, tract. (And it is beyond me how the above quote can be squared with another contributor’s statement that ‘the Catholic Church, for Ratzinger, is…the Spirit-filled infallible authority…’)

Here is another example, this time from one of the contributors, whose simultaneous pomposity and meaninglessness might make even Jacques Derrida scoff: ‘[F]or Ratzinger, communion is the fundamental figure of reality, created and uncreated, and historically mediated relationality is thus disclosive of the deepest meaning of being.’ Thus disclosive of the deepest meaning of being—magnificent.

According to Ratzinger and his Cambridge companions, Christianity is a pre-eminently and uniquely rational religion. Curious, then, that even its most ‘sophisticated’ defenders fall back on such fatuous language (all the better to befuddle, I suppose). There is also the awkward fact that Ratzinger himself, as discussed in the book, admitted that silly doctrines such as the Trinity can only be accepted on the basis of revelation—after all, they do not do very well under rational scrutiny. And what of the plain superstition that is literal transubstantiation? Or intercessory prayer?

Worst of all, the Companion barely deals with the thousands of child rapes that Ratzinger was arguably morally culpable for. When it does, it is to excuse him and to warp the record to portray him as a saviour rather than an enabler. On moral as well as intellectual grounds, then, this book is almost as rancid as its subject.

I cannot think of an excuse for Cambridge University Press here. Would they take an obvious work of fiction, complete with its own metaphysics and theology and imagined history, and allow deluded people who believe that the fiction is real to write so sincerely about it?

There is a Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, but, so far as I can tell, none of its contributors believes in Aslan or Gandalf or treats fantasy as reality rather than literature—and it now strikes me that the papal piffle that fills the pages of the Ratzinger companion would be much more at home in the back-end of some anthology of third-rate fantasy.

Further reading:

Secularism, women’s rights, and religious charities

Secularism is a feminist issue, by Megan Manson

Blasphemy and free speech in the UK

Blasphemy and bishops: how secularists are navigating the culture wars, by Emma Park

Free speech in Britain: a losing battle?

Blasphemy Month at the Freethinker

Secularism and the struggle for free speech, by Stephen Evans

Britain’s blasphemy heritage, by David Nash

On trial for blasphemy: the Freethinker’s first editor and offensive cartoons, by Bob Forder

Freethought in Pakistan

Coerced faith: the battle against forced conversions in Pakistan’s Dalit community, by Shaukat Korai

Breaking the silence: Pakistani ex-Muslims find a voice on social media, by Tehreem Azeem

From religious orthodoxy to free thought, by Tehreem Azeem

Indian secularism and Hindu nationalism

Religion and the decline of freethought in South Asia, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

‘We need to move from identity politics to a politics of solidarity’ – interview with Pragna Patel

Campaign ‘to unite India and save its secular soul’, by Puja Bhattacharjee

The post Faith Watch, March 2024 appeared first on The Freethinker.

In 1877, a woman was put on trial for publishing what the prosecutor called a ‘dirty, filthy book’.

The book was a manual on rudimentary contraception, called Fruits of Philosophy. And the woman was Annie Besant – feminist, freethinker and vice-president of the National Secular Society. She and Charles Bradlaugh, the founder and president of the NSS, were both prosecuted for obscenity over this ‘dirty, filthy book’.

Besant’s story is extraordinary. In a highly patriarchal, highly Christian society, she fought fearlessly for the right of couples in Victorian England’s desperately poor and overcrowded slums to access information which would allow them to control their family planning. Alongside that, she fought for the right to free speech, and the right of women to control their bodies. 

Incredibly, Besant’s ‘dirty, filthy book’ is still upsetting religious fundamentalists even today, nearly 150 years later.

Last November, the NSS held a history talk in London all about Victorian birth control, including the fight to publish Fruits of Philosophy. To our astonishment, our talk was picketed by an anti-abortion Christian group. This was particularly bizarre; the manual argued one of the main aims of contraception was to reduce abortion. But when questioned, the protestors revealed that their group is not just against abortion – they are against all forms of birth control.

While it was somewhat amusing that an anti-abortion group would embarrass itself by protesting against this small and rather tame history talk, it was also disturbing. The incident revealed the extent to which the religiously-motivated desire to control women’s bodies, women’s choices and women’s participation in society is still alive in Britain.

Secularism is a feminist issue. This was true at the time of Besant’s trial, and it is true today, worldwide.

The 2023 United Nations Gender Social Norms index found that there has been no improvement in worldwide biases against women in the last decade. It also found that gender hierarchies in religious practices can strongly influence behaviours and attitudes.

It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that in recent years we have seen some dramatic and devastating leaps backward – driven, in part, by fundamentalist religion.

In 2021, the Taliban re-took Afghanistan and immediately set about imposing its fundamentalist Islamic ideology on women and girls. Women there are now banned from most public places. To visit the few places where they are permitted outside their homes, they must now be clad in a burqa. Girls cannot attend school from over the age of 11.

Male doctors have been banned from treating female patients, a policy with deadly implications. Naturally, the Taliban ordered pharmacies to clear their stocks of contraception. Is it any wonder that since the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan has seen a surge in women attempting suicide?

Then there is Iran. Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the theocratic Iranian state has required all women and girls over the age of nine to wear hijab in public. Women who break this law are often subject to brutal punishment, as horrifically demonstrated in 2022 when Mahsa Amini died at the hands of Iran’s notorious ‘morality police’. She had been arrested for failing to wear hijab correctly. Witnesses saw her being brutally tortured in the back of a police van. She died days later. She was 22 years old.

Mahsa Amini’s death sparked huge waves of protest in Iran, which were described as the biggest challenge to the government since the Islamic Revolution. The regime’s response was to double down on its laws, rather than make any meaningful change.

But perhaps it is a matter of time. Consistent surveys find that most Iranians oppose mandatory hijab and, on top of this, support a secular state. Protests may have died down, but the mood of resistance has not been extinguished. As one banner displayed during international protests against Iran said: ‘To the world leaders. Iranian women do not need you to save them. They only need you to stop saving their murderers.’

So how are leaders in the UK responding to the brutal oppression and killing of women in Iran, Afghanistan and other countries where religion prescribes patriarchy and misogyny?

Well, the suffering of women forced to wear hijab did not stop UK schools, universities, and even the Home Office this year observing ‘World Hijab Day’ – an event which explicitly celebrates the veiling of women.

And it did not stop Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council last year approving a 16-foot steel statue of a veiled woman for a park in Smethwick, Birmingham. The statue, called ‘The Strength of the Hijab’, was revealed to the public just days before the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death. It is as if it was timed as an act of triumph against Iran’s courageous women who dare to show their hair; a tribute to the morality police.

Much of British authorities’ enthusiasm for the hijab comes from a concern to appear ‘respectful’ of minority groups. But an unwillingness to think critically about religious practices which are at odds with democratic values spells disaster for women’s rights. It also does Muslims a disservice by erasing debate and dissent from within that community.

This attitude is coupled with a fear of challenging religion – a fear which is, sadly, quite rational. There are now too many examples of people being accused of bigotry, losing their jobs, being threatened and even being physically attacked for questioning, criticising or poking fun at religion.

And it is something that schools with concerns about hijab have had to face. In 2017, St Stephen’s Primary School in east London told parents that girls under eight should not be sent to school in hijab, because of concerns about integration and the promotion of ideologies which are incompatible with British values. This sparked a furious backlash from Islamist fundamentalists, who bombarded school leaders with emails, many of which were threatening. As a result, the school backed down on its policy.

Decision-makers in the UK still operate under the belief that religion is a wholly positive force that should be respected, accommodated and showcased, not something to be questioned. This is particularly evident in the charity sector.

Incredibly, there are registered charities promoting the idea that husbands can dominate and even beat their wives, and that women who dress ‘sexily’ (for example, by wearing trousers) are to blame for rape. We have even seen charities signposting material which says the torturous and illegal practice of female genital mutilation has benefits, including reducing ‘excessive sensitivity of the clitoris’ which is ‘very annoying to the husband, especially at the time of intercourse’.

These charities do this in the name of religion. ‘The advancement of religion’ is a recognised charitable purpose in law. [On the problems with the ‘advancement of religion’ provision, see further in the Freethinker and New Humanist – Ed.]

As long as a charity is registered under this purpose, it seems to have carte blanche to say just about anything. Charities are meant to provide a public benefit in return for the generous tax breaks and Gift Aid they get. But it is difficult to see how promoting misogyny benefits the public – at least the female half of the public.

The fact that the state is willing to forgive misogyny when it is cloaked in religion reveals just how normalised it is. And what else could we expect, when the UK’s own state religion, the established Church of England, is itself drenched in sexism.

It is quite incredible that in the 21st century, 500 Anglican churches ban female priests. The Church has said this is because it is ‘committed to enabling’ those who are ‘unable to receive the ministry of women bishops or priests’ to ‘flourish’.

The established Church’s commitment to helping chauvinists within their ranks ‘flourish’ tacitly implies that there is something so subversive about women with authority that it is reasonable for men to reject them.

Let us not forget that as the established church, the C of E is part of our state. The lines between theology and politics are blurred when it comes to a state church. This is institutionalised, structural sexism at the highest level.

Religiously sanctioned notions that women exist to serve men translate into decision making which limits women’s opportunities, and feed into relationships which are coercive, controlling and abusive.

While women’s rights in the UK have inarguably progressed, women are still under-represented in positions of power and overrepresented as victims of domestic violence. A meagre seven per cent of FTSE 100 companies had female CEOs in 2023. Only 35 per cent of members of the House of Commons and 29 per cent of the Lords are female. According to Refuge, one in four women in England and Wales will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime, two women a week are killed by a current or former partner, and domestic abuse drives three women a week to suicide. Ninety-three per cent of defendants in domestic abuse cases are male while 84 per cent of victims are female.

If Annie Besant were alive today, what would she think? 

While she would no doubt welcome the many successes achieved by feminists and secularists in improving equality for women, I think she would also be dismayed and bewildered at the numerous and complex threats posed to women by fundamentalist religion today.

Progress on women’s rights can only go so far if we only treat the symptoms of misogyny, and not the causes. And one of the most important causes is patriarchal religion, which is not only tolerated by the British state, but nurtured, protected and endorsed.

That is why, to protect the rights of women and girls worldwide, we must not allow religion to pull the veil over our eyes when it comes to injustice, discrimination and oppression.

We must be free to look religion in the eye, to challenge it, and to criticise it in the strongest terms, without fear of punishment by society or the state.

We must stop letting religious extremists exploit our good intentions to promote pluralism and inclusivity by portraying symbols of misogynistic oppression as symbols of social justice.

And we must separate church and state to ensure women’s rights are never subordinated to religious agendas.

The National Secular Society is holding a free online talk on April 10^th with Michael Meyer, the author of a new biography on Annie Besant. More information and booking here.

The post Secularism is a feminist issue appeared first on The Freethinker.

Introduction

On the afternoon of Wednesday 6th December 2023, Paul Scriven, a Liberal Democrat peer, introduced his private member’s bill, the Disestablishment of the Church of England Bill, in the House of Lords, after it had been selected by ballot.

In the UK Parliament, the first reading of a bill is usually a mere formality, with the meat of the debate being reserved for the second reading – which may happen a few months later, if there is time and circumstances do not intervene.

When Lord Scriven, however, ‘beg[ged] to introduce a bill to disestablish the Church of England, to make provision for the protection of freedom of religion or belief, and for connected purposes,’ there were noises of dissent halfway through – apparently from the Conservative government’s side.

And when the Lord Speaker, Lord McFall of Alcluith, asked the House whether they were ‘content’ to let the bill be read a first time, there was vociferous opposition, to the point where he initially responded that the ‘not contents’ had it, before changing his mind. The full drama can be seen (and heard) in the video clip linked in Lord Scriven’s tweet below.

A brief history of (dis)establishment

The origin of the establishment of the Church of England was Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy in 1534. This made him the ‘Supreme Head of the Church of England’ and required that his subjects swear an oath of loyalty recognising his marriage to his second wife, Anne Boleyn, after he had unilaterally decided to cancel his marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

The Act of Supremacy was repealed under Henry VIII’s Catholic daughter when she became Mary I, but then re-enacted in 1558 under Elizabeth I. Section VIII, entitled ‘All Spiritual Jurisdiction united to the Crown,’ is still in force today.

The last time a bill was introduced into Parliament that would have disestablished the Church was in 1991, in Tony Benn’s Commonwealth of Britain Bill, which would also have abolished the House of Lords altogether and removed the constitutional role of the monarchy. However, the bill’s second reading was repeatedly deferred and there was never a full debate.

In January 2020, another Liberal Democrat peer, Dick Taverne, introduced a private member’s bill on one aspect of disestablishment: the House of Lords (Removal of Bishops) Bill. This passed its first reading, but fell by the wayside during the pandemic.

Other points in recent history at which disestablishment or the removal of the bishops from the Lords was considered are recorded in a paper on ‘The relationship between church and state in the United Kingdom’, published by the House of Commons Library in September.

The 2018 debate

Disestablishment was briefly debated in the House of Lords on 28 November 2018, under Elizabeth II. A Labour peer, Lord Berkeley, asked the Conservative government ‘what assessment they have made of the case for the disestablishment of the Church of England.’ The laconic answer, from Lord Young of Cookham, was, ‘My Lords, none.’

Lord Berkeley pointed out that attendance at the Church of England was falling rapidly, and that ‘half of British people have no religion’. He therefore proposed that it would be time for Charles, when he became king, ‘to embrace this secular state’ and swear an appropriately non-religious oath. This led to a discussion about the status of the Church of England and constitutional reform.

For anyone who thinks that the bishops in the Lords are a mere relic, their entrenched place in the establishment can be illustrated by a few quotations from this debate. Lord Young argued that the bishops in the Lords ‘add a spiritual dimension to our discussions. They speak with a moral authority that escapes most of us…The bishops seek to heal religious conflict and promote religious tolerance and inclusiveness.’ In a word, the government’s policy was ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’. Without a trace of self-interest, the Lord Bishop of Worcester proposed that ‘the established Church is a significant force for good.’

Lord Scriven’s Bill

About 24 hours before the Disestablishment Bill was introduced, I interviewed Paul Scriven over a cup of tea in the House of Lords. An edited version of the interview is below. We discuss his motivations for bringing the bill, even though it is almost certainly doomed to fail, and why he is bringing it now, of all times. We also look at the relationship of the Church to the monarchy and of disestablishment to wider constitutional reform; and whether the bishops or other religious leaders really have any claim to moral authority.

~ Emma Park, Editor

Interview

Freethinker: How did you come to introduce this bill?

Paul Scriven: A little bit by accident. I entered the Lords reluctantly, as I do not agree with an unelected second house. In 2014, Nick Clegg wanted to put a number of peers in, like me, who believed that when the time came, we would vote for a reformed elected chamber. I am quite a nonconformist by background. I grew up on a council estate in Huddersfield and have always rallied against authority. When I have seen unfairness, I have fought it. Then Nick finally beat me down and got me into this place. Now that I am here, I realise it is a place where you can champion causes which are important to improve either individual lives or the state of the nation or internationally.

I was an agnostic when I came in. I have sat and watched the Bishops’ Bench for the last nearly ten years, and their views on social matters have made me a confirmed atheist. It is quite clear they are way behind the curve on where the vast majority of Britons are, whether on same-sex marriage or women or a number of issues. If that is Christianity in action from the Church of England perspective, then I do not want anything to do with it. They do not represent modern Britain – that was clear from the 2021 census.

Has being gay influenced your perspective on this issue?

I find some churches’ views on being gay baffling. Others are clearly more progressive. It is hurtful at times having to hear that you are not equal, even though they say that God loves you – and then it is quite clear that they do not like my kind of love. That is wretched. It has not driven me to my position. I just think that, on a wider number of issues, listening to the bishops has made me not want to be associated with what I see as predominantly white old men arguing about how to keep an institution together and very conservative in their views.

I also find it absolutely bewildering that in the UK Parliament, there is only one institution that is guaranteed places, and that is the 26 Anglican bishops who sit in the House of Lords. In 2023, how on earth does a Church which has 0.9% of the population [in England] in regular attendance at a Sunday service have an automatic right to be in Parliament, determine laws and have influence and power beyond its relevance to most people?

More broadly, why is it that the Church of England has so much influence, power and a special status in our society, when those who want to practise any faith or belief should have equality? The time now is ripe for disestablishment – especially when you consider what a diverse country we are, in terms not just of our faith, but of our cultures and beliefs. It seems ridiculous that one religious denomination should have a special status that goes back to a king wanting a divorce in the 1500s.

In terms of tactics, the next general election has to take place no later than January 2025. Did you ever consider leaving the bill until the next government?

Very few private member’s bills actually become law. In all honesty, I think it is more likely that snow will fall in hell than that my bill will get through this time. It is important, though, to raise the issue, because of the diversity of beliefs and faiths revealed by the 2021 census. I could stay quiet and hope for the next government to have a different view, which I think highly unlikely. It will have a large legislative programme and probably the disestablishment of the Church of England will not be among its priorities.

If the bill falls, I can file it again at the start of the next Parliament. I am looking at this in the longer term. During the debate in the second reading, I will be able to listen to people’s objections and amend the bill, which will hopefully strengthen it next time round.

Is the bill officially supported by the Liberal Democrats?

No, as a private member’s bill it is not. It is not an issue which I discussed with my party first. I am sure that as the debate happens and as the bill progresses, there will be cross-party support from all over the House. My guess is that there will also be opposition from people of different parties too.

How did the drafting process work?

I had been in touch with the National Secular Society (NSS) over a number of issues, and I just said to them, I think now is the time to introduce the private member’s bill for disestablishment. We had a discussion and they told me what was important to them. I also had discussions with Humanists UK (HUK). There were a number of issues which both organisations wanted in the bill. To actually draft the bill in appropriate parliamentary language, I worked with the House of Lords Private Bill Office.

Apart from the NSS and HUK, did you work with any other organisations on the bill?

Those were the two organisations that reached out and spoke to me. I have had quite a lot of emails from people in the Church of England supporting disestablishment. They have told me that, for them, there is a real feeling that disestablishment could be liberating. They would no longer be seen as an organ of the state, and would be able to start doing things based on their true mission, which were not either weakened or diluted by their Church’s established status.

Have you asked the bishops for their point of view?

I talked to the Bishop of Sheffield briefly about it. They will probably disagree. And when we get to the second reading, they will have arguments as to why they want to keep their privileged status and their seats in Parliament. However, they do not come from a position of neutrality. It will be interesting to see if they all have the same view.

Is your argument for disestablishment premised on the state of the Church of England now, or is it a matter of principle, or both?

It is a matter of principle. No faith or belief should have a special status. People should be able to pursue their belief or religion equally.

One possibility sometimes mooted by supporters of religion is that, instead of simply having 26 bishops, the major religions and Christian denominations in the UK could all have allocated seats. What would you say to this?

Religions do not have a monopoly on morals, they do not have a monopoly on insight. You only have to look at some of the child abuse scandals in the Church of England and how they were covered up to realise that. If an individual within a church or a belief system has such significant impact that they can help influence the House of Lords in its present form, then they should by all means be individually nominated. But it should not be the very fact that they are an office-holder or attached to a particular religion.

One common view about the bishops in the Lords is that, well, they are quite nice, and are probably overall a good rather than a bad influence on legislation. How would you respond to that?

They are an influence. It is not for me to determine whether they are good or bad. They have a vested interest to ensure that they can use this place to ingrain their privileged position. On a number of occasions, I have been on the same side of the argument as the bishops, such as in the Illegal Migration Bill. But the fact that they are bishops does not mean that they should automatically be here and able to make those points.

Is there an analogy between bishops and hereditary peers, in terms of their lack of democratic legitimacy?

Being a hereditary peer depends on which womb you came out of. But even the hereditary peers in the Lords are now elected before they get here, unlike the bishops, who are plonked in because of the church they are in.

The peers are chosen by the world’s smallest electorate…

Yes. But the bishops come because they decided to study a certain theological doctrine and then they have climbed the greasy pole within a particular church. It is very odd to me.

What about the technicalities of disestablishment? I have heard some Anglicans saying that they support disestablishment in theory, but in practice it would simply be too difficult to disentangle all the knots that bind Church and State.

Isn’t that interesting? What they are really doing is arguing that they have got their fingers and their claws in so many parts of our constitution that it would be too difficult to touch it. On that argument, quite a lot of legislation would never get done.

My bill is not specific about the technicalities. It asks that, within six months of its being passed, a committee is set up for a year to look at the legal implications of what needs to happen to disestablish the Church of England. The committee would be made up of relevant legal practitioners and people who are specialists in the constitution and in law to do with the Church of England. A report then goes to the Secretary of State, and within six months of receiving that report, the Secretary of State has to produce a detailed legal bill on disestablishment. I am not saying this is going to be easy. There are going to be some very difficult conundrums in there, for example over the Act of Union.

Difficulty should not be a reason for not legislating, but for doing it carefully, with good legal minds and an appropriate timescale.

In terms of the implications of disestablishment, the Church of England owns a lot of property. What do you say should happen to it?

I do not want to get into a big argument about this. My bill says that property will go to the Church’s General Synod. And the sovereign will no longer have the title ‘Defender of the Faith’.

Talking of the monarchy, is getting rid of it a logical next step after disestablishment?

No, that does not automatically follow. There are many functioning constitutional monarchies in Europe where the monarch is not head of the church. So one does not follow from the other. Personally, I am not a republican. I believe in a European-style constitutional monarchy.

What sort of a coronation would you envisage post-disestablishment?

A non-religious one, which would crown the monarch as the constitutional monarch of the country, not as the head of a particular faith. It could be quite interesting to develop a new coronation.

Presumably the monarch would no longer be obliged to be Anglican?

Yes. This is not rocket science. Religion would come out of the coronation, and the monarch would no longer be the ultimate boss of the Church of England.

What about other religions with a presence in Parliament? As things stand, do they have much influence behind the scenes?

Not as much as the established church. There are people of faith – Christian, Muslim, Sikh – or of no faith, like the Humanists, who try to exert influence on legislation. But the difference is that it is equal and they have to win the argument. They have not got an ingrained position. I would not want to stop that. One of the purposes of my bill is to defend people’s right to have faith and non-belief, and to be able to pursue that equally.

One of the arguments that will get thrown about is that I am anti-religious. What I actually want to do is level the playing field between the influence of all faiths and beliefs.

Taking a step back, how far are we from full-scale House of Lords reform?

It is going to be a long journey. At the age of 48, I came here naïvely thinking I would be a turkey voting for Christmas. I am now 57, and I have worked out since being here that the evolution of the British system is not always as fast as you want it to be. To reform the House of Lords would take a lot of effort and heartache. I do not think Labour will do it in their first term, but if they get in for a second term, then there may be some significant reform. My guess is that it will be in steps rather than a big leap, which is the way that the British have tended to go for their revolutions for many centuries now. The removal of the hereditary peers and the bishops might be one of the first possible reforms in terms of moving to a democratically elected chamber eventually. Other reforms might include lowering the size of the House, fixing a retirement age for peers, and changing the way that peers are selected.

As you say, disestablishment may not be high on a Labour government’s list of reforms. Indeed, why should it be high on anyone’s agenda, when we have so many other problems in the UK to deal with?

Things that affect people’s lives every day, such as the health service, the economy, housing, safety, are always going to be there. I am not suggesting for one moment that the disestablishment of the Church of England should take priority over the health service, for instance. What my bill intends to do is to raise awareness so that when the time is right and government space becomes available, there will be public understanding and the pressure to deliver disestablishment. Eventually, the public will say, ‘Now is the time for change.’

And when will ‘eventually’ be?

I cannot give you an answer. We are getting the ball rolling; maybe it will happen in my lifetime, maybe it won’t. But we shall keep pushing for it. And hopefully it will become such a public discussion that, one day, the government will make time for it.

The post ‘This is not rocket science’: the Disestablishment of the Church of England Bill 2023 appeared first on The Freethinker.

In the last fortnight, the National Secular Society participated in two quite different discussion events in London. Both events contributed to the debate on how and why Britain should continue its movement towards greater secularisation, why religious privilege should be abolished, and the extent to which free speech should be a fundamental democratic principle.

On Wednesday 10th May, the Free Speech Union hosted FSU In-Depth: Blasphemy law by the back door, in central London. The speakers included the NSS’s CEO, Stephen Evans. He was joined by Dr Rakib Ehsan, author of Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong about Ethnic Minorities; Emma Webb, director of the UK branch of the Common Sense Society and a member of the National Conservatism conference committee; and Ben Jones, the deputy director of the FSU cases team, who has recently completed a PhD on British ex-Muslims. The meeting was chaired by the FSU’s founder and director, Toby Young.

On Wednesday 17th May, the NSS hosted Future of church and state in Committee Room 5 of the Houses of Parliament. Stephen Evans chaired a disparate panel consisting of the veteran Labour journalist and long-term secularist Polly Toynbee; Martyn Percy, former Dean of Christ Church, Oxford; Tommy Sheppard, a Scottish National Party MP and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group; and Jayne Ozanne, a gay evangelical Christian activist.

In the ‘culture wars’ which are so fracturing British society at present, the NSS occupies a finely balanced position.

On the one hand, the society has been a strong critic of the imposition of de facto blasphemy laws by religious groups in the UK. Opposition to blasphemy laws and the free criticism of religion, as Evans observed at the FSU meeting, have long been key aspects of secularism. This goes right back to 1883, when GW Foote, the second president of the NSS and first editor of the Freethinker, was imprisoned for publishing cartoons that were blasphemous of Christianity. Secularists, from a political perspective, have always resisted the authority adopted by religious institutions and their power to impose their doctrines on wider society.

In recent years, probably dating back to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, the main drive to rein in free speech about religion in the UK has come not from Christians, as in the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, but from hardline Muslim organisations and leaders. This was made clear in the Batley Grammar School case, the Jesus and Mo cartoon mug case, and, earlier this year, the Wakefield Koran-scuffing case. The NSS has certainly been vocal in criticising the readiness of secular authorities, including schools and the police, to sacrifice the teacher who showed a cartoon of Mohammed in class, or the student who dropped a Koran, to the wrath of religious demagogues.

As Evans also pointed out, the NSS and the FSU – along with other organisations, including Humanists UK – have criticised the definition of ‘Islamophobia’ that was proposed by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims and subsequently adopted by Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, and all of Scotland’s political parties. According to this definition, ‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.’ But this invocation of racism enables it to be used as a way of silencing people who criticise Islam, said Evans: as Charles Bradlaugh, founder of the NSS, put it, ‘without free speech, no search for truth is possible.’

The problem is with what Young, who makes no secret of his right-wing sympathies, calls the ‘woke’ left – many of whom, particularly at educational and arts institutions, seem to have fallen over themselves to adopt this muddled concept. When the law academic Steven Greer was accused of Islamophobia by the Bristol Islamic Society – falsely, as was later proven – it was his own progressive colleagues, as well as the university authorities, who were involved in his ostracism and effective ‘cancellation’.

On the other hand, Rakib Ehsan argued that freedom of expression was the ‘friend’ of socially conservative minorities, such as the Muslim community in which he had grown up. He explained that one of the reasons he supported free speech was that he wanted to be able to criticise the teaching of some forms of sex and relationships education at his children’s school. In doing so, he accepted that the right to criticise extends to everyone. (Readers may recall the controversy surrounding the protests by conservative Muslim parents in Birmingham in 2019 against the teaching of LGBT relationships at a primary school.)

George Orwell, one of the greatest of free speech advocates and a socialist, declared, ‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ The FSU has duly adopted this as one of its slogans. In ironic contrast, the Guardian seems of late to have become ambivalent about Orwell’s legacy, including these very words.

Such points of tension raise fundamental questions. If there should be free speech about religion, should there also be free speech about other equally emotive subjects, such as race or transgender debates? Where is the line to be drawn, in any of these cases, between criticising ideas and criticising persons? How far should either notions of offensiveness, or parents’ rigid views about any subject, influence what is taught in schools?

The attitude of the FSU was clear: ‘free speech’ simpliciter should be added to the list of ‘British values’ that are affixed to the classroom wall in schools across the country. At a time when many in the Conservative party are trying to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights, the ‘British values’ list almost seems to have become a mini-manifesto for the Bill. Those on the left may see the whole idea of ‘British values’ as a distasteful form of nationalism, as well as overly authoritarian. And yet it was the left-leaning and nationalistic SNP that introduced Scotland’s Hate Crime Act 2021, which restricts speech about a range of protected characteristics, including, to a lesser extent, religion.

Among Britain’s neighbours, free speech on religion and other matters is currently under threat. As Young pointed out, the Criminal Justice Bill 2022, currently passing through the Irish Parliament, looks like an attempt to reintroduce blasphemy offences into a country that has only just formally abolished them. The Bill would criminalise behaviour that is ‘likely to incite violence or hatred’ against a person or group on account of protected characteristics, including religion, provided such behaviour is done either with intent to incite violence or with recklessness as to whether violence is incited. This seems like a dangerously low bar. The European Union is also considering whether to extend ‘the list of EU crimes to hate speech and hate crime’, which may have a similar effect.

For its part, the FSU is in turbulent waters: although it claims to be a ‘non-partisan, mass-membership public interest body’, its director’s sympathies make it all the easier for progressives simply to dismiss it as a right-wing organisation. On the same day that the NSS was meeting to discuss church and state, Young gave a talk to the National Conservatism conference entitled ‘A Dispatch from the Woke Wars’ – a move unlikely to endear him to the left.

Progressives who have endorsed the Islamophobia definition would doubtless claim that criticism of Islam by an organisation like the FSU can all too easily slip into xenophobia and hatred of Muslims and immigrants generally. This is an area fraught with controversy. It certainly increases the delicacy of the NSS’s position, as the representative of ‘secular liberals’ who support free speech on religion but categorically oppose what the NSS describes as ‘anti-Muslim bigotry’.

National Conservatism emphasises ‘God and public religion’; the list of talks at its conference included such titles as ‘Faith, Family, Flag, Freedom’. Its supporters would doubtless not have approved of many of the secularist campaign aims discussed by Stephen Evans, Polly Toynbee et al.; indeed, the week before, Young had interrogated Evans as to whether the NSS’s opposition to state-funded faith schools was not just ‘dogmatic secularism’. The proposals mooted by the panel included removing the bishops from the House of Lords, disestablishing the Church of England, abolishing prayers at the beginning of Parliamentary sittings, and removing state funding from faith schools. Abolishing the monarchy was mentioned, though the NSS itself does not have a position on this issue.

Although all the speakers were broadly secularist, there were differences of emphasis, and a few tensions, between the religious and non-religious stances represented.

On the non-religious side, Tommy Sheppard focused on the removal of bishops from the House of Lords and the replacement of Parliamentary prayers, which he said ‘offends against our sense of democracy’, with a ‘secular moment of reflection’. Polly Toynbee, for her part, poked fun at the anachronistic moments in the coronation, including the ‘Wizard of Oz’ anointment behind a screen. She read out the oaths which the king swore to ‘maintain the laws of God’ and the ‘Protestant reform religion’, and described the event as a ‘shocking wake-up moment’ for those who had not expected so much religion to be involved. She also highlighted the continued opposition to assisted dying legislation by bishops and other religious representatives.

There was something of the sermon in Martyn Percy’s thoughtful speech, in which he compared the Church of England to a ‘overcrowded vestry cupboard’. He focused on the Church’s numerous involvements in child sexual abuse scandals and safeguarding failures in recent years, right up to the present. He also made the point that the Church has its own system of canon law which still ‘trumps common law’. The solution, he said, quoting Michael Caine, was to ‘blow the bloody doors off’ and clean it out from top to bottom.

Jayne Ozanne said that she was not opposed to religious leaders in the House of Lords, as long as they were required to ‘earn the right’ to be there rather than entering ex officio. As a gay Christian, she bemoaned the way in which the bishops in the Lords used their position to push for exemptions to legislation which had the effect of discriminating against people like herself. She also criticised the Church of England’s ‘institutional homophobia’.

In the Q&A session, however, Ozanne warned Toynbee to ‘careful about ridiculing religion’ in the context of the coronation. Toynbee responded tartly that it was ‘not a question of being rude about what some people think of as sacred’, but of the ‘ludicrous’ intersection between religion and the monarchy.

One of the issues which was rather glossed over was how disestablishment would occur in practice. Given the nearly five centuries in which the Church of England has been intertwined with the secular state, there are likely to be far-reaching legal and practical difficulties in disentangling them. This does not mean it should not be done, but, as with any major constitutional change, it will take time and resources, and the devil will be in the detail.

Another problem raised by the discussion goes back, once again, to the culture wars. If Britain is so divided on so many fundamental issues, from Brexit to ‘British values’, from immigration to the definition of ‘woman’, it is very unclear how we as a society are going to be able to reach a consensus on what collective traditions and ideas, if any, we want to adopt. One of the key arguments made by monarchists and supporters of the established church has long been that church and king, and their associated ceremonies, are historic traditions that provide Britain with some sort of identity. Right-wing commentators delight in painting the aims of secularists and humanists as purely destructive, and as leading to a cultural and moral wasteland. This is clearly wrong; but more needs to be done to counter this narrative.

Ultimately, in modern Britain, there seems little necessity to retain an established church, or even a monarch. But the case for their abolition would be strengthened if more consideration were given to what exactly is going to happen once they have gone.

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And never mind the Heir Apparent’s even more eccentric idea of becoming ‘Defender of Faith’ (which, according to his official website, he has now ditched) thereby encompassing all religions whatsoever practised in Britain, but excluding the non-religious majority of his subjects, particularly the young. (The Freethinker respectfully suggests that a more inclusive title would be Defender of All Faiths and None.*)

The number of Lords Spiritual is limited to a maximum of 26 by statute. There are at present 24, five women and 19 men. Women bishops were not approved by the General Synod of the Church of England until 2014; weirdly, those now in Parliament receive the title of ‘Lord Bishop’, as though no one had noticed they were female.

Despite being a small proportion in a House of ‘about 800’, the bishops’ status is privileged by procedure. They sit on the government side of the House, on the two front benches nearest the throne. Every day that the Lords are in session, one of them leads prayers before the official proceedings can begin. When a bishop stands up to speak or ask a question, according to Liberal Democrat peer Dick Taverne, they are ‘entitled to precedence’. The Lords Spiritual must retire at 70, although former Archbishops of Canterbury and York customarily receive a life peerage, and so continue to sit in the House after retirement.

In the last two decades, the bishops’ record in the legislative process has been mixed. They tend to participate less than other peers: according to a House of Lords Library Briefing, their attendance in the 2005–06 and 2016–17 sessions averaged 18 per cent, compared with 58.5 per cent for the House as a whole.

The bishops are not affiliated to a particular party, and do not always vote as a bloc. Usually, they turn up in larger numbers for issues relating to religion or education. For instance, nine voted against the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill in 2013, while five abstained and the rest stayed away.

The most controversial debate in which the Lords Spiritual have been involved recently, together with other religiously affiliated peers, has been the debate on Baroness Meacher’s Bill, which took place on 22nd October 2021. The Assisted Dying Bill, as it is formally known, would legalise medically assisted suicide for terminally ill people who are ‘reasonably expected to die within six months’.

During the debate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the bishops of Durham, Carlisle and Chichester, spoke out in opposition to the Bill. Welby declared, on behalf of the Bishops’ bench, that there was ‘unanimity…that our current law does not need to be changed.’ John Sentamu, the former Archbishop of York and now a life peer, also opposed the Bill. It did, however, receive support from other religious peers outside the Lords Spiritual, including the former archbishop George Carey, Ruth Davidson (Church of Scotland), Augustine O’Donnell (Catholic), and Lord Leigh (a self-described ‘progressive Jew’).

Reading the Hansard report, it is striking how many times religious beliefs were invoked, particularly in opposition to the Bill. Lord Eames, former Primate of All Ireland, described how he had often ‘prayed that a person’s suffering would cease—that somehow, in my faith, the Almighty would receive them out of their pain.’ Lord Davies of Gower, a Conservative, admitted that ‘my Christian beliefs play a big part in this.’ Lord Sheikh asserted that ‘human life is sacred…As a Muslim, I am totally opposed to this Bill.’ ‘We have to accept the will of almighty God,’ said Lord Suri, a Sikh peer. ‘The holy scripture of Sikhism says that whosoever has come into this world has to go on their allotted day.’ Another Sikh peer, Lord Singh, invoked religious authority in his claim that ‘assisting in the killing of our fellow human beings has been condemned by leaders of all our major faiths.’

At times, the debate strayed into the otherworldly. Lord Cormack, a Christian, criticised the Bill’s failure to ‘acknowledge the fact that many of us believe in the afterlife’. The ‘judgment’ after death was also invoked by Lord McCrea, a retired Presbyterian minister. ‘The man God, Jesus Christ,’ said the Bishop of Chichester, ‘experienced the evil and suffering of the cross in order that we….might find hope and the recovery of life in heaven.’ The award for the most mystical contribution, however, goes to Lord Pearson, former leader of UKIP, who described going through a ‘near-death experience’ during which he seemed to hear a ‘wonderful voice’ and was ‘told that all this, the eternal force of good, was losing to its opposite, the eternal force of evil’.

The closing speech was given by Robert Winston, the eminent scientist, Labour peer, and presenter of the BBC documentary The Story of God. Winston noted that, if the Bill should proceed to committee stage, ‘the Bishops’ Bench is extremely important in this.’ Although, he said, he was a Jew, not a Christian, nevertheless, ‘the influence the bishops have on the moral compass of this debate is extremely important.’ He stressed that the debate ‘is not an argument about religion; religion is irrelevant. The debate is about how we understand what our ethical standards should be and how we maintain the ethics of our society.’

These remarks are telling. If religion was not relevant, then why should the ethical views of the bishops, rather than of anyone else, play such a key role? In fact, the Hansard report reveals that, for several peers, religion was clearly of central relevance – even if they were a minority in a debate that lasted eight hours. For the ‘unbeliever’ Lord Lipsey, a Labour peer, religion was ‘the Banquo at the feast’, hovering in the background even more than it was expressly articulated.

Somehow, the Lords Spiritual are considered to have a special authority both to speak about death and to influence legislation which the government has already said, in response to a petition, is an ‘issue of conscience’. The laws on assisted dying, however, affect everyone, not just those with religious beliefs; and the population as a whole seems to be much more supportive of reform than the bishops. The debate on Meacher’s Bill thus provides a clear demonstration of the flaws in allowing bishops in Parliament: first, they are perceived to have a particular authority on ‘moral’ issues, and second, their presence there seems to encourage other peers to appeal to religious beliefs in a matter of secular legislation.

Whether Meacher’s Bill will progress further before the end of the Parliamentary session this summer seems increasingly unlikely: various members of the Lords have proposed 212 amendments that would be a marathon to get through. The Conservative peer, Lord Forsyth, recently tried to force the government to consider assisted dying via an amendment to the Health and Care Bill. During the debate on the Bill, he withdrew his amendment. However, he has not yet given up. As he tells me via email, ‘I intend to put it to a vote unless the Government gives me an undertaking to provide time for a future private members bill.’ It will be interesting to see how the bishops respond.

On occasion, the bishops also turn up to vote on legislation which seems to have little to do with Christianity. For instance, nine bishops helped to defeat a clause in the government’s Internal Market Bill 2020, which would have allowed ‘ministers to disapply the Northern Ireland protocol with the European Union,’ while eight voted against a clause which would have allowed the government to ‘renege on the Withdrawal Agreement’, according to the Church Times. In such clearly secular issues, the case for the involvement of religious representatives is even weaker.

The Church of England is ‘remote from reality’, Taverne told me in an interview. On 28th January 2020, he introduced a private member’s bill to remove the bishops’ entitlement to membership of the Lords, a topic on which he has long been vocal. Conventionally, the first reading of a bill is a formality. But this time, he says, there was a ‘stir of protest from the Conservative benches’ (this can be heard in the video). ‘It was a very curious occasion,’ he says; afterwards, ‘Lots of people came up to me and said, “Good bill!”’ But the pandemic struck before the Bill could move to its second reading; as a result, according to the UK Parliament website, it will ‘make no further progress.’ Unfortunately, says Stephen Evans of the National Secular Society, there are no other peers who are willing to ‘stick their heads above the parapet’ on this issue.

Despite its continuing participation in politics, there are signs that even within the Church of England, there are suspicions that the Bishops’ Bench is untenable, at least in its present form. In February this year, a confidential document about proposed reforms to the system of bishops was leaked to the Church Times. The document, entitled A consultation document: Bishops and their ministry fit for a new context, was co-authored by Maggie Swinson, Mark Sheard and Stephen Conway, who is on the Bishops’ Bench. It has since been made publicly available. Among other proposals, the authors, on the basis of a ‘listening exercise with current Lords Spiritual (and indeed with other diocesan bishops)’, anticipated that ‘reform of the House of Lords is inevitable at some stage.’ If the Church wanted to control the direction of this reform, the authors suggested, then this would need to involve ‘reduction in number of Lords Spiritual and the attachment of those roles to specific sees rather than by rotational allocation.’

It is unclear how far this analysis is shared by all senior members of the C of E. (The Church did not respond to a request for comment.) However, it does seem to suggest a certain desperation to cling onto political power, however minimal, rather than simply to give it up gracefully.

Some supporters of the bishops have been toying with another idea: to swell the numbers of the faithful in the Lords to include the diversely faithful. In 2018, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, the Conservative Minister for Faith under Theresa May (herself an avowed Anglican), ‘backed calls for leaders of other faiths to be added as official lords spiritual’ in the interests of ‘broader representation’, according to The Times.

But just which religions would be allowed in under such proposals? If Parliament intended to be as inclusive as some organisations, such as the Police Chaplaincy, it might have to feature representatives of Subud, Zoroastrianism and Bahá’i, as well as of atheism (strangely listed by the Chaplaincy under ‘Faith at a Glance’). Currently, scientology and druidism have been recognised, but Pastafarianism, in all likelihood, would not be. And yet, as worshippers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster would say, their creed is no more incredible than anyone else’s.

As far as Britain’s non-religious majority are concerned, the argument for group representation does not apply easily to them. Some might wish to be represented in Parliament by an organisation like Humanists UK, but many others would have little common ground with one another, ethical or otherwise, beyond the bare fact of not being religious. A similar point might be made about people who were religious in some sense but unaffiliated to a particular organisation or creed.

The argument can be made that some religious beliefs necessitate, at least in some circumstances, support for a particular political stance or course of action. However, there is a difference between advocating a policy in Parliament because of your religious beliefs, and being automatically entitled to sit in Parliament because of those beliefs, or because of your affiliation to a group that promotes them.

In general, the idea that political representation should require the individual to join an organisation defined by certain beliefs and practices, rather than simply making a decision on election day among a range of choices based on whatever considerations they think appropriate, is highly problematic. It is like saying that, to vote Labour, you must be a member of the Labour party; and if you are, then you cannot vote Conservative.

All of which suggests that there are serious flaws in the ‘faith leader’ model of political representation. The secularist position, in contrast, is that religion is a private matter. Political debate, which is a matter of public concern to everyone, must be conducted in terms of our common world and through arguments and terms of reference available to everyone. It is unjust for representatives of speculative belief systems to be given the moral and political standing to impose their views on others.

As outlined in a recent webinar from the UCL Constitution Unit, the House of Lords is in need of a multitude of reforms – but lack of agreement continues to hinder progress. Clearly, there are many other problems with the Lords, such as the continued space for 92 hereditary peers. But if Britain as a country wants a political system in which religious doctrines are not invoked in secular lawmaking, abolishing the bishops would be a good place to start.

*Omnium Fiderum Defensor Nulliusque

Update: Should the House of Lords have allocated seats for ‘faith leaders’? Add your vote to our Twitter poll.

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In Cohen’s view, ‘freedom of conscience’, as advocated by the Archbishop, ‘ought to mean that in matters of opinion there should be at least equal freedom of expression, with the understanding that with some questions that freedom cannot be absolute.’ But in fact the Church’s understanding of ‘freedom of conscience’ extended to religious privileges, such as enforcing blasphemy laws on non-believers, keeping bishops in the House of Lords, and requiring the King to swear a coronation oath in which he had to ‘avow his belief in a special form of religious belief.’

This article was written at a time when the ideas and values of civilised society were being threatened on all sides. The abuses of the War would eventually lead to the drafting of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the European Convention on Human Rights (1950). In both of these documents, ‘freedom of thought, conscience and religion’ is a separate right from ‘freedom of expression’. In contrast, Cohen here analyses freedom of conscience as effectively a form of freedom of expression. He notes the extent to which religious organisations can use ‘freedom of conscience’ as an excuse for imposing their views on others, thereby restricting freedom of expression for them. The clash between the two rights continues today.

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