Michael Fry: Benign secularism suits the British state well

A STRICT, even harsh, line must be maintained between private faith and public life to prevent a rise in intolerance, says Michael Fry

Schism and sectarianism are as basic to religion as sanctity and ceremony. This holds true of all the world’s great religions except for Confucianism – the Chinese being far too sensible to dispute with, let alone fight and kill each other over dogmas admitting of no kind of proof.

So, something odd must be going on in the ranks of the religious when we hear a call from the core of the British government for the lesser sects and hierarchies to sink their differences and “give Christianity a central role in public life”. That is the appeal from Baroness Warsi, a Conservative leader in the Lords, as she heads a delegation of six ministerial colleagues to visit the Pope on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and the Holy See.

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Though I am a historian, I had not realised that there were no full diplomatic relations between London and the Vatican until 1982, so that in a sense the revulsion from Rome which started in the 16th century did not finally die away till then. Even so, I am more struck by the fact that Baroness Warsi is a Muslim. I would have thought adherence to one religion necessarily denies the truth of others, and certainly there are imams today preaching in Britain who hope to convert the country to Islam. So why does Baroness Warsi want Christianity to take the lead?

I suppose her answer would have to be that if the religious do not hang together, then they will hang separately. “Militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies,” she declared. This “at its core and in its instincts … is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities.”

Militant secularisation? I would not have thought today’s Britain was especially militant about anything. It is a tired old country plodding along a rough road. Secularisation goes on not because atheists dominate public discourse (anything but), but because most people do not seriously believe in God. Few ever read his word and even among those who in a vague sense still think there might be some sort of deity, only a minority bother to practise religion. They turn up for weddings and funerals, daydream through the sermon and sing a hymn or two: that is about it.

Otherwise, most of us live out our allotted span feeling no need for contact with religion, not obviously worried either about the dubious concept of an afterlife.

So much for Britain, yet it was notable that Baroness Warsi used the word “societies” rather than “society”. I suspect she also had in her sights those among our European neighbours who take a more serious view of religion, often to the extent of legislating for it (which we do not unless we have to). France, for example, is officially a secular republic and to call it militant would scarcely be going too far: the militancy dates back to the revolution of 1789. So, no public expression of religion is allowed – no veils, but no crucifixes either. If Catholic parents really want to put a crucifix on the wall of their children’s classroom, then they have to club together to set up a private school.

France is not alone in this. More liberal European democracies, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, are moved by the same sort of spirit and have been contemplating or passing laws to reflect it. Is Baroness Warsi right to call that spirit intolerant or authoritarian? In other respects, these countries are not intolerant or authoritarian but – on the contrary – tolerant, even permissive, especially towards minorities. Why, then, should they crack down on that minority which holds religion dear?

These countries draw a strict line between the secular and the religious so as to distinguish them in a rigorous, perhaps even harsh manner. But it has the virtue of making life simple: everybody can understand that religion is a matter for the private sphere in which the state has no interest or involvement except that it should stay private. This is, in fact, a formula for religious freedom, rather than the reverse.

In practice we adopt in Britain the same attitude, if slightly obscured by more venerable antecedents. For England, the period from 1536 to 1688 was one of repeated religious mayhem which, however, ended in a state of affairs identical to the one at the outset: a state-controlled Protestant episcopalianism. Scotland had a parallel experience from 1560 to 1707, except that here Presbyterianism won through. In both countries there had been more than a century of war and suffering, all to bring about next to no change.

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The English decided to cut their losses: henceforth there would be an undogmatic national Church open to everybody. The Scots would, as usual, probably have preferred to carry on fighting but now the larger partner in the Union would not put up with that. So, in Britain, we already had the same position as in much of Europe today: religion so far as possible removed from the political sphere, the people entitled to practise it as they liked, the state just not interested unless it had to be. And nobody dying.

Is this “denying people the right to a religious identity?” Only, I would say, when religion makes claims on the state and demands that it should conform to religious norms, or even to the detail of religious laws. That is the position in Islamic countries, which follow the Sharia. But it is also in effect the position of American Christian fundamentalists prepared to murder staff of abortion clinics. It is the position of too many religious people because the claims of religion, taken seriously, are absolute.

These people enjoy religious freedom in a secular state, yet deny secular freedom in the name of religion. And they go so far as to kill, which makes a nonsense of any freedom, let alone of any “religious identity”.

Baroness Warsi must make up her own mind, but at least woolly liberals like me have not the slightest desire to exterminate people we disagree with.

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