Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association

To call Britain a ‘Christian country’ is only marginally more sensible than calling Italy a ‘Roman country’ and it was appropriate that Baroness Warsi made her most recent rallying cry against secularism amongst all the archaic pomp of the Vatican state. As a simple factual statement the ‘Christian country’ line is of course demonstrably false (the most recent British Social Attitudes Survey published at the end of last year put the proportion of Christians at 40% and falling) and as a historical claim it omits as much of our cultural past as it includes. But on this occasion it was not so much Christianity the Baroness had come to praise but secularism she had come to attack.

But it is not overweening secularism that is the UK’s problem -- it is continuing and entrenched privilege for Christianity and Christian churches, and the consequent efforts by other religious groups for privileges of their own.

It was especially surreal of the Baroness to accuse secularism of being ‘intolerant’ and ‘illiberal’. It is not secular schools in England that are allowed by law to discriminate against children on the basis of their parents’ religious beliefs: it’s the thousands of state-funded Christian schools and the handful of those run by other religions. It is not secular agencies that reserve employment opportunities for staff according to their beliefs, but the many Christian and other religious agencies who are increasingly having public services contracted to them by the state. It is not non-religious organisations which lobby for and have received special exemptions from laws -- like equality laws -- that should affect everyone equally. It’s not the British Humanist Association that has unelected representatives as of right in our national legislature -- it’s the 26 bishops of the Church of England who are there.

Baroness Warsi and the Pope.

These and many many other examples of religious privilege and continued official discrimination on grounds of religion or belief give the lie to Lady Warsi’s oft-repeated smears.
by would be good if we could dismiss her as just a minority of one but -- at least in her views on this issue -- she is far from isolated. Eric Pickles just last week jumped into the row about local councils not being able to include prayer on their formal agendas with the same anti-secularist gusto he has displayed on previous occasions. At the end of last year, David Cameron made his own extraordinary speech on Britain’s status as a Christian country, a speech which provoked more astonished bemusement than outrage, with its self-evidently ahistorical and bizarre statements, and its improbable calls on us all to be confident in our Christian nature.

When they are so palpably out of kilter with reality, why do present day politicians keep saying these things?

The most hopeful political reading is that they don’t really mean it and are just attempting to pacify the small but increasingly strident minority of Christian lobby groups who are seeking yet great influence in our public life and greater privilege for those with Christian beliefs. It would be a shame that politicians had bought into the crazy narrative of ‘christianophobia’ that these lobby groups promote, but at least we could rest assured that it would just be political rhetoric and no practical harm would come of it.

More alarming is if Warsi, Pickles and Cameron are serious in their message. A government that tried to make Christianity and Christian beliefs the foundation of British values or a social morality would be building on seriously unstable and unshared foundations. Secularism is essentially a political strategy that says, in the context of a diverse society, the state should not discriminate in favour of or against any person because of their religious or non-religious beliefs. For a government to set itself against that principle is concerning, and the expansion of state-funded religious schools, contracting out of public services to religious groups, and official guarantees of Christian privilege in public life give increasing plausibility to this second interpretation of the politicians’ words.

If the latter interpretation is the correct one, then politicians should remember that their approach is far from popular. In a 2006 IpsosMori poll, ‘religious groups and leaders’ actually topped the list of domestic groups that people said had too much influence on government. In the research released yesterday by the Richard Dawkins foundation, over 90% of self-described Christians said they did not think religion should have special place in public policy. A majority of the public surveyed -- including a majority of Christians -- repeatedly say they are against new religious schools. Policies that pursue religious exceptionalism in defiance of demographic reality and public opinion can only cause division and dissent.

Huffington Post | Andrew Copson | 16th February 2012



Two-thirds of young people and half of the population as a whole do not belong to any particular religion, and the steady decline in religiosity in the UK is set to continue, the 28^th report of the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey has found. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has welcomed the findings, commenting that the government is ‘fast becoming out of touch with the population’ when it introduces policies and new laws with a religious bias.

Unlike the highly flawed Census question, which at best measures a weak cultural affiliation to religion, the BSA attempts to examine levels of religious affiliation, whether someone was brought up in a religion, and whether they regularly attend religious services.

The survey found half (50%) of people do not regard themselves as belonging to a particular religion while only 20% belong to the Church of England. 64% of those aged 18-24 do not belong to a religion. More than half of those brought up in a religion never attend religious services or meetings. The survey also found that levels of religiosity have declined over the past three decades and are likely to decline further, as older, more religious generations die out and are replaced by younger, less religious generations.

Andrew Copson, BHA Chief Executive, commented, ‘It is quite clear that the population is becoming less religious, particularly as the proportion of younger people who have no religion grows, so the government is fast becoming out of touch with the population when it introduces policies and new laws which actually increase the role of religion in the state. Since the general election the government has set in place policies which will increase greatly the number of discriminatory ‘faith’ schools, those which open up vital public services to any number of evangelical religious groups without proper equalities protection, and has proposed not only to keep reserved seats for Church of England Bishops sitting ex-officio in the House of Lords but to give them even more privilege.

‘It is bizarre that the government refuses to take a more secular approach to public policy, to eliminate unjustified religious discrimination and religious privilege in places such as schools and the workplace and promote a real equality between people regardless of their religious or non-religious beliefs.’

British Humanist Association | 7th December 2011

Notes

For further comment or information contact Andrew Copson at andrew@humanism.org.uk or 07534 248596.

As part of the BHA’s campaign on the Census this year we commissioned our own survey which showed clearly that there were low levels religious belief and belonging in the population.

Read the 28^th British Social Attitudes survey findings

More information on surveys and statistics on religion and belief.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association.

*Watch the evidence session http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=9552*

The conflicting views of the Church of England and the British Humanist Association (BHA) were clear at today’s evidence session on Bishops sitting in the House of Lords, the ‘Lords Spiritual’. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and Andrew Copson, BHA Chief Executive, were both invited to give evidence to the parliamentary Joint Committee looking at the draft House of Lords Reform Bill on Monday 28 November. The BHA had, last month, submitted detailed written evidence to the Committee opposing and criticising the government’s proposals on the Bishops.

In his written submission to the Joint Committee, Dr Williams described why he supports having Church of England Bishops in the House of Lords as of right and why the appointments process should also have regard to increasing the presence of leaders of other denominations and faiths. The UK is the only democracy in the world to have reserved seats for clerics in its parliament, and the BHA has been campaigning for many years to have abolished this outdated, undemocratic, unequal and unfair tradition which, if retained, would seriously undermine the validity of any reform of the House of Lords.

Mr Copson set out why there are no good arguments for keeping reserved seats for the Church of England in parliament. Throughout the evidence session, Mr Copson emphasised that there was no constitutional reason to have automatic places for the Bishops, and anyone who argued for their retention was simply arguing to extend a religious privilege which has no place in a modern, liberal and diverse democracy.

He told the Committee that the argument of tradition, that we should have Bishops because we have had them for a long time and it’s best to leave things as they are, was irrelevant and insubstantial.

Mr Copson emphasised that many would disagree with the idea that the Bishops ‘speak’ for those of all faiths and that there are many too, including Anglicans, who would disagree that they can provide a unique ethical perspective in the chamber. He described how there was no case to be made for reserving seats for Bishops in the House of Lords on the basis that those men are uniquely well placed to provide vital expertise on matters of public policy, because they are not. This is the case not least because their views on the ethics of assisted dying for the terminally ill or equal rights for gay people or state-funded religious schools were unrepresentative and often lay far outside the mainstream.

Mr Copson spoke about how, increasingly, advocates of Bishops have also built their case on the position of the Church of England as our largest NGO – a civil society group with a branch in every community. However, he pointed out that it were the case that we should treat the Church as an NGO (doubtful given its entanglement with the state), why then should we consider it unique compared with trade unions or the National Trust or the Women’s Institute?

Mr Copson detailed for the Committee how there were clear objections to having automatic places for the Church of England Bishops on grounds of equality and fairness. If parliament is supposed to represent the people, Mr Copson questioned, why should only one denomination of only one religion have a guaranteed twelve seats when other denominations of that religion, other religions and other non-religious philosophies and approaches to life have no such representation? It would only be fair to represent all religions and philosophies. Mr Copson said this could immediately be seen to be impossible, not least because we would need an unfeasibly large second chamber to represent all shades of religious and non-religious opinion. Having reserved seats for Bishops of any number represents a privilege that is insupportable in today’s diverse and increasingly non-religious society.

British Humanist Association | 28th November 2011

Notes

For further comment or information, contact BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson on 07534 258596, or BHA Head of Public Affairs Naomi Phillips on 07540 257101.

The BHA will give evidence to the Joint Committee on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill in a session from 18.45 on Monday 28 November, in the Moses Room, House of Lords. The Archbishop of Canterbury will give evidence from 18.00.

The Joint Committee was formed to examine the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill published in May 2011 and consists of 26 members of both Houses of Parliament. In October 2011, the BHA submitted written evidence to the Committee opposing the government’s proposals to retain automatic places for 12 Church of England Bishops in the reformed chamber.

Read the BHA’s written submission to the Joint Committee

Read more about the BHA’s work on Bishops in the Lords

The British Humanist Association is the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people who seek to live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity. It promotes a secular state and equal treatment in law and policy of everyone, regardless of religion or belief.