Update: with spectacularly good timing, a new form of prayer for use in Council meetings has just been published.
Lots of pixels spilled over the Bideford judgement in the last 24 hours, here are a few links:
The original court judgement, finding that making prayers part of official council business is 'not lawful'
Heresy Corner: good piece, noting that the judgement was based on what powers a council does and doesn't have, and not on any supposed violation of human rights. The judge was also careful to spell out that the judgement doesn't automatically entail similar conclusions on other Christendom legacy events (e.g. Remembrance Day)
Steve Tilley isn't too flustered, "it is a matter of common courtesy to ask permission before you pray"
Cranmer quotes Eric Pickles at length, who opposes the judgement and argues that new localism powers would enable councils to overturn it.
Thinking Anglicans has a good roundup of the main news coverage.
The Beaker Folk note another problem closer to home.
The BBC report makes it plain that the NSS failed to get prayers declared as a breach of human rights:
The NSS, which said prayers had no place in "a secular environment concerned with civic business", argued the "inappropriate" ritual breached articles 9 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protect an individual's right to freedom of conscience and not to face discrimination.
However, the case was not won on human rights grounds but on a point of statutory construction of local government legislation.
So whilst the National Secular Society are bouncing up and down in public, their 'victory' is pretty minor. Change one line of the 1972 local authority legislation, and we're back where we started. It's this argument that has the most implications, and the fact that it didn't carry in court is a major setback to the NSS.Me? This is clearly part of the wider campaign by the NSS to exclude religion from public life, a point well made by Michael Langrish as he toured the news studios yesterday. In the end it turns on a point of process, rather than of rights. Councils can still pray, they just shouldn't put it on the official business to which all members are summoned. I remember being pleasantly suprised to find that our local town council had a chaplain and had prayers at the start of meetings - but I'm with Steve Tilley, it should be voluntary, as prayers are in the House of Commons.
I don't know if the NSS have the cash to bring cases like these to small district councils across the country, or whether the police will have better things to do with their time than descend on councils waving illegal agenda papers to arrest them half way through the Lords Prayer.
In the end, surely councils should be free to decide whether they pray or not? It shouldn't be for a judge to hand down a judgement for them all to follow. Hopefully the localism stuff from the government will allow a bit of common sense.
On other local stuff, there's more on the continuing saga at Somerton Town Council, local blog here.
Showing posts with label church and state. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church and state. Show all posts
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Monday, April 12, 2010
Clegg, Cameron and Brown pitch for Christian voters.
A couple of videos with the 3 party leaders talking about how they see the church and faith groups. The first one is put together by Faithworks, with questions put by Steve Chalke.
I have to say that Clegg comes across best from this, even though he's the only one of the three without any stated Christian faith. Cameron sounds more like a sales pitch: he says all the right things, but it sounds a bit rehearsed. Brown's view seems to see faith groups as a potential arm of the state, to help deliver the Labour agenda, from internet access (?) to greening the economy.
And this one, from Christians in Politics
Brown should really quit smiling. Good to be reminded of the Jubilee 2000 agenda, he sees the gospel as the inspiration for social activism, justice, work against poverty and for community. Cameron tries to join the dots between faith and his 'change'/broken society agenda. Clegg deals with some of the same issues as Brown, but his message is a bit different: get involved.
Cleggs piece starts to sketch a possible role for the church in politics: as a broker of honest and in-depth debate. That's not something the individual parties will give us, as they rarely engage fairly and thoroughly with one another in public. It's not something the main TV election coverage delivers either, as they seem more committed to giving airtime to their own pundits than letting us hear what politicians are saying. The 3 party leaders debates will be the exception to this rule. One of the common threads on sites resourcing the church for the election is getting churches to organise local hustings events. But the 'broker' role is only possible if the church itself is sufficiently clued up on the issues and debates.
Ht Church Mouse
I have to say that Clegg comes across best from this, even though he's the only one of the three without any stated Christian faith. Cameron sounds more like a sales pitch: he says all the right things, but it sounds a bit rehearsed. Brown's view seems to see faith groups as a potential arm of the state, to help deliver the Labour agenda, from internet access (?) to greening the economy.
And this one, from Christians in Politics
Brown should really quit smiling. Good to be reminded of the Jubilee 2000 agenda, he sees the gospel as the inspiration for social activism, justice, work against poverty and for community. Cameron tries to join the dots between faith and his 'change'/broken society agenda. Clegg deals with some of the same issues as Brown, but his message is a bit different: get involved.
Cleggs piece starts to sketch a possible role for the church in politics: as a broker of honest and in-depth debate. That's not something the individual parties will give us, as they rarely engage fairly and thoroughly with one another in public. It's not something the main TV election coverage delivers either, as they seem more committed to giving airtime to their own pundits than letting us hear what politicians are saying. The 3 party leaders debates will be the exception to this rule. One of the common threads on sites resourcing the church for the election is getting churches to organise local hustings events. But the 'broker' role is only possible if the church itself is sufficiently clued up on the issues and debates.
Ht Church Mouse
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Religion and Society
Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty wrote in the Times yesterday defending the right of BA employee Nadia Eweida to wear a cross on her lapel at work. She mentioned...
an extremely disappointing employment appeal tribunal that found no discrimination, because “Christians generally” do not consider wearing a cross as a religious “requirement”. This fundamentally misunderstands the idea of individual rights and freedoms, which do not depend on how many people agree with your conscience or speech. It also opens up secular courts to lengthy arguments as to what is a theological necessity. Making windows into men’s souls is as pointlessly complex as it is dangerous.
Which all sounds pretty sensible to me. It's one of those cases which is easily used by one group to proclaim that Christianity is being persecuted and marginalised, and by another group to talk about Christians foisting their faith uninvited upon others in what should be 'neutral' space.
She goes on:
It seems to me that any society has three choices in dealing with this small question of religion.
The first is to elevate an approved faith to the point of dominant status over all other belief systems. It is formally woven into the legal, political and social system, every sphere of public life and as much of private life as possible. An extreme example might be Afghanistan under the Taleban; a more moderate one, Britain at earlier and less enlightened times in its history.
The second option is, in many ways, equal and opposite. It is based on the view that faith is all dangerous, divisive mumbo-jumbo. No good can come of it so, if it cannot be eradicated altogether, it must be chased from the public sphere, confined to a place of worship or the home, upstairs under the bed with the pornography. An extreme example would be Stalin’s Russia; a more moderate one, the French Republic.
You will have guessed that I favour a third approach that is based on human rights and resonates well with a society such as Britain’s. Here the struggle for religious freedom has been strongly connected with the struggle for democracy itself.
I believe that human beings are creatures of both faith and logic, emotion and reason and it is as well that the law reflects this. It may be true that religion has caused much war and prejudice but it has also inspired much art, music and compassion. And it is also true that scientists and engineers have produced some of the greatest advances in human history, but also some of the stuff of nightmares.
If we really believe in freedom of thought, conscience and religion, this must include the right to the faith or belief of one’s choice, the right to no faith and to be a heretic. Proportionate limits on this precious liberty don’t arise because a minority causes irritation or even offence. We interfere when someone is harming others, or in the workplace when, for instance, their faith or clothing prevents them doing their job.
Again, all pretty sensible. However, within 'human rights' is normally some kind of pecking order - the debates over the Equalities Bill at the moment are about whether the 'right' to freedom of sexual expression trumps the 'right' to hold certain religious moral views, or vice versa. So an approach based purely on rights doesn't get us out of the woods.
I was also struck by the fact that none of these 3 scenarios is equated to what we have in England at the moment. Christian faith has, to some degree, a privileged status (e.g. Bishops in the Lords, established church) though in areas like faith schools an area once reserved for Anglicans is now open to all. But you'd hardly describe the Church of England as 'dominant'. In one sense it holds the ring, acting as a broker for the many faith groups in England, and the way the CofE engages with politics and society has itself been shaped by history, and the constraints of being the 'national church'. We can't simply start from scratch, we are where we are, and though it has its faults, the relationship of church, religion and state continues to evolve in a fairly consensual manner.
The other thing which puzzled me was where an organisation like the National Secular Society would stand on these 3 options. Their stated principles are along the lines of the 3rd option, but a cursory glance at their website and public statements seems to indicate a contempt for faith more along the lines of option 2.
A debate to be had is on the nature of the 'neutral' spaces in society, like the workplace. Should any expression of faith be banished, or is it better to go for a 'live and let live' approach, where people can express what's dear to them on the understanding that they don't impose it on anyone else. That is an issue of culture as much as law: I personally would dread a society where everything has to be settled by appeal to the rule book. Unfortunately the headlines in the culture wars are being made by narratives of 'persecution', 'intolerance', and 'fundamentalists', which force people into corners and make a culture of acceptance and grace less likely.
an extremely disappointing employment appeal tribunal that found no discrimination, because “Christians generally” do not consider wearing a cross as a religious “requirement”. This fundamentally misunderstands the idea of individual rights and freedoms, which do not depend on how many people agree with your conscience or speech. It also opens up secular courts to lengthy arguments as to what is a theological necessity. Making windows into men’s souls is as pointlessly complex as it is dangerous.
Which all sounds pretty sensible to me. It's one of those cases which is easily used by one group to proclaim that Christianity is being persecuted and marginalised, and by another group to talk about Christians foisting their faith uninvited upon others in what should be 'neutral' space.
She goes on:
It seems to me that any society has three choices in dealing with this small question of religion.
The first is to elevate an approved faith to the point of dominant status over all other belief systems. It is formally woven into the legal, political and social system, every sphere of public life and as much of private life as possible. An extreme example might be Afghanistan under the Taleban; a more moderate one, Britain at earlier and less enlightened times in its history.
The second option is, in many ways, equal and opposite. It is based on the view that faith is all dangerous, divisive mumbo-jumbo. No good can come of it so, if it cannot be eradicated altogether, it must be chased from the public sphere, confined to a place of worship or the home, upstairs under the bed with the pornography. An extreme example would be Stalin’s Russia; a more moderate one, the French Republic.
You will have guessed that I favour a third approach that is based on human rights and resonates well with a society such as Britain’s. Here the struggle for religious freedom has been strongly connected with the struggle for democracy itself.
I believe that human beings are creatures of both faith and logic, emotion and reason and it is as well that the law reflects this. It may be true that religion has caused much war and prejudice but it has also inspired much art, music and compassion. And it is also true that scientists and engineers have produced some of the greatest advances in human history, but also some of the stuff of nightmares.
If we really believe in freedom of thought, conscience and religion, this must include the right to the faith or belief of one’s choice, the right to no faith and to be a heretic. Proportionate limits on this precious liberty don’t arise because a minority causes irritation or even offence. We interfere when someone is harming others, or in the workplace when, for instance, their faith or clothing prevents them doing their job.
Again, all pretty sensible. However, within 'human rights' is normally some kind of pecking order - the debates over the Equalities Bill at the moment are about whether the 'right' to freedom of sexual expression trumps the 'right' to hold certain religious moral views, or vice versa. So an approach based purely on rights doesn't get us out of the woods.
I was also struck by the fact that none of these 3 scenarios is equated to what we have in England at the moment. Christian faith has, to some degree, a privileged status (e.g. Bishops in the Lords, established church) though in areas like faith schools an area once reserved for Anglicans is now open to all. But you'd hardly describe the Church of England as 'dominant'. In one sense it holds the ring, acting as a broker for the many faith groups in England, and the way the CofE engages with politics and society has itself been shaped by history, and the constraints of being the 'national church'. We can't simply start from scratch, we are where we are, and though it has its faults, the relationship of church, religion and state continues to evolve in a fairly consensual manner.
The other thing which puzzled me was where an organisation like the National Secular Society would stand on these 3 options. Their stated principles are along the lines of the 3rd option, but a cursory glance at their website and public statements seems to indicate a contempt for faith more along the lines of option 2.
A debate to be had is on the nature of the 'neutral' spaces in society, like the workplace. Should any expression of faith be banished, or is it better to go for a 'live and let live' approach, where people can express what's dear to them on the understanding that they don't impose it on anyone else. That is an issue of culture as much as law: I personally would dread a society where everything has to be settled by appeal to the rule book. Unfortunately the headlines in the culture wars are being made by narratives of 'persecution', 'intolerance', and 'fundamentalists', which force people into corners and make a culture of acceptance and grace less likely.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
50% of UK Christian? That would be nice. Or would it?
A trailer for some research being published in January was released this morning by the National Centre for Social Research. It's a comparison of religious attitudes in the UK and US, and leads with the finding that people defining themselves as Christian has declined from 66% to 50% since 1983. Telegraph report here.
Some of the findings.
· Seven in ten (70%) Americans are religious, in that they identify with a particular religion, believe in God and attend religious services. This compares with just a quarter (26%) of people in Britain.
· Three in ten people (31%) in Britain are not religious: they do not identify with a religion, don’t believe in God and don’t attend religious services. This compares with just four in every hundred (4%) Americans.
· Just over a third (36%) of people in Britain and a quarter (24%) of Americans have practices and beliefs that lie somewhere in between. These people – the ‘fuzzy faithful’ – identify with a religion, believe in God or attend services, but not all three.
There's also some bullet points on church and society:
· In Britain, four in five (79%) people think it provides comfort in times of trouble, as do 95% of Americans.
· The majority of people in both countries are keen to maintain a separation of religion and state. For example two thirds (67% in Britain and 66% in the US) think religious leaders should not try to influence government decision-making.
· Nearly three quarters (73%) of people in Britain and two thirds (66%) of Americans think people with strong religious beliefs are often too intolerant of others.
The paper is based on the 2008 Social Attitudes survey in the UK, but those results don't appear to be online, unless anyone is better on Google than me?
George Pitcher has responded in the Telegraph
Nick Baines, who likes the reporting (shock! horror!) and wonders if the NSS would have said the same thing whatever the figures were. The answer is possibly yes.
Church Times report, with a nice table summing things up. Statistical table, as opposed to a talking piece of furniture.
comments:
1. This sounds about right: the three groups of faithful, fuzzy and agnostic/atheist is quite a good way to characterise it. I think about 15-20% of children are currently baptised in a church, which if you exclude the churches which don't practice infant baptism, looks fairly close to these findings.
2. Identification is lagging behind reality, which continues to pose the question of Christendom institutions (established church, bishops in the Lords, etc.) and their place in a post-Christendom society. At the same time there are quite a few people who want a church that they don't go to.
3. That last bullet point needs heeding, though one suspects that an intolerant religious person makes a better news story than a loving one, just as an actual crime makes a better story than a night when everyone keeps the law. Sadly the bigoted Christian is a staple news story, and this is not all the medias doing, it wouldn't be a story if they didn't actually exist.
4. 26% of people who believe in God, attend religious services and identify with a particular faith is a fairly sizeable chunk of society. That doesn't entitle it to privileges, but I'm struggling to think of another voluntary activity which comes close to that, no doubt commenters will enlighten me.
5. There's a challenge for parents, and churches equipping parents to pass on their faith to their children (who, of course, will make their own decision anyway...)
“Two non-religious parents successfully transmit their lack of religion. Two religious parents have roughly a 50/50 chance of passing on the faith. One religious parent does only half as well as two together.” It also means that any strategy for the future of the church which is simply based on sitting there and waiting for stuff to happen is doomed to failure. The question is not whether to change, but how.
Some of the findings.
· Seven in ten (70%) Americans are religious, in that they identify with a particular religion, believe in God and attend religious services. This compares with just a quarter (26%) of people in Britain.
· Three in ten people (31%) in Britain are not religious: they do not identify with a religion, don’t believe in God and don’t attend religious services. This compares with just four in every hundred (4%) Americans.
· Just over a third (36%) of people in Britain and a quarter (24%) of Americans have practices and beliefs that lie somewhere in between. These people – the ‘fuzzy faithful’ – identify with a religion, believe in God or attend services, but not all three.
There's also some bullet points on church and society:
· In Britain, four in five (79%) people think it provides comfort in times of trouble, as do 95% of Americans.
· The majority of people in both countries are keen to maintain a separation of religion and state. For example two thirds (67% in Britain and 66% in the US) think religious leaders should not try to influence government decision-making.
· Nearly three quarters (73%) of people in Britain and two thirds (66%) of Americans think people with strong religious beliefs are often too intolerant of others.
The paper is based on the 2008 Social Attitudes survey in the UK, but those results don't appear to be online, unless anyone is better on Google than me?
George Pitcher has responded in the Telegraph
Nick Baines, who likes the reporting (shock! horror!) and wonders if the NSS would have said the same thing whatever the figures were. The answer is possibly yes.
Church Times report, with a nice table summing things up. Statistical table, as opposed to a talking piece of furniture.
comments:
1. This sounds about right: the three groups of faithful, fuzzy and agnostic/atheist is quite a good way to characterise it. I think about 15-20% of children are currently baptised in a church, which if you exclude the churches which don't practice infant baptism, looks fairly close to these findings.
2. Identification is lagging behind reality, which continues to pose the question of Christendom institutions (established church, bishops in the Lords, etc.) and their place in a post-Christendom society. At the same time there are quite a few people who want a church that they don't go to.
3. That last bullet point needs heeding, though one suspects that an intolerant religious person makes a better news story than a loving one, just as an actual crime makes a better story than a night when everyone keeps the law. Sadly the bigoted Christian is a staple news story, and this is not all the medias doing, it wouldn't be a story if they didn't actually exist.
4. 26% of people who believe in God, attend religious services and identify with a particular faith is a fairly sizeable chunk of society. That doesn't entitle it to privileges, but I'm struggling to think of another voluntary activity which comes close to that, no doubt commenters will enlighten me.
5. There's a challenge for parents, and churches equipping parents to pass on their faith to their children (who, of course, will make their own decision anyway...)
“Two non-religious parents successfully transmit their lack of religion. Two religious parents have roughly a 50/50 chance of passing on the faith. One religious parent does only half as well as two together.” It also means that any strategy for the future of the church which is simply based on sitting there and waiting for stuff to happen is doomed to failure. The question is not whether to change, but how.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Top Trumps on the Stornoway-Lewis Ferry
On Sunday the Beeb had an item on its main news programme about the first Sunday sailing of the Stornoway-Lewis ferry.
Operators Caledonian MacBrayne claim that they'd be breaking the law not to. According to the BBC report: "CalMac said it could be breaking equality laws if it did not run ferries seven days a week. It said religion or beliefs were not valid reasons to refuse to run the ferry.
Supporters of the service said it would be good for tourism. They said it would offer more flexibility to travellers.
As the ferry left Stornoway a crowd of several hundred gathered to applaud, and wave to those on board.
The local council for the Western Isles opposes the sailing, (e.g. here) so this is not just about a few religious traditionalists versus progress, CalMac seems to have gone against the will of the local people. That's much more than 'religion or beliefs'. It also strikes me that the Equality Act 2006 is a convenient place to hide: CalMac wouldn't be doing this if it didn't make them some money.
Their spokesman has at least recognised that they are 'reacting to demand' rather than simply doing the bidding of the law, though launching sailings with only 5 days notice is an interesting tactic. With only a few days notice, anyone from the island who wanted to protest about the sailing would have had to travel to the mainland on Saturday and lodged overnight, so the numbers of protesters at the port is immaterial. This seems to have been deliberately timed to get round local opposition.
Thoughts:
1. If the Equality Act means that observing Sunday as a day of rest is illegal, then there are a lot of us who would like to see that legal advice. If the Act really means 'every day must be exactly the same as every other' then that's pretty grim.
2. Given that folk can go pretty much everywhere else in the British Isles on a Sunday, is it really so bad that one part of it is allowed to do things differently? One argument made on the news report was that it was hitting business on the island, and that people were moving away. But is economics always the trump card?
3. Whose needs take preference here? The island is a home to its local population, but most of the CalMac demand (I imagine) comes from tourists. If local people want to have a day when their island isn't swarming with tourists, then what's wrong with that? Just because demand is there doesn't mean it has to be satisfied.
4. Humans aren't made to work 7 days a week, and a community day of rest is a good thing. It's for that community to decide how to observe that, not for commercial interests to decide it for them. Part of the original Sabbath laws was a recognition that there was more to life than work, it was a recognition that we're not slaves, we're human beings rather than human doings. Andrew Marr calls the late 20th century 'the triumph of shopping over politics', but Sabbath reminds us that there's more to life than merely earning and spending money.
5. Does 'religion or beliefs' have any standing at all in decision making, or are they trumped every time? And in this case, what counts as a belief? Isn't the dogma that the only bottom line is the bottom line a mere belief, open to challenge and dispute? Or does CalMac know that by painting its opponents as reactionary Puritans the vast majority of people will automatically side with the ferry company, as they hear the dog whistle sound?
the press release from Keep Sunday Special notes that CalMac is government-backed, and that their decision overrides the will of local people. Another report quotes a hotelier on the island who is now having bookings cancelled because folk can leave the island a day earlier at the weekend.
The danger in all of this is that it's just another 'church says no' story, which depicts Christians as fun-quenching killjoys stuck in the 18th century. It all depends on how you tell the story: are the Christians reactionaries opposed to 'progress', or beleagured underdogs fighting to protect a valued way of life against the march of capitalism?
Operators Caledonian MacBrayne claim that they'd be breaking the law not to. According to the BBC report: "CalMac said it could be breaking equality laws if it did not run ferries seven days a week. It said religion or beliefs were not valid reasons to refuse to run the ferry.
Supporters of the service said it would be good for tourism. They said it would offer more flexibility to travellers.
As the ferry left Stornoway a crowd of several hundred gathered to applaud, and wave to those on board.
The local council for the Western Isles opposes the sailing, (e.g. here) so this is not just about a few religious traditionalists versus progress, CalMac seems to have gone against the will of the local people. That's much more than 'religion or beliefs'. It also strikes me that the Equality Act 2006 is a convenient place to hide: CalMac wouldn't be doing this if it didn't make them some money.
Their spokesman has at least recognised that they are 'reacting to demand' rather than simply doing the bidding of the law, though launching sailings with only 5 days notice is an interesting tactic. With only a few days notice, anyone from the island who wanted to protest about the sailing would have had to travel to the mainland on Saturday and lodged overnight, so the numbers of protesters at the port is immaterial. This seems to have been deliberately timed to get round local opposition.
Thoughts:
1. If the Equality Act means that observing Sunday as a day of rest is illegal, then there are a lot of us who would like to see that legal advice. If the Act really means 'every day must be exactly the same as every other' then that's pretty grim.
2. Given that folk can go pretty much everywhere else in the British Isles on a Sunday, is it really so bad that one part of it is allowed to do things differently? One argument made on the news report was that it was hitting business on the island, and that people were moving away. But is economics always the trump card?
3. Whose needs take preference here? The island is a home to its local population, but most of the CalMac demand (I imagine) comes from tourists. If local people want to have a day when their island isn't swarming with tourists, then what's wrong with that? Just because demand is there doesn't mean it has to be satisfied.
4. Humans aren't made to work 7 days a week, and a community day of rest is a good thing. It's for that community to decide how to observe that, not for commercial interests to decide it for them. Part of the original Sabbath laws was a recognition that there was more to life than work, it was a recognition that we're not slaves, we're human beings rather than human doings. Andrew Marr calls the late 20th century 'the triumph of shopping over politics', but Sabbath reminds us that there's more to life than merely earning and spending money.
5. Does 'religion or beliefs' have any standing at all in decision making, or are they trumped every time? And in this case, what counts as a belief? Isn't the dogma that the only bottom line is the bottom line a mere belief, open to challenge and dispute? Or does CalMac know that by painting its opponents as reactionary Puritans the vast majority of people will automatically side with the ferry company, as they hear the dog whistle sound?
the press release from Keep Sunday Special notes that CalMac is government-backed, and that their decision overrides the will of local people. Another report quotes a hotelier on the island who is now having bookings cancelled because folk can leave the island a day earlier at the weekend.
The danger in all of this is that it's just another 'church says no' story, which depicts Christians as fun-quenching killjoys stuck in the 18th century. It all depends on how you tell the story: are the Christians reactionaries opposed to 'progress', or beleagured underdogs fighting to protect a valued way of life against the march of capitalism?
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
BBC Poll: Only 1 in 3 catch the agnostibus
A new poll on the BBC site shows a 2:1 majority favouring religious values in public life, and the influence of religious values over our laws and culture. Full data here. 50% of those with 'no religion' agreed with the statement that 'our laws should respect and be influenced by religious values' (which is actually two statements rolled together....). So even though most folks aren't overtly religious, they value a role for faith in public life.
There was also a question on how fairly the media report religion, in which, surprisingly, the majority of Christians thought their religion was fairly reported. See my previous post!!
from the site: However, the BBC poll indicates that even at a time when baptisms, church weddings and attendance at Sunday services are declining, people are unwilling for secularism to displace religion altogether.
They may be dubious about specific religious beliefs, and unwilling to accept the teaching of religious organisations about how they should lead their lives, but the survey suggests they are not yet ready to cast God out of public life.
Ht Ekklesia, which has a longer comment piece on this. See also Robert Piggotts interpretation at the BBC.
It'll be interesting to see how the National Secular Society spin doctors rewrite the headline on this one. It must be a major blow to them that, after a fairly high media profile in recent times, most of us still don't buy their argument for banishing religion from public life (E.g. 'Religion should be a matter of private conscience, for the home and place of worship....religious involvement in public life...disadvantages those who have no religion').
There was also a question on how fairly the media report religion, in which, surprisingly, the majority of Christians thought their religion was fairly reported. See my previous post!!
from the site: However, the BBC poll indicates that even at a time when baptisms, church weddings and attendance at Sunday services are declining, people are unwilling for secularism to displace religion altogether.
They may be dubious about specific religious beliefs, and unwilling to accept the teaching of religious organisations about how they should lead their lives, but the survey suggests they are not yet ready to cast God out of public life.
Ht Ekklesia, which has a longer comment piece on this. See also Robert Piggotts interpretation at the BBC.
It'll be interesting to see how the National Secular Society spin doctors rewrite the headline on this one. It must be a major blow to them that, after a fairly high media profile in recent times, most of us still don't buy their argument for banishing religion from public life (E.g. 'Religion should be a matter of private conscience, for the home and place of worship....religious involvement in public life...disadvantages those who have no religion').
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Can You Be a Christian in the West Country?
A Christian primary school employee in Devon, whose daughter was told off for talking about Jesus to a classmate, is facing disciplinary action after asking some other Christians to pray for her family. (ht Cranmer)
This follows the case of Caroline Petrie, a nurse in Somerset, who was investigated by her NHS Trust after an offer to pray with a patient.
(see also letters from a Tory, Kouya Chronicle)
I can see this becoming a running story, as particular parts of the media will go on the hunt for similar episodes. There was another case last week of a Christian foster family who were struck off because a 16 year old in their care converted to Christianity, having come (I think) from a Muslim family. All of this seems to share a common theme, of driving Christian practice into the purely private sphere.
Yet at the same time the government would like to encourage Christians to do their 'public' charitable work in partnership with secular funders and authorities. You can't have it both ways.
We seem to be getting to the stage where, piecemeal, a combination of the state and regulatory bodies are deciding which bits of Christian faith are permissible in public and which are not. At the moment it's a few isolated stories - by contrast here in Yeovil there seem to be good relationships between the church and the council/police/community. However we also try to make sure those good relationships continue: we don't use situations like Street pastors, pregnancy counselling or the offer of food parcels to coerce people into faith.
1 Peter encourages Christians to share their faith 'with gentleness and respect', the early church was deeply conscious of the suspicion of this 'new religion' from those around it, and there are repeated injunctions for the church to live a blameless life in order to win over those around it. As well as proclaiming the good news afresh in each generation, we also need to earn the respect of each generation by showing that Christian faith is a good thing, not a threat or a psychosis.
This is a tricky one. We need to stick up for the victimised, without creating a climate of fear where all Christians feel that someone at work is out to get them. It's also hard to know whether these cases are the beginning of a process which will steadily erode Christian freedoms, or a few isolated incidents which are down to one or two personalities in specific jobs. It would be very sad if this whole area came to be governed by law and codes of practice, rather than by common sense and mutual respect.
This follows the case of Caroline Petrie, a nurse in Somerset, who was investigated by her NHS Trust after an offer to pray with a patient.
(see also letters from a Tory, Kouya Chronicle)
I can see this becoming a running story, as particular parts of the media will go on the hunt for similar episodes. There was another case last week of a Christian foster family who were struck off because a 16 year old in their care converted to Christianity, having come (I think) from a Muslim family. All of this seems to share a common theme, of driving Christian practice into the purely private sphere.
Yet at the same time the government would like to encourage Christians to do their 'public' charitable work in partnership with secular funders and authorities. You can't have it both ways.
We seem to be getting to the stage where, piecemeal, a combination of the state and regulatory bodies are deciding which bits of Christian faith are permissible in public and which are not. At the moment it's a few isolated stories - by contrast here in Yeovil there seem to be good relationships between the church and the council/police/community. However we also try to make sure those good relationships continue: we don't use situations like Street pastors, pregnancy counselling or the offer of food parcels to coerce people into faith.
1 Peter encourages Christians to share their faith 'with gentleness and respect', the early church was deeply conscious of the suspicion of this 'new religion' from those around it, and there are repeated injunctions for the church to live a blameless life in order to win over those around it. As well as proclaiming the good news afresh in each generation, we also need to earn the respect of each generation by showing that Christian faith is a good thing, not a threat or a psychosis.
This is a tricky one. We need to stick up for the victimised, without creating a climate of fear where all Christians feel that someone at work is out to get them. It's also hard to know whether these cases are the beginning of a process which will steadily erode Christian freedoms, or a few isolated incidents which are down to one or two personalities in specific jobs. It would be very sad if this whole area came to be governed by law and codes of practice, rather than by common sense and mutual respect.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Faith in public: Blair and Blears, Nurses and Curses
Tony Blairs speech at the Obama prayer breakfast makes interesting reading:
Today, religion is under attack from without and from within. From within, it is corroded by extremists who use their faith as a means of excluding the other. I am what I am in opposition to you. If you do not believe as I believe, you are a lesser human being.
From without, religious faith is assailed by an increasingly aggressive secularism, which derides faith as contrary to reason and defines faith by conflict. Thus do the extreme believers and the aggressive non-believers come together in unholy alliance.
And yet, faith will not be so easily cast. For billions of people, faith motivates, galvanises, compels and inspires, not to exclude but to embrace; not to provoke conflict but to try to do good. This is faith in action. You can see it in countless local communities where those from churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, tend the sick, care for the afflicted, work long hours in bad conditions to bring hope to the despairing and salvation to the lost. You can see it in the arousing of the world’s conscience to the plight of Africa.
There are a million good deeds done every day by people of faith. These are those for whom, in the parable of the sower, the seed fell on good soil and yielded sixty or a hundredfold.
What inspires such people?
Ritual or doctrine or the finer points of theology? No.
it's a speech that could be delivered in America without apology, but Blair hints at the difficulties with faith and public life in the UK
I do not mean by this to blur the correct distinction between the realms of religious and political authority. In Britain we are especially mindful of this. I recall giving an address to the country at a time of crisis. I wanted to end my words with “God bless the British people”. This caused complete consternation. Emergency meetings were convened. The system was aghast. Finally, as I sat trying to defend my words, a senior civil servant said, with utter distain: “Really, Prime Minister, this is not America you know.”
do read the whole thing, very good.
Hazel Blears spoke to a new Debt initiative set up by the Evangelical Alliance, aiming to co-ordinate and resource Christian responses to the debt crunch/recession. She quoted the Bible a bit, and promised to listen more to Christian groups. A new 'charter' is promised to give local authorities/funding sources more encouragement to fund welfare work offered by Christian groups, but there's concern that it might restrict what we can actually do.
Anglican leaders, including African bishops have called for Robert Mugabe to step down. If only political leaders in Africa were just as forthright.
It's utterly bizarre that using the word 'golliwog' in a private conversation gets you the sack, whilst abusing the Prime Minister for his race and disability at a public event doesn't.
The Somerset nurse suspended after offering to pray with a patient has been reinstated. The statement from her NHS trust makes it clear that they weren't happy with what she did, but recognises that spiritual support is part of patient care:
"We feel we were right to investigate the concerns from people about Caroline’s actions...
However, we are keenly aware of the importance of an individual’s spiritual belief, and we recognise that Caroline felt that she was acting in the best interests of her patients. For some people of faith, prayer is seen as an integral part of health care and the healing process....
It is acceptable to offer spiritual support as part of care when the patient asks for it.
But for nurses, whose principal role is giving nursing care, the initiative lies with the patient and not with the nurse."
New NHS Guidelines, published at the beginning of January, state that attempting to 'preach' your religion, or expressing particular points of view consistent with your faith, could be interpreted as harassment. The guidlines are worryingly vague. There is no distinction drawn between 'preaching' faith and simply telling folk what's good about it.
The Good Childhood Report, featured in the media earlier this week, has now been published, summary here. Dave Walker has put together a good collection of links on this today.
Worth Abbey is now holding Monastic Taster Weekends, for people interested in exploring a calling to be a monk.
More on most of these in my latest Touching Base column at the Wardman Wire.
Today, religion is under attack from without and from within. From within, it is corroded by extremists who use their faith as a means of excluding the other. I am what I am in opposition to you. If you do not believe as I believe, you are a lesser human being.
From without, religious faith is assailed by an increasingly aggressive secularism, which derides faith as contrary to reason and defines faith by conflict. Thus do the extreme believers and the aggressive non-believers come together in unholy alliance.
And yet, faith will not be so easily cast. For billions of people, faith motivates, galvanises, compels and inspires, not to exclude but to embrace; not to provoke conflict but to try to do good. This is faith in action. You can see it in countless local communities where those from churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, tend the sick, care for the afflicted, work long hours in bad conditions to bring hope to the despairing and salvation to the lost. You can see it in the arousing of the world’s conscience to the plight of Africa.
There are a million good deeds done every day by people of faith. These are those for whom, in the parable of the sower, the seed fell on good soil and yielded sixty or a hundredfold.
What inspires such people?
Ritual or doctrine or the finer points of theology? No.
it's a speech that could be delivered in America without apology, but Blair hints at the difficulties with faith and public life in the UK
I do not mean by this to blur the correct distinction between the realms of religious and political authority. In Britain we are especially mindful of this. I recall giving an address to the country at a time of crisis. I wanted to end my words with “God bless the British people”. This caused complete consternation. Emergency meetings were convened. The system was aghast. Finally, as I sat trying to defend my words, a senior civil servant said, with utter distain: “Really, Prime Minister, this is not America you know.”
do read the whole thing, very good.
Hazel Blears spoke to a new Debt initiative set up by the Evangelical Alliance, aiming to co-ordinate and resource Christian responses to the debt crunch/recession. She quoted the Bible a bit, and promised to listen more to Christian groups. A new 'charter' is promised to give local authorities/funding sources more encouragement to fund welfare work offered by Christian groups, but there's concern that it might restrict what we can actually do.
Anglican leaders, including African bishops have called for Robert Mugabe to step down. If only political leaders in Africa were just as forthright.
It's utterly bizarre that using the word 'golliwog' in a private conversation gets you the sack, whilst abusing the Prime Minister for his race and disability at a public event doesn't.
The Somerset nurse suspended after offering to pray with a patient has been reinstated. The statement from her NHS trust makes it clear that they weren't happy with what she did, but recognises that spiritual support is part of patient care:
"We feel we were right to investigate the concerns from people about Caroline’s actions...
However, we are keenly aware of the importance of an individual’s spiritual belief, and we recognise that Caroline felt that she was acting in the best interests of her patients. For some people of faith, prayer is seen as an integral part of health care and the healing process....
It is acceptable to offer spiritual support as part of care when the patient asks for it.
But for nurses, whose principal role is giving nursing care, the initiative lies with the patient and not with the nurse."
New NHS Guidelines, published at the beginning of January, state that attempting to 'preach' your religion, or expressing particular points of view consistent with your faith, could be interpreted as harassment. The guidlines are worryingly vague. There is no distinction drawn between 'preaching' faith and simply telling folk what's good about it.
The Good Childhood Report, featured in the media earlier this week, has now been published, summary here. Dave Walker has put together a good collection of links on this today.
Worth Abbey is now holding Monastic Taster Weekends, for people interested in exploring a calling to be a monk.
More on most of these in my latest Touching Base column at the Wardman Wire.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Labour Minister "Faith communities offer a rich resource"
It appears that Labour is now prepared to 'do God', following the departure of devout Mr Blair to sort out the Middle East (that went well). As Ruth Gledhill reports, Stephen Timms (financial secretary to the Treasury) has given a major speech on how the government can work with faith groups. Here's a bit of it
What I want to argue today is that the faith communities offer a rich resource of hopefulness which, in progressive politics, we need to tap into and draw upon. The faith communities have not always been seen as the natural allies of progressive politics. Indeed, in the United States, there has been a powerful alliance between Christian organisations and conservatism. We saw that alliance loosening with the election of Barack Obama.
Faith communities have a great deal to offer us, not least in their resource of hopefulness, as we build a new politics based on hope to respond effectively to the challenges we face. They can form the basis for a broad coalition of hope.
There is a twofold challenge here. A challenge to progressive politicians to show they recognise faith-based perspectives and contributions as valid and mainstream, rather than irrelevant and marginal. That means recognising that faith cannot be relegated to the private sphere – and as IPPR has already argued – addressing faith literacy in central and local government, so that officials can deal intelligently with input from faith communities. And it means thinking hard about identity, recognising the part faith plays, and getting beyond ‘We don’t do God’.
And a challenge to faith communities and their members. To recognise that, in democracy, people are entitled to hold strongly divergent views. It is right to work with people you disagree strongly with on very important subjects, in order to make real in a community the hope which faith instils.
full speech here. The whole thing is worth a read, and not just because he gives a free plug to Street Pastors. Of course, 'he would say that wouldn't he', being a Christian, but the point is that Labour ministers haven't been saying this sort of thing until quite recently.
The timing is interesting: with Dubya leaving the White House, Timms talks about faith groups working with the progressive agenda rather than against it, and Obama becomes Exhibit A in this regard. He also cites Desmond Tutu, Tom Wright and Pope Benedict, as well as several examples of faith communities making a practical difference on the ground.
There are also some headlines, on page 2 of the report, from a Tearfund survey suggesting a strong rise in church attendance last year - no sign of it on their main website as yet.
What I want to argue today is that the faith communities offer a rich resource of hopefulness which, in progressive politics, we need to tap into and draw upon. The faith communities have not always been seen as the natural allies of progressive politics. Indeed, in the United States, there has been a powerful alliance between Christian organisations and conservatism. We saw that alliance loosening with the election of Barack Obama.
Faith communities have a great deal to offer us, not least in their resource of hopefulness, as we build a new politics based on hope to respond effectively to the challenges we face. They can form the basis for a broad coalition of hope.
There is a twofold challenge here. A challenge to progressive politicians to show they recognise faith-based perspectives and contributions as valid and mainstream, rather than irrelevant and marginal. That means recognising that faith cannot be relegated to the private sphere – and as IPPR has already argued – addressing faith literacy in central and local government, so that officials can deal intelligently with input from faith communities. And it means thinking hard about identity, recognising the part faith plays, and getting beyond ‘We don’t do God’.
And a challenge to faith communities and their members. To recognise that, in democracy, people are entitled to hold strongly divergent views. It is right to work with people you disagree strongly with on very important subjects, in order to make real in a community the hope which faith instils.
full speech here. The whole thing is worth a read, and not just because he gives a free plug to Street Pastors. Of course, 'he would say that wouldn't he', being a Christian, but the point is that Labour ministers haven't been saying this sort of thing until quite recently.
The timing is interesting: with Dubya leaving the White House, Timms talks about faith groups working with the progressive agenda rather than against it, and Obama becomes Exhibit A in this regard. He also cites Desmond Tutu, Tom Wright and Pope Benedict, as well as several examples of faith communities making a practical difference on the ground.
There are also some headlines, on page 2 of the report, from a Tearfund survey suggesting a strong rise in church attendance last year - no sign of it on their main website as yet.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Faith Schools & Bigotry
A thread on Liberal Conspiracy is currently discussing faith schools, in advance of a report due today from the Runnymede Trust on whether faith schools promote that New Labour crock of gold, community cohesion. The full report will be downloadable from the Runnymede Trust site later this morning.
The comments themselves are fairly sensible, with quite a few people noting that they went to faith schools but didn't become bigoted fundies. On bigotry, here's a very thoughtful post from a NZ blog Why am I a Bigot? which argues that the accusation of bigotry gets thrown at Christians who hold strong moral views (in his case on abortion and sexuality), as a way of short-circuiting the argument. If we can label people 'bigots', then we no longer need to listen to their point of view. But is the label true?
One would think that it would be fairly obvious to people that you don’t refute a position by calling the person who holds it a bigot and it is tempting to dismiss this response as simply ... (confused)..; the problem is that people do not appear to find this obvious. In my experience, many people even educated people, recoil from considering any argument against feticide or homosexual conduct or listening to theological concerns on these matters because they perceive such positions to be bigoted.
worth a read (but skim-reading is probably not a viable option!), even if you don't agree with him.
Update: brief summary of the press release:
Faith schools should be open to all
Runnymede's latest report 'Right to Divide?' examines how faith schools have responded to the statutory duty to promote community cohesion. It recommends:
1. End selection on the basis of faith
2. Children should have a greater say in how they are educated
3. RE should be part of the core national curriculum
4. Faith schools should also serve the most disadvantaged
5. Faith schools must value all young people
6. If these recommendations are acted upon, faith should continue to play an important role in our education system
Rob Berkeley, Deputy Director of Runnymede, said:
"Faith schools make up a third of our education system. Schools should be central to their communities and neighbourhoods for all who live there not just those who share their religious world view. If we are serious about the importance of equality and cohesion, faith schools too need to play their part by welcoming all in society to the benefits of their approaches. "
Full report as a pdf here (76 pages), executive summary here (12 pages).
Update: good discussion happening on a new Liberal Conspiracy thread here.
The comments themselves are fairly sensible, with quite a few people noting that they went to faith schools but didn't become bigoted fundies. On bigotry, here's a very thoughtful post from a NZ blog Why am I a Bigot? which argues that the accusation of bigotry gets thrown at Christians who hold strong moral views (in his case on abortion and sexuality), as a way of short-circuiting the argument. If we can label people 'bigots', then we no longer need to listen to their point of view. But is the label true?
One would think that it would be fairly obvious to people that you don’t refute a position by calling the person who holds it a bigot and it is tempting to dismiss this response as simply ... (confused)..; the problem is that people do not appear to find this obvious. In my experience, many people even educated people, recoil from considering any argument against feticide or homosexual conduct or listening to theological concerns on these matters because they perceive such positions to be bigoted.
worth a read (but skim-reading is probably not a viable option!), even if you don't agree with him.
Update: brief summary of the press release:
Faith schools should be open to all
Runnymede's latest report 'Right to Divide?' examines how faith schools have responded to the statutory duty to promote community cohesion. It recommends:
1. End selection on the basis of faith
2. Children should have a greater say in how they are educated
3. RE should be part of the core national curriculum
4. Faith schools should also serve the most disadvantaged
5. Faith schools must value all young people
6. If these recommendations are acted upon, faith should continue to play an important role in our education system
Rob Berkeley, Deputy Director of Runnymede, said:
"Faith schools make up a third of our education system. Schools should be central to their communities and neighbourhoods for all who live there not just those who share their religious world view. If we are serious about the importance of equality and cohesion, faith schools too need to play their part by welcoming all in society to the benefits of their approaches. "
Full report as a pdf here (76 pages), executive summary here (12 pages).
Update: good discussion happening on a new Liberal Conspiracy thread here.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
'Communities in Control': Blears, Volunteers, and sawing off the branch you're sitting on.
2 posts from me later today on a recent Government paper 'Communities in Control', on local democracy, volunteering and community involvement. It all kicked off after Hazel Blears, in a speech last week, had a go at 'cynical' bloggers.
Thomas at Liberal Conspiracy challenged us to prove we were better than that by engaging with Blears' proposals. I foolishly offered to tackle a chapter of the paper, so my summary will go up there some time this weekend (possibly) and a longer version on the Wardman Wire at lunchtime today.
Chapter 2 of 'Communities in Control' deals with volunteering, charities, faith groups and local activism. There's nothing massively radical, though in times of higher unemployment, the option of doing voluntary work to gain/keep skills looks even more relevant now than it did in July when the paper was published.
There's bits on removing the barriers to volunteering, especially among the young, disabled and ethnic minorities. However the 3 biggest bugbears I'm aware of to volunteers are:
1. the Criminal Records Bureau check system, very bureaucratic, costly, and time consuming.
2. health and safety legislations, in many places law usurping the place of common sense.
3. the complex grants system, with a bewildering forest of agencies, lottery funds, local and national grant-making bodies, and an application system which almost needs a professional fundraiser to get you on the first rung.
no mention of any of these, though perhaps they'll emerge from the promised consultation with the charity sector.
The section on faith groups was interesting: there is some response to Moral But No Compass, the church report which challenged the governments engagement with Christian groups, and argued that Labour didn't understand what the church was doing, and didn't have the evidence base to really engage properly with us. There's to be a consultation, which I guess is better than nothing!
Faithworks gets a positive mention: the Faithworks charter, developed by a Christian social action charity, is going to be incorporated into government dealings with faith groups. Great example of local involvement and constructive engagement leading national policy, real salt and light stuff.
A lot of the material on faith groups was how to engage them in 'delivering local services' (which means opting in to government strings) and social cohesion stuff. There wasn't much on the other work that churches etc. do. In a sense that's fair enough, as the paper is about local democracy and involvement, and it can't cover everything.
There is to be more consultation, and involvement of local people in how services are delivered. I have no idea what that looks like in practice, but given that only 100 or so private citizens responded to the SSDC consultation on the next 20 years of South Somerset (and this after they kept the consultation window open for much longer than required), my guess is that there isn't a massive pool of us wanting to be consulted, or with the time and energy to get involved in this sort of thing.
My major concern was with the underlying philosophy of the document. It accepts that individual choice is the prime mover in people's decisions, and therefore that volunteering, voting, involvement etc. all have to have a payoff. There are other motivating factors too: faith, duty, compassion, belonging, but there wasn't much in the paper on how to bolster or develop these. Volunteering, and citizenship in general, have a moral underpinning. Those who died in war went out of a sense of duty to their country, and some of us are motivated to vote by a sense of duty to those who died.
My great regret is that there is nothing in the white paper which addresses the moral and spiritual engine room of society, which underpins any good democracy and healthy community. There was no analysis of what threatens community, or of the social trends around neighbourhood, voting, social action etc. and what they imply. By pandering to the supremacy of individual consumer choice (ok, there's some 'citizenship education' mentioned, but that's probably information rather than formation), the paper saws off the branch that a healthy society sits on.
Individual consumer choice on its own is corrosive of community, duty, responsibility, faith and belonging, it encourages people to buy in - and buy out again - rather than to belong and identify with. Communities in Control had a chance to spell out a philosophy of civic society and citizenship, to challenge the worship of choice, and it didn't take it.
Update, Weds 19th Nov: the Liberal Conspiracy post has just gone online.
Thomas at Liberal Conspiracy challenged us to prove we were better than that by engaging with Blears' proposals. I foolishly offered to tackle a chapter of the paper, so my summary will go up there some time this weekend (possibly) and a longer version on the Wardman Wire at lunchtime today.
Chapter 2 of 'Communities in Control' deals with volunteering, charities, faith groups and local activism. There's nothing massively radical, though in times of higher unemployment, the option of doing voluntary work to gain/keep skills looks even more relevant now than it did in July when the paper was published.
There's bits on removing the barriers to volunteering, especially among the young, disabled and ethnic minorities. However the 3 biggest bugbears I'm aware of to volunteers are:
1. the Criminal Records Bureau check system, very bureaucratic, costly, and time consuming.
2. health and safety legislations, in many places law usurping the place of common sense.
3. the complex grants system, with a bewildering forest of agencies, lottery funds, local and national grant-making bodies, and an application system which almost needs a professional fundraiser to get you on the first rung.
no mention of any of these, though perhaps they'll emerge from the promised consultation with the charity sector.
The section on faith groups was interesting: there is some response to Moral But No Compass, the church report which challenged the governments engagement with Christian groups, and argued that Labour didn't understand what the church was doing, and didn't have the evidence base to really engage properly with us. There's to be a consultation, which I guess is better than nothing!
Faithworks gets a positive mention: the Faithworks charter, developed by a Christian social action charity, is going to be incorporated into government dealings with faith groups. Great example of local involvement and constructive engagement leading national policy, real salt and light stuff.
A lot of the material on faith groups was how to engage them in 'delivering local services' (which means opting in to government strings) and social cohesion stuff. There wasn't much on the other work that churches etc. do. In a sense that's fair enough, as the paper is about local democracy and involvement, and it can't cover everything.
There is to be more consultation, and involvement of local people in how services are delivered. I have no idea what that looks like in practice, but given that only 100 or so private citizens responded to the SSDC consultation on the next 20 years of South Somerset (and this after they kept the consultation window open for much longer than required), my guess is that there isn't a massive pool of us wanting to be consulted, or with the time and energy to get involved in this sort of thing.
My major concern was with the underlying philosophy of the document. It accepts that individual choice is the prime mover in people's decisions, and therefore that volunteering, voting, involvement etc. all have to have a payoff. There are other motivating factors too: faith, duty, compassion, belonging, but there wasn't much in the paper on how to bolster or develop these. Volunteering, and citizenship in general, have a moral underpinning. Those who died in war went out of a sense of duty to their country, and some of us are motivated to vote by a sense of duty to those who died.
My great regret is that there is nothing in the white paper which addresses the moral and spiritual engine room of society, which underpins any good democracy and healthy community. There was no analysis of what threatens community, or of the social trends around neighbourhood, voting, social action etc. and what they imply. By pandering to the supremacy of individual consumer choice (ok, there's some 'citizenship education' mentioned, but that's probably information rather than formation), the paper saws off the branch that a healthy society sits on.
Individual consumer choice on its own is corrosive of community, duty, responsibility, faith and belonging, it encourages people to buy in - and buy out again - rather than to belong and identify with. Communities in Control had a chance to spell out a philosophy of civic society and citizenship, to challenge the worship of choice, and it didn't take it.
Update, Weds 19th Nov: the Liberal Conspiracy post has just gone online.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Antidisestablishmentarianism
Great word. What does it mean again?
There's a battle of the long words at the Wardman Wire, where I've posted on Antidisestablishmentarianism in reply to an earlier post about disestablishmentarianism. Have a look and see if we've justified this overuse of the available consonants in the universe.
I just feel better for seeing it down in print. It's worth the debate just for the writing and hearing of the words themselves. At the pub quiz the other night the quizmaster was struggling with a few pronunciations (Seve Ballesteros came out as 'Steve', and we won't mention the Crimean War), so, in true Christian spirit, we called ourselves the Antidisestablishmentarians and hoped we'd get in the top 3 so he'd have to read our names out. We came 2nd. He did quite well, actually.
There's a battle of the long words at the Wardman Wire, where I've posted on Antidisestablishmentarianism in reply to an earlier post about disestablishmentarianism. Have a look and see if we've justified this overuse of the available consonants in the universe.
I just feel better for seeing it down in print. It's worth the debate just for the writing and hearing of the words themselves. At the pub quiz the other night the quizmaster was struggling with a few pronunciations (Seve Ballesteros came out as 'Steve', and we won't mention the Crimean War), so, in true Christian spirit, we called ourselves the Antidisestablishmentarians and hoped we'd get in the top 3 so he'd have to read our names out. We came 2nd. He did quite well, actually.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Fewer and Older: New Church of England stats on clergy, ordinations, schools and finance
A new clutch of stats out today from the Church of England. It covers finance, ordinations, schools and clergy numbers. Membership data normally comes out in January.
A few headlines (see also the Church Times report)
New ordinands
The number recommended for ordination in 2007 was 595, 1 up on 2006, but the age profile remains a worry. There are more younger candidates than before, but still only 40% are under 40, and with 2-3 years at college then 3 years as a curate, it's 5-6 years from beginning training to a position of geniune responsibility. The church is trying to recruit younger leaders, but there aren't that many young people in our churches, and younger people tend to be attracted by....younger leaders. The average age of CofE vicars is now 51.
Clergy totals
The overall number of paid clergy is dropping by roughly 150 a year. Despite the increase in ordinations, high numbers are retiring or leaving vicarhood each year, over 20% of current clergy are due to retire in the next 5 years (including over half of my Deanery!). Also, more than half of those ordained are into non-stipendiary (unpaid) ministry, which isn't a like-for-like replacement to full-time paid clergy. The result is that the projections for Diocesan clergy have been revised down: Bath and Wells (my Diocese) is now allocated 187 clergy in 2012, down from 196 in the previous estimate.
Church schools
Though the overall number of church schools has dropped, they are a slightly higher proportion of the national total because of school rationalisation across the board. 18.7% of primary and 5.3% of secondary children are educated in a CofE school. However, as you'll know if you've ever been inside a church school, this can mean anything from a community school that just has 'CofE' in the name, to one where a Christian ethos is known shared and lived out in the school day.
Giving and finance
Though the CofE is shrinking, income continues to rise, with more people in tax-efficient giving schemes, giving a higher average per head. In real terms giving per head is over 50% higher than it was 20 years ago, which begs certain questions about the church of 20 years ago that I won't go into!
So What?
I'll be honest, I'm concerned about the average age of my fellow clergy, and about the ability of the CofE to maintain it's current level of activity with fewer and fewer full-time staff. I'm also concerned about the levels of stress and busyness amongst clergy in general. There are too many plates spinning, and those spinning them are (in the main) getting older.
We have to rationalise - national church, diocesan structures, sector ministries (does the Army have a 'Sheffield' figure for clergy?). And look at what we do as well - the debate rumbling elsewhere about disestablishment also has practical consequences: is having 26 bishops in the House of Lords a resource-effective way of contributing to national debate? If so, why do fringe groups like Christian Voice get on the radio more often than Bishops?
We also have to ditch two illusions:
1. That the Church of England is the only show in town. Other churches from other streams are equally part of the body of Christ, and our ministry to the nation has got to be done together. In many neighbourhoods, the 'local' church isn't an Anglican one - there's a new housing area around Weston-super-Mare which has effectively been parcelled out between Anglican, Baptist and other churches, so that each neighbourhood is served by a living local church, but it's not necessarily an Anglican one.
2. Connected to that, the parish system as currently constituted. There has never been a parish church for every community - just look at any Ordinance Survey map, or walk through a couple of urban neighbourhoods near you. Even less so has there been 1 vicar for every community.
The CofE needs to find ways of planting and sustaining churches which don't carry all the baggage of the parish system, which don't need a full-time vicar to oversee them, or all the financial and practical burdens of a building, or the requirement to lay on an event every Sunday morning called 'worship'. Much of our energy as churches is spent on maintaining a building to hold our weekly 'worship' event in, and in putting on the event itself. Fundraising, buildings maintenance and event management - is this the core calling of the church?
There used to be stories of a church which met in houses, prayed and worshipped together, pooled its money to help the poor, and tried to live out the teachings of Jesus and his followers. You can find it in Acts. There has to be a simpler way of doing this.
A few headlines (see also the Church Times report)
New ordinands
The number recommended for ordination in 2007 was 595, 1 up on 2006, but the age profile remains a worry. There are more younger candidates than before, but still only 40% are under 40, and with 2-3 years at college then 3 years as a curate, it's 5-6 years from beginning training to a position of geniune responsibility. The church is trying to recruit younger leaders, but there aren't that many young people in our churches, and younger people tend to be attracted by....younger leaders. The average age of CofE vicars is now 51.
Clergy totals
The overall number of paid clergy is dropping by roughly 150 a year. Despite the increase in ordinations, high numbers are retiring or leaving vicarhood each year, over 20% of current clergy are due to retire in the next 5 years (including over half of my Deanery!). Also, more than half of those ordained are into non-stipendiary (unpaid) ministry, which isn't a like-for-like replacement to full-time paid clergy. The result is that the projections for Diocesan clergy have been revised down: Bath and Wells (my Diocese) is now allocated 187 clergy in 2012, down from 196 in the previous estimate.
Church schools
Though the overall number of church schools has dropped, they are a slightly higher proportion of the national total because of school rationalisation across the board. 18.7% of primary and 5.3% of secondary children are educated in a CofE school. However, as you'll know if you've ever been inside a church school, this can mean anything from a community school that just has 'CofE' in the name, to one where a Christian ethos is known shared and lived out in the school day.
Giving and finance
Though the CofE is shrinking, income continues to rise, with more people in tax-efficient giving schemes, giving a higher average per head. In real terms giving per head is over 50% higher than it was 20 years ago, which begs certain questions about the church of 20 years ago that I won't go into!
So What?
I'll be honest, I'm concerned about the average age of my fellow clergy, and about the ability of the CofE to maintain it's current level of activity with fewer and fewer full-time staff. I'm also concerned about the levels of stress and busyness amongst clergy in general. There are too many plates spinning, and those spinning them are (in the main) getting older.
We have to rationalise - national church, diocesan structures, sector ministries (does the Army have a 'Sheffield' figure for clergy?). And look at what we do as well - the debate rumbling elsewhere about disestablishment also has practical consequences: is having 26 bishops in the House of Lords a resource-effective way of contributing to national debate? If so, why do fringe groups like Christian Voice get on the radio more often than Bishops?
We also have to ditch two illusions:
1. That the Church of England is the only show in town. Other churches from other streams are equally part of the body of Christ, and our ministry to the nation has got to be done together. In many neighbourhoods, the 'local' church isn't an Anglican one - there's a new housing area around Weston-super-Mare which has effectively been parcelled out between Anglican, Baptist and other churches, so that each neighbourhood is served by a living local church, but it's not necessarily an Anglican one.
2. Connected to that, the parish system as currently constituted. There has never been a parish church for every community - just look at any Ordinance Survey map, or walk through a couple of urban neighbourhoods near you. Even less so has there been 1 vicar for every community.
The CofE needs to find ways of planting and sustaining churches which don't carry all the baggage of the parish system, which don't need a full-time vicar to oversee them, or all the financial and practical burdens of a building, or the requirement to lay on an event every Sunday morning called 'worship'. Much of our energy as churches is spent on maintaining a building to hold our weekly 'worship' event in, and in putting on the event itself. Fundraising, buildings maintenance and event management - is this the core calling of the church?
There used to be stories of a church which met in houses, prayed and worshipped together, pooled its money to help the poor, and tried to live out the teachings of Jesus and his followers. You can find it in Acts. There has to be a simpler way of doing this.
My Thoughts on Disestablishment
.... are few, but include this -
The Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England
Mr. King is Governor of the Bank of England.
This is a pleasing symmetry which has all the marks of Intelligent Design, thus proving Richard Dawkins and the Atheibus lobby wrong, and proving that we should have an established church. QED.
Now can we discuss something else?
The Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England
Mr. King is Governor of the Bank of England.
This is a pleasing symmetry which has all the marks of Intelligent Design, thus proving Richard Dawkins and the Atheibus lobby wrong, and proving that we should have an established church. QED.
Now can we discuss something else?
Monday, September 22, 2008
Face to Face and Side by Side: the good, the bad and the government jargon
Had an email today about a consultation event in November: part of the blurb (bold is all original, red is my emphasis)
This summer the Government published a new framework for building inter-faith cohesion and harmony in a multi-cultural Britain. ‘Face to Face and Side by Side’ sets out how government will work with faith based groups to improve community cohesion and interaction, as well as initiatives to support faith organisations in delivering public services. This commitment will be backed up by £7.5million worth of investment at national, regional and local level to build the capacity of faith based organisations and help them work and have dialogue with local authorities and regional development agencies
Delegates will have the chance to engage with the panel in investigating key questions such as:
- What are the key practical steps that local authorities can take in supporting inter faith community relations?
- How to integrate faith relations into wider strategies for community cohesion and empowerment and ensure dialogue and good relations between faith groups and local decision making bodies?
- How best to promote understanding and awareness of different beliefs and religious practices?
- How can faith based organisations best utilise their unique capabilities, access funding, and develop their infrastructure in order to deliver public services?
Since the email has the usual disclaimer at the bottom, I won't put the rest of it up for fear of being sued by a Texan, but most of the above is public domain anyway. A couple of thoughts:
1. I'm glad that this is going on. There are plenty of countries where a Christian presence is met with violence, persecution and death. Here, we are invited to partner with the government. That's good. The government is also starting to recognise the contribution churches and faith groups make to society at large. Again, good, though a recent report questioned how deep that recognition goes. To its credit, Face to Face and Side by Side tries to deal with some of the issues raise in Moral but No Compass?, including the need for an evidence base. Simply reading through the reams of local initiatives, and seeing that they are recognised by the government, is very encouraging.
2. If there's £7.5m to build the capacity of faith based organisations (highlighted in red, above), the best way to build capacity is to increase committed membership. I wonder if we can use some of that money to employ an evangelist? Just imagine having that kind of budget on your next Alpha course.....
3. The strong pragmatic leaning of the questions - 'practical steps' 'utilise capabilities' etc. Nothing about building a common vision/philosophy of a multi-cultural society. As I commented the other day, in political life we have seen the death of every 'ism' except pragmatism. As the common values which underpin our society have dissolved, the political class have fought shy of trying to spell out a vision of life, society and values which we can all sign up to. This comes naturally to religion, and is one thing we could really contribute to society, but lines about 'understanding and awareness' speaks to me of wanting to keep the really challenging questions at arms length. 'Sure we'll try to understand what you're about, but engage with it.......?'
It's interesting that 'Face to Face and Side by Side' spells out what the government would like to see, but misses the chance to spell out a Christian, or Muslim (or etc.) perspective on the same issues, and to show where the common ground is. In 132 pages on faith, God isn't mentioned once, which is either a triumph of even-handedness, or something else.
4. Labour is very keen to get the 'third sector' (charities and faith groups) involved in welfare delivery, and the direction of this consultation seems to be about how - with a financial incentive -faith groups can be bound into a clearer commitment to delivering government policy. Community cohesion, understanding of faith groups, these are familiar terms to anyone who's ever read a Home Office document or the national curriculum. Of course these are good things, but is this the government 'working with' faith groups, or faith groups working for the government and being paid for it?
5. You could reword the 4th question as 'how far can faith groups change their organisation and priorities so that they can become an arm of government?' Put like that, it sounds a bit less enticing. Yes there are areas of overlap between our priorities and the governments, but in the overlap, who is on top?
I'm all for partnership wherever it can work. Here in Yeovil there is lots of it - over youth, community, policing, new communities, poverty relief, homelessness, childrens services etc. But the ultimate community cohesion is that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, and that God was in Christ reconciling the whole world to Himself. If we are going to be part of this conversation - as we should - then we need to be as confident in using our own language and worldview as the Government is in using theirs. Whether Christians are then penalised for this will show how serious the state is in engaging with us as equals.
This summer the Government published a new framework for building inter-faith cohesion and harmony in a multi-cultural Britain. ‘Face to Face and Side by Side’ sets out how government will work with faith based groups to improve community cohesion and interaction, as well as initiatives to support faith organisations in delivering public services. This commitment will be backed up by £7.5million worth of investment at national, regional and local level to build the capacity of faith based organisations and help them work and have dialogue with local authorities and regional development agencies
Delegates will have the chance to engage with the panel in investigating key questions such as:
- What are the key practical steps that local authorities can take in supporting inter faith community relations?
- How to integrate faith relations into wider strategies for community cohesion and empowerment and ensure dialogue and good relations between faith groups and local decision making bodies?
- How best to promote understanding and awareness of different beliefs and religious practices?
- How can faith based organisations best utilise their unique capabilities, access funding, and develop their infrastructure in order to deliver public services?
Since the email has the usual disclaimer at the bottom, I won't put the rest of it up for fear of being sued by a Texan, but most of the above is public domain anyway. A couple of thoughts:
1. I'm glad that this is going on. There are plenty of countries where a Christian presence is met with violence, persecution and death. Here, we are invited to partner with the government. That's good. The government is also starting to recognise the contribution churches and faith groups make to society at large. Again, good, though a recent report questioned how deep that recognition goes. To its credit, Face to Face and Side by Side tries to deal with some of the issues raise in Moral but No Compass?, including the need for an evidence base. Simply reading through the reams of local initiatives, and seeing that they are recognised by the government, is very encouraging.
2. If there's £7.5m to build the capacity of faith based organisations (highlighted in red, above), the best way to build capacity is to increase committed membership. I wonder if we can use some of that money to employ an evangelist? Just imagine having that kind of budget on your next Alpha course.....
3. The strong pragmatic leaning of the questions - 'practical steps' 'utilise capabilities' etc. Nothing about building a common vision/philosophy of a multi-cultural society. As I commented the other day, in political life we have seen the death of every 'ism' except pragmatism. As the common values which underpin our society have dissolved, the political class have fought shy of trying to spell out a vision of life, society and values which we can all sign up to. This comes naturally to religion, and is one thing we could really contribute to society, but lines about 'understanding and awareness' speaks to me of wanting to keep the really challenging questions at arms length. 'Sure we'll try to understand what you're about, but engage with it.......?'
It's interesting that 'Face to Face and Side by Side' spells out what the government would like to see, but misses the chance to spell out a Christian, or Muslim (or etc.) perspective on the same issues, and to show where the common ground is. In 132 pages on faith, God isn't mentioned once, which is either a triumph of even-handedness, or something else.
4. Labour is very keen to get the 'third sector' (charities and faith groups) involved in welfare delivery, and the direction of this consultation seems to be about how - with a financial incentive -faith groups can be bound into a clearer commitment to delivering government policy. Community cohesion, understanding of faith groups, these are familiar terms to anyone who's ever read a Home Office document or the national curriculum. Of course these are good things, but is this the government 'working with' faith groups, or faith groups working for the government and being paid for it?
5. You could reword the 4th question as 'how far can faith groups change their organisation and priorities so that they can become an arm of government?' Put like that, it sounds a bit less enticing. Yes there are areas of overlap between our priorities and the governments, but in the overlap, who is on top?
I'm all for partnership wherever it can work. Here in Yeovil there is lots of it - over youth, community, policing, new communities, poverty relief, homelessness, childrens services etc. But the ultimate community cohesion is that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, and that God was in Christ reconciling the whole world to Himself. If we are going to be part of this conversation - as we should - then we need to be as confident in using our own language and worldview as the Government is in using theirs. Whether Christians are then penalised for this will show how serious the state is in engaging with us as equals.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
When is a faith school not a faith school?
Missed this earlier in the week, but Thinking Anglicans has a good collection of links about the new proposals for reform of faith schools launched on Monday by the Accord coalition. Their main goal seems to be to remove the religious element from admissions, recruitment, syllabus and assemblies in all state funded schools. There is a new collection of links today, including a Church of England newspaper editorial, which supports the reforms. Good critique article from the IoS here.
Accord claim they're not looking for the abolition of faith schools, merely their reform. However I struggle to see how a school reformed along the lines they suggest can remain a faith school, as there will be nothing to distinguish it from community schools. Yes sectarianism is a problem, but the fact that there are bad or questionable faith schools doesn't mean that we scrap the entire system. Our local CofE primary benefits from being a 'faith school' in the gentle way that many Church of England schools are. There must be ways to avoid tribalism which don't involve making every school a secular clone.
Update (Sat): article in the Church Times, with some fairly stinging comments about Accord and their reasoning. More links in the Church Times blog, and a new set this morning at Thinking Anglicans. On the official C of E website, their FAQ's about church schools address some of the Accord concerns, but there doesn't seem to be any official Anglican response yet. There is a related post on Cranmer from earlier this week.
Accord claim they're not looking for the abolition of faith schools, merely their reform. However I struggle to see how a school reformed along the lines they suggest can remain a faith school, as there will be nothing to distinguish it from community schools. Yes sectarianism is a problem, but the fact that there are bad or questionable faith schools doesn't mean that we scrap the entire system. Our local CofE primary benefits from being a 'faith school' in the gentle way that many Church of England schools are. There must be ways to avoid tribalism which don't involve making every school a secular clone.
Update (Sat): article in the Church Times, with some fairly stinging comments about Accord and their reasoning. More links in the Church Times blog, and a new set this morning at Thinking Anglicans. On the official C of E website, their FAQ's about church schools address some of the Accord concerns, but there doesn't seem to be any official Anglican response yet. There is a related post on Cranmer from earlier this week.
Friday, July 18, 2008
New Theos Report
Theos have just published a new report 'Neither Private nor Priveleged, the Role of Christianity in Britain Today', and you can see it all online here. The author is Nick Spencer, Jim Wallis has written a foreword, of which this is the opening paragraph.
The question of the proper role of Christians and the church in relation to public
life is one that has occupied much of my work for years. Although the British
history and context are decidedly different than those of the U.S., the challenge of
navigating between theocracy on the one hand and a privatized faith in a secular
society on the other is very real in both.
This is a massive debate at the moment - e.g. a recent government document on Lords reform, and the place of bishops in a reformed second chamber, and the report on church and welfare the CofE came out with a few weeks ago. I'll hopefully get round to reading it and blogging next week, when there's time to do it justice.
The question of the proper role of Christians and the church in relation to public
life is one that has occupied much of my work for years. Although the British
history and context are decidedly different than those of the U.S., the challenge of
navigating between theocracy on the one hand and a privatized faith in a secular
society on the other is very real in both.
This is a massive debate at the moment - e.g. a recent government document on Lords reform, and the place of bishops in a reformed second chamber, and the report on church and welfare the CofE came out with a few weeks ago. I'll hopefully get round to reading it and blogging next week, when there's time to do it justice.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Charity Commission Consultation: should Christians need to 'demonstrate public benefit'?
The Charity Commission is overhauling charity law, one bit of which is to require that charities demonstrate a 'public benefit'. There is a public consultation currently underway:
Practical details:
The deadline for responses is 30th June 2008.
Every Christian charity and individual is welcome to respond.
All responses should be headed ‘Consultation on the Draft Supplementary Guidance on Public Benefit and the Advancement of Religion’.
Send your Response by post to the following address:
Charity Commission DirectPO Box 1227LIVERPOOLL69 3UG
You can also send it by e-mail to: publicbenefit@charitycommission.gov.uk
Practical details:
The deadline for responses is 30th June 2008.
Every Christian charity and individual is welcome to respond.
All responses should be headed ‘Consultation on the Draft Supplementary Guidance on Public Benefit and the Advancement of Religion’.
Send your Response by post to the following address:
Charity Commission DirectPO Box 1227LIVERPOOLL69 3UG
You can also send it by e-mail to: publicbenefit@charitycommission.gov.uk
Please provide the following information as part of the introduction to your response, in the order listed below:
Organisation/Charity name (if applicable)
Charity number (if applicable)
Contact name
Position within organisation (if applicable)
Contact number
Contact address
Contact e-mail
Confidentiality Statement (Whether you are content that your response is made public—see below)
Consultation response/answers to consultation questions
If you represent a charity, please also state your organisation’s charitable aims.
The Consultation Document can be accessed via
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Library/publicbenefit/pdfs/pbarsum.pdf.
2 responses -
CCFON here
The Church of England here, with press release here.
This all sounds quite crucial, as it could possibly change the playing field and the rules for any Christian group operating in the UK.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Moral, But No Compass: Reflections
I've posted some thoughts on the recent report 'Moral, But No Compass', on the role of the Church of England in delivering state welfare services, over at the Wardman Wire. For the full article, go there, but here's a bit of it:
A First Reaction
My initial response to the first news headlines on Moral but No Compass was ‘oh no, my church is whining at the government‘, but the report is actually very good, and deserves to be read and mulled over by both Church and State.
My initial response to the first news headlines on Moral but No Compass was ‘oh no, my church is whining at the government‘, but the report is actually very good, and deserves to be read and mulled over by both Church and State.
Welfare Delivery by the Church?
The reason for the report is the increasing encouragement from central government for the Church to be involved in welfare delivery. In seeking to understand the policy environment, the Von Hugel Foundation discovered that policymakers had no information on the Church of England, and a very limited understanding (and lumping together) of ‘faith groups.’ Alan Wilson, Ruth Gledhill, and Thinking Anglicans (also here) have already done a good job of responding to the main points and summarising comment from elsewhere.
a) Does Government understand the Church? Does it want a Glove Puppet?
The report speaks of national and local government failing to understand what motivates the Church. I remember a Q&A session with the Director of Education in one northern local authority: when asked how the Church could partner with them, his answer was effectively ‘you can promote the council’s education policy‘, and he couldn’t think of anything else. There was no recognition of the Church’s centuries of experience in education, its work with children and families, and the contribution it was already making in local schools.
The report speaks of national and local government failing to understand what motivates the Church. I remember a Q&A session with the Director of Education in one northern local authority: when asked how the Church could partner with them, his answer was effectively ‘you can promote the council’s education policy‘, and he couldn’t think of anything else. There was no recognition of the Church’s centuries of experience in education, its work with children and families, and the contribution it was already making in local schools.
Speaking to a councillor at the same authority one day, I realised a couple of minutes into the chat that it wasn’t really a conversation, he was simply asking loaded questions to get a ‘vicar supports council policy’ answer out of me. This was all in a Labour stronghold, and the principle attitudes towards the church seemed to be mistrust or co-option, rather than partnership and engagement. It must be said that here in Yeovil, a LibDem council, attitudes are more positive, though the labyrinth of agencies, partnerships, funding streams etc. means you have have a certain amount of time and energy to find your way through it. Equally, there are likely to be examples of positive and negartive examples in local authorities across the country.
It’s interesting that a recent government consultation on ‘violent extremism’ floats the idea that Further Education chaplaincies can play a role in tackling extremism on campus. It’s not easy to see whether this is seen as partnership, or chaplaincies becoming an informal agent of the state in low-level counter-terrorism!
go here for the rest: on whether the report lets the church off lightly, and the interface between prophecy and practice
(cartoon from ASBO Jesus)
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Rhetoric and Reality
I've posted elsewhere a cluster of quotes from various government ministers on the positive impact of faith groups and churches on society. There are also several regional reports on the impact of the church and faith groups (see below).
However, though Gordon Brown, Hazel Blears, the Home Office and various Ministers of State seem to be queueing up to praise faith communities, a new CofE sponsored report paints a very different picture. 'Moral, but no Compass' is due out on Monday but Ruth Gledhill has put up some snippets. The Government is keen to co-opt faith groups into promoting its agenda (for example, a recent consultation on 'tackling violent extremism' suggested that FE college chaplaincies might have a role to play in what is, effectively, low-level counter-terrorism), but doesn't seem quite so keen to understand where we're coming from. The snippets paint a picture of a government which lumps faith communities together, doesn't understand them, and focuses on fringe communities rather than mainstream churches like the CofE. For example:
We encountered on the part of Government a significant lack of understanding of, or interest in, the Church of England's current or potential contribution in the public sphere. Indeed we were told that Government had consciously decided to focus its evidence gathering almost exclusively on minority religions. ... Three separate government departments admitted to possessing no evidence based on the Christian churches, despite one having proactively commissioned new research to underpin its faith-based agenda. The Office of the Third Sector could not conceive why such an evidence base might be necessary, despite ministerial claims of taking faith communities seriously.
There are plenty of examples of research, commissioned by churches and Christian groups, into the impact of Christians in welfare and public life. Faith in Rural Communities, Faith in Wales, Faith in Englands Northwest, and Daily Service (a report into faith groups in the SW) all give an evidence base for the work of faith groups - the vast majority of them churches - in community, welfare, regeneration, voluntary work etc. Faithworks also have a good number of case studies on their website.
Quoting from the report again:
Based on our interviews with politicians, government officials and people in the faith communities themselves, we can only conclude that the absence of a 'churches' evidence base is grounded in a judgement that churches are not worthy to have even a modest role in government schemes. Such a judgement contrasts strongly with public declarations by Ministers that all of civil society is welcome to the public service reform table and that the government's agenda is for all faiths rather than for a few.
Ruth's post links to a Times report and leader, the full version of 'Moral, without a Compass' is due out on Monday. This could be interesting.....
However, though Gordon Brown, Hazel Blears, the Home Office and various Ministers of State seem to be queueing up to praise faith communities, a new CofE sponsored report paints a very different picture. 'Moral, but no Compass' is due out on Monday but Ruth Gledhill has put up some snippets. The Government is keen to co-opt faith groups into promoting its agenda (for example, a recent consultation on 'tackling violent extremism' suggested that FE college chaplaincies might have a role to play in what is, effectively, low-level counter-terrorism), but doesn't seem quite so keen to understand where we're coming from. The snippets paint a picture of a government which lumps faith communities together, doesn't understand them, and focuses on fringe communities rather than mainstream churches like the CofE. For example:
We encountered on the part of Government a significant lack of understanding of, or interest in, the Church of England's current or potential contribution in the public sphere. Indeed we were told that Government had consciously decided to focus its evidence gathering almost exclusively on minority religions. ... Three separate government departments admitted to possessing no evidence based on the Christian churches, despite one having proactively commissioned new research to underpin its faith-based agenda. The Office of the Third Sector could not conceive why such an evidence base might be necessary, despite ministerial claims of taking faith communities seriously.
There are plenty of examples of research, commissioned by churches and Christian groups, into the impact of Christians in welfare and public life. Faith in Rural Communities, Faith in Wales, Faith in Englands Northwest, and Daily Service (a report into faith groups in the SW) all give an evidence base for the work of faith groups - the vast majority of them churches - in community, welfare, regeneration, voluntary work etc. Faithworks also have a good number of case studies on their website.
Quoting from the report again:
Based on our interviews with politicians, government officials and people in the faith communities themselves, we can only conclude that the absence of a 'churches' evidence base is grounded in a judgement that churches are not worthy to have even a modest role in government schemes. Such a judgement contrasts strongly with public declarations by Ministers that all of civil society is welcome to the public service reform table and that the government's agenda is for all faiths rather than for a few.
Ruth's post links to a Times report and leader, the full version of 'Moral, without a Compass' is due out on Monday. This could be interesting.....
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