SHOULD RELIGION BE REMOVED FROM POLITICS?
15 June 2007
INTRODUCTION
“We don't do God” said Alistair Campbell, memorably, about our outgoing PM. If I had taken this advice to heart I might have declined this invitation to come and address you this evening. There are a number of risky activities for politicians and one of them is without doubt to talk about religion in the context of public life. Only race seems more dangerous and in recent years the two have shown clear signs of merger as religion has become closely linked to issues of ethnic and national identity. Past exponents of the genre who have successfully navigated this minefield have tended to be very senior and already half removed from the political process. Lord Hailsham springs to mind and more recently Lord Mackay the last Conservative Lord Chancellor. Both he and Lord Hailsham also held the delightful title of “Keeper of the Queen’s Conscience” which may explain their interest. It is unclear to me if this post has survived the creation of the new Minister for Justice. Otherwise this area of debate has been the province of the marginalised. Enoch Powell who was learned in theology was happy to enter the fray but his example is today definitely not a recommendation. The disgraced-such as Jonathan Aitken have added their contribution, but for active mainstream politicians the subject is largely taboo. We are led to believe that a great deal of the PM's motivation and decisions in office were influenced by his Christianity, but I can't but help feel that it may be some time, if ever, that he explains himself and his career in such terms.
BACKGROUND
Some of you will be aware that I am an active member of my church along with my wife. In asking me to come and speak I detected that the organisers were keen to hear from me how I reconciled my faith with being a politician and what influence my own faith had on my political outlook. You can understand from my opening remarks my nervousness: I found myself sub consciously reluctant to do this and decided instead to take as my topic whether there is a place for religion in politics - a less personal matter! I do however promise that before I finish this evening I will take the plunge and touch on how I think my personal beliefs affect my outlook, because I accept that if I don't I cannot do justice to my main theme. On one level Christian religious principles suffuse our national culture. Indeed we have in this country an established church with the monarch as its Supreme Head. Her style is “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and of Her Other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”. The Queen when she opens Parliament finishes her address by asking that the Blessing of Almighty God should rest on our counsels. Both Houses open their proceedings with appropriate prayers and the Speaker has a chaplain in the Commons to lead them. A number of Anglican Bishops have a constitutional right to be present in the legislature and participate and vote in the House of Lords. All major expressions of national celebration or sorrow have a religious aspect and in the coronation of the monarch we have about as complete a marriage of Christian religion with the secular authority of the state as it would be possible to devise. “Faith and truth I shall bear unto thee” promised the Queen. Instead of the Social Contract between State and citizen which in theory underpins the operation of the French State we have at least superficially and ceremonially the legitimization of our subjection to our Queen and her government on the basis of its observance of God's holy ordinances. Only last week I attended the enthronement of the new Bishop of Oxford, a grand ceremony where there were also present other MPs, three Lord Lieutenants, assorted High Sheriffs, Mayors and local government chairmen and chief executives, Judges, the Chief Constable of the Thames Valley Police and representatives of all three branches of the Armed Forces of the Crown . If religion is to be removed from politics all this ceremonial civil underpinning of religion and religious underpinning of the State must in theory go as well. Such a move would be revolutionary indeed in terms of removing key building blocks of our national identity. The example of the Soviet Union in devising an Atheist state ceremonial and its ultimate fate does not suggest this task is easy. But there is plenty of evidence around in the last decade to show that the role of religion in our society is now not just a topic of academic debate, but has entered mainstream political discourse- and it is not just about whether or not there should be bishops in the House of Lords or references to other faiths in a future coronation service. I see clear trends which are gaining in force with increasing levels of overt religiosity from some and growing and aggressive demands for secularism from others. This divide is creating a hazardous place for those of us with responsibility for governance to navigate. If you compare our society today to what it was over 50 years ago when I was born, the removal of religiously based habits and practices is astonishing. Then Sunday was regarded as a day of rest, to attend church or at least to be with the family. Sunday school was a reality for many children and prayers started school days. Religious education and personal morality were intricately bound. Without being brought up in a regularly church going family I had no difficulty in acquiring a basic knowledge of Christian principles, heritage and culture-musical and literary through my schooling. And in Conservative politics my somewhat agnostic Anglican parents certainly had no difficulty supporting the Party which in its 1950 election manifesto listed “reverence for Christian ethics” as the first of five principles which were described as “pillars on which we base our faith”. At about the same time Lord Hailsham in his book “The Case for Conservatism” was concluding that “There can be no genuine Conservatism which is not founded upon a religious view of the basis of civil obligation, and there can be no true religion where the basis of civil obligation is treated as purely secular”. It’s all a rather a far cry from a modern Conservative event I attended as diversity spokesman at a recent Party Conference on an “absolutely equal” theme. I found gay partners dancing together, the enjoyment of the music of Madonna who uses a crucifixion scene as a pop concert stage prop and the wearing of crosses as a “gothic” design accessory in antithesis of any traditional religious symbolism. This however is only half the story. The same event was intended as a showpiece of ethnic diversity as well. It was supported by the CRE and Barclays Bank and invitations sent to our younger Black and Asian members, with Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim backgrounds. I am not quite sure what they made of it! Their presence reflects a revolutionary change in the diversity of faiths within the UK on the back of immigration. You don’t need me here in Leicestershire to tell you that whereas 50 years ago an urban skyline was punctuated by silhouettes of church towers – largely Protestant - today you can see in most towns of any size the minarets of a mosque and the dome of a Hindu temple or a Sikh gurdwara. The statistics of the last census (2001) tell the story. While a total of 72 per cent, more than 42 million people might describe themselves as Christian, this figure encompassed both those holding to the vaguest of Christian traditions and the active Christianity revived in large part at present on the back of Black evangelical and Pentecostal churches. The second largest faith grouping was Islam which accounted for 2.7 per cent, or nearly 1.6 million people (although many people think that there are nearer 3 million Muslims). About 16 per cent of people stated that they had no religion. This category included atheists, agnostics, heathens and Jedi knights! Our changing patterns of religious affiliation have brought with them levels of religious debate and polemic that have struck a nation accustomed in its mainstream to religious faith as a dormant and innocuous background presence only. Fundamental Islam – sometimes described as political Islam maintains that there can be no division between state and religion at all and wishes to bring about this congruence by political action. It is a subject which in itself could command a whole speech but for the point of my talk tonight I will confine myself to saying that its impact goes far beyond its manifestation in violent terrorism. It’s undoubtedly influencing events in this country in a marked way, with pressure for special banking facilities, for faith schools and for recognition of Sharia law at least for family matters. Any person attending as I have a Federation of Islamic Student Societies conference is confronted by views on the necessity of reordering the World that makes Trotskiism look distinctly mild. And it is having an impact on other religions. Suddenly the Hindus – hitherto the practitioners of a rather contented faith, have felt the need to organize themselves politically, evidenced by the number of religious-political bodies they have established to lobby for rights and privileges-including not having their cattle put down because of fears of bovine tuberculosis. They have followed the Jewish community in creating their own security arrangements because of their fear that their holy places will be attacked by others. Some Sikhs too have developed a “rights” agenda based on the need for recognition of their distinctive status. The violent protests over the staging of the play Behzti written by a Sikh and considered by some to be blasphemous echoed the wider turmoil created when the Satanic Verses was published. We are witnessing, as well, the affects on the Christian religion of sharing a small island with another religion that has such a strong belief-set. Earlier this month it was announced that the Church of England is contemplating introducing a rule book so that Anglicans understand what their religion stands for-presumably not a re-issue of the 39 Articles!. At the same time our two senior Roman Catholic leaders have warned that Catholic politicians who support abortion might be denied Holy Communion-something which struck me as fairly understandable. I was therefore amused to note that The President of the National Secular Society Terry Sanderson said “There is an implied call to Catholic politicians and health workers to place Catholic doctrines above the wishes of the electorate. This is undemocratic and unacceptable.” So how are politicians going to reconcile this conundrum of deepening religious fervour in a more secular age? The current evidence suggests with great difficulty. The matter was highlighted for me in stark form this year by the debate over the Sexual Orientation Regulations and its impact on the operation of Roman Catholic adoption agencies. Up to now the State has used a variety of organisations to help find suitable adults to adopt children. Roman Catholic agencies have been amongst the best and most successful-particularly in the case of children who have been hard to place. But these agencies will not facilitate adoption by same sex couples as it is contrary to their religious principles, so same sex couples have had to be helped by other agencies to which the catholic agencies would direct them. As a result of the Regulations, however Catholic agencies will be forbidden to offer an adoption service at all unless they abandon their scruples and conform to the principles of the Equality Act. This prohibits all form of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, just as it seeks to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of belief. Therefore anyone willing to operate outside of the confines of their religious group to provide a service to the wider public must conform to a set of secular principles of equality laid down by Parliament in the Act. When the matter was debated, very perfunctorily, many felt constrained to take sides based on whether or not they wished to be seen as for or against same sex couple adoption. But that really was not the issue. It is possible, as it was for me, to have no problem over same sex couple adoption on what I see as the pragmatic grounds that if the right carers can be found for a child they should be able to adopt. But I was concerned at the implications of this measure on the right to be able to manifest ones religious beliefs in ones life and work. It is undoubtedly a difficult area. Any concession to religious scruples would have diminished the protection from discrimination for those of a different sexual orientation. However it does seem significant that attempts at compromise were abandoned. The decision to curtail debate is also telling as to the political sensitivities seen to be involved. Take another example. Last year I led for the opposition in resistance to the government's effort to criminalise incitement to religious hatred, by which was meant the creation of intense dislike of others on the grounds of their religion or belief. The Government’s intention was to extend the protection that had previously been enacted to prohibit incitement to hatred on the grounds of race. Race however is an immutable characteristic of an individual and objectively tells us nothing about them. Religious belief or the lack of it is ultimately a matter of choice just as are my political beliefs. Anyone is quite free to incite intense dislike of me for being a Conservative politician-it happens all the time in politics, so why should I enjoy special protection from being intensely disliked for being a practising Anglican? The Government’s argument was that in a multicultural and multi religious country discussion on religion and belief now had to be pursued within more restricted and controlled parameters to avoid public discord or civil disorder. Some Muslims viewed it as a long overdue blasphemy law to protect their faith from insult and give them parity with Sikhs and Jews who enjoy protection as ethnic groups. The Bill also provoked wider debate. Many Christians who wrote to their MP’s were concerned that the existing Public Order Acts were being used to fetter the right to freedom of speech of street preachers who seek to spread the gospel. I discovered that in my local town of High Wycombe one such preacher had been told by the police that he could preach the gospel as long as he did not tell people that they risked going to hell if they did not repent and turn to Christ-a piece of information that he not unreasonably felt was of some importance to communicate to his audience. Fortunately when the Bill came to Parliament a majority were so concerned that it might act as an unreasonable fetter on free speech that the purpose of the Bill was defeated by radical amendment. That does not however diminish its significance as an attempt at reducing the role of religion in the public sphere. Last but not least of these examples is our debate on the role of faith education and outward expressions of religious belief in schools, courts and places of work -such as the wearing of the Hijab by schoolgirls. While at present the main political parties are agreed on the desirability of providing funding for religiously based education, the arguments over insisting on quotas from other backgrounds being included in future faith schools and the debate as to the appropriateness of making concessions to dress requirements or the segregation of the sexes all betray an anxiety of how competing demands can be accommodated. It can be argued that these examples I have given are merely illustrative of pragmatic responses by government to particular problems. Others such as the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York are arguing that these episodes indicate the start of a British version of Bismarck’s “Kulturkampf” or the anticlerical assault on the Roman Catholic Church in late 19th century France. I certainly don't think they are part of a planned strategy-which in my experience hardly ever arise in British politics in any context. But I do believe that the drift is unmistakable and could result over time in faith groups being progressively excluded from any public role whatever and relegated to the margins. Logically you cannot favour policies of absolute equality in the public sphere without calling into question, for instance, why we exempt Sikhs from wearing motor cycle helmets or allow them to carry Kirpans in defiance of the law on offensive weapons. A strict application of the Equality Act must mean that it will be difficult for a person with a religious scruple to operate in the public sphere at all. If we have made it impossible (as we have done) for a Muslim printer to refuse to print a book explaining lawful homosexual practices on the grounds it is contrary to his beliefs, at what point will it be argued that Christian nurse can no longer object to helping in a pregnancy termination unless she is working in an exclusively private hospital serving only her own faith group? As I mentioned a moment ago Mr Terry Sanderson from his comments presumably thinks that this should be the future. When discussing these issues with colleagues in Parliament, I am also struck by the fact that the growth in support for this approach has been fuelled by a growing fear of religious extremism and essentially Muslim fundamentalism. Prof Richard Dawkins may rejoice that at long last there is a secular trend in politics but I actually see little sign of intellectual secularism at all. Rather a colleague justified the necessity of implementing the Equality Regulations in their present form entirely on the basis of it being a line in the sand against a growing tide of Muslim demands for special status which is a very different thing from a secularist ethic. But either way I believe that it is a mistaken approach and that there are better solutions.
SOLUTIONS
Firstly we need a sense of historical perspective. The development of our country into a pluralist democracy was not achieved through the suppression of religion in politics, but through the harnessing of religious ethics to promote the common good. Five hundred years ago our country was a royal autocracy underpinned by religious orthodoxy that suppressed dissenting views with all the energy and enthusiasm still displayed in Iran. The move from one state to another came about through a process of religious polemic, debate, attempts at repression by the State to control the process and quite a lot of violence. Hizb ut Tahrir and Tablighi Jamaat are yet another group of millenarians that our 17th century forebears understood very well- “poor fantasticals” was the expression that Oliver Cromwell used of the more extreme participants in the Putney debates. But gradually and I am sure only through much personal forbearance and gritted teeth we achieved a state where tolerance of the beliefs of others was seen as better and more advantageous to our collective wellbeing than imposed solutions and persecution. The Vicar of Bray may be a figure of fun but his ability to accommodate himself and the willingness of the different regimes to let him accommodate himself may be viewed as one of the more benevolent contributions to the development of our society. The tolerance of Protestant dissenters in the late 17th century, Catholic emancipation in 1829 and Jewish emancipation in the 1840’s are key moments in the process and each unlocked the possibility for them to participate in the public and political sphere from which we have all benefited. In this anniversary year of the Abolition of the slave trade, we should have cause to rejoice at the impact which faith based principles have had on politics in the period of the Enlightenment and beyond. The work of William Wilberforce and its Christian inspiration is now recognized as having been of great value in bringing about political change for the better. We would be mistaken however in believing that he didn’t face many of the dilemmas we talk of today. As a young man he wrestled in his mind over whether political ambition was compatible with his deepening faith. He considered withdrawal from public life altogether but was dissuaded by William Pitt who wrote to him in 1785 that he was deluding himself “into principles that have but too much tendency to counteract your own object, and to render your virtues and your talents useless to both yourself and mankind”. Pitt went on “If a Christian may act in the several relations of life, must he seclude himself from all to become so? Surely the principles and practices of Christianity are simple and lead not to meditation only, but to action.” And this was against a background of intense resistance to the abolition of the Slave Trade from within the Established Church with some Bishops themselves owning slaves in the Caribbean. But we should not forget the raft of other political and social reformers who drew their inspiration from their faith. The promotion of good works emphasized by John Wesley was a powerful force that went far beyond Non-Conformist circles. Lord Shaftsbury and Florence Nightingale and the charitable work of the Rothschilds from the Jewish community, the traditions of Christian socialism of John Ruskin and William Morris, all involved religious polemic in the political sphere. Indeed one of the most notable aspects of this period is of how the acceptance of a faith based contribution to the betterment of the human condition, far from promoting exclusivity, rapidly encompassed the greatest diversity. When under Queen Elizabeth 1st charitable purposes were defined, the charitable object of the promotion of religion was entirely confined to the Church of England. But on the back of emancipation of other religions, the courts felt able without any statutory intervention whatever, to extend the definition of a charitable purpose to the activities of other denominations and faiths. As a result our forebears were able to release a torrent of good works to the benefit of the wider community. Faith schools, Anglican, Roman Catholic and then Jewish, charitable foundations for the relief of poverty, hospitals and children’s homes and of course the adoption agencies could be and were created. But while this process was facilitated by Government and by the growth of tolerance of diverse views, it did not happen as a result of granting what is currently described as “Equality of esteem” between faiths or by preventing groups operating in the public arena because they themselves discriminated against others as a result of their own beliefs. The right to discriminate on grounds of belief was, subject to the constraints of the criminal law, regarded as being an important freedom and one need look no further than Gladstone’s attitude to Roman Catholicism to see that powerfully expressed dislike of other denomination’s doctrines went hand in hand with co-operation with its adherents. The idea that the State, as representing majority opinion in faith matters , had to move beyond toleration to equality of status a matter of principle would have been seen as both odd and offensive. Now I wish to avoid being misunderstood! I am not in favour of trying to turn the clock back. You cannot turn clocks back. The nature of our society has changed very much since those times and we live in an era of much greater diversity which must be recognized for its worth and accommodated. But it seems to me reasonable to ask the question whether we are not running the danger at present that the array of controls we are putting in place to regulate religion and impose a semi secular orthodoxy has the unintended consequence of undermining the chances of creating better cohesion in our country. Firstly, it tends to push moderate religion out of the public and political sphere altogether. As I notice as an MP, there is a growing trend amongst these religious groups to turn away from involvement in the political process. Parliamentary politics is perceived by them to be a process that is in some way sullying. At the same time demands on them to conform to “secular” norms is discouraging for them in carrying out voluntary work that is of wider public benefit. Even if it isn’t an ideological battle, as the one over adoption agencies there are too many bureaucratic obstacles to participation, too many forms to be filled and boxes to be ticked, stultifying initiative. This tends to diminish their appeal to adherents as it creates an image that they now lack dynamism or relevance to daily life. Secondly, in the case of faiths or sects of faiths which have exclusionary viewpoints that are contrary to the maintenance of religious and political pluralism, the new orthodoxy does nothing to reduce their appeal or change them for the better. They can ignore the bureaucracy and concentrate exclusively on their followers and on proselytism. The account in Prospect magazine this month on the attraction of Muslim fundamentalist groups is illuminating on this point. They are also only too happy to invoke their “right” to equality of esteem” to demand protection from critics. This means that discourse between these groups and those of other beliefs and none in the public sphere is much less likely to occur. I believe this matters a great deal, as it is through such contact that we moderate each others attitudes and behaviour by our exchanges of opinions, information and ideas. Thus, by this process, my practice of Anglicanism is, although recognizably linked to it by tradition, distinctly different from that practiced by my 16th century English forebears. The same can be seen with the Islam practiced by Ismaili Muslims, prompted into dialogue and involvement in western public life at the instance of the Agha Khan or current Roman Catholicism and Judaism. You will also recall the example of Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who being a member of a free Presbyterian congregation found that his public duties as Lord Chancellor in attending the funeral of a Roman Catholic judge were deemed by it to be irreconcilable with its requirements and therefore left to worship elsewhere, precipitating a re-think that altered the thinking of the congregation on the matter. We are thus in danger of reinforcing separatism and inducing a sclerosis in the development of doctrine and attitudes to others. An extreme example of this can be seen in Iraq-where high levels of “religious” violence appear as a consequence of the State having long suppressed free expression of religious beliefs previously. The overall impact of the government’s approach is not as it hopes to create a new citizen devoid of prejudice but rather to institutionalize difference. The solution lies in the political community escaping from the straightjacket of political correctness. We should be able to make our own assessments of the extent to which a group contributes to the common good as the key criteria to recognition and encouragement. That may mean tolerating that some faith groups must inevitably discriminate, yet still provide valuable public services to the wider community and are worthy of being encouraged to be active in the public sphere. While public money should not be used to support proselytizing by any faith or denomination, it is counterproductive to tell them that the only way to win official support is to sanitize their views by suppressing the tenets of the faith that inspires their good works. On the other hand some groups that are currently cosseted despite their hateful bigotry may not even merit charitable status and all should be exposed to the force of open criticism of doctrine and practice that has helped create our democratic pluralism that is so important in enabling people to lead fulfilled and peaceful lives. I said at the start of this talk that before I finished I would touch on my own experience of reconciling religion and politics. I may already have given an indication from my comments. It may be that being a member of the Church of England makes life easier for me than for some by imposing few requirements to seek or claim divine approval for a particular policy! I have certainly found as Lord Hailsham once put it that “most political judgments are matters of degree, fact and opinion and have no bearing at all on the salvation of individual souls or the verities enshrined in the Nicene Creed…” Even the controversial areas surrounding the balance of liberty against security and whether or not we should extend the period of pre-charge detention to 90 days, or even have an offence of incitement to religious hatred, do not appear to me to raise some biblical or doctrinal premise that leads to a particular answer, even if I have strong opinions on the matter derived from a study of history and politics and a perhaps romantic vision of what I conceive to be our core national values. At a carol service last Advent at Lambeth Palace for parliamentarians the Archbishop of Canterbury in his sermon reflected with wry amusement that it was predicted that large numbers would be attending church that Christmas in search of their English national identity! I felt that he might perhaps have been happier as surely would St Augustine of Canterbury, at any opportunity to get the unchurched to hear the Word of God. But I entirely agree that we should be wary of conflating the one with the other. I would like to hope that if my faith influences my life in politics it does so in two ways. Firstly, while politics is about as temporal an activity as you can get, I trust that I can practice it in a way that allows it to be one of the “good works” in which we are enjoined to be rich and plentiful. It certainly helps that in parliament there is a recognizable group of Christian MP’s who provide each other with gentle mutual support and encouragement.Secondly it offers a tempering perspective to a worldly activity. I confess that politics can be all absorbing and with that comes a lot of vices, particularly anger over issues under debate on which I may feel strongly and although politicians don’t like to admit it the potentially dangerous appeal of the exercise of power. Christian faith is a constant reminder that these tendencies must be mastered if I want to partake in the promise of salvation that has been offered to me.
CONCLUSION
It has become fashionable for some to suggest that religious belief is an impediment to human progress and an unnecessary source of conflict. History certainly shows that it has at times been used as a justification for great evil, but then the capacity for evil appears as inherent in our human condition and has found plenty of other outlets as well. Our awareness of the numinous and the transcending emotions it engenders which take us beyond self is a defining aspect of our humanity and has also been a powerful force for good. It is not going to go away. A wise government should ensure that tempered by debate it has a place in our public and political life.
DOMINIC GRIEVE