Wardman on the NSS

The Wardman Wire has kicked off a fascinating series of posts about the approach of the National Secular Society (NSS) towards faith communities.

In his post beginning the series, Matt Wardman criticises the NSS for presenting itself in the media as “representing” the “non-religious” when it is an organisation with a tiny membership that then constantly criticises religions with committed memberships of millions for being insignificant minorities. He outlines their approaches of: achieving influence via a network of “Honorary Associates” in the media and politics; having individual members act as local activists; and using campaigning tactics where the “office” backs up campaigns by local members by leveraging targeted media coverage, and sometimes legal threats.

He ends by arguing that the case for a secular state could be put far more strongly if the NSS was sidelined, as there’d be far fewer insults thrown around, and far more use of accurate information in the debate.

To demonstrate that he is open to genuine debate on these issues, the second post in the series is a response from Carl Gardner, an NSS supporter. Gardner argues that the secular viewpoint is much needed in our public debate about competing rights and religion – more needed now than ever when new, assertively countercultural forms of religion are becoming increasingly strident and that, while the NSS may not get everything right, it’s a vital organisation doing a good job of fighting for important principles.

This series should run and run and looks as though it will be well worth checking out. My recent sermon, which I posted as http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2010/01/post-christendom-church.html, touched on some of these issues.

Expanding on that post, many Christians seem to feel that, as the first comment to a post by Adam Higgitt on the pressures being brought to bear on Christianity says, "Religion (especially Christianity) is extremely marginalised in British public life." My argument, though, is that that is too simplistic a response to the current position of Christianity in the UK. First, we are in a Post-Christendom period where the privileged position that Christianity once had in the UK is gradually being eroded. For Christianity to have had a privileged position in UK society was not an unmitigated blessing and the change in its position has pros as well as cons (and arguably brings us closer to the position of the Early Church in relation to political powers). However, our awareness of this erosion process as a series of losses gives the impression that Christianity is being treated unfairly.

Second, there has been and still is a secularist agenda that seeks to marginalise religion (and Christianity, in particular). It is this agenda on which Higgitt focuses in his post. Secularism combined with Post-Christendom was a potent mix initially seemed to threaten the survival of Christianity as a factor in the public square in the UK. In much of the 70s and 80s this secularist agenda essentially excluded faith-based organisations from involvement in the delivery of public services but that situation has changed radically as a result of ...

Third, the multi-faith nature of the UK and its inclusion in the diversity agenda which has been a counter-balance to this secularist agenda. Equalities and human rights legislation is resulting from the diversity rather than the secularist agenda so that, instead of religions (including Christianity) being excluded from the public square, we are in a place where discriminating against people on the basis of religion or belief is illegal. One result has been the increasing reversal of the exclusion of faith-based organisations from involvement in delivery of public services (as example, see Lifeline Projects and the FaithAction network within which they are one of the key partners).

So, I was arguing in my sermon that our current context is an appropriate reduction in the privileged position Christianity has occupied in the UK in the past combined with a secularist argument that seeks to remove religion (and Christianity, in particular) from the public square but that the secularising agenda has been halted and the position of religions (including the Christianity) regularised and equalised by the diversity agenda.

Christians though regularly conflate the secularist and diversity agendas arguing that multi-faith UK threatens Christianity when the major threat actually comes from the secularist agenda. Many in other faith communities actively support the Church having a voice and role in the public square and would prefer Christians to be more outspoken in our comment on public affairs (albeit, generally from a conservative perspective); essentially they would prefer to be live in Christendom rather than in Post-Christendom. To conflate the two is to 'bite the hand that feeds you'; multi-faith UK has essentially strengthened the position of Christianity vis a vis the secularist agenda and is a stablising factor reducing the advance of secularism. As a result, the diversity agenda needs to be supported and utilised intelligently by the Church.

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Extreme - There Is No God.