Terry Sanderson

Last week, I met with the president of the National Secular Society, Terry Sanderson. (See link on the right). Mr. Sanderson’s perception of the state of religious belief in Britain and in Europe as a whole is that it is experiencing significant decline. The original secularization thesis predicted that modernization would result in religion becoming obsolete. The United States has clearly proved an exception to that rule, causing controversy and confusion among scholars and sociologists. Sanderson’s primary explanation of the strikingly different levels of secularization between modern Europe and modern America (along with the developing world) is the feeling of security Europeans derive from their social health care system. He says that the reason secularization is happening in Europe so dramatically is “because we have a hugely successful social and health service that protects you from cradle to grave—you will never find yourself in the gutter dying in this country.” He argues that Americans feel less secure than Europeans because they lack this “social safety net” and thus, find themselves in “a very powerless state if their health declines.” Poverty and lack of security, Sanderson posits, results in a higher need for religion. “You can see it in Haiti where religion is being reinforced by this earthquake because that’s all they have—they have nothing else to turn to.” Mr. Sanderson predicts that America’s need for religion will lessen “when Mr. Obama gets his healthcare bill through…the more social care there is provided by the state, the weaker religion will become.”
Note: If interested in this explanation of the disparity between the religiosity of the States and the secularism of Europe, see Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart’s Sacred and Secular, in which they present a “revised theory of secularization based on existential security” that seeks to account for the religious variation evident throughout the world.

Sanderson recognizes that religious belief can be a positive force in society, especially in building community bonds and providing relationships. However, he believes that religion can also bring irrationality into societal policy making. He referred to a debate in Parliament last year over a proposal to legalize assisted suicide by allowing relatives to bring their loved ones to a clinic in Switzerland that provides euthanasia without being prosecuted for aiding and abetting suicide. According to Mr. Sanderson, when the debate came forward in Parliament, 80% of the population supported the proposal. However, “a small group of Christians in Parliament blocked it and said, ‘No, our religion says you can’t do this, so nobody’s going to be able to do it. You can’t make a decision on your own, we’re making it for you’—and that’s where I think religion brings irrationality and authoritarianism. It takes peoples decisions away from them. If you want an abortion, that should be your decision. It shouldn’t be the church who says it’s against our teachings, so nobody’s going to have an abortion or whatever. All these social issues that the church is obsessed about controlling… In some respects, I think their attitudes about these issues have driven people away.”

When it comes to the question of religion’s place in the political sphere, Mr. Sanderson’s primary frustrations are the overrepresentation of religious interests in the government and lobbying by religious groups for privileges and exemptions. Sanderson supports the right of religious groups to “lobby in the same way that any other group can lobby—but they don’t lobby in that way. They have special privileged access to the political process because of their place in the establishment.” In addition to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s direct access to the Prime Minister, twenty-six seats in the House of Lords are reserved for bishops who contribute to making legislation. “So that’s not ordinary lobbying.” In order to level the playing field, Mr. Sanderson argues that the bishops should be removed from the House of Lords and that each religious group should be required to operate on an equal footing with all other groups lobbying for change. In addition to the twenty-six bishops, the Chief Rabbi, and potentially a prominent Muslim representative, has been given peerage in the House of Lords in order to create a sort of multi-faith representation in Parliament, which Mr. Sanderson views as “unhealthy.” On top of that, thirteen faith advisors were recently appointed to increase understanding and engagement between faith groups and the government. In the future, Mr. Sanderson hopes that members of the House of Lords will be elected rather than appointed—“and if that happens, these religious representatives will have to get in on their merit rather than that they are religious representatives.”

Mr. Sanderson also disapproves of a perceived push by faith groups for privilege and exemption based on their religious beliefs. He mentioned several examples of recent attempts to obtain religious privilege in the workplace. A Jewish woman applied for the position of food taster at Marks & Spencer (a grocery store) but refused to taste anything with pork in it, and M&S was subsequently prosecuted for refusing her the job. Similarly, he gave the example of Muslim workers at Tesco supermarkets refusing to sell alcohol and pork products. In a variety of ways, religious activists are “becoming very pushy and are trying to obtain privileges that nobody else can have. You know, the rules are for everybody else, but not if you’re Christian or Muslim…” Mr. Sanderson pointed to the current debate over the equality bill which aims to eliminate discrimination against groups based on gender, age, disability, religion, and sexual orientation. According to Sanderson, “religious elements are trying desperately to get themselves exempted from this, particularly in relation to homosexuality. They’re saying, we don’t want this to apply to us. We need to be exempted from it—otherwise, we might have to employ homosexuals and allow them to become priests.” The government initially allowed them to “continue discriminating;” however, the National Secular Society actually sent a complaint to the European Commission which had previously issued an anti-discrimination directive to all of Europe providing the minimum standards for anti-discrimination. The NSS complained that the British government, in allowing “opt outs” to various religious groups, was not abiding by the directive which only allows exemptions to those directly engaged in promoting religion. In response, Sanderson said that the European Commission wrote to the British government, directing them to narrow the exemptions, which they are doing with the new equality bill, and “the religious establishment is fighting like crazy and is really kicking up a stink about it.”

Finally, we discussed Mr. Sanderson’s view of the definition and purpose of secularism. In his words, “secularism is about accommodating everybody, ensuring everybody’s safe and that no religion has supreme power as it does in, say, Saudi Arabia or Iran or Iraq where minority religions are absolutely persecuted to hell. If you want to stop that happening, secularism can help. It can actually help minority religions to have a voice and not be trampled underfoot by majority religions. And I think that’s a much healthier way of doing things…So I think the framers of the American Constitution had it absolutely right. They were so prescient—they foresaw what was coming, and they made contingency arrangements. They said, ‘You know, if we don’t establish any particular religion, then we won’t have the religious wars that they’ve had in Europe.’ And you haven’t.” Sanderson believes that “secularism can stop religious warfare in its tracks. We’ve got a slogan that says ‘Secularism Protects,’ and I think it does. There’s nothing fundamentalist about that. I understand that religious people do think that Christianity should dictate our lives, and there are people who think that religion is so important to them that it’s necessary for us to imbue everything. I think they are the fundamentalists. People who want secularism say, ‘Look, you’ve got your place, we’ve got our place, everybody’s got a place. You can’t force us to believe what you believe just because you think it’s the right thing.’ And secularism protects people from that. I think it really important. There’s nothing fundamentalist about it. If secularists are fundamentalists, the whole of the United States, the whole of France, the whole of Turkey, the whole of Japan—they’re all fundamentalists because they’re all secularists. They have to be if they live in a secular country with a secular constitution. So I don’t think it’s dangerous. I don’t think it’s fundamentalist. I think it’s absolutely essential.”

Jonathan Rée

Yesterday I met with Jonathan Rée, who is a member of the British Humanist Association, a writer, philosopher, and historian, and a founder of Radical Philosophy in the 1970s. Mr. Rée describes himself as an atheist in the sense that he does not believe in God but not in the sense that he despises religion in any form. In his opinion, many militant atheists are too quick to assume that they have a full understanding of what religious people are talking about, whereas religious belief often turns out to be more complex than they imagine. Additionally, he pointed out that quite a few religious people are entirely unconcerned with the existence of God and are more focused on living life with a kind of reverence. In that sense, Mr. Rée admits that he is actually inclined to feel warmly towards religion and quite likes the idea of a sort of atheistic religion. Among other 19th century thinkers, John Stuart Mill implied that religion is so much a part of human heritage that the idea of totally rejecting is is unthinkable--if you are a non religious person, you should be asking yourself what we can make of religion in the future that will be beneficial to society and not necessarily subject to intellectual criticism.

Rée describes himself as a rather wishy-washy atheist compared to his more aggressive counterparts. When asked about the approach of other members of the 'new atheism' such as Richard Dawkins, he replied that he "can't stand Dawkins' way of going about it because I think that he has no philosophical or intellectual curiosity and I think that he assumes that he knows what theists believe and it's obviously stupid." Rée feels that many militant atheists fail to grasp the complexity of religious beliefs and in attempting to oversimplify religious faith, they insult the people they are trying to argue with which is impolite and also unproductive."

In contrast to Dawkins and Hitchens, Rée recognizes the great good that many religious groups bring and have historically brought to society. Rather than religion poisoning everything as Hitchens suggests, Rée concedes that "almost every progressive movement that has happened in history has directly or indirectly had some kind of religious motivation, and actually, though I am quite seriously anti-Christian in a lot of ways, a lot of the things that make the society better are due to the campaigns of people acting explicitly in the name of Christianity. Or if looking a bit deeper, they are drawing on Christian traditions even if they don't count themselves as Christians." For Rée, his personal non religious beliefs are based on theoretical reasons and not because of an opinion on whether religion is "good" or "bad" for society. In fact, in his view, if the argument against religion is to be based on purely utilitarian considerations about whether it's done any good to the world or not, "then I'm not entirely sure that my soft atheist position would come out better than the Christians."

When it comes to religion inserting itself into the public sphere, many of Rée's opinions are based on practicality rather than principle. When asked to share his thoughts on the 2004 debate surrounding the inclusion of Christianity in the preamble to the constitution of the European Union (a document meant to essentially define united Europe), he responded that a mention of Christianity would be rather extraordinary but that he found it much less upsetting than other members of the British Humanist Association because he couldn't see it having any real legal meaning. If the underlying agenda was to exclude non-Christian countries such as Turkey from acceptance into the EU by defining it as Christian, then he would have been strongly opposed. But a mere mention of Europe's Christian heritage in the preamble did not strike him as highly problematic. Similarly, in reference to the possible French ban of the hijab, he replied that he "can't connect the issue with any principles." Personally, he prefers to see people's faces rather than have them hidden behind a veil or huge sunglasses (so he would not like the sorority girls at SMU.) To him, a veil seems very impersonal and sends the message that an individual is unwilling or reluctant to be open and engage with society. However, as much as he would prefer that people simply didn't want to wear them in the first place, Rée questions the effectiveness and possible repercussions of such a ban in society. Restricting specific clothes would inevitably be highly offensive to many people and might ultimately provoke them to cling even more firmly to their rituals and habits. Thus, the issue becomes one of political judgment rather than principle--of progress and cohesion rather than right and wrong.

In general, Rée is an avid supporter of diversity. He views the United States' experiment of "mixing up people of different backgrounds [as] actually rather wonderful and makes life more interesting and makes people more intelligent in the long run and opens up people's intellectual horizons." While he finds some religious beliefs, such as Islam and Christian literalism, especially incomprehensible, he does not view those beliefs as grounds for exclusion. In fact, Rée views the public expression of Islam in England as helpful in educating others about their faith. In response to the recent appointment of 13 faith advisers in the UK, he says "why not try?" The more knowledge the government has about various religions, the less likely they are to offend someone or cause disruption in pluralistic communities. He also mentioned that he is quite fond of the idea of voluntary organizations that seek to contribute to society, many of which are religious. He believes that there ought to be ways to involve such groups in giving advice to government--"not saying their advice is going to be sacrosanct but just to hear from as many groups as possible." Politicians are obligated to listen to the voices of all groups, both religious and non religious.

Finally, Rée supports what he calls a "high minded idea of the political sphere." In this regard, he suspects that he may be a bit of a secular fundamentalist because in his view, it makes sense to require that when people are acting and speaking politically, they should forget about their religious beliefs. Initially, I thought that he was saying that there should be absolutely no mention of religious values or beliefs in any kind of official political arena. However, rather than opposition to an honest discussion or explanation of the way in which one's religious values shape one's views on policy making, Rée is fiercely opposed to the possibility of one person turning to another and saying, "I don't care what you say because you aren't a good Muslim...Politics is a special kind of protected area where people talk about how they want to live together and it does seem that there is a good case for saying it is absolutely forbidden for people in that sphere to say, 'you're not allowed to play this game because you're not a good Christian, etc...'"

I responded with the question: "What about people that have a religious belief that impacts their view on something in the public sphere? Is it appropriate for them to come to the table and say that I feel this way about this topic because of these beliefs? Is it beneficial for them to explain that?" His last response was my favorite part of the interview. He answered "yes" but that people should be able to explain their underlying beliefs and values and then realize that other people might simply not find them convincing. Ree: "And I actually think that in the long run, it’s going to be educational for them--that they’re actually going to discover that whatever makes them so sure of their opinions on these moral issues maybe isn’t as firmly grounded as they’d like to think, and there may be something genuinely discussable. ...Not that anyone's going to say that you have to change your opinions before you take part in the debate, but my guess is that once they’ve thought about it more they might change their mind. And I suppose that this is another thing about the nature of politics: that you have to go into politics thinking that it’s possible that the other people are right. And that’s one of the respects in which I think political thinking is superior to fundamentalist theological thinking." Okay, fair enough. I actually totally agree. He ended with the statement: "You know that you can believe something very warmly and passionately but you should also have a bit of your mind saying look, maybe it's wrong. And that’s one of the reasons, I suppose, to go back to the first question, that there may be some plausibility in the statement that religious belief is damaging if it leads some people to think that what they think is the only thing that could conceivably be justified."

Final Thought: After reading books and articles by atheists such as Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, I found my conversation with Jonathan to be surprisingly refreshing. Often throughout the interview, he would burst into laughter immediately following a serious or straightforward statement about his own opinions on an issue. To me, Rée gave the impression of a man with considerable intellectual capacity and achievement who has managed to not take himself too seriously and who is able have an amicable conversation about very pressing and controversial issues. In my experience, that is a very rare and valuable quality that deserves a lot of respect.

Article from the National Secular Society Website: Gordon Brown insists that religion is at the centre of his government.

http://www.secularism.org.uk/gordon-brown-insists-that-religi.html

Also, I forgot to mention that Mr. Davis invited me to Oxford for a weekend in March to attend the Las Casas Institute International Conference titled "Renewing the European Catholic Social Conscience - Evidence And Inspiration." The chair of the conference is Rt Rev William Kenney CP, Bishop For Europe, and several prominent professors, church leaders, and thinkers from all over Europe will be speaking. Pretty sweet!

Francis Davis

My second interview took me to central London's department for Communities and Local Government to meet with Francis Davis, the government policy adviser on faith and communities to Rt Hon John Denham MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Mr. Davis spends half of his week in the London office and the other half serving as the director for the Las Casas Institute at Blackfriars Hall of Oxford University. The Institute focuses on ethics, governance, and social justice with an emphasis on the intersection between faith and public life.

The overarching goal of the department of Communities and Local Government is to create, develop, and facilitate healthy and vibrant communities throughout the UK. A sense of cohesion among the various ethnic, religious, and racial groups is a crucial component in instigating and sustaining such communities. Through the strategy "face to face, side to side," the department aims to help differing communities to connect with one another by getting to know each other face to face and contributing to the community side by side based on shared values of family, climate, poverty, etc. Under the leadership of John Denham, the office has worked to emphasize the importance of religious beliefs in the value systems and thus the actions and decision making of individuals and groups within the community. In November 2009, the office appointed thirteen new faith advisers to promote understanding and engagement between the national government and faith communities.

During the interview, Mr. Davis provided insight into the ways in which faith communities in the UK are able to interact with the government. The Faith Communities Consultative Council provides the primary medium through which faith communities can participate in government conversation and even influence policy. However, according to Davis, some minority faith communities are being given quite a large voice through the council, as small communities such as the Sikhs or the Jaines will send their top representatives to attend meetings while the senior people from the Anglican and Catholic churches are often engaged elsewhere in society.

When asked for his opinion on secular fundamentalism, Mr. Davis replied that from an official perspective, he would say that the government is happy to talk with people of all types of religious and non-religious beliefs and that the government values the conversation with the National Secular Society and British Humanist Association as representing an important facet of the public opinion. At the same time, Davis agrees with the opinion presented in a speech by John Denham that any form of secularism that does not allow religious people to contribute to and participate in public dialogue, debate, and community action are unhelpful in creating community cohesion. Davis's personal opinion is that, whether they admit it or not, groups like the NSS want to fully limit religious voices to the private sphere and are quite as pugnacious as religious fundamentalists. Though it is certainly present, Davis pointed out that the forces of secular fundamentalism are not as strong in the UK as in some other European countries because in countries such as France, "the conversation is over, whereas in England, there is still an argument and still a debate going on." (which was one of my primary arguments for doing this research in England!--yay self esteem booster.)

Additionally, Davis pointed to another type of secularism which he dubbed "utter incomprehension." Many people simply do not understand why churches and other religious groups might want to be involved in and contribute to society. For many, church is something reserved for Sundays. Davis pointed out that oftentimes, even when people agree with the cause of a religious group, they will attribute the wrong motives to their actions which can provoke secular reactions. "People understand why the trade unions have a view on employment and why employers have a view on the government, but the idea that the churches might come along and have something to say about the poor..." --incomprehensible.

Next, we turned to the topic of the growing Muslim community in Britain. One of the greatest threats to community cohesion, according to Davis, is the radicalization of Muslims. In response to the ideological influences of groups linked to Al Qaeda, the state has committed to "developing, affirming, supporting, and building moderate and liberal forms of Islam and Muslim theologians with a mind to undermine the radical interpretations of Islam." The Cambridge Initiative, an important part of this effort, brought together a private gathering of moderate Muslims and less than moderate Muslims open to conversation in order to discuss and establish a "contextual British Islam." Additionally, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB) is working to locate the numerous unofficial gatherings of Muslims throughout the UK, officially register them, and encourage them to allow a woman to participate on each leadership board. In this way, the government will both gain a knowledge of who and where British Muslims are and hopefully loosen the grip of the conservative, radical men in such a male dominated religious community. These efforts have been met with success, as well as frustration from the Muslim community whose feels that their theology is being challenged by the government.

Finally, Mr. Davis brought up some quite poignant and thought-provoking questions for consideration. He wonders if "when we talk about faith, is that a proxy for societal or policy concerns about the Muslim community? Or is it genuinely about the whole faith community?" Similarly, "when we talk about faith based policies, faith based engagement, do we really mean that we want to engage with the Muslim community--but if we engage only with the Muslim community, on the one hand it looks like we're picking on them, or on the other hand, it looks like we're favoring them..." Something to think about.

Lewis Wolpert

I had my first interview this morning with Dr. Lewis Wolpert, former professor of Biology as applied to Medicine at University College London and vice-president of the British Humanist Association. Dr. Wolpert is an atheist and is well-known for his 2008 speech in Sweden entitled "The Origins of Science and Religion." He is also the author of Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (which he is going to send to me since I haven't read it...oops.) I met Lewis at his home in North London but forgot to write down his address when I was drawing out a map for myself (another oops) so I had to call him and have him come out to get me. As I was expecting to meet a grim and intimidating scientist, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a friendly voice calling to me: "Hello darling, I'm over here!" He proceeded to warmly welcome me into his house where we began our discussion over coffee and chocolate--making him my new favorite person.

Lewis grew up in South Africa in a strict Jewish family. Though not truly religious, his parents were careful to observe Jewish customs and rituals and expected him to do the same. As a child, he used to pray that God would help him find a lost toy or something of that nature, and when he realized that it wasn't working, he quit. He had no further interest in religion until about 10 or 15 years ago when his youngest son Matthew had a personal crisis and subsequently converted to Christianity. Matthew was very involved in an evangelical church for a time but was eventually somewhat disenchanted with organized religion, though he still believes in God. While Lewis certainly never shared his son's beliefs, he recognizes that religion helped Matthew to overcome his personal struggles and believes that it had a positive impact on his life. Lewis is convinced that there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of God, but he is not opposed to individuals having their own religious beliefs. Some of his closest friends are religious, and he has observed the positive role that it has played in their lives.

However, when it comes to public policy and decision making, Lewis believes that religion should have as little influence as possible. He used the Catholic church's stance on abortion and most religious people's opposition to gay marriage as examples of religious values attempting to inappropriately insert themselves into public decision making. He is also concerned with the growing Muslim presence in England. He did not elaborate on this topic but mentioned a debate that he was involved in a few years ago with the Muslim society at UCL--he said they were the most aggressive audience he had ever spoken to and it made quite an impression on him. While he feels that religion should have no part in public policy making, he views the public expression of personal beliefs and symbols as completely acceptable and is not opposed to the existence of the established Church of England. At the same time, he will be understanding if the French government decides to ban the public wearing of the Muslim headdress--he strongly opposes any hint of religious discrimination against women.

Finally, as I was leaving, he gave me a collection of essays titled What Makes Us Human?. In his essay, Lewis argues that our ability to comprehend cause and effect and our use of this knowledge to craft complex tools forms a unique part of our humanity that separates us from animals. According to Lewis, as humans, we not only possess the ability to understand principles of cause and effect, we also strongly desire to know the deeper "causes" and meanings in life. In his view, religion is a tool that we have created in order to understand major underlying causes in life that we have no other explanation for. Interesting perspective...

I'm in the Atlanta airport right now waiting to take off for London in about an hour. Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been praying for me and shown interest in this project. Here I go!!

Also, interesting article from USA Today discussing a potential ban of the public wearing of Muslim veils in France.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-01-12-france-muslim_N.htm?csp=usat.me

The British government decided today to proscribe the Muslim group Islam4UK under counter terrorism laws. Islam4UK is a Muslim organization with extremist views and aims to establish a Muslim state, including shariah law, all over the world. Anjem Choudary, UK head of Al-Muhajiroun or Islam4UK, has agreed to meet with me to share his opinion on religion's role in UK society.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/01/12/uk.islamist.group.ban/index.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8453560.stm

See link to Islam4UK website on the right.