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.