Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change
The time has come to rethink religion's public role in order to ensure equality and fairness for believers and non-believers alike, says a major new report launched by the National Secular Society.
The report says that Britain's "drift away from Christianity" coupled with the rise in minority religions and increasing non-religiosity demands a "long term, sustainable settlement on the relationship between religion and the state".
Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change has been sent to all MPs as part of a major drive by the Society to encourage policymakers and citizens of all faiths and none to find common cause in promoting principles of secularism.
It calls for Britain to evolve into a secular democracy with a clear separation between religion and state and criticises the prevailing multi-faithist approach as being "at odds with the increasing religious indifference" in Britain.
Terry Sanderson, National Secular Society president, said: "Vast swathes of the population are simply not interested in religion, it doesn't play a part in their lives, but the state refuses to recognise this.
"Britain is now one of the most religiously diverse and, at the same time, non-religious nations in the world. Rather than burying its head in the sand, the state needs to respond to these fundamental cultural changes. Our report sets out constructive and specific proposals to fundamentally reform the role of religion in public life to ensure that every citizen can be treated fairly and valued equally, irrespective of their religious outlook."
Read the report:
Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change
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Add your endorsementComplete list of recommendations
Our changing society – Multiculturalism, secularism and group identity
1. The Government should continue to move away from multiculturalism and instead emphasise individual rights and social cohesion. A multi-faith approach should be avoided.
2. The UK is a secularised society which upholds freedom of and from religion. We urge politicians to consider this, and refrain from using "Christian country" rhetoric.
The role of religion in schools
Faith schools
3. There should be a moratorium on the opening of any new publicly funded faith schools.
4. Government policy should ultimately move towards a truly inclusive secular education system in which religious organisations play no formal role in the state education system.
5. Religion should be approached in schools like politics: with neutrality, in a way that informs impartially and does not teach views.
6. Ultimately, no publicly funded school should be statutorily permitted, as they currently are, to promote a particular religious position or seek to inculcate pupils into a particular faith.
7. In the meantime, pupils should have a statutory entitlement to education in a non-religiously affiliated school.
8. No publicly funded school should be permitted to prioritise pupils in admissions on the basis of baptism, religious affiliation or the religious activities of a child's parent(s).
9. Schools should not be able to discriminate against staff on the basis of religion or belief, sexual orientation or any other protected characteristics.
Religious education
10. Faith schools should lose their ability to teach about religion from their own exclusive viewpoint and the law should be amended to reflect this.
11. The Government should undertake a review of Religious Education with a view to reforming the way religion and belief is taught in all schools.
12. The teaching of religion should not be prioritised over the teaching of non-religious worldviews, and secular philosophical approaches.
13. The Government should consider making religion and belief education a constituent part of another area of the curriculum or consider a new national subject for all pupils that ensures all pupils study of a broad range of religious and non-religious worldviews, possibly including basic philosophy.
14. The way in which the RE curriculum is constructed by Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education (SACREs) is unique, and seriously outdated. The construction and content of any subject covering religion or belief should be determined by the same process as other subjects after consultation with teachers, subject communities, academics, employers, higher education institutions and other interested parties (who should have no undue influence or veto).
Sex and relationships education
15. All children and young people, including pupils at faith schools, should have a statutory entitlement to impartial and age-appropriate sex and relationships education, from which they cannot be withdrawn.
Collective worship
16. The legal requirement on schools to provide Collective Worship should be abolished.
17. The Equality Act exception related to school worship should be repealed. Schools should be under a duty to ensure that all aspects of the school day are inclusive.
18. Both the law and guidance should be clear that under no circumstances should pupils be compelled to worship and children's right to religious freedom should be fully respected by all schools.
19. Where schools do hold acts of worship pupils should themselves be free to choose not to take part.
20. If there are concerns that the abolition of the duty to provide collective worship would signal the end of assemblies, the Government may wish to consider replacing the requirement to provide worship with a requirement to hold inclusive assemblies that further pupils' 'spiritual, moral, social and cultural education'.
Independent schooling
21. All schools should be registered with the Department for Education and as a condition of registration must meet standards set out in regulations.
22. Government must ensure that councils are identifying suspected illegal, unregistered religious schools so that Ofsted can inspect them. The state must have an accurate register of where every child is being educated.
Freedom of expression - Freedom of expression, blasphemy and the media
23. Any judicial or administrative attempt to further restrict free expression on the grounds of 'combatting extremism' should be resisted. Threatening behaviour and incitement to violence is already prohibited by law. Further measures would be an illiberal restriction of others' right to freedom of expression. They are also likely to be counterproductive by insulating extremist views from the most effective deterrents: counterargument and criticism.
24. Proscriptions of "blasphemy" must not be introduced by stealth, legislation, fear or on the spurious grounds of 'offence'. There can be no right to be protected from offence in an open and free secular society.
25. The fundamental value of free speech should be instilled throughout the education system and in all schools.
26. Universities and other further education bodies should be reminded of their statutory obligations to protect freedom of expression under the Education (No 2) Act 1986.
Religion and the law
Civil rights, 'conscience clauses' and religious freedom
27. We are opposed in principle to the creation of a 'conscience clause' which would permit discrimination against (primarily) LGBT people. This is of particular concern in Northern Ireland.
28. Religious freedom must not be taken to mean or include a right to discriminate. Businesses providing goods and services, regardless of owners' religious views, must obey the law.
29. Equality legislation must not be rolled back in order to appease a minority of religious believers whose views are out-of-touch with the majority of the general public and their co-religionists.
30. The UK Government should impose changes on the rest of the UK in order to comply with Human Rights obligations. Every endeavour should be made by to extend same sex marriage and abortion access to Northern Ireland.
Conscience 'opt-outs' in healthcare
31. Efforts to unreasonably extend the legal concept of 'reasonable accommodation' and conscience to give greater protection in healthcare to those expressing a (normally religious) objection should be resisted.
32. Conscience opt-outs should not be granted where their operation impinges adversely on the rights of others.
33. Pharmacists' codes should not permit conscience opts out for pharmacists that result in denial of service, as this may cause harm. NHS contracts should reflect this.
34. Consideration should be given to legislative changes to enforce the changes to pharmacists codes recommended above.
The use of tribunals by religious minorities
35. The legal system must not be undermined. Action must be taken to ensure that none of the councils currently in operation misrepresent themselves as sources of legal authority.
36. Work should be undertaken by local authorities to identify sharia councils, and official figures should be made available to measure the number of sharia councils in the UK to help understand the extent of their influence.
37. There needs to be a continuing review by the Government of the extent to which religious 'law', including religious marriage without civil marriage, is undermining human rights and/or becoming de facto law. The Government must be proactive in proposing solutions to ensure all citizens are able to access their legal rights.
38. All schools should promote understanding of citizenship and legal rights under UK law so that people – particularly Muslim women and girls – are aware of and able to access their legal rights and do not regard religious 'courts' as sources of genuine legal authority.
Religious exemptions from animal welfare laws
39. Laws intended to minimise animal suffering should not be the subject of religious exemptions. Non-stun slaughter should be prohibited and existing welfare at slaughter legislation should apply without exception.
40. For as long as non-stun slaughter is permitted, all meat and meat products derived from animals killed under the religious exemption should be obliged to show the method of slaughter.
41. In public institutions it should be unlawful not to provide a stunned alternative to non-stun meat produce.
Religion and public services
Social action by religious organisations
42. The Equality Act should be amended to suspend the exemptions for religious groups when they are working under public contract on behalf of the state.
43. Legislation should be introduced so that contractors delivering general public services on behalf of a public authority are defined as public authorities explicitly for those activities, making them subject to the Human Rights Act legislation.
44. It should be mandatory for all contracts with religious providers of publicly-funded services to have unambiguous equality, non-discrimination and non-proselytising clauses in them.
45. Public records of contracts with religious groups should be maintained and appropriate measures for monitoring their compliance with equality and human rights legislation should be put in place.
46. There should be an enforcement mechanism for the above, which would for example receive and adjudicate on complaints without complainants having to take legal action.
Hospital chaplaincy
47. Religious care should not be funded through NHS budgets.
48. No NHS post should be conditional on the patronage of religious authorities, nor subject directly or indirectly to discriminatory provisions, for example on sexual orientation or marital status.
49. Alternative funding, such as via a charitable trust, could be explored if religions wish to retain their representation in hospitals.
50. Hospitals wishing to employ staff to provide pastoral, emotional and spiritual care for patients, families and staff should do so within a secular context.
Institutions and public ceremonies
Disestablishment
51. The Church of England should be disestablished
52. The Bishops' Bench should be removed from the House of Lords. Any future Second Chamber should have no representation for religion whether ex-officio or appointed, whether of Christian denominations or any other faith. This does not amount to a ban on clerics; they would eligible for selection on the same basis as others.
Remembrance
53. The Remembrance Day commemoration ceremony at the Cenotaph should become secular in character. Ceremonies should be led by national or civic leaders and there should be a period of silence for participants to remember the fallen in their own way, be that religious or not.
Monarchy and religion
54. The ceremony to mark the accession of a new head of state should take place in the seat of representative secular democracy, such as in Westminster Hall and should not be religious.
55. The monarch should no longer be required to be in communion with the Church of England nor ex officio be Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the title "Defender of the Faith" should not be retained.
Parliamentary prayers
56. We believe Parliament should reflect the country as it is today and remove acts of worship from the formal business of the House.
Local democracy and religious observance
57. Acts of religious worship should play no part in the formal business of parliamentary or local authority meetings.
Public broadcasting, the BBC and religion
58. The BBC should rename Thought for the Day 'Religious thought for the day' and move it away from Radio 4's flagship news programme and into a more suitable timeslot reflecting its niche status. Alternatively it could reform it and open it up to non-religious contributors.
59. The extent and nature of religious programming should reflect the religion and belief demographics of the UK.
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Schools should be liberated from the compulsion of worship
As a bill to reform collective worship progresses in parliament, Stephen Evans argues that the time has come for lawmakers to recognise that laws mandating worship have no place in modern Britain.
This article is available in audio format, as part of our Opinion Out Loud series.
It was a tale of two bishops in the House of Lords last week when peers debated a bill to replace the duty on schools to hold acts of Christian worship with a requirement to provide inclusive assemblies.
The retired Anglican bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, supported reform of the law, arguing that the present legal situation "simply does not reflect the society in which we now live". The serving bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, speaking from the bishop' bench, argued that the "present arrangement works well".
The proposed law, tabled by Baroness Burt, would leave faith schools, including those controlled by the Church of England, untouched – and would only apply to schools without a religious designation.
Nevertheless, the bishop, who had only just finished leading prayers in the same chamber, urged his fellow parliamentarians to block it. He said worship was a "vital part of what it means to be human" and the majority of the nation's children and young people shouldn't be denied "the experience of spiritual, moral, social and cultural development connected to a living tradition". His tradition, obviously.
Underneath the self-serving rhetoric was a warning that the values of Western civilization are essentially Christian—and if Christianity withers on the vine, the associated values might die with it.
The extent to which the values of a liberal democracy flow from a Christian moral framework is debateable. But given that we're already living in a post-Christian society, it is clear that what we value in Western society holds strong, despite Christianity's decline. For many people, Christianity's diminished influence has facilitated a freer and fairer Britain. It's no coincidence that the least religious societies tend to be the most peaceful, prosperous, and equitable. And let's face it, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights offers a more useful and relevant ethical blueprint than the Ten Commandments, with their prohibition of free speech and talk of slaves, oxes, and donkeys.
The idea that without a strong Christian presence in public life, we'll all go to hell in a handcart, is simply false. It certainly doesn't justify religious worship being imposed on people through legislation.
The bishop, not relying solely on this line of argument, said collective worship has other practical benefits, providing "a time to pause and reflect; to gather in community; to mourn in times of tragedy; to foster common values; to celebrate festivals, and to build religious literacy".
All the above can be better delivered through inclusive assembles, which Baroness Burt's bill proposes, along with a renewed commitment to citizenship education. Schools play a vital role in transmitting the common values of society to future generations. Acts of religious worship are neither helpful nor desirable in achieving this aim.
In defending compulsory Christian worship, the bishop was merely using his privileged position to further the interests of the Church and try to justify the unjustifiable.
The simple truth is that laws mandating worship don't belong in a modern, pluralistic liberal democracy – especially one that respects the principle of freedom of religion or belief. Young people should be given the tools and the freedom to develop their own beliefs.
This is also the view of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which has called on the UK to repeal legal provisions for compulsory attendance at collective worship in publicly funded schools, and to ensure children can independently exercise a right to withdraw from any religious observance that does take place.
The retired bishop, Richard Harries, told peers he supports the Bill "because Christianity is fundamentally committed to free choice. The only good reason for believing in a religion is because you believe and personally recognise it to be true."
Free choice is one thing reasonable people of all faiths and none should be able to agree on. It should be a matter of deep shame for the Church of England that its bishops still support their religion being imposed by law.
Thankfully, peers rejected the bishops' plea and the bill progressed unopposed. However, without government support, it is unlikely to become law.
The current collective worship requirement is a dead letter law that brings the UK into disrepute. The government should recognise this reality and liberate schools from the compulsion of religion.
Image: davidf, Shutterstock
Major reform is needed to ensure equality and fairness in marriage law
Marriage law in England and Wales has failed to keep up with changing social realities. Russell Sandberg, the author of a new book on the topic, calls for change to put couples – not religious institutions – in control.
The Marriage Act 1753 is often understood as providing the foundations of the modern law on marriage. It stated that all marriages except for Jewish and Quaker weddings were to take the form of a public ceremony in the parish church at which a clergyman would officiate according to authorised rites and it required that the marriage be preceded by banns or licence. Breach of any of these requirements, which had previously made a marriage irregular, would now render it void.
Although it was not the first attempt to regularise the performance and registration of marriage, the Marriage Act 1753 is often regarded to be a pivotal moment providing certainty as to who was married and stopping marriages taking place in ways that the state was unaware of. This was problematic because marital status bestowed certain legal rights and social attitudes at the time saw children born out of wedlock as being illegitimate.
Rebecca Probert's work has questioned whether the act largely reinforced existing social conventions, rather than stamping out a serious and prevalent problem of marriages being conducted in various and unusual ways. But the effect of the legislation was clear. Legislation was thought necessary so that the law and social practice on marriage coincided.
Today, the law on marriage in England and Wales is governed by the Marriage Act 1949, a statute that brought together laws that were much older. It can be argued that the perceived problems that led to the Marriage Act 1753 apply once more. There is a disconnect between social practice and the law on intimate adult relationships.
English and Welsh law has failed to keep up with the social reality of how relationships are formed and recognised in the 21st century. Though welcome changes have been introduced in terms of civil partnerships and same sex marriage, a number of relationship forms now exist outside the scope of the Marriage Act 1949.
This includes the increasing numbers of cohabiting couples as well as two other relationship types that I discuss in my new book Religion and Marriage Law: the need for reform. The first is what may be styled as 'non-religious marriages': those ceremonies that are conducted by belief organisations such as Humanists UK or by independent celebrants. Marriage law provides no means by which these can be legally binding in their own right.
The second category is 'unregistered religious marriages': these exist where the couple undergo a religious ceremony that does not comply with the Marriage Act 1949. Religious marriages are recognised under the act but in relation to religious weddings other than Church of England, Church in Wales, Quaker and Jewish ceremonies the ceremony must take place in a registered place of religious worship in order to be legally binding. Otherwise, though the couple are married in the eyes of their faith, they are not married in the eyes of the law.
Marriage law, therefore, discriminates against those who hold non-religious beliefs as well as those religions who are without a building or who have a tradition of marriages taking place outside places of worship.
Couples who enter into either category of weddings need to undergo an additional civil marriage ceremony in order to become legally married. This causes additional expense and is viewed by many, not least the couple themselves, as being unnecessary: who refers to their wedding as the happiest days of their life?
Moreover, many of these couples do not get around to the additional civil ceremony in the registrar office. In some cases this is not a voluntary decision on the part of both of the parties. And it means they lack the legal rights that they often think they will have in the event of separation or death. They are in the same legal position as cohabiting couples under English law. Unlike many jurisdictions, there are limited rights afforded to them on relationship breakdown in England and Wales.
My new book synthesises the debate to date and considers how a new legal framework on intimate adult relationships could be developed. It argues that there is a need to move from a system that regulates buildings to one that regulates officiants. It proposes that because of the difficulties of defining the terms 'religion' or 'belief', the right to nominate officiants should be afforded to any organisation that meets certain minimal requirements. Further, independent celebrants would be able to be registered.
Such reform would solve the concerns around non-religious marriages and would lessen concerns about unregistered religious marriages, since the discriminatory requirements concerning buildings that prevent some religious weddings from complying with the law would be removed.
However, there would still be some unregistered religious marriages – and some of these would not result from a voluntary and witting choice by both of the parties. The introduction of limited cohabitation rights on separation would deal with this, and I recommend the adoption of a system similar to the Scottish model. This would allow a cohabitant to seek a financial order in circumstances where they have suffered a financial detriment as a result of the relationship coming to an end. Cohabitants who don't wish to be bound by these rules could opt out.
My proposals would bring about a modern marriage law that provides no special treatment on grounds of religion or differential rules based on historical quirks. It would allow couples the freedom to choose how they wish to marry and would also provide protection to those marriages that are outside the scope of the current law.
There is a need for a 21st century version of the Marriage Act 1753 – but one that starts from a pluralistic perspective, and which puts the couple themselves in control, not the institutions of organised religion.
Religion and Marriage Law: the need for reform is published by Bristol University Press
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay.
Why can’t charity regulators tackle child abuse in faith groups?
An inquiry's report has highlighted the barriers which regulators face in dealing with child abuse in religious charities. Megan Manson says this should prompt reforms – including in how charity law deals with religion.
Religions have a privileged place in charity law. 'The advancement of religion' is a recognised charitable purpose under the Charities Act 2011, which means an organisation can effortlessly become a registered charity by virtue of promoting religion.
As a result, an immense number of religious organisations are registered charities. There are approximately 34,000 faith-based organisations registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales – about 20% of all charities.
These figures were included in the Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA)'s recent report on child protection in religious organisations and settings. It's not surprising that so many faith groups take advantage of their privileged status in charity law. Becoming a registered charity endows significant tax benefits, including the potential to claim Gift Aid.
Many would expect that an organisation given generous tax exemptions would be robustly regulated to ensure it adheres to the highest professional standards – including, of course, safeguarding the welfare of children. The public has a right to regard charitable status as a 'seal of approval', a mark that a charity is properly regulated and managed to high standards of ethics and professionalism. But IICSA's report suggests there is a yawning gulf between these expectations and reality.
In its analysis of inspection and oversight of religious organisations, IICSA found that the Charity Commission can do very little to help keep children safe in religious settings.
According to IICSA, registration with the Charity Commission "does not amount to quality assurance of its conduct". This includes matters of safeguarding.
The commission expects all registered charities to have child protection policies, but it does not routinely ask for them or require them to be provided. Indeed, the commission "has no discretion to refuse to register a charity if there are concerns about the charity's safeguarding arrangements or policies", except in "extreme cases where an organisation may fail the public benefit requirement". And as the National Secular Society's 2019 research highlighted, the threshold to meet the public benefit requirement appears quite low – especially for religious charities.
Furthermore, the commission has no role in investigating individual incidents of abuse. It does not have "the resources or the powers" to provide an auditing mechanism.
The commission told IICSA that it often relies on information in the media or complaints from the public, because not all charities use the system of reporting 'serious incidents' consistently or at all. Perhaps due to this lack of reporting, only "a very small minority" of statutory inquiries undertaken by the commission relate to child protection in religious settings. Between April 2014 and November 2019, only 13 of the 622 statutory inquiries which were opened related to safeguarding in charities whose objects included 'religious activities'.
As IICSA put it, the commission "cannot and does not monitor the policies, practices and procedures of each individual charity in the way that an inspectorate would".
So one has to ask: if the Charity Commission is unable to regulate issues of safeguarding in religious charities, what is the point of a regulator in the first place?
It should be stressed that the Charity Commission's inability to tackle child abuse in religious charities is, for the most part, not its fault. It's the system that's at fault.
On the one hand, the commission is deprived of both the resources and the legal powers to adequately tackle child abuse in charities. On the other, charity law creates a legal duty for organisations with a turnover of over £5,000 a year that provide services defined as "charitable" in law to register with the commission. This essentially means any organisation meeting the financial threshold that could be considered to be 'advancing religion' must, by law, register with the commission.
Consequently, every month the commission is swamped with hundreds of new charities on its register. Between 1 January and 1 September this year, 2,670 new charities were added to the register, of which 575 had charitable objects classified as 'religious activities'.
The lack of resources and legal powers, combined with a law that's geared towards constant inflation of the charity sector, mean the commission is likely to find itself increasingly ill-equipped to handle safeguarding issues in charities. And if the commission is to play a greater role in keeping children safe, there will also need to be considerable reforms both within the commission and in wider charity law.
The Charity Commission must make it easier for members of the public to file a complaint. At present, it says members of the public must "complain directly to the charity first" about any concerns they have. But there are numerous reasons why a complainant may not want to complain to the charity or its trustees directly, or why to do so would be completely ineffective. This is particularly true when it comes to safeguarding issues. In fact, complaining to the trustees before reporting a charity to the commission may make it harder for the commission to investigate, as giving the charity a 'heads up' may prompt particularly unscrupulous trustees to conceal or destroy evidence of wrongdoing.
We must also consider removing 'the advancement of religion' from the list of charitable purposes in the Charities Act. The public benefit of advancing religion is no longer recognised by a large proportion of the public, and the teachings and activities of some religions are regarded as harmful by many. Some of the ideologies promoted by religious organisations can in fact contribute to safeguarding problems – for example, IICSA highlighted the patriarchal nature and censorship of any matters relating to sex as barriers to effective reporting of child abuse allegations.
Removing 'the advancement of religion' would not, and should not, prevent religious organisations that provide a genuine public benefit from securing registered charity status, as they can register under another charitable purpose. But it would result in groups that are only interested in promoting their religion no longer being eligible for registration. This would help to slim down the bloated charity sector by ensuring only those organisations that do provide a public benefit can register, significantly cutting the number of charities the commission has to regulate.
And this in turn would give the Charity Commission greater capacity – enabling it to work more effectively in protecting children in all charities, religious or not.
Indonesia mosque attack is a reminder that Ahmadi Muslims’ human rights need defending
After a mob attacked an Ahmadi Muslim mosque in Indonesia and anti-Ahmadi rallies took place in Pakistan, Kunwar Khuldune Shahid says the failure to defend this marginalised group has far-reaching implications.
On Friday, a mosque was attacked in Sintang district of Indonesia's West Kalimantan Province, by an Islamist mob of at least 200 people. The mosque, belonging to followers of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam, was vandalised and had parts of its structure demolished, because Ahmadiyya beliefs are deemed 'heretical' by Islamists of other sects.
The Sintang mosque destruction is the latest attack on the increasingly persecuted Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world. In 2008, the radical Islamist Hizbut Tahrir targeted a rally in support of Ahmadis, injuring 34, at Jakarta's National Monument. Instead of taking action to protect the attacked community, Indonesia passed a decree eight days later banning the preaching of Ahmadiyya Islam.
An anti-Ahmadi surge has been witnessed over the next 13 years since the decree, with an increasing number of mosques attacked, and worshippers assaulted and killed. Members of the community describe Manislor village in West Java province as an 'Ahmadi ghetto' with Ahmadi Muslims denied state IDs over their beliefs.
Ahmadiyya Islam is deemed sacrilegious owing to the sect's belief in its founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as an Islamic messiah, which representatives of other sects deem contradictory to Muhammad's status as the final prophet of Islam. Founded in the late 19th century in the Punjab province of British India, since partition most Ahmadis have lived in Pakistan, where they have been constitutionally excommunicated and widely persecuted.
On Tuesday, rallies were organised across Pakistan, with state patronage and security, to commemorate the 47th anniversary of Ahmadis being officially declared non-Muslims following the second amendment to the Pakistani constitution in 1974. From Islamist leaders, to leading politicians, to prime minister Imran Khan's adviser, all celebrated the founding of a veritable apartheid against Ahmadis, dubbing it a fitting tribute to Islam's prophet and Khatm-e-Nabuwwat (the finality of prophethood).
Transforming Pakistan into the only country in the world where self-identifying as a Muslim, or even performing Islamic rituals can be criminalised, the local anti-Ahmadiyya movement in Pakistan streamlined itself as the global organisation Majlis Tahaffuz Khatm-e-Nubuwwat (Assembly to Protect the Finality of Prophethood). The Islamist umbrella, known commonly as Khatm-e-Nabuwwat, has spread anti-Ahmadi bigotry and hatred across the world, from Turkey to Bangladesh, to India, to the US and indeed Indonesia.
Anti-Ahmadiyya violence has also reached the UK, where the community has established its headquarters, amid exodus from Pakistan and other parts of the world. An Ahmadi man was killed in Glasgow for his faith five years ago, with the murderer linked to UK branches of Khatm-e-Nabuwwat. Insider accounts reveal how Khatm-e-Nabuwwat plots the boycott of the Ahmadis in the UK, where calls for mass murder of the Ahmadis have echoed for years. The Khatm-e-Nabuwwat has also been an affiliate of the Muslim Council of Britain, which reacted to the British Ahmadi's murder by saying that there was "too much pressure" on the organisation to accept Ahmadis as Muslims.
As is evident, Islamic organisations and groups, both in Muslim majorities and minorities, are upholding theological differences as grounds to deny an entire community their freedom of conscience and suppress their fundamental human rights. This is continuing to transpire in the rabidly Islamist Pakistan, the officially secular Indonesia, and even the West, where those clamouring against 'Islamophobia' rarely speak up for the unparalleled persecution of Ahmadi Muslims around the world.
One can imagine the outrage if non-Ahmadi Muslims were criminalised for reading Islamic scriptures and preaching Islam anywhere in the world, or if any organisation in the West was inclusive of everyone but Muslims. While many liberals in the West admirably speak up against the marginalisation of Muslims within their countries, and elsewhere, they fall lamentably short of questioning the persecution within Muslim communities, perhaps for fears of being labelled 'Islamophobic'. It is evident that Ahmadis are among the many Muslims that progressives in the West have abandoned, while catering to Muslim narratives of victimhood often shaped by Islamists.
Indeed, much of the onus to curtail Ahmadiyya persecution lies on progressive Muslims, many of whom have failed to back the marginalised community's right to self-identify, even while condemning the overt violence against them. While the murderous blasphemy laws in Muslim-majority countries have silenced many, even those living in the safety of the West have generally remained quiet on whether Ahmadis should have the right to call themselves Muslims. Seemingly, many equate supporting the right to belief with support for the belief itself.
It shouldn't be particularly hard, especially for those claiming to uphold pluralist progressive values, to disagree with the differing Ahmadiyya views, while at the same time accepting it as an interpretation of Islam. Failure to do so has now amplified hardline Sunni Islamists to call for the Shia to be similarly treated in many Muslim-majority countries.
Moreover, by pushing a question of basic human rights into the realm of theology, such voices are inadvertently emboldening anti-Muslim far-right groups, who are increasingly claiming that there are ideas exclusive to Islam that make Muslims as a whole incompatible with Europe. For, if Muslims uphold a set of beliefs that defines all Muslims, it allows Muslimophobes to use a different, more contentious, set to label all Muslims.
Conflicting interpretations are also critical to uphold a progressive version of the religion, and much needed Islamic reform. For, anyone that claims there is only one 'true Islam' — including indeed members of the Ahmadiyya community — plays right into the hands of jihadists and radical Islamists. When multitude of interpretations is rejected, literalism takes over.
To prevent that, both Muslim majorities and minorities should be encouraged to question if they're denying the many rights which they take for granted in the West to their own marginalised sections. And the plight of Ahmadi Muslims should provide sufficient grounds for self-reflection.
Image: The Baitul Futuh mosque, an Ahmadi Muslim mosque in south London.
Fundamentalists are still being given too much of a free pass on child abuse
The IICSA inquiry's latest report on child abuse in religious organisations and settings provides welcome evidence of significant problems – but is still too light on much-needed solutions, says Richard Scorer.
The report by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) into child protection in religious organisations and settings was published last Thursday, and gained widespread publicity.
IICSA's investigation – looking at child protection in minority religions such as Judaism, Islam and the Jehovah's Witnesses – is one of very few such investigations worldwide. Similar issues were examined by the Australian Royal Commission into institutional abuse, but whether due to political sensitivity or other reasons, child abuse in minority religions has tended to escape close examination. So the very fact that this investigation took place at all is important; hopefully it will be the beginning of a long overdue process of scrutiny.
What should we make of IICSA's report? I represented seven individuals and organisations in this part of the inquiry, all of them working on behalf of victims and survivors. Inevitably they have a range of views about the report, and the following is my personal view.
A very welcome feature of the report is its analysis of the problem of unregistered schools, which have become a haven for the physical and sexual abuse of children, and the legal loopholes which enable them to continue to operate. I wrote about this issue during the inquiry hearings. Even when Ofsted investigates, it lacks the necessary powers to close illegal schools. Many of these schools are religious – of the religious ones about half are Islamic, a quarter Jewish and a quarter Christian. Around 250,000 children receive 'supplementary schooling' or out of school provision from faith organisations. Most of these are provided by fundamentalist religious groups. The lack of regulation and enforcement in this area is a scandal and IICSA's report has helped to highlight this – it will hopefully be an important step towards legal change.
Another welcome feature of the report is its systematic analysis – at least in general terms – of the barriers facing victims and survivors of abuse in religious settings – barriers both to disclosure by victims, and to getting the organisations themselves to take action. These issues – victim blaming, shame and honour; approaches to discussions of sex and sexuality; the use of religious texts and beliefs; patriarchy; abuse of power by religious leaders; resistance to external agencies; a focus on reputational protection at the expense of children; and an instinct to self-police – have rarely been enumerated before, in such a comprehensive way, in a public document.
Last Thursday the media sat up and took notice. This is very important. These issues have led to what I described as a "catastrophic" failure of safeguarding of children, one which cannot be allowed to continue.
That said, IICSA could and should have done more to investigate the extent of that failure, particularly in fundamentalist religious settings. IICSA's reluctance to probe further caused particular anger amongst victims and survivors of abuse in the Jehovah's Witnesses, as my client Lloyd Evans explained last month.
IICSA's rationale for its refusal to "get the data" appears to have been that this was a thematic investigation, and that there was no justification for treating different religious groups differently in terms of the extent of disclosure demanded of them. If so this is misconceived. Religious groups vary in their levels of openness, their willingness to acknowledge the problem of sexual abuse, their willingness to engage with secular society and assimilate secular expertise into their internal safeguarding procedures, and their attitudes to women, sex education, the autonomy of children and human rights generally.
Quakers and liberal Jews approach these issues differently from Jehovah's Witnesses, ultra-Orthodox Jews or fundamentalist Muslims. As we saw in the hearings, some groups like the Baptist Union have made serious and sustained efforts to improve safeguarding; others deny that child abuse happens at all in their settings. And whilst all religious groups have succumbed to the tendency to conceal abuse, groups differ in the prevalence of abuse and the extent to which they are prepared to take active and organised steps to conceal it. The Jehovah's Witnesses have long been accused of organised concealment, and given that backdrop the inquiry needed to probe further – something it was unwilling to do.
My concern is that underlying this may be a reluctance to single out fundamentalist religious groups. If so, this is wrong. In a free society, people have a right to be Jehovah's Witnesses, and that right should always be protected. But we also need to be open and honest about how religious fundamentalism creates the ideal conditions for child abuse and cover up. Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters, another of my clients in the inquiry, made that point powerfully in her evidence. There can be no tiptoeing around this. When it comes to child protection, religious fundamentalism is a serious problem; we should not pretend otherwise.
A linked problem with IICSA's report is that, although it is effective in highlighting, in general terms, the barriers to disclosure, and the deep-seated cultural problems in religious settings, it seems at times to shy away from spelling out the implications for particular religious groups. Yehudis Goldsobel, the founder and CEO of Migdal Emunah, an organisation which works with Jewish survivors and one of my clients in this investigation, has spoken powerfully of the problem of 'disguised compliance': in other words where organisations appear to adopt safeguarding policies but in practice act in a way which is designed to obstruct or undermine them.
Whilst highlighting this problem in general terms, the report then pulls its punches. The report notes that the Union of Hebrew Congregations, the umbrella group for ultra-Orthodox Judaism, has only recently – in June 2021 – adopted a safeguarding policy. But it says nothing about the obvious risk of disguised compliance in this instance.
The report notes that the Jehovah's Witnesses have adopted a safeguarding policy which (the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses claims) means that allegations will be reported to the police. (This claim is contradicted by a careful reading of CCJW's own evidence to the inquiry). But the report makes no observation as to whether those policies might also be a form of disguised compliance – when the real life, first hand experiences of survivors, and their advocates like Lloyd Evans who gave evidence to IICSA, would suggest exactly that.
And then, in its recommendations, the report states that all religious organisations should adopt a safeguarding policy – again without saying anything about the obvious and real risk of disguised compliance. Victims and survivors may feel that IICSA is happier to talk about barriers in the abstract than to name and shame the worst culprits.
Perhaps the biggest issue I have with this report, however, is that after five years and numerous investigative reports and other publications from IICSA we still have no real sense as to how it intends to address the problems it has identified. Its reports are a long and well evidenced litany of institutional cover up and failure – and thanks to IICSA we know vastly more about abuse in religious settings than we did in 2015. But what everyone wants to know now is: where do we go from here?
IICSA's position is that it will present its main recommendations in its final report next year. I accept that logically, definitive recommendations should come after all of the investigative work is complete. But by this stage of the inquiry one might have expected a sense of the direction of travel. In particular, is IICSA intending to rely on voluntarism and goodwill from religious organisations to address these problems, or has it concluded that they can only be addressed by statutory legislation? And if so, what sort of legislation might it have in mind?
The lack of clarity on that makes it difficult to make sense of where some of IICSA's observations in this report fit into any wider framework. Quite rightly, for example, the report contains some damning comments about the Jehovah's Witnesses' 'two witness rule' – the rule that in the absence of a confession of abuse, two witnesses are required to prove the allegation, something almost never possible in abuse cases. It is crystal clear that IICSA thinks that the rule serves to protect perpetrators.
So what does IICSA, a statutory inquiry empowered to make recommendations, think should happen now? Is the inquiry recommending that CCJW scraps the rule? It appears so, but nothing along these lines is included in the report's recommendations. But in any case, the Jehovah's Witnesses are a fundamentalist religious cult who interpret scripture literally, which is why they have the two witness rule in the first place. CCJW isn't going to change the two witness rule of its own volition, and a report which fails to acknowledge that is simply not facing reality. Does IICSA believe that the state can or should intervene legislatively to force CCJW to change its internal procedures? The report doesn't say, or give us any hint as to the inquiry's thinking. So the section of the report which identifies the two witness rule as profoundly harmful to children simply hangs there with no hint as to what, if anything, parliament should do about it. Five years into this inquiry, this feels unsatisfactory.
As I've argued many times before, the only effective answer to the problems identified in this report is new law, particularly in the form of well-designed mandatory reporting. Self-policing has failed. In its place we need a completely new legal framework, and to address serious weaknesses in regulatory agencies. Anything less will leave yet more generations of children at risk of sexual and physical abuse.
IICSA can still recommend that, and I hope it will. But this report – good and path breaking though much of it is – is better at identifying problems than pointing us towards to those much needed solutions. And victims and survivors may feel that for all the powerful analysis of failings and worse, religion – particularly of the fundamentalist variety – is still getting too much of a free pass.
Image: Namning/Shutterstock.com.
Charles Bradlaugh’s legacy is well worth celebrating
Bob Forder reflects on the key achievements of the NSS's founder, ahead of the restoration of his grave.
The funeral of Charles Bradlaugh – parliamentarian, activist and founder of the National Secular Society – took place at Brookwood Cemetery on Tuesday 3 February, 1891, four days after his death. Brookwood is 25 miles from London and the funeral was to be low key. According to the terms of the dead man's will he was to be buried as cheaply as possible and the affair was to be silent, with no speeches, no ceremony.
It didn't turn out like that as in a huge wave of spontaneous grief, gratitude and adoration thousands made their way to Brookwood by railway and down country lanes. Estimates of the attendance vary widely – nobody kept count – but thousands were there and this may well have been the largest event ever witnessed at the nation's largest cemetery.
Attendees came from far and wide and from all Britain's great cities. There were miners from the north, soldiers in bright uniforms from Bradlaugh's old regiment and Indians in large numbers. Northampton, Bradlaugh's parliamentary constituency, was represented by many wearing rosettes in Bradlaugh's colours of mauve, white and green. A young David Lloyd George was there, among 17 other MPs. Walter Sickert who had painted a number of Bradlaugh portraits was present, as was a young Indian law student, Mohandas Ghandhi. George Jacob Holyoake attended alongside other leading secularists such as the redoubtable Annie Besant and the marquess of Queensbury.
So, what was it about Bradlaugh that provoked such a response?
Throughout his life Bradlaugh was the friend of the underdog, the under-privileged and the downtrodden. It was his fervent belief that the answer to their woes lay in a more open, secular, democratic and liberal society. To this end he achieved two great victories.
First, there was his and Annie Besant's success in establishing the right to publish cheap birth control literature. In 1877 they had republished Charles Knowlton's "Fruits of Philosophy", a pamphlet advocating contraception and advising on contraceptive techniques. Shortly before, a Bristol bookseller had been convicted and imprisoned for selling the pamphlet and the previous publisher had withdrawn it from circulation. Bradlaugh and Besant were prosecuted. They defended themselves and were acquitted, striking a substantial blow for freedom of the press and speech. Further couples' endeavours to control the size of their families were aided at a price they could afford. It had always been Bradlaugh's conviction that large families were a principal cause of poverty and the subjugation of women.
Second, there was Bradlaugh's long and ultimately successful battle to take his seat in parliament. As a constitutionalist Bradlaugh had long harboured the ambition to secure election to parliament and in 1880 he was returned as one of Northampton's MPs.
The problem was that to take his seat he was required to take an oath, on the Bible, of loyalty to God and the queen. He believed in neither. Bradlaugh asked to affirm (a non-religious oath) but was told he could not. He therefore prepared to take the oath because he considered the words less important than his duty to serve his constituents. However, some MPs objected because of his atheism. The speaker ruled in their favour and he was effectively barred from taking his seat, prompting a by-election.
Four times Bradlaugh returned to Northampton to contest elections and each time he won. Once he tried to take his place in the chamber of the House of Commons demanding that the oath be administered, but was arrested and imprisoned in the Palace of Westminster overnight. It was not until 1886 that a new speaker allowed him to be sworn in. Bradlaugh had triumphed. An important democratic right had been established, and the episode served as a reminder that MPs sit in the House of Commons by virtue of their election, rather than others' opinion of their views.
So Bradlaugh was responsible for two very significant victories for secular, liberal democracy. And there's also the issue of his character and personal qualities. His most recent biographer is Bryan Niblett. In the preface of his aptly titled book Dare to Stand Alone, Niblett explores the development of his understanding of heroism:
"The battles that Bradlaugh fought were battles of the mind, played out on public platforms, in courts of law, and in political debating chambers. This supplied a new dimension to my understanding of heroes, the recognition that the virtue of thinking for oneself of engaging in action founded on reason as the guiding principle, was the essence of real heroism… One man, relying on reason, and daring to stand alone, can make a difference in the world."
Those assembled at Brookwood on that day in 1891 came together because collectively they recognised a great man's achievements and his qualities.
Today the NSS is a modern campaigning organisation. However, it is intensely proud of its past and its foundation in 1866 by Charles Bradlaugh, a great Victorian, radical and secularist.
You can help to restore Charles Bradlaugh's grave by donating to our appeal. There will also be an event to mark the restoration at Brookwood Cemetery on 17 October – if you'd like to attend, please let us know by emailing events@secularism.org.uk.
The child abuse inquiry has been too deferential to the Jehovah’s Witnesses
Next week the IICSA inquiry will publish a report into the Jehovah's Witnesses. This can only be damning. But the inquiry hasn't gathered the evidence needed to root out abuse within the organisation, writes Lloyd Evans.
As I write, we are only days away from learning the findings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in its investigation of a number of religious organisations, including Jehovah's Witnesses. When the findings are published I expect them to be damning, at least concerning the failings of the Jehovah's Witness organisation of which I was once a member and devoted follower.
I don't see how an organisation that has in recent years cemented a global reputation for the industrial scale cover-up of child sexual abuse could receive anything other than strong condemnation from any self-respecting inquiry or investigative body that wishes to be taken seriously. But am I pining for these findings as needed validation? Will I look on them as the final word on the mishandling of abuse by my former religion? No, and nor should anyone else.
IICSA has barely scratched the surface of a problem that always warranted a much more probing investigation and intervention. The inquiry's investigation of Jehovah's Witnesses in particular is so inadequate that I have come to think of it as a travesty and insult to victims.
I've done my very best to assist IICSA as a core participant in its investigation. And I was grateful that last year, when the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses (CCJW) tried to have me thrown off the investigation on the preposterous grounds of hate speech, IICSA gave this short shrift. But the inquiry's failings have been evident almost from the very beginning.
IICSA is a woefully underfunded enterprise; a pound shop version of its equivalent Royal Commission in Australia, which did an incredible job of investigating abuse between 2013 and 2017. According to research by Mandate Now, a pressure group advocating mandatory reporting of all child sexual abuse, the gulf in funding between IICSA and its Australian equivalent is stark.
Whereas the Australian Royal Commission was given an annual budget of around £45m, IICSA has received a meagre £23m (approximately) annually between 2015 and 2019 – despite its investigation encompassing a combined England and Wales population that is more than double that of Australia. In other words, IICSA has received nearly half the funding for more than double the workload. I'm afraid the old adage applies: "you get what you pay for".
From the outset in my evidence to IICSA I have implored the inquiry to use its statutory powers to pursue a full and independent audit of all data held by Jehovah's Witnesses on accusations of child sexual abuse. When Australia's Royal Commission did this, it found that 1,006 perpetrators from among Jehovah's Witnesses stretching back to 1950 had amassed around 1,800 victims, with not a single accusation of abuse reported to Australian authorities. Based on these figures, I scoured the Jehovah's Witness yearbook data and extrapolated a likely figure of 2,300+ perpetrators and 4,100+ victims for the entire UK.
IICSA is aware of these jaw-dropping numbers and has been handed clear evidence in the organisation's own documents that Jehovah's Witnesses have a written policy of gathering sex abuse records into a secret database that is not shared with the authorities. IICSA even allowed CCJW to cherry-pick a tiny sampling of the figures from this database and present them as the only figures that mattered.
The figures presented were damning enough. On page 23 of his first written evidence, JW spokesperson Paul Gillies admitted that out of 67 accusations, 30 had not been reported to the police – and the 37 that were reported were reported "in most instances" by the victim or their family (in other words, not necessarily at the behest or initiative of the organisation).
But these were only records related to accusations against elders (priests) and ministerial servants (deacons), or where the abuse occurred within a JW kingdom hall or place of worship. Furthermore, the figures only represented accusations brought to the attention of CCJW between September 2009 and August 2019 related to abuse within that period.
Apparently abuse perpetrated any earlier (August 2009?), or abuse perpetrated by rank and file members, or abuse occurring outside of a kingdom hall (i.e. in a family home), didn't matter or wasn't worthy of any serious analysis. This was a perfect example of a group under investigation being allowed to mark its own homework.
The outcry regarding IICSA's refusal to apply proper scrutiny to Jehovah's Witnesses, despite having full knowledge of their conspicuously egregious child safeguarding policies, was loud and unequivocal. More than 6,000 signed a petition calling for IICSA to do their job properly and "get the data". IICSA's response?
It didn't just refuse. In a written letter to the person behind the petition, solicitor to the inquiry Martin Smith bizarrely claimed that it would be "unlawful" for IICSA to pursue full disclosure of the relevant abuse records. He wrote:
"While it is true that the CPIROS investigation will not formally conclude until the panel has published its investigation report, the only task remaining for it is the writing of that report. This work is well under way and it would not be appropriate, lawful or fair for the inquiry to seek substantial additional evidence from any particular organisation in the manner sought by the petition at this stage of its process."
Yes, a statutory inquiry tasked with investigating sexual abuse was claiming it was against the law to do its work.
We can speculate any number of reasons as to why IICSA has been so half-hearted in undertaking work regarding which it once promised it would leave "no stone unturned". Thousands of abuse records being knowingly withheld from police is a pretty big stone if you ask me.
And let's remember: this is not some game. Any foot dragging or lack of appetite concerning the thorough investigation of one of the most damaging crimes a human can perpetrate against another human translates into more children molested, more abuse covered up, and more lives ruined. Every second of inaction begets more abuse.
My own feeling is that lying at the heart of IICSA's glaring apathy (to the point of making misleading statements about what is or isn't "lawful") is a societal indifference to fully scrutinising child sexual abuse, as evidenced by how grossly underfunded the whole thing is.
This underlying lack of urgency, which some justifiably reason is informed by a desire to not overburden a prison population that is already bursting at the seams, is compounded in my view by societal deference to religion.
It should not be possible in the 21st century for any organisation to keep thousands of secret records on child sexual abuse hidden in plain sight. If it were a football club, playgroup or gym franchise concealing criminal evidence to this extent it would be all over our newspaper front pages, and the police would be breaking down the doors and seizing documents. But if it's a religion doing this, we have learned as a society to look the other way - even in cases where a statutory inquiry ought to be doing the exact opposite.
Image: Hassocks5489, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Locked in and locked out: how faith schools restrict families’ choices
State funding of faith schools means many families are left without suitable schools. The narrative that faith schools are justified on the grounds of choice should be confronted, says Alastair Lichten.
The latest figures from the National Secular Society's choice delusion project, along with other research on discriminatory admissions, show how seriously faith schools are restricting choice across England. Hundreds of thousands of families a year face either being effectively locked in to faith schools, because there are few or no alternatives, or locked out of their local schools by religious discrimination.
At first glance, these may appear to be opposite problems. But both are caused by the proliferation and exclusionary nature of faith schools. This is a serious problem that left unconfronted will only grow as the country becomes more diverse and less religious.
Thirty per cent of people have little or no choice but a faith school at primary level, and 10% at secondary level. These figures represent around 475,000 pupils a year. Over 20,000 a year are assigned faith schools against their families' preferences. Estimating the number of pupils subject to direct religious discrimination in admissions is extremely difficult, but researchers have found that around half of C of E and all Catholic secondary school places are potentially subject to religious selection. It can be easy to forget the human stories behind these huge numbers and shocking statistics.
We regularly provide advice and support to parents experiencing the sharp end of the choice delusion. We hear from parents like Abhi from west London, whose four year old daughter was turned away from all their local schools on religious grounds. Rachael and David from Liverpool faced similar problems at secondary school for their son. Parents like Roxana from Bristol could pretend to be religious to access their local schools, but don't want to teach their children that dishonesty pays.
Michael from Bath told our No More Faith Schools campaign that he was effectively forced into putting all three of his children into a Catholic school. He had three schools to choose from: a terribly performing C of E school, and two Catholic schools.
Victoria from Medway told us: "My son has been placed into a faith school at the secondary school allocations. This was not one of my six choices, but no other school is available. The school say that they must attend all Catholic services even if they don't pray!"
Our research has revealed that 53% of rural primary schools are faith-based, and parents in some rural areas raised particular concerns about a lack of access to secular education. One told us she was looking at moving to a village – but the only school there, and the only schools in the next two villages, were all Church of England schools. Another said it was "impossible" to find a non-faith based school in the local area. Others said their children weren't being given the chance to make up their own minds about their own beliefs – for example because they were being forced into prayers, or were subject to evangelism.
Despite repeated parliamentary questions, research and lobbying by the NSS, the government recently admitted that it still has no estimate of its own on the extent of these problems. This means the choice delusion figures remain the best available and, combined with the new local authority scorecard, a powerful research tool for policymakers.
Breaking down these figures by local authority not only confirms the extent of this problem but provides important new insights. Serious questions must be asked about whether the worst performing local authorities are failing in their legal duties to ensure adequate suitable school provision, particularly where they are considering new school proposals. Public scrutiny and transparency around new faith schools is extremely limited, and claims that proposals will improve choice are often unevidenced and unchallenged, making reliable local data even more valuable.
And although the data only applies to England, the same problems affect families across the UK (where different methodology would be needed to work out how many are affected). Rohan from Newport told us: "My children have no choice but to attend a Church in Wales faith school, as with all our local council schools. It indoctrinates and teaches biased religious education. This is religious discrimination. Other faiths and atheism are dismissed." In Northern Ireland, over 90% of schools are segregated despite demand for integrated options.
Far from being the knockdown argument some supporters believe, 'choice' is actually one of the worst inequities caused by faith schools. Community ethos schools are suitable and accessible for pupils of all religious and non-religious backgrounds. The same cannot be said of schools organised around an exclusive faith ethos, let alone those with religious selection.
If we are to justify faith schools though this narrow concept of choice, this invites the question of why the 'choice' of schools organised around atheist, political or other ideological belief systems or identities is not also catered for.
The idea of choice is often wielded against families. Often when supporting someone dealing with inappropriate evangelism in schools, biased RE, religious sex ed, or coercive worship, they will tell me that their faith school was the only practical option. They didn't select it for faith but are told "you chose a faith school, what do you expect". Many faith schools openly state that they demand parents accept all aspects of a school's ethos if they have 'chosen' it.
Critics of faith schools are also accused of 'hypocrisy' when they have no choice but a faith school, or told to mind their own business if they are lucky enough to have the choice.
And choice focused narratives around faith schools are extremely limiting. They mischaracterise both the real-world options families have, and the social role of public education. Schools are community assets, not consumer products where individuals can choose freely between 100 brands to suite their personal taste. The harm caused by religious discrimination in school admissions and the exclusionary ethos of faith schools extends far beyond the inconvenient restriction of choice, and legitimises wider prejudices.
Moving towards a fully inclusive community-ethos education system, where all schools are suitable for pupils of all backgrounds, would be the best way to solve these problems. But in the meantime, the government must at least ensure that all families have a real option of a non-faith school.
Image: patat/Shutterstock.com.
The Taliban takeover is part of a wider threat to secular liberal democracy
Stephen Evans argues that secular liberal democracy is the antidote to the totalitarian Islamism offered up by the Taliban – so we need to do a better job of defending it.
With the Taliban back in control, the return of repressive theocratic rule in Afghanistan looms large.
The Taliban's pledge to create an "open and inclusive" government has largely been greeted with the scepticism it deserves. Taliban mullahs say the rights of women in Afghanistan will be respected "within the framework of Islamic law". That is one hell of a caveat.
The last time they ruled, they barred women and girls from taking most jobs or even going to school. Women caught outside the home with their faces uncovered, or even wearing nail polish, risked public whippings or other degrading forms of punishment. Discrimination and violence, including killings, rape, abduction and forced marriage, were commonplace.
Reassurances that things will be different this time are unlikely to provide much in the way of hope or comfort. It's hard to regard such statements as anything other than propaganda – a ruse designed to win global approval.
Not least because even since the end of the Taliban's rule, over 20 years ago, its fighters and like-minded insurgents have continued their brutal assault on women. As recently as May this year, Taliban insurgents bombed the Sayed Ul-Shuhada High School in Kabul, killing at least 85, mainly schoolgirls. The previous year the Taliban murdered 24 women, children and babies in an attack on a maternity ward at a hospital in the Afghan capital.
Over the last 20 years hopes for the equal rights of Afghan women before the law may have been raised, but whatever progress there has been in the cause of women's equality looks likely to be swept away. Women are already being erased from the public square. Afghan women and girls are again living in fear for their liberty.
The Taliban's war is not just against women or a regime; it's a war against civilised values of freedom, justice, equality and tolerance. The Taliban's focus may be on ruling Afghanistan according to its interpretation of sharia law, but its takeover of Afghanistan will provide a massive morale boost to violent jihadists and religious fundamentalists the world over.
The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is therefore a reminder of the need to resist religious power seeking, wherever it rears its head. It's no coincidence that the world's theocracies and Islamic republics – Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia – are amongst the world's worst human rights abusers. State religion is correlated with significantly higher levels of religious favouritism and lower levels of freedom of religion or belief, in terms of political rights, civil liberties and religious persecution.
The distressing destruction of hope in Afghanistan is a reminder of the fragility of freedom – and needs to serve as a wakeup call to better defend fundamental freedoms everywhere. Those of us able to enjoy relative liberty should never take it for granted. Instead, we should seek to ensure the same liberties are extended to people everywhere. The freedoms we have aren't ours to give away. They have been won by others before us - clawed away from theocrats, fascists, communists and other ideologues of all stripes by people brave enough to stand up to them. We owe it to them to do a better job of defending and enhancing them – wherever they come under threat.
In this week's parliamentary debates on Afghanistan Conservative peer Lord Farmer took the opportunity to have a swipe at secularism, claiming that its "root" is "simply a belief in the infallible 'me'". He added: "The disintegration of our spiritual backbone blinds us to the chaos all around us, and to its inevitable end-point: the decay and decline of the West."
But secularist principles of free speech; freedom of conscience, religion or belief for all; individual rights and autonomy are everything the Islamists rage against. Islamists reject the protection and freedoms offered by liberal secular democracies to women, children, religious, ethnic and sexual minorities, which remove their ability to oppress them.
Secularism's greatest gift is its ability to protect citizens from the imposition of other people's beliefs. The Taliban's objective of re-establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is the very antithesis of secularism. It's also part of a wider global threat to secular liberal democracy, which is largely driven by religious extremism.
The Taliban's theocratic takeover has triggered a humanitarian crisis that will cause unimaginable hardship and distress. The international community must do all it can to protect those at risk. And collectively, we all need to do a better job of defending the principles that underpin secular liberal democracy. Because in an increasingly pluralistic world, they offer us the only realistic path to freedom and peaceful coexistence.
Image: Suhail Shaheen, spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, at a press conference in Russia earlier this year. © John Smith 2021/Shutterstock.com.
It's time to move on from religious education
RE has become a subject in search of a purpose. There are better approaches to learning about the diversity of beliefs, and better uses of time than using outdated legislation to perpetuate it, says Keith Sharpe.
Rather than a distinct area of learning as with other curriculum subjects like maths, history or physics, religious education has always been a form of socialisation, a process through which children are inducted into a national identity based on societal norms, values and beliefs. Over the past 80 years these have changed drastically, critically undermining the justification for 'religious education' as a distinct subject.
The 1944 Education Act put religious education on the school curriculum as a legal requirement. RE was the only subject of the curriculum which that act prescribed; everything else was left to the discretion of schools and individual teachers. In the 1940s Britain was an overwhelmingly Christian country. Along with most of the population the politicians of the 1940s believed that all children should be brought up in a broadly Christian faith and that the ethics and morals engendered in schools should be entirely Christian. The Church of England was perceived as the bastion of national ethical values to which it was the duty of loyal subjects to give assent. Being Christian, or at least professing to be, was part of British national identity.
In these circumstances RE had a clear raison d'être. It was to ensure that each successive cohort of pupils understood the Christian religion and held it as part of their overall understanding of who they and their nation were. It was to induct them into a national identity based on a very specific theological ideology.
Over subsequent decades, however, this certainty of purpose was lost. Perceptions of the Church of England changed, and questions of national identity became much more complex. Without these two underpinning supports the rationale for religious education crumbled and collapsed. For years now there has been no agreement on what RE is for.
Concerned about the parlous state of their subject, the Religious Education Council of England and Wales established the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) to make recommendations for the future. The final CoRE report published in 2018 proposed changing the name of the subject to 'Religion and Worldviews'. The basic idea is that now children need to learn about the diversity of worldviews and to have respect for social and cultural differences.
In a nutshell you could say that RE in the 1940s essentially said to children "you must accept the Christian worldview because it is the only truth", but in the 2020s RE says almost the exact opposite, telling children "you must respect each person's different worldview because it is true for them". It is difficult to imagine any other subject on the school curriculum performing such a total volte face. Without a consistent internal logic, RE's changes are never its own, but are always entirely determined by changes in the nature of the environing society.
Far from rescuing RE, the CoRE report appears likely to hasten its end. The report itself admits that "at school level the study of worldviews is inherently multidisciplinary". Well, if it is multidisciplinary and already covered by other subjects, the obvious question arises – 'what is the point of RE?'.
Furthermore, the proposed skills which the CoRE report thinks the study of worldviews will develop have nothing specifically to do with religion. For example it refers to the importance of analysing a range of source materials, understanding symbolic language, developing respect for others and their viewpoints, and interpreting meaning and significance. These are all generic skills of great importance but are not inherently religion related.
And many other established curriculum requirements cover the same ground as the CoRE report identifies for RE. Spiritual, moral, social and cultural education, fundamental British values, personal, social, health and economic education, relationships and sex education, and citizenship education all seek to develop respect for human difference and worldview diversity. There simply is no need for RE to replicate all of this.
It is also interesting to note that in overtly secular education systems such as in France, schools are already teaching what the CoRE report suggests, and doing so under the specifically non-religious title of éducation civique et morale. The CoRE proposals mirror the French syllabus for this subject remarkably closely. To say the least, it is somewhat ironic that the Religious Education Council of England and Wales is now trying to save the subject by copying what is taught in an education system where there are no references to the religious or theological.
The only major difference is that the CoRE report continues to argue that it is worth spending curriculum time describing to pupils the particularities of a variety of differing religious (and non-religious) beliefs and practices. This has been called 'religious literacy' but it is really just a superficial 'Cook's tour' of diverse credos and rituals. The obvious question is though: do pupils really need to know the intricate details of various religious groups' conceptions of the world in order to understand the principle that other people should be respected whatever they believe? One can have every respect for Hindu believers without knowing all about the texts of the Vedas. We respect other people because they share our humanity and, in the school context, also our citizenship and increasingly pluralistic national identity.
And the Cook's tour approach can be positively unhelpful and counter-productive for efforts to foster respect for difference. Many religions and ideologies have a terrible record on treating particular groups and individuals with appalling prejudice and cruelty. And in some parts of the world they still do. Teachers may sugar coat this, which is unhelpful and short-sighted. Otherwise any child being taught about the doctrines behind the treatment of women, gay people or freethinkers, for example, is at risk of developing negative feelings towards the followers of the religions that espouse them.
Time is hugely pressured in the modern curriculum. There are better ways to use it than trying to find a purpose for the perpetuation of RE using outdated legislation. It is time to move on from RE and ensure that the established curriculum requirements, especially citizenship education, are enhanced to provide children with a secular schooling which prepares them to consider and understand their future rights and obligations as citizens.
This is a shorter version of a paper which Keith Sharpe recently delivered to the annual conference of the Association of University Lecturers in Religion and Education. The full paper was entitled 'Why Religious Education is gradually and inexorably being replaced by Citizenship Education'.
Note - September 2021: A longer version of this article has been published in the Journal of Religious Education.
Image: Juice Verve/Shutterstock.com.
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We must stop charities promoting antisemitism
The horrific attack on Israel by Islamist terrorists Hamas, and Israel's subsequent response, have unleashed unprecedented antisemitism on our streets.
Antisemitic incidents in the UK have more than quadrupled since October 7th, according to the Community Security Trust. They have included assaults, vandalism and abusive behaviour.
Perhaps most shocking of all, three Jewish schools decided to close for the day last week, over security fears relating to pro-Palestine protests. Their fears were not unfounded. It has since emerged that two Jewish schools have been vandalised with red paint.
That children have been forced out of school because of the threat of racist attacks is a national disgrace.
It is deplorable that anti-Muslim incidents have also increased. But according to the deputy assistant commissioner for the Metropolitan Police, this increase is "nothing like the scale of the increase in antisemitism".
This sudden flare up of antisemitism didn't come from nowhere. Antisemites weren't created overnight when Hamas attacked Israel. What we're seeing is the emboldening of those who have been harbouring hatred of Jews for years.
Worst of all, UK charities have had a hand in this. Specifically, charities getting away with promoting antisemitism under the charitable purpose of 'the advancement of religion'.
They include Islamic Research Foundation International (IRFI), an organisation which registered as a charity in 2007 and financed an Islamic TV channel called Peace TV. In 2016 Peace TV was fined by broadcast regulator Ofcom after a speaker on one of its shows described Jews as "like a cancer", "evil genius" and "cursed people".
Thankfully, IRFI was shut down last year after multiple complaints to the Charity Commission, including from the NSS – over ten years after it was registered.
But charities which are shut down after promoting antisemitism are few and far between. Most appear to continue with impunity.
They include Miftahul Jannah Academy, which published sermons on its website by Islamic scholar Muhammad Patel describing Jews as having "dirty" qualities and saying Allah turned some Jews into "apes and monkeys and pigs" because Allah is "angry" with them. Patel also preached at Walthamstow Central Mosque, run by the charity Masjid-E-Umer Trust. While these lectures disappeared from the web after the NSS complained to the Charity Commission, both charities are still operating and it's not clear what sanctions, if any, they have received.
Then there's Islamic Centre Leicester, which hosted a sermon uploaded to YouTube a few months ago saying Jews have "greed of long life" because they fear punishment in the afterlife. Again, the content was removed after the NSS told the regulators, but no further action appears to have been taken – even though this is the second time the NSS has registered concerns about extremism at this charity.
Most bizarre of all is the case of Cricklewood Muslim Youth Trust (CMYT). In 2021, the Campaign Against Antisemitism lodged a complaint with the Charity Commission after CMYT tweeted an image warning Muslims to "Keep away from the enemies of Allaah the Jews & Christians".
It turned out that CMYT wasn't a registered charity at the time of the complaint. But what is shocking is the Charity Commission's response, which was to tell CMYT to register as a charity. That's right – the commission opened the door for an antisemitic organisation to get the tax relief and 'seal of approval' which comes with registered charity status.
Unsurprisingly, the Charity Commission was reluctant to disclose this when the NSS asked about it. It only did so once the NSS got the Information Commissioner's Office involved. The Charity Commission said it initially refused to answer because the information could "lead to negative perceptions of charities". Indeed.
It shouldn't surprise us that these charities have promoted other forms of extremism alongside antisemitism. Peace TV was additionally fined by Ofcom for shows condoning the execution of apostates from Islam. Other lectures published by Miftahul Jannah praised the Taliban and said Muslims should help Islamic nations which want to fight to buy machine guns. Islamic Centre Leicester has repeatedly suggested the punishment for apostates and 'blasphemers' is death. And CMYT said on its YouTube account that "protests, debates, free society and democracy" are all prohibited in Islam.
Antisemitism, jihadism and the rejection of liberal values all flow from the same place: a fundamentalist and supremacist interpretation of the Islamic religion.
This is where the problem lies. "The advancement of religion" is a recognised charitable purpose, which means an organisation can register as a charity simply by promoting religion – even, it seems, if that religion is at odds with equality, community cohesion and the duty on charities to provide a public benefit. All the above charities are registered under "the advancement of religion", and regulators are seemingly powerless to put a meaningful end to their extremism. When a regulator's reaction to a complaint about antisemitism is to tell the perpetrator to get registered, you know there's a problem.
That's why "the advancement of religion" needs to be removed from the list of charitable purposes. This won't stop religious charities which do genuine good from registering, as their activities will be covered by a different charity purpose. But it will help put an end to charities advancing religions that spread antisemitism and other forms of extremism. And recent incidents demonstrate we need to end this now more than ever.
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Bishops, know your place: it’s not in parliament
It was with great lamentation and gnashing of teeth that members of the Church of England reacted to news this week that the archbishop of Canterbury's request for a meeting with the Home Secretary was refused.
An incandescent Dominic Grieve took to the airwaves of Radio 4 to denounce Suella Braverman as "extraordinarily rude" for not acceding to meet the archbishop to discuss the government's immigration bill. The former attorney general, himself an Anglican, superciliously opined that the archbishop comes "well ahead" of the Home Secretary in "the order of precedence in this country". Dripping with condescension, and arguably misogyny, he concluded Braverman should "know her place".
Readers will have their own opinions of the Home Secretary, but the nation's democratic representatives should not be expected to prostrate themselves before a cleric who sits ex officio in the Lords by virtue of Victorian statute.
The whole episode lays bare the Church's unabashed sense of entitlement: How dare we be denied the privileged political access we have always taken for granted? "There was shock internally" and it was "a big slap in the face", an unnamed former senior adviser to the Lords Spiritual noted dolefully. Those officials who did meet with the Home Office were made to feel like "lepers", he added with appropriately biblical melodrama.
Lambeth Palace, the office of the archbishop, was very straightforward: "In the past the Archbishop has met other Home Secretaries. It is not unusual."
Maybe not for Lambeth Palace, but the public will rightly question this level of influence given how wildly out of step the Church is with society on issues of fundamental importance, such as reproductive rights, same-sex marriage and assisted dying.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the Church has reacted with such opprobrium. After all, bishops are used to VIP treatment in the Lords. By convention, other peers must give way when a Lord Spiritual rises to speak. And there is an unwritten expectation that letters sent by primates to ministers should be answered within two weeks. Constituents and civil society organisations can only dream of such a prompt response.
There are also those Anglicans, such as Conservative MP Chris Loder, who support the bishops' bench in principle, but wish they would pipe down when their message is politically inconvenient. This is to have your cake and eat it. Of course, when bishops are given automatic seats in the legislature, they will use them to politically pontificate and further their own ends. As Loder said, they act as "politicians that wear mitres".
But that's precisely because that is what they are legally empowered to do. There is no clause in the Bishopric of Manchester Act 1847 – the law which enshrines 26 seats by right for Anglican bishops – which precludes them from participating in the political cut and thrust of the Lords.
If, as he says, he truly believes that bishops should focus on "the cure of souls" rather than "the political issues of the day", there is one very simple solution: abolish their automatic seats and dispatch them back to their dioceses posthaste.
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