Secular Education Forum
The Secular Education Forum (SEF) provides expert and professional advice and opinion to the National Secular Society (NSS) on issues related to education and provides a forum for anyone with expertise in the intersection of education and secularism.
The SEF's main objective is to advocate the value of secularism/religious neutrality as a professional standard in education. The SEF welcomes supporters of all faiths and none. It provides expert support for the NSS working towards a secular education system free from religious privilege, proselytization, partisanship or discrimination.
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Education blogs and commentary
A selection of blogs and comment pieces on education and secularism. For education news from the NSS, please click here.
The Church of England is legitimising spiritual abuse
Posted: Thu, 10th Aug 2023
The Exorcist director William Friedkin died at the age of 87 this week. His seminal film immortalised the concept of exorcism in our popular culture. But you may be surprised to learn the practice is alive and well in our established church.
The Church of England – the church which our head of state swears to maintain and which has formal representation in parliament – practises a "deliverance ministry" to this day. As of 2011, the Church of England had 44 exorcists, one per diocese, each appointed by the archbishop of Canterbury.
Indeed, the late Anglican exorcist Ken Gardiner said: "I have seen exorcisms succeed. People came to me in a state and, in the name of Jesus, I've commanded whatever was there to leave."
The Church's 2023 guidance allows parents to consent to "formal rites of deliverance" for their children, "including those involving touch". The "laying on of hands" may be deemed necessary to cast out "demons", it says.
Traumatising a child by telling them they are possessed with a demon, and that a priest needs to touch them to cast the demon out, is surely inherently abusive.
On top of this, the guidance asserts that, in the "majority of cases" of 16-17 year olds, the consent of parents does not need to be obtained. Medical advice must be sought but there is no explicit requirement to follow it. Perversely, there is only one third party whose permission is required: the local bishop.
In recent months, the Church has been publicly shamed by its abysmal record on child safeguarding: the ever-mounting allegations of sexual abuse at Soul Survivor church, the suspension of the former archbishop of York, the decision to sack its own Independent Safeguarding Board – to name but a few. One might expect they would know better by now.
Exorcism is also linked to the harmful and homophobic practice of so-called 'gay conversion therapy'. Just last year, Matthew Draper alleged he had been subjected to exorcism by a church in Sheffield in order to rid him of "the demons of homosexuality". The claims are now being investigated by the Diocese of Sheffield.
For the avoidance of doubt, Professor Sir Robin Murray of Kings College's Institute of Psychiatry has said he knows of no "scientific evidence that exorcism works".
The probable harms of Anglican exorcism are not limited to its own congregations. The Church's "deliverance ministry" legitimises more extreme forms of spiritual abuse by other faith groups.
Earlier this year, a newly registered religious charity in Belfast posted a Facebook picture laying out the "five kinds of witches". The post draws on a sermon given by Nigerian pastor Daniel Kolawole Olukoya. In an unhinged screed, Olukoya pontificates on "eaters of flesh and blood" and "the register of darkness" as parishioners nod approvingly. He enjoins his rapt followers to receive "deliverance" from demonic witches and wizards.
It would be easy to dismiss these beliefs as eccentric but they are, in fact, treated with deadly seriousness by some adherents here in the UK.
In 2000, Victoria Climbie was tortured to death after a Christian preacher convinced her family she was possessed by "evil spirits". The pathologist who examined her body said it was the worst case of abuse he had ever seen.
In 2015, Kristy Bramu was accused by his sister and her boyfriend of 'kindoki' - a Congolese form of witchcraft. He drowned in a "ritual cleansing" bath after being subjected to "sadistic" and "prolonged" torture.
In 2021, as part of an Islamic ruqya exorcism, anaesthetist Hossam Metwally put his partner Kelly Wilson into a coma and nearly induced cardiac arrest.
To our knowledge, Anglican exorcisms have not, in recent years, had fatal consequences. But they are inspired by the same sinister belief: that people can be by possessed by demonic forces and these forces can be overcome through religious intervention. The deliverance ministry of the established church, an arm of the British state, gives succour to the most dangerous forms of spiritual abuse.
Today, August 10, is the World Day against Witch Hunts – a day for standing up against the abuse and killing of people believed to be witches or 'possessed' by evil spirits. What better occasion for us to challenge the Church's perpetuation of spiritual abuse? Exorcism should be the preserve of fiction and future Friedkins, not the established church.
Image: Francisco Goya, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Sexist state church should be disestablished
Posted: Wed, 2nd Aug 2023
Imagine if a colleague of yours, due to his deeply held religious beliefs, refused to follow his manager's instructions because that manager is a woman. What would happen?
In almost all cases this would be unacceptable; places of work which tolerated it would probably find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Although both sex and religion or belief are protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, the law is clear that individuals cannot discriminate against their colleagues just because their religion says they should.
But there still exist niches where such obvious sexism is permitted – and one of those is the established church.
It is quite incredible that in the 21st century, 500 Church of England churches ban female priests. This is thanks partly to religious exemptions in the Equality Act, and partly to the 2014 House of Bishops' Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests issued when the Church finally decided to let women be bishops. The declaration includes the principle that the Church "remains committed to enabling" those who are "unable to receive the ministry of women bishops or priests" to "flourish".
In other words, men who don't want to suffer the indignity of accepting a woman's authority don't have to and will be continued to be welcomed by the Church with open arms.
Increasing numbers of CofE members find the Church's stance on female clergy abhorrent. The church of St Fimbarrus in the Cornish town of Fowey has recently u-turned on its prohibition of female vicars following a backlash from parishioners. Ironically, Fowey was once home to The Vicar of Dibley star Dawn French.
Growing numbers of parliamentarians are also challenging the Church's sexism. Last month Labour MP Diana Johnson challenged the Church's representative in the House of Commons, Andrew Selous, on this issue.
Selous' response? "The Church of England is fully committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all without reference to gender. The Church is also committed to ensuring that those who cannot in good conscience receive the ministry of women priests or bishops are able to flourish".
Two mutually exclusive commitments, if ever there were. The Church will not be equally open to clergy of both sexes as long as it allows parishes to reject one of those sexes.
Some may argue that, unlike the Church's homophobic approach to gay marriage, this is a strictly internal affair which only affects female CofE clergy, not the wider public. But the established Church's commitment to helping misogynists within their ranks "flourish" has broader implications. It tacitly implies that there's something so subversive about women with authority that it's reasonable for men to reject them.
While women's rights in the UK have inarguably progressed, women are still underrepresented in positions of power and overrepresented as victims of domestic violence. The UK's gender pay gap stands at nearly 15%. A meagre nine percent of FTSE 100 companies and just under five percent of FTSE 250 companies had female CEOs in 2022. Only 35% of members of the House of Commons and 29% of the Lords are female. According to Refuge, one in four women in England and Wales will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime, two women a week are killed by a current or former partner, and domestic abuse drives three women a week to suicide. Ninety-three percent of defendants in domestic abuse cases are male while 84% of victims are female.
Religious promotion of female subordination upholds and feeds narratives fuelling discrimination and violence against women. Religiously sanctioned notions that women exist to serve men translate into decision making which limits women's opportunities, and into relationships which are coercive, controlling and abusive.
With church attendance rapidly dwindling, supporters of establishment are running out of justifications for the extraordinary privileges granted to the CofE. One often repeated justification is that the Church offers moral leadership with some sort of 'ethical insight' denied to the secular arms of the state.
But a church which prioritises keeping conservative male clergy appeased to the detriment of women who just want equal treatment doesn't seem particularly moral. Rather, it seems to be putting its own interests above those of the nation it claims to serve.
Just as the Church cannot credibly claim commitment to equality while allowing parishes to discriminate against female clergy, it cannot serve the needs of the nation while clinging to outdated dogma which holds back women's rights.
Parliamentarians know this, and they're weaponising the Church's established status against the Church itself. On the issue of female clergy, father of the house Peter Bottomly MP delivered an ultimatum: "The Church Commissioners should understand that either the Church of England gets rid of what ought to have been temporary exemptions from the Equality Act 2010 or Parliament will do that for it".
Perhaps parliamentarians ought to go one further and begin the disestablishment process themselves. After all, do we really want a religion with such an appalling record of homophobia and child abuse, as well as misogyny, as part of the architecture of our constitution?
The dignified and principled thing would be for the Church to jump before it is pushed: it should initiate disestablishment. That would give it the theological independence it craves while clearing our 21st democracy of the aberration of a state religion.
Now that would be serving the needs of the nation.
Image: gazlast92, Shutterstock
From Barbie to blasphemy: how religion muzzles free speech
Posted: Wed, 26th Jul 2023
This week, religious groups have found ways to be offended by both of the summer's biggest blockbusters. In Pakistan the Punjab censor board, widely believed to be in thrall to religious fanatics, has delayed the release of Barbie over "objectional content".
And in India, Hindu nationalists have called for a boycott of Oppenheimer, which features a reading from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita during a sex scene. Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh's lovemaking has been branded "a direct assault on religious beliefs" and a "conspiracy by anti-Hindu forces".
Petty grievances like these may appear inconsequential but they are the thin end of the wedge: they lay the turf for the growing global backlash against so-called blasphemy.
Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution banning the burning of religious texts. The resolution, backed by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, came in response to an Iraqi refugee burning a Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm. Muslim protestors in Iraq made their dissatisfaction known by storming the Swedish embassy and, seemingly without irony, burning Swedish and LGBT pride flags.
Book burning is an unedifying spectacle – better to combat an idea with reasoned critique than destruction – but freedom of expression ceases to be meaningful if it only protects those acts we agree with.
And by accepting the physical sanctity of a religious text, we begin to accept the sanctity of the dogmas therein, many of which fly in the face of liberal values and are contemptuous of human rights.
It would be a mistake to think this is a far-flung issue. Blasphemy laws, both official and de facto, are alive and well here in the UK. Earlier this year, a 14 year-old autistic pupil in Yorkshire received death threats after a Quran he brought into school was dropped and scuffed. With local councillors and imams baying for blood, the student was suspended and issued with a non-crime hate incident by the police.
And in a chilling echo of the beheading of Samuel Paty, a teacher at Batley Grammar School was driven into hiding after he showed students a caricature of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The school prostrated itself before protestors, offering a "sincere and full apology" for the "great offence" caused.
When we as a society cede ground on seemingly less important issues – take, for example, allowing religious extremists to cancel the film The Lady of Heaven – we lose our appetite for the fights that matter most. To quote the Home Secretary: "Timidity does not make us safer; it weakens us."
We are 'lucky' that in the UK, blasphemy-motivated murders are rare (although they do occur). But we cannot and should not take this for granted. We need only look across the Channel to the attack on Charlie Hebdo to appreciate the blood-stained zeal with which fundamentalists treat blasphemy. Indeed, a newly published Henry Jackson Society report warns anti-blasphemy actions in this country could "inspire intimidation, violence and even mass killings".
So let's stand united for freedom of expression and oppose notions of blasphemy in all its forms.
Image by Anderson Menezes from Pixabay
Taxpayers shouldn't be burdened with propping up the Church
Posted: Thu, 20th Jul 2023
Faced with dwindling congregations, the Church of England is looking for ways to fund the growing repair bill of its aging buildings. Could your taxes be the answer?
Quite possibly, yes. Because the Church has successfully lobbied the government to allow more money to flow from cash-strapped local authorities to places of worship.
Using her seat in the House of Lords to further the Church's interests, the bishop of Bristol Vivienne Faull argued that legal uncertainly was preventing parish and town councils from funding church repairs.
The uncertainty stems from two conflicting bits of legislation – the Parish Councils Act 1894, which says that funds cannot be given to churches, and the Local Government Act 1972, which says that they can.
Now, faith and communities minister Baroness Scott has added an amendment to the Levelling Up Bill which will abolish a clause in the 1894 act to make clear that local authorities can fund churches and other places of worship.
Many churches hold historical and architectural significance. Few would want to see them fall into a state of disrepair. But who should foot the bill for their maintenance? Before any public money is spent, questions need to be asked about whether the organisation responsible for their upkeep has the means to do so.
England's 16,000 Anglican places of worship are the responsibility of the Church of England. The CofE is one of the largest private landowners in the UK and sits on £10.3 billion investment fund. Its assets were estimated in 2016 at £23 billion, since when the fund has grown by £3.6 billion.
Speaking in the House of Lords, Lib Dem peer Paul Scriven argued that if any of the Acts should be withdrawn, it should be the 1972 Act, not the 1894 Act. When it comes to maintaining religious buildings "the first port of call should be the reserves which the Church of England holds", he argued.
This view was echoed by Baroness Lorely Burt, who suggested more state subsidies would be an "inappropriate use of taxpayers' money" given the "extreme wealth" of the Church of England.
Despite its significant wealth, the CofE frequently pleads poverty. Due its fragmented financial and organisational structure, the Church can hide its money in plain sight, leaving many parishes in dire financial difficulty and struggling to afford repairs.
But the CofE can certainly find money when it wants to. Between 2017 and 2020, £248 million was allocated to evangelism as part of the Church's (so far unsuccessful) efforts to attract new worshippers. This has included splashing the cash on 'planting' new churches, hiring 'social media pastors', converting a nightclub in Bradford into a church with a gym to attract students, and recruiting children and young people's 'mission enablers' to "bring Christ to young people".
This year it also announced a £100m fund to make reparations for its slave trade links. And in a bid to tempt couples back to church weddings (which fell by half between 1999 and 2019) the Church has just voted to trial dropping its £500 fee for weddings. So, while lobbying for easier access to public funds for church buildings, the church is turning its back on a reliable source of income.
Churches, like any other organisation, should be responsible for their financial sustainability.
The Church of England received £750 million of public money between 2016 and 2021. This level of reliance on government funding risks creating dependency and discouraging financial accountability.
Britain is no longer a majority Christian nation. Fewer that 1% of the English population attend Anglican services on the average Sunday. With emptying pews and ageing congregations, the Church needs to face up to reality and downsize to survive. Until it learns this lesson, taxpayers shouldn't be further burdened with propping up an ailing yet wealthy religious institution.
As well as the practical reasons for resisting state grants to religion, there is also an important one of principle. Taxpayers at odds with the Church's doctrine and those it discriminates against, such as same sex couples who aren't even permitted to marry in their churches, may well have reasonable objections to their money funding a religion they reject. Providing financial support to religious institutions blurs the lines between the government and religions and undermines the state's commitment to treating all citizens equally.
So, when local churches come knocking for local authority grants, councils should remind them of the Church's wealth and refer them back to their powers above.
Image: UKgeofan at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Don’t let the Church dictate how we marry
Posted: Tue, 11th Jul 2023
In justifying its uniquely privileged position as the established religion, the Church of England likes to portray itself as "an advocate for freedom of religion or belief". But its recent outburst on plans to liberalise wedding law tells a different story.
Last week bishop of Durham Paul Butler spoke out against the Law Commission's recommendations to reform wedding law in England and Wales, warning they are "likely to undermine the Christian understanding of marriage".
What are these proposed recommendations? They are to make our wedding laws simpler, fairer, and easier for anyone – of any religion or belief – to be married in a ceremony that's right for them.
Wedding laws in England and Wales are archaic. Different rules and restrictions apply depending on whether your wedding is Church of England, Jewish, Quaker, a different religion entirely, or not religious at all. If the wedding isn't Jewish or Quaker, you must get married in a building licensed for weddings. That strictly limits where most couples can get married, and there's no way to have a legally binding wedding ceremony led by an independent celebrant.
The statistics reflect the need to update wedding law. In 2019, marriage rates for opposite-sex couples fell to their lowest on record since 1862. Religious ceremonies accounted for less than one in five of opposite-sex marriages, the lowest percentage on record before the pandemic. These figures aren't too surprising since the 2021 Census revealed England and Wales are less religious than ever.
The Law Commission's proposals are designed to stop the decline in marriage by removing barriers to weddings suitable for people from all walks of life. They recommend streamlining the law so all weddings, whatever their religious or non-religious nature, take place according to broadly similar rules. Crucially, the 'buildings-based system' would be replaced with an 'officiant-based' one, meaning couples could get married anywhere provided the officiant was authorised.
This would greatly expand the possibilities of legally recognised weddings for religion or belief groups who don't tend to congregate or marry in dedicated buildings, including Muslims, Pagans and Humanists. The majority who want civil weddings would also benefit from having a much wider choice of venues, including "gardens, beaches, forests, parks, village halls and cruise ships."
Furthermore, the Law Commission has proposed a scheme for independent celebrants to become officiants and hold legally binding weddings. This makes sense; independent celebrants are in demand. Although the weddings they hold currently have no legal standing, there are at least 1,000 independent celebrants in England and Wales performing over 10,000 wedding ceremonies each year. The number of such ceremonies has more than doubled since 2015.
Wedding reforms would maximise freedom of religion or belief for all – especially if independent celebrants are included. They offer freedom for personal and spiritual expression quite unlike any other wedding provider. As Sophie Easton of the Association of Independent Celebrants says: "Many of the couples we work with are non-religious, but equally, many are spiritual in outlook, or in mixed-faith relationships, so it's our job to ensure their ceremony reflects them to a tee."
But the Church of England doesn't seem to like the idea of giving people the weddings they want, even if this would inherently deliver greater religious freedom.
Butler's fretting over the "Christian understanding of marriage" reveals the Church thinks weddings belong to them. They don't and they never did. Marriage institutions exist across cultures and religions – no single religion has a monopoly on weddings. It should be noted that the Church used this same argument in its opposition to legalise same-sex civil marriage.
Butler also argued that moves to "commercialise" weddings would lead to ceremonies that are not "dignified". This perhaps refers to the fact that for independent celebrants, holding weddings is their vocation and livelihood – they have to charge money for it.
The idea that allowing for greater choice in weddings would lead to 'undignified' weddings is scaremongering. The Law Commission has said the reforms are designed to "preserve the dignity of weddings" and said all officiants should be duty-bound to "uphold the dignity and significance of marriage". That Butler assumes the Church can do this, but other officiants can't be trusted to do so, may reveal the Church's own prejudice against heathens who dare to wade into what the Church thinks is its own territory.
And let's not forget the Church does charge a fee for officiating weddings; this can reach over £600. It is hypocritical for any religion or belief group to criticise independent celebrants for charging money for officiating weddings when they do the same thing.
What's more, every other aspect of weddings, from the venue to the catering to the clothing to the entertainment, is open to the free market. It seems entirely unreasonable to exclude the officiant alone.
So, what's the real reason for the Church's opposition to wedding reform?
Perhaps it's because allowing more groups and individuals to conduct weddings with far fewer restrictions will present significant competition to Church weddings, which are already in a drastic state of decline. In 2017, the average church only held one wedding that year, which isn't too surprising considering less than 1% regularly attend CofE services.
And while the Church's self-imposed ban on gay marriage remains, it cannot capitalise on same-sex weddings to bolster its numbers. No doubt many opposite-sex couples find the Church's homophobia distasteful, which puts them off marrying in a church too.
The Church's opposition to making it easier for others to hold weddings – weddings that don't have all the religious baggage of Church weddings – looks like petty protectionism. It knows it can't beat the competition, so it must discredit them.
The government is now considering the Law Commission's recommendations. The established Church, with all its privileged access to political power (as bishop of Durham, Paul Butler sits in the House of Lords), may put it under immense pressure to retain the unequal and restrictive status quo.
We can only hope the government can resist this pressure and reform the law based on principles of equality, fairness and freedom of religion or belief for everyone. The Church may not welcome that, but the British public would.
