Services funded by public money should be open to all, without alienating anyone.
The recent drive to contract out public services to faith groups risks undermining equal access.
Help us keep public services free from discrimination and evangelism.
The government is increasingly pushing for more publicly-funded services to be provided by religious organisations.
Many faith-based groups have carried out social service without imposing their beliefs. But religious groups taking over public service provision raises concerns regarding proselytising and discrimination.
65% of people have no confidence in church groups running crucial social provisions such as healthcare with only 2% of people expressing a lot of confidence.
Any organisations involved in delivering public services should be bound by equality law and restrictions on proselytisation.
Those advocating for faith organisations to take over more public services risk undermining these restrictions, which exist to protect both the public and third sector.
"We have concerns that some religious groups that seek to take over public services, particularly at local level, could pursue policies and practices that result in increased discrimination against marginalised groups, particularly in service provision and the employment of staff. Non-religious people and those not seen to confirm to the dominant ethos of a religious body, such as being in an unmarried relationship or divorced and being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered, could find themselves subject to discrimination."
Unitarian Church (Submission to the Parliamentary Public Administration Select Committee about the Big Society agenda)
There are also concerns about faith-based mental health and pastoral care in public institutions, including chaplaincy programmes in the NHS and the armed forces. Where such services are funded by the state, they should not be organised around religion or belief.
Religious commentators are often keen to document the contribution of religious organisations to the third sector and social activism. But they fail to demonstrate why it should be the state's role to build this capacity or why local authorities shouldn't have legitimate concerns about religious groups running services.
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Latest updates
NSS urges MoD to address Christian-centric approach to welfare
Posted: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 16:59
The National Secular Society has urged the Ministry of Defence to ensure its welfare provision is fully inclusive of all service personnel, irrespective of religion or belief.
In a letter to Chief of Defence People James Swift, the NSS said former and currently serving members of the Armed Forces had raised concerns that chaplaincy is discriminatory and "failing to provide inclusive welfare services".
The letter follows the recent publication of the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) Defence People Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022 to 2027, which says chaplaincy is "key to providing support and wellbeing to defence people".
Chaplaincy in the army
Only ministers of a select group of eight 'sending churches', all Christian, may be chaplains of regular army units. The Armed Forces has appointed "advisers" for members of five other faiths instead of chaplains, while there is no equivalent pastoral support for nonreligious personnel.
The 'sending churches' include denominations with anti-LGBT views, including the Free Church of Scotland, Elim Pentecostal Church and the Salvation Army. As military chaplains are required to "set forth God's word at all times" according to the Royal Army Chaplains' Department, LGBT soldiers "may reasonably doubt these chaplains' ability to give impartial and non-judgmental counselling regarding issues of relationships and sexuality", the NSS said.
Recent research into chaplaincy in prisons, where there is also an institutional Christian bias, found nonreligious inmates are less likely to receive the pastoral help they need, which may lead to poorer outcomes. The research also found this may amount to unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.
Figures consistently show the number of nonreligious members of the Armed Forces is increasing rapidly. UK Armed Forces Biannual Diversity Statistics for April 2022 revealed an increase of 21% over the past ten years in the proportion of tri-service regular forces professing no religion, to stand at 36% in April 2022 compared with 60% Christians.
NSS: Army chaplaincy "increasingly unsustainable"
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans said: "Like the UK population in general, the army is growing less religious and more religiously-diverse year by year.
"The Armed Forces' approach to providing pastoral support largely through Christian chaplaincy is therefore inappropriate and unsustainable.
"To continue with the discriminatory status quo risks poorer health and wellbeing outcomes for those who are ill-served by an effectively exclusive Christian chaplaincy.
"We therefore hope the MoD will take steps to ensure it welfare provision is fully inclusive of all service personnel, irrespective of their religion or belief."
Discriminatory prison chaplaincy may be unlawful, paper warns
Posted: Tue, 10 May 2022 12:07
The National Secular Society is calling for reform of prison chaplaincy after research found nonreligious prisoners may experience unlawful discrimination.
Nonreligious prisoners are disadvantaged due to a lack of secular alternatives to chaplaincy, according to a paper published last month.
The paper by Katie Hunt at the University of Lincoln says a lack of appropriate pastoral care for nonreligious prisoners "appears to present a disadvantage to those of no faith".
The research, which focused on men's prisons in England, found chaplaincy operates "in conflict with equality legislation, best-practice guidance and basic moral principles about the provision of care".
This could have legal consequences for the Prison and Probation Service and may also lead to poorer outcomes for nonreligious prisoners, who are less likely to receive the pastoral help they need.
Religious chaplaincy 'off-putting' for non-religious prisoners
In prison, chaplaincy is "the gateway to important secular services and is sometimes the only option for professional emotional support", the paper says.
Chaplains can help resolve practical problems, liaise with staff and family on a prisoner's behalf, refer people to counselling and other facilities, and offer company and conversation. Links between effective pastoral care and desistance suggest unequal access to support may lead to differences in rehabilitative outcomes.
But while chaplaincy is open to all inmates, evidence indicates that religion-based pastoral care is "off-putting" for nonreligious prisoners, who are unlikely to use the service.
Research in 2016 found while 14% of Christians and 11% of those of other religions have used a chaplain, just 4% of nonreligious have done so. Seventy-two per cent of nonreligious respondents were 'unlikely' or 'very unlikely' to want support from a chaplain, although 45% said that they would use a nonreligious equivalent if one were available.
The paper says: "The idea that the pastoral care of prisoners with non-religious beliefs should be done by religious chaplains invalidates those prisoners by failing to recognise that they may need something different".
Prison chaplaincy "dominated" by the Church of England
Fewer than half of all prisoners are Christian and only one in seven is Anglican. Nonreligious people make up the second largest religion or belief group in prisons after Christians.
But the research found in most cases, professional pastoral care is provided "exclusively through the chaplaincy – a religious institution dominated in England by the Anglican Church". It says the Anglican dominance of prison chaplaincy is perpetuated by legislation as "an inevitable consequence of having an established Church", as it accords "special power and privilege" to the Church of England above other religions and beliefs.
The paper says: "When pastoral care services that are vital for the well-being of all prisoners are controlled by and provided through an ostensibly interfaith but structurally Anglican chaplaincy, hierarchies of accessibility and advantage emerge, with non-religious prisoners at the bottom".
The report says these hierarchies extend to pastoral carers. Managing chaplains, who are usually Christian, act as "gatekeepers" who control prisoner access to pastoral care. In some cases, head chaplains have failed to signpost non-Christian pastoral services and have even supressed them.
No prisons employ nonreligious pastoral carers, and only a small minority have accepted volunteers. Nonreligious pastoral carers have said they work as much as sessional chaplains for minority faiths but remained unpaid. They perceived this as "exploitative, and a marginalisation of non-religious worldviews and the needs of non-religious prisoners".
The report says: "Prison pastoral care is a state-funded service when provided by Christians and a voluntary service when provided by the non-religious".
The report recommends "amendments to both legislation and policy, to narrow the gaps between the religious and non-religious, so that all prisoners have equal access to pastoral care".
NSS: 'Reform of pastoral care long overdue'
The NSS has written to the Ministry of Justice calling for more equitable and inclusive pastoral care in prisons in light of the research.
NSS head of policy and research Megan Manson said: "This research highlights the serious inequalities faced by prisoners who don't belong to a particular religion.
"Chaplaincy is one of the few practical sources of pastoral care in prisons. Yet while Christians and other religious groups' needs are catered for, there is a gaping lack of services for the increasing number of nonreligious inmates. As the report says, this may even amount to unlawful discrimination.
"Unfortunately, we see this problem throughout chaplaincy programmes in other institutions too, including the NHS and the army, where the needs of nonreligious individuals are routinely overlooked.
"If there is value in this form of pastoral care, it must surely cater to the needs of nonreligious people too. A reform of pastoral care in prisons and other institutions is long overdue."
Image: ErikaWittlieb from Pixabay
