DAR AL HARB - U.K.: WHY HAS BRITAIN BECOME SO ANTI-RELIGIOUS?

Sex, violence, the trouble with Islam and why we need our Christian roots
The football-loving archbishop tipped to be the next leader of Britain’s Roman Catholics talks to our correspondents
by Helen Rumbelow and Alice Miles

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So why, we asked as we met after the service, did he think that Britain had become so antireligious? He thought for a moment and his gentle Liverpudlian accent at first beguiled us to the strength of his opinions. It turns out that it is the Muslims’ fault, because the unease the West has with them gives other faiths a bad name.

“The acts of terrorism have shaken people’s perception of the presence of faiths in this country and around the world and I just wish there was a bit more differentiation in the reflection about the role of faiths in society.”

Some politicians jumbled all faiths into one. “Sometimes the anxieties that are expressed around faith schools are actually to do with Islamic schools. And when you press a politician they say, ‘Well of course we don’t mean Catholic schools and we don’t mean Church of England schools’, but they still hesitate to move away from the umbrella phrase of faith schools.

“Then there are others who relish this opportunity to say, with aggression, religious faith is a corruption of human nature and we would be better off without it.”

The Archbishop thinks that Islamic schools must integrate into the state system. He explains with a provocative thesis on life in Britain today.

“The deep roots of our contemporary secular culture lie in Christianity and there is, in Christianity, an instinctive understanding about the notion of the rights of the human person.
“There is now a clear understanding that politically democracy is the best way of organising the use of power in this society. There is, devolved from Christianity, a notion of justice and courts, of the police and supervision of society, of hospitals and of education.

“All of these things come, if you like, from the root of the Christian heritage of Europe and of this country. But Islam is a newcomer and therefore the whole process of welcoming and integrating and understanding needs to be far more explicit and far more open and far more measured. At the same time, society without its roots will lose some of those qualities.”

Did he believe that Islam threatened those deep roots? “I think it remains to be seen.”

Phew! This bishop is not afraid of controversy, and in Birmingham, too, with its large Muslim population. “There are real signs, I believe, certainly through the central mosque [in Birmingham], of Islam trying to understand what it means to live out of an Islamic society and in a secular, multi-faith society. That is a long process.”

Put in the context of the riots provoked when the Pope cited a Byzantine emperor’s belief that Islam was evil, it is hard to gauge his intentions. Is he naive? Or braver than politicians who preach the benefits of multiculturalism without admitting its problems?

He is no stranger to politics. He was one of the bishops behind a Catholic preelection manifesto in 1996 that, with its emphasis on social justice and minimum wage, was interpreted as backing Tony Blair. So did Labour deliver? The Church had no political allegiance, the Archbishop said. But “. . . it seems to me it is very difficult to hold together an agenda which is based on a coalition of special interest groups. There is a need in political life to dig deeper and find the foundations, aspirations and values. My sense is that broad fundamental platform, with its moral values, had been neglected.” That sounded like a “no” to us, but he had not finished. “To me, one of the most remarkable features of the last ten years is the number of new criminal offences that have been created. I read somewhere that we are talking over 700 new offences. Now that speaks to me of a moral vacuum."

“If you’re trying to replace some shared moral values, a sense of conscience is something that pulls us together. If you try to replace that with legislation, you run the risk of not building on a strong foundation.”

He elegantly declined our invitation to back David Cameron, but suggested that the Tory leader might be on the right track. “Some of the Conservative Party’s thinking about the family, about the responsibility of parents, about how we build a community and all the pressures that a family is under have to be responded to.”

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Pertinent Links:

1) Sex, violence, the trouble with Islam and why we need our Christian roots