Published in the Yorkshire Post 7 Sept 2009
John Denham, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, recently advertised for a “Faith and Community Policy Advisor”, offering an annual salary of £57,000.
“You will need” (said the advertisement) “a good understanding of faith issues in relation to communities and our wider society, an
understanding of the organisations representing different faiths in
I doubt if any individual understands the views and interests of every faith in
If there is such a paragon, Mr Denham will indubitably have to offer a lot more than £57K for his or her services, and just at the moment when Gordon Brown has asked every minister to come up with “compassionate cuts” in public spending. I can save him the money – I have offered to do the job for nothing. I am a retired atheist missionary (“Good morning! I am here to tell you the important news that there is no God, that this life is all you have, and that you do not have to read the Bible or any other book except for pleasure…”) and if I get the job I shall give an equally instant rejection to any approach from any faith group whatsoever, including atheists.
That would make actually make me more popular than the likely winner of the post. He or she (almost certainly he, some faiths reject the authority of any she) will never be accepted by all faiths as a representative channel. He is certain to disappoint some faith groups, particularly among his co-religionists, for the history of almost all faiths is one of sect and schism, and enduring claims by factions to be the true exponents of the chosen faith. The successful candidate will be denounced as a government stooge. His appointment could easily start a “bidding war” among faith groups to place demands on Mr Denham’s department – a gift to extremists.
This appointment suggests that the government will continue on its foolish and perilous course of giving faith groups special access to public policy and public money.
One third of all English schools are already under religious control. Faith groups are allowed to impose tests of religious observance to control access to a taxpayer-funded education. The government is seeking to involve faith groups in the delivery of policy in more and more areas, including welfare, jobs, housing provision, even (as I warned in this newspaper some months ago) the management of offenders. As a result, faith groups will not only get more and more public money but more and more influence, even control, over individual lives.
This development is undemocratic. By any reasonable measure, the total active adherents of all faiths in this country are a minority. Even if they were not, it violates the fundamental principle of English democracy to accord any kind of special access to government to any group of people because of the views they choose to hold. Every elected institution in our country is based on representation by locality. People vote as residents of a particular place, and each resident has equal representation and equal influence. It is unfair on voters generally to give some interest groups special representation and special influence and positively insulting to expect them to fund this as taxpayers.
The government seeks “engagement” (slippery expression!) with faith groups in the name of community. But nothing could be worse for community cohesion than to identify community with faith. That serves only to entrench social divisions and creates a permanent special interest group of people who get money and power in local communities by claiming to represent faith groups. Identifying community with faith is deeply insulting to faith members who do not want to be identified by faith – those who want to be seen as English, or as people of Yorkshire and its cities and towns and villages and streets, or as people who work or volunteer or give care or belong to sports and social clubs or as people with hobbies and pets. Will Mr Denham appoint a Dog and Cat advisor? He should do – because dog and cat ownership is a mark of community just as much as faith.
Of course faith groups deserve toleration, protection from discrimination and harassment and the right to express or act on any belief which is not contrary to law and does not limit the freedom of others. For many faith adherents this protection is currently inadequate and needs to be reinforced. But that does not mean that faith groups should be given special access to public power and public money or a direct line to any Secretary of State.
Religious politics are a scourge to any country which has to endure them. This government seems determined to import them into