I spent most of today at Lambeth Palace for a meeting of bishops involved in inter-faith matters. At the end of the afternoon I managed to squeeze in a meeting about Zimbabwe before returning for the superb 2009 Lambeth Inter-Faith Lecture. This year the lecturer was Dr Luke Bretherton, Senior Lecturer in Theology and Politics at King’s College, London, and his theme was A Post-secular Politics? Inter-faith Relations as a Civic Practice.
His wide-ranging lecture addressed some of the most pressing and pertinent themes of today’s British society and he tackled his task with intellectual rigour, generous articulacy and a penetrating analysis of the role of faith communities in contemporary Britain.
Beginning with a cogent description of the emerging shape of church-state relations (referring to the dawning realisation by government that ‘good governance is not the sole responsibility of the State’), Bretherton observed that there is an urgent need for greater religious literacy on the part of government. Government needs to understand how religion works and that there is no flat ground on which ‘religion’ might be said to occupy a small area; rather, society is multi-layered and religion cannot simply be co-opted or commodified in order to (a) keep society free of social tension or (b) deliver services as a client of the State on terms set by the State.
Bretherton went on to propose inter-faith relations as ‘hospitable politics’ – a way of creating the space in which the stranger can be encountered and in which the concept of ‘neutral ground’ is rejected as a fantasy. Inter-faith relations are integral to the common good because they create the space in which people within communities can relate and find the common ground on which they re-negotiate what counts as ‘home’. He went on to propose ‘three civic practices central to a politics of the common good: (a) cultivating practices of listening; (b) fostering a commitment to place; and (c) building strong institutions.
The thrust of this was to suggest that the totalising tendencies of the State and the Market need to be tempered or inhibited and this is only possible when communities of ‘local’ people take responsibility for themselves and the promotion of their community’s interests. Such action demonstrates to the State that politics and the market need limits – that ‘politics and economics do not have to bear the full weight of human meaning’.
The lecture (to which my summary cannot do justice – but his forthcoming book will amplify these themes) was followed by discussion which then took my mind off in new directions.
Inter-faith events or conversations are often characterised by a burning desire to pretend that all religions are the same or that all religions are basically peaceful. Bretherton would have none of this. He responded to a statement from a Muslim member of the audience by referring to the fact that every religion had its ‘mad aunt in the cupboard‘ who should not be let out. There are extremists in all faiths and this fact should not be ducked in an effort to impose some sort of superficial or escapist niceness. It is only this degree of honesty that allows for genuine relationships to develop.
However, my own mind went off at this point into a bit of speculation. Remarking that the Dawkins/Hitchens phenomenon should really be seen as evidence that there is no neutral space and that the New Atheists are admitting by their frenetic activity that they do not command the space – that their views are merely one among many – and that we now live in a moment of ferment at every level, Bretherton led my mind back to a conversation about church schools.
Church schools and so-called ‘faith schools’ are often derided in the British media. Any defence of them is seen as partisan approval of indoctrination and social divisiveness. But, last week a friend of mine asked me why we don’t encourage the New Atheists to set up their own schools. We would be interested to know on what basis they would be set up. What value system would underpin the school ethos and from where would this system of values be derived? Or would they merely be assumed? Other questions follow naturally on…
Christians need to be more confident about the ground on which we stand and the space which we create in a society that is feeling rather fragile right now. Rather than counter the arguments of the secularists, perhaps we ought to encourage them to set up their own schools and see how things develop. What ‘space’ would they create and how would they differ from state schools or ‘faith schools’?
I might return to this anon, but for tonight I need to think further about Bretherton’s stimulating presentation and the questions he has raised in my mind about the nature of government in Britain and the role of religion/faith communities in the contemporary polity.
Nick Baines's Blog 
June 5, 2009 at 7:47 am
Is the lecture available as a podcast or on youtube by any chance ?
Thanks !
June 5, 2009 at 9:17 am
No idea, John, but I will try to find out.
June 5, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Nick, thanks for the summary, quite a lot to think about!
This sounds like the sort of lecture that should be delivered to all congregations, to help people to make sense of the world in which we live.
The ferment you describe can be either quite frightening to the vunerable or just create apathy within those who believe that whatever they think, believe or say, will not be listened to.
Standing your ground as a Christian is so important, that we all need to have the moral courage to make it clear where we stand, what we believe and why it is so important within the whole community.
Christianity is being sidelineed in so many ways, that some people are even a little intimidated to admit to or to talk about their faith, for fear of sanction, or even loss of livelihood.
June 5, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Challenging secularists setting up their own schools? Is this different from state schools?
Would these ‘secularists’ really tend to see a point in running their own schools in the way that Christians do?
I think I’m missing where you’re coming from or what you’re trying to say. It feels like you’re creating a challenge that contradicts the principles of those who oppose faith schools.
*sorry, but unfortunately very confused*
June 6, 2009 at 5:15 am
I thought about ditching that final point – and maybe should have done! My point is that in the current debates it is assumed that ‘state schools’ are based on some sort of ‘neutrality’ in terms of worldview. This is nonsense, but the positive worldviews undelying ‘secular’ thinking is not acknowledged. hence, so-called ‘faith schools’ or ‘church schools’ are regarded as ‘loaded’ in terms of worldview, over against the ‘neutrality’ of state schools. I think this is utterly spurious.
My question, therefore, is intended to ask a question of e.g. Dawkins and Hitchens: if you were setting up a non-neutral school according to your particular worldview (with consequent values, practices, etc.), what would it look like and why?
Does that help?
June 6, 2009 at 6:37 am
In my estimation, it’s one thing to say that there’s no neutral ground in the media and politics. It’s quite another to apply the idea of a lack of neutrality to schools.
Neutrality is presumably the aim of most of these ‘new-atheists’ and to ask them to set up a non-neutral school would be frankly bizarre. I’d guess it is not dissimilar to asking a Christian to follow the rules of Islam while still being a Christian. It jars (presumably).
They would probably wish the schools to make their students well informed and well equipped for the world, but beyond that, there isn’t likely to be an underlying common ethic governing these schools. Whatever ‘ethic’ exists is pretty much inescapably determined by the way the teachers who happen to be working there conduct themselves.
Eh. I can’t quite grasp how schools can’t be effectively neutral (give or take a bit of sway in either direction). It seems to me potentially more comparable to demanding that a new-atheist hairdresser conduct themselves according to the consequent values and practices of their worldview. Why can’t they be a neutral hairdresser? That’s what their worldview and values might lead to. Is this a false perception of how one can go about hairdressing?
There’s enough diversity in Christianity, and we have a ‘book’! Different Christians will run a ‘faith school’ much differently from other Christians.
June 7, 2009 at 2:29 pm
As I read this piece one words jumped out at me about how Christians need to declare the Gospel truths and that one word is “confidence”.
We are in an age beyond “authority” and “deference” and neither can, nor ought, to expect to be taken seriously merely by asserting such things, but “confidence” is something altogether different.
I recently read that the most attractive thing about a woman is her confidence – ( is this why all Brides are “beautiful”?). There may be something in that.
If, when we are asked about our faith, we offer a dry, speculative, discursive, logical, narrative ,littered with caveats, then no wonder we are unattractive to many. I fear too many faith leaders are so worried about being attacked for their views that they set out that stall in such a defensive way.
A confident testimony, said from the heart and with good humour is far from dogmatism, and yet is likely to be the key to reconnecting with the young and unchurched.
June 7, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Confidence is often taken for arrogance. That is why I often use the phrase ‘confident humility’ or ‘humble confidence’ to describe a necessary apologetic presentation.
June 8, 2009 at 8:47 am
I can see where you are coming form but surely much depends (as always)on context.
If I say that you should act in such and such a way – that indeed needs needs “humble confidence”.
But if I were to state my faith with the same confidence as Paul in Romans.8.36 then surely that is not to risk arrogance.
Much presumably depends on the direction of travel in the conversation. I tell you where to go = arrogance, I tell you where I have come from and my aspired destination = humble
confidence.
I doubt many of us are likely to fall into Paul’s pattern of testimony but we surely do not regard passages such as that as too close to arrogance -though he did have his odd moments of irascibility!
Harold Wilson used to talk in politics about the “pre-emptive cringe” and I do have concerns that “apologetic presentation” when taken too literally may have led many to think that if the leader of the service does not seem to have the courage of his convictions, then why should?.
June 8, 2009 at 11:56 am
Re: Martin’s comment above.
A bride looks beautiful because it is HER special day, she’s spent considerable time and effort preparing for it and also hopefully she’s very much in love.
Not sure how much of this would apply to the average preacher/service leader on a particular day!
Anne.
June 8, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Martin, You need to go further and ask into what context Paul was addressing himself. The best way to understand this is to read Cicero’s De Natura Deorum (On the nature of the Gods). We speka into a very different context in which how we are heard is not often how we think we are being heard. The first rule of communication is that it is not what you say that matters, but what you are heard to say. Being heard as arrogant is not the same as either being arrogant or trying to be arrogant.
June 9, 2009 at 2:52 am
Nick, thanks for this summary. I will look for Bretherton’s book when it arrives. Two things spring to mind.
“religion cannot simply be co-opted or commodified in order to (a) keep society free of social tension or (b) deliver services as a client of the State on terms set by the State”. My day job is a headteacher of a CE primary school, for which I daily give thanks, because it is undoubtedly the best legal fun you can have in the UK (and that includes leading worship in churches). We are now having to consider the way that we, as a client of the state, address the issue of “community cohesion”, now inspected by OFSTED. Most training on this points to the way we use RE to encourage religious literacy (a great phrase that we have insisted goes in our new Agreed Syllabus for Shropshire), but I struggle always to “use” RE as a tool for a government “outcome”, whereas to me it is a subject that allows children to grow into their own understanding of God and how he may be considered in the light of all that has gone before, giving children the right to raise questions and the tools to answer some of those questions for themselves. I am not against “community cohesion” as a concept (the alternative being too ghastly to contemplate), I just resent being told how to use RE as a tool in this way. And it is not just RE – soon they will be looking at Collective Worship too – it is anywhere where the government thinks it has a “neutral, disinterested” view and we have a position that is neither of those things! As if God could ever be neutral and disinterested!
The other comment is about faith schools. As any honest commentator will tell you, two things are really obvious about the vast majority of CE schools – firstly their wide, caring inclusivity that very much differs from the ethos of many community schools I know, and which in no wise can be regarded as either divisive or unhelpful, and secondly (and here I am on shakier ground but have plenty of experience to draw on both in my own school and in others I have visited) the sense, where it is allowed, of God being “present” – almost tangibly – in a school. I saw this remarkably in a church school recently where the active faith of the head and some governors had created a real sense of a spiritual welcome, of safety and trust, deriving from their faith, in a school where 75% of parents came from the Muslim community. What is not to love about such a school?
June 11, 2009 at 12:56 pm
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