Posted on 8/19/2005, 3:41:19 PM by sionnsar
A leading Labour thinktank has called for the Church of England's preferential status to end and for its bishops to the lose the right to sit in the House of Lords.
The Fabian Society says the change is needed to establish the principle of equal treatment of religions, including Islam, and that it remains the only part of the constitution untouched by reform since 1997.
Writing in a Guardian/Barrow Cadbury book published next month, Sunder Katwala, the society's general secretary, argues that a fresh settlement is needed between religion and the state because saying the country is largely a secular society and must remain so is no longer tenable. Religion cannot be left out of the public debate.
In the book, entitled Islam, Race and Being British, he says the new settlement needs to be based on the equal treatment of all religions. The reasons for retaining the established status of the Church of England - that Britain has an essentially Christian heritage and that 72% of the population put themselves down as CofE in the 2001 census - are no longer convincing.
Mr. Katwala argues it would be better to establish a framework of equality between all religions rather than extend the current privileges, including the blasphemy law, to all faiths. This could be expressed in a variety of ways. For example:
· A coronation ceremony which symbolises Britain as a multi-faith society
· Parliament, the courts and the army to offer a range of oaths, including secular versions
· The bans on the monarch being anything but Protestant and the heir to the throne marrying a Catholic to go
· Muslim schools to be funded by the state but issues of integration for all faith schools to be met through the curriculum and admissions policy.
He says if Labour's proposed reform of the Lords retains a fully or partly appointed upper house there would be a choice between removing the Church of England's bishops or adding senior representatives of other faiths to sit and legislate.
"It would be preferable for no religious leaders to sit by right, but for an appointments commission to ensure that different faith and community perspectives are represented," he writes.
This does not have to be done through the appointment of religious leaders but by taking religion into consideration as one factor when appointing peers.
The call comes as secular campaigners say the question on religion in the 2001 census was so imprecise it "grossly exaggerated" the extent of religious belief in England and Wales.
As the consultation period of questions for the 2011 census ended this week, the National Secular Society said the previous question, What is your religion?, exaggerated the extent of religious involvement as it failed to distinguish between the faith people belonged to from that in which they were brought up in.
"In Scotland both questions were asked - what religion were you brought up in and what is it now?" said Keith Porteous Wood of the NSS. "For those of no religion the proportional difference was over a half: 28% said no religion now while only 18% said they had been brought up with no religion. For the religious the current figure was about a 10th lower for religious affiliation now [67%] than the 'upbringing' figure of 74%."
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Any connection to that singer? :^)
The idiots think they can mollify the radical Muslims by this ploy? They are sadly mistaken. The Muslims will be satisfied with nothing less than the establishment of Islam as the state relgion.
The Fabian Society is a group of Socialists who seek to introduce Socialism by gradual rather than revolutionary change. The name refers to the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus who fought Hannibal by avoiding large battles but sought to wear him down by harassing him on the fringes. By the look of the state of British politics I think that they have done pretty well.
It is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown.
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles,
and he weareth the Christian down.
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased.
And the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East." - Kipling
I agree that the ban on royal marriages to Catholics is ridiculous and needs to go. But the rest of it? England has a Queen, by Grace of God. William Penn wrote "No Cross, No Crown", and he was as right then as today.
· Parliament, the courts and the army to offer a range of oaths, including secular versions
I suppose this makes sense.
· The bans on the monarch being anything but Protestant and the heir to the throne marrying a Catholic to go
They have dropped most of the other laws in this area, so this one will probably be the next to go anyway.
· Muslim schools to be funded by the state but issues of integration for all faith schools to be met through the curriculum and admissions policy.
So, now their plan is to replace the Church of England with a mosque?! Don't they realize that the majority of the Muslims in Britain are not British citizens and that the Britons don't want them there?
We have to admit, using the Barna criteria almost everyone will fail to qualify as a Christian in Britain today. (Barna refers to an American Christian research firm on polls)
England should agree to the proposed change, to take effect immediately upon Saudi Arabia and Iran granting (and actually implementing) the same status to Christians, or hell freezing over, whichever occurs first!
In our library my wife has a book by the first (and thus far only) Iranian Anglican Bishop of Iran, "The Hard Awakening" by M.B. Dehqani-Tafti, a autobiography of his term as bishop from 1961 until the revolution. (The title is from a poem by the delightful, IMHO, and celebrated Persian poet Hafiz.)
My wife (who lived in Iran for a time) has shown me pictures of some Iranian Christian churches -- nothing like you'd see in England, but exquisitely beautiful.
Which does not speak to your issue -- but there were (once? maybe still are) Anglican Iranians.
State control of a church is never a good idea as Cardinal Newman once observed.
Thanks for the informative historical note. The Fabians were active in the US in the late 1800s. Maybe they still are, under a different name.
The leftie-leaning clerics who advocate for every radical idea that comes down the pike are the very same ones who seem to morph into good old-fashioned Tories whenever the idea of disestablishment is brought up.
Yes, they are called Democrats.
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