2.1.5.1 Religion: Private Option and Consumer Choice
It is widely accepted that religion, which once occupied a central place in the public square, is being increasingly forced into the sphere of private choice. A fissure has opened up between the public and private dimensions of life, and religion has progressively ‘evacuated’ the public realm and retreated to the private. This picture is not complete or uniform however. Many reminders of religion’s place in the public sphere remain. The established Church of England continues to enjoy a privileged position constitutionally, and to be the vehicle for national religious ceremony. In reality, however, it acts like other churches – more like a voluntary organisation. Private decisions for marriage, confirmation and other such rites of passage do still move religion to some extent into the public sphere. Nonetheless, these are exceptions to the general truth that religion has become a matter of private choice rather than social obligation. Religion now often functions as a lifestyle preference or a retail commodity. As with many consumer choices, the influence of the family on the option chosen should not be underestimated. Children often purchase the same brand name as their parents. But beyond the family, and perhaps peer or friendship groups, there is little influence exerted to direct one to any particular religious path.
In this context, it is important to note the challenge to the privatisation of religion recently posed by Muslims in Britain. It was pressure from Muslims wishing to assert their religious identity which led to a question about religion being included in the 2001 census (and thus, to the finding that 72% of Britons still consider themselves Christian, a statistic frequently cited by churches, but which could equally imply people were simply identifying themselves as ‘other than’ Muslim, Sikh, etc). Indeed, British Muslims have been prominent in declaring that a privatised faith is a contradiction in terms. On this point at least, many British Christians would wish to agree.
2.1.5.2 Societal Indifference to Religion
The restriction of religion to the private sphere means it is largely a matter of indifference to society at large - unless it offends in some way against an accepted social norm with respect, for example, to its handling of money, its treatment of children or, especially to secularists, its perceived dogmatism. This means there is no pressure to worship in one particular way, and that a wide variety of religious practice is acceptable, however bizarre, providing it remains in the private world and is not allowed to interfere in the public realm of work, education or policy-making. Where religious practice does require some recognition in the public sphere, this may be granted simply in order to bolster credibility of the claim to be a multicultural society. Thus Sikhs have been allowed to wear turbans and carry religious daggers where these would otherwise be forbidden. Muslim girls have been allowed to wear traditional dress rather than uniform in British schools (in contrast to the position taken by the authorities in France). Many Christians now believe that public authorities in the UK have shied away from defending their minority rights out of a desire to play down an imperialist past in which Christian mission is thought to be implicated. Yet the same authorities do seem to have been keen to defend minority rights for other religious groups, partly, no doubt, in the name of multi-culturalism.
2.1.5.3 Pastoral Ministry and Public Truth
The privatisation of religion means that the pastoral ministry of the Church, based as it is on building relationships of trust, becomes especially vital. But, as several witnesses to the Commission pointed out, to restrict the ministry of the Church to the local and personal alone would be disastrous. After all, the gospel is public truth (see further in section 4); it is not the constitution of a private religious club.
2.1.5.4 Evangelical Contribution to Privatisation of Religion
Evangelicalism might in some respects have unwittingly contributed to the privatisation of religion. Its emphasis on personal conversion and piety can too easily be distorted into privatized faith, and its focus on ‘eternal’ values can too easily encourage a withdrawal from the concerns of the present world.
2.1.5.5 Strategies for Reclaiming the Public Square
Can Christians reclaim a key role in the public square and if so what strategies should be adopted? In this regard, to what extent should Christians be positively encouraged to enter the key public arenas of education, politics, the arts and the media?
Certainly, attention needs to be given to how Christians should engage in debate once they take their place in the public square. Until recently, it was often suggested that to engage in any public debate concerning values or moral questions Christians had to adopt secular arguments rather than religious ones, and had thereby to translate their thinking into secular language in order to be heard. It was then hoped that such translation would foster agreement, at least of a ‘lowest common denominator’ kind. In so far as such a strategy has managed to produce any values that bind our society together at all, they have tended to be too abstract, and have lacked moral imagination. It has also prompted Christians to remain silent about their faith and its values, so excluding their true worldview and motivation from public discussion. Consequently, the ground has largely been occupied by those who have little or no faith.
Recently it has been argued that Christians should neither need nor adopt such a strategy (Taylor, J.). On this understanding, to pursue it is to fall into the privatisation trap - to pretend that the spiritual dimension of life is less significant than its material aspects, and thus to concede unwarranted ground to secularists. Besides, some would now contend that this strategy has been made redundant because in more recent times the government has realised the positive contribution faith communities make to the welfare of society. Indeed, since its return to power in 1997, New Labour has continued the previous Conservative government’s policy of actively welcoming faith communities as partners in seeking to create a more wholesome society - not least in the inner cities. In doing so, the other faith communities have shown little embarrassment about basing their arguments on their religious faith, or deriving their authority from their own sacred Scriptures. While this is neither an invitation to simplistic proof-texting nor an encouragement to avoid serious and constructive engagement with the issues, it does raise the question as to why Christians need to be timid about asserting their faith in the public square. As one contributor to the Commission (Avis) argued, Christianity should fight its corner in the market place of faiths. Bridges can be built from private, domestic and communal expressions of religion to public faith and from public expressions of faith back to private religious practice. The abundant opportunities to do this should not be gratuitously renounced through misplaced humility, fallacious thinking or lack of nerve.
2.1.5.6 Unnecessary Fear of Coercion
The fear that public advocacy of a religious position will lead to that religion being imposed on others is quite unwarranted - a myth circulated by those who have vested anti-religious interests. The plea is not for totalitarian fundamentalism, but for Christians to take their place as citizens in an open and democratic society and to argue their case for values, the common good and the gospel in such a manner as to persuade others.
