Correspondence with John Denham

Dr Evil?

After this interview with the Sunday Telegraph, I sent an email on 16th November to John Denham, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Dear Mr Denham

I read the interview you gave to the Sunday Telegraph yesterday, on the role of faith based organisations in politics. You are quoted as saying:

"We should continually seek ways of encouraging and enhancing the contribution faith communities make on the central issues of our time.
Faith is a strong and powerful source of honesty, solidarity, generosity – the very values which are essential to politics, to our economy and our society."
If two or more faith communities made opposing claims about an issue, how would government decide which group to listen to? For example, the Catholic Church is adamant that the sin of contraception is more important than protecting people from HIV; should government listen to this honest, solidly held and generous view?

You continued:

"I don't like the strand of secularism that says that faith is inherently a bad thing to have and should be kept out of public life"

Secularism seeks to separate state and religion to *protect* private beliefs. Enshrining blasphemy laws for one particular faith, for example, would threaten the private views of the faithful of other religions. In the west, secular government has increasingly been seen as the only way to avoid persecution of religious minorities. Are you looking to limit this protection of people's private beliefs? Do you think the UK government should be more, or less, secular? Many people understand 'faith' as meaning 'believing something with insufficient evidence'. This is fine for comparatively trivial matters, such as 'which football team is the best?', but surely this is 'a bad thing' when it comes to matters of state? You may have a different definition of faith to me, so, if so, I would appreciate hearing it to better understand your comment.

I'm aware that newspapers sometimes misquote, so if that is the case here I would be grateful for any clarification you can offer.

Kind regards

Mark Jones

I received the following reply from his office:

24 November 2009

Dear Mr Jones

Thank you for your email of 16 November 2009 about John Denham’s decision to appoint a panel of advisors on faith issues. I have been asked to reply.

As Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government responsibility for the Government's engagement with faith communities lies with him. He has therefore, recruited a panel of advisors on an expenses-only basis to provide him with informed advice on relations with these communities.

The Government recognises that religious belief is of immense importance to millions of citizens, and believes that this fact should be respected. Many issues which concern governments cannot be tackled solely by regulation or spending. Governments and faith communities share an interest in the values which lead people to act the way they do. Campaigns for international development, peace, decent housing, living wages and many others have often been sustained by those of faith - not alone, but as key participants. On these issues, and others including climate change and the values of our economy, people of faith have views and values that deserve a hearing.

I hope I have reassured you on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Marina O'Neill

Cohesion and Faiths Unit

Not being reassured I sent a reply:

Dear Ms O'Neill

Thank you very much for the response to my email of 16th November.

However, I really need a response to my specific questions; in particular you haven't responded to clarify why Mr. Denham thinks that faith is *not* an inherently bad thing to have.

I need to understand how this Government judges what is a good basis for policy, and what is not. As I said before, faith is usually defined as 'believing something with insufficient evidence'. I want to know why Mr. Denham thinks this might be a good thing, or, at least, why he thinks that Government should listen to groups *specifically* because they think this is a good thing. Because that is what this means, from your letter:

"Campaigns for international development, peace, decent housing, living wages and many others have often been sustained by those of faith - not alone, but as key participants. On these issues, and others including climate change and the values of our economy, people of faith have views and values that deserve a hearing."

To reiterate, I'm happy for you to seek advice from people who have expertise in the areas you mention, including of course people of faith, but I'm not happy for you to seek advice from people of faith simply because they are people of faith; but that appears to be what you are saying. Could you confirm this, or, preferably, deny it.

Your reply doesn't seem to extend beyond restating what Mr. Denham has said in his speech at The Methodist Church Offices, so could you confirm that it's OK for me to make this correspondence public? If I don't hear back within a couple of days I'll assume that is the case.

Kind regards

Mark Jones

I was anticipating radio silence, and sure enough there's been no reply. It would be nice to know if they have a policy on this sort of correspondence. Presumably they cannot answer every email that arrives, but a simple acknowledgement of this should be a matter of good manners.

What concerns me greatly is the possibility that Government policy could be decided after input by faith groups based on nothing but *dogma*. It is imperative that policy should be informed by *evidence*, and we see that is not the most important factor for people of faith. Their input to the public square is quite acceptable when arguing their corner with reason and evidence, but quoting revelation and unjustified authority should not be allowed.

The Chilcot report into Iraq is under way now, and there is a very real sense that the major players, Bush and Blair, invaded Iraq because of an article of *faith*, rather than reasoned argument. It's beginning to look more and more difficult to determine Tony Blair's thinking as he approached the conflict. The reason that *Parliament* voted for the conflict certainly wasn't persuasive to him. He said "...this was obviously the thing that was uppermost in my mind - the threat to the region" (not WMD). But many regimes pose a threat to their regions, and we don't invade them.

So it will be interesting to see if the inquiry can uncover how he arrived at his decision. It's difficult not to come to the conclusion he simply 'felt intuitively' that it was the right thing to do; a hallmark of *religious* thinking.

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Respect Creep

An interesting and honest article by Rabbi Dr Naftali Brawer in The Times, on interfaith dialogue. He says:

To declare similarity between Judaism and Islam on the basis that their practitioners fast or pray is to betray an astonishing superficiality that does not do justice to either faith.

I think this is right. Unfortunately he follows this up with:

More importantly, the instinctive desire to find commonalities between faiths fundamentally undermines the whole point of interfaith dialogue in the first place, which is to learn how to respect those whose faith is profoundly different from your own.

I have a difficulty with this; why should one respect those whom one profoundly disagrees with? Respect means to esteem or regard highly. It's certainly *possible* to respect someone with different views, but is this always a desirable state of affairs? Should Churchill have respected Hitler and his views? ("Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. But I respect his megalomaniacal views." - OK, I added the last bit - would he have said that?) I would suggest not.

The rabbi concludes:

There are profound differences in how various faiths conceive of God and instruct their adherents to behave. Honest interfaith work takes as its point of departure that I will never truly understand the faith of the other, nor will I necessarily see any reflection of my own faith in that of the other.

This certainly seems a possibility, but quite a counsel of despair; will we never understand each other? There is a way out; consider all beliefs in the cold light of reason and evidence, and eliminate those that don't stand up to scrutiny.

Different faiths cannot all be conveniently collapsed into a basic common language. This is neither possible nor desirable.

Neither possible nor desirable? Is it really not desirable we should understand each other?

Most importantly it is unnecessary. We already have a common language: our humanity.

This is a tacit admittance that interfaith dialogue amounts to 'let's agree to disagree'. Fair enough; it also concedes, I think, that some form of humanism is our only hope for common agreement. I have to say I agree. Nice to see a churchman admitting this!

Simon Blackburn writes well on Respect and Religion; he recognises that respect is sometimes used as a synonym for *tolerate* (although this is probably incorrect usage):

We can respect, in the minimal sense of tolerating, those who hold false beliefs. We can pass by on the other side. We need not be concerned to change them, and in a liberal society we do not seek to suppress them or silence them. But once we are convinced that a belief is false, or even just that it is irrational, we cannot respect in any thicker sense those who hold it—not on account of their holding it. We may respect them for all sorts of other qualities, but not that one. We would prefer them to change their minds.

I quite like that formulation; one cannot respect someone on account of their holding a belief with which one disagrees. This still leaves us open to respecting them on account of their character and other beliefs. But if they are foolish on many matters, then one would lose one's respect for them. This is surely normal behaviour, and justifiable.

Tony Blair supports state funded faith schools, which often teach that their particular world view is the only true way to heaven. At the same time, his foundation supports a project to teach kids to respect the beliefs of others:

Respect - Our world is a diverse world. To communicate and grow we must respect one another's beliefs, values, attitudes and faiths.

No. Not unless one agrees with them. If one respected a belief, one would agree with it, surely? If one assumes that this means *tolerate* not *respect*, then one can agree to a *small* degree. But even then, one does not, in practice, tolerate everyone's beliefs. We don't tolerate racism, sexism and homophobia. Tony Blair doesn't. He doesn't respect the Pope's beliefs on homosexuality, quite rightly.

So why is he promoting something for kids that he doesn't practice himself?

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Cherie Blair - The History of Christianity

Finally caught up to watch Cherie Blair's contribution to Channel 4's interesting The History of Christianity series (see Telegraph analysis)

Not as bad as I feared! As a part of a general demonstration of the benefit of religious belief, she mentioned the rather splendid Dietrich Bonhoeffer (right), who died for his stand against the Nazis in the Second World War. Chatted to a Roman Catholic priest (whose name escapes me) who seemed disturbed by the RC's move back to the right with Benny the 16th; she didn't seem interested in developing that particularly.She talked about the Church's ambivalence (!) to women, and had a heart to heart with the Archbishop of Westminster. Then went Stateside to examine some of the more successful churches over there. In conclusion, she asked that the Church update their attitude to things modern, and women. Some chance!

Cardinal O'Connor said

You take God out of society totally, and this is what some of the secularists and atheists want to do. Then it seems to me you have a society that's in my view very dangerous.

It seems to me that this is not going to happen, and I don't think that many atheists quite want that either (I certainly don't), but even if it did happen, would it be very dangerous?

There is surely nothing peculiarly Catholic about the beliefs that Cherie Blair has and which motivate her to do the good things she does (she recounted her younger days with the Young Christians). Anyone can, and does, do those things without a god belief, or with other god beliefs. It's the things she rails against that seem to me to be curiously Catholic: treatment of women, abortion, treatment of women, contraception, treatment of women, stance against embryonic research and treatment of women.

Which leads me to ask, why does she persist with the RC Church? She should drop it (I don't think for one moment that she would suddenly become immoral) and then continue leading her life without wasting her breath trying to affect the attitudes of one of the most paternalistic organisations in the world. In fact, famously she confesses to not following Catholic teachings on contraception, so why does she maintain this charade?

Obviously, only she can answer that. But one notes that the power of childhood indoctrination runs deep, and the history and traditions of many churches are a powerful draw. I have no doubt that anyone not brought up Catholic, but moral, could apply even more of their time to good work, without the unnecessary distractions of RC dogma.

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