Its secular values are inclusive, focusing on those ideals the majority agree on, not what divides us Joan Smith
23 January 2003
Should God have an official role in Europe? It may seem a strange question in a world where church attendance and traditional forms of Christian belief are in decline. Yet a movement whose aim is to include explicit references to God in future European treaties is gathering pace, with the support of Anglican bishops and the Vatican. And it has been given a boost by the prospect of Poland, with its largely Roman Catholic population, joining the EU in 2004.
Until now, debates about the role of religion in the EU have centred on the admission of Turkey, a secular state with an overwhelmingly Islamic population. Some European politicians are anxious about the inclusion of a country in which religion plays such a large part, and moves by the Anglican and Catholic churches to include elements of the Polish constitution – which explicitly recognises God – in future treaties are bound to be seized on as evidence of a plot to give Christianity a privileged place in the EU. The extent to which churches are working to this end has emerged only in the last month.
Last week the Vatican received a delegation from a lay group, Christians for Europe, whose aim is to have Christianity mentioned in the European constitution being drawn up under the aegis of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican secretary of relations with states, urged the group to co-operate with other Christian faiths and to work in European countries where "de-Christianisation or militant laicism is very strong".
Christians for Europe has influential support at the top of the EU, with Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, recently writing a letter in support of their work. What they and other Christian organisations are arguing for is a clause in the preamble to the EU constitution that would recognise "the values of those who believe in God as the source of truth, justice, good and beauty as well as of those who do not share such a belief but respect these universal values arising from other sources".
However anodyne this sounds, its underlying intentions – an attempt to halt the spread of secularism and to reinstate God at the heart of Europe – are clear. Supporters are careful not to mention Christianity too openly, but references to Europe's religious inheritance – which is undeniably Christian – give the game away.
In a House of Lords debate two weeks ago, for example, Baroness Hooper argued that an absence of any reference to churches or religious communities in the new constitution "would create a vacuum, given their real significance to society as a whole, to the values and identities on which society is based and to the Union's relationship to its citizens". She also spoke about "the religious heritage of Europe as essential elements of European identity", which clearly has very little to do with other faiths such as Islam or Hinduism.
In the same debate, Christopher Herbert, the Bishop of St Albans, said that his experience of European institutions "is that God is simply discounted and denied – 'Laicity rules OK' – and that secularist ideologies of governance are becoming stridently and assertively exclusive". He also complained that Europe's political architecture "wilfully denies the possibility of God" as well as "beliefs about human dignity and worth and purpose that have helped to shape Europe for the best part of 2,000 years".
The problem is that many people who live in EU countries either do not believe in God or are agnostic. They would argue that Christianity's role in politics has been bitterly divisive, both in Europe itself – where Protestants and Catholics spent years tearing at each others' throats – and in terms of its relations with the Islamic world. And while some Muslims might welcome a non-specific religious clause in the new constitution, they are hardly likely to share the bishop's benign view of Christianity in the last two millennia, which encompasses the Crusades.
But the argument about whether to include religion in the EU constitution goes beyond questions of history. It is also about the role of Christianity in societies where many people – a minority, but a very significant one – neither believe in God nor wish to see a belief in supernatural beings given official status. This is not an attempt to deny anyone religious freedom, which is already (and rightly) enshrined in various European conventions and treaties, but to argue that institutionalising religion in this way is both unnecessary and offensive.
For while there are many values on which believers and non-believers can agree – democracy, freedom of expression, freedom from torture and other degrading treatment – it is not the case that all elements of Christian morality are either universal or uncontentious. The churches' teachings on contraception, abortion and homosexuality are unacceptable to many of us, who would like to see religious thinkers have less influence, not more, on matters of social policy.
That is why the EU's secular values, which create a balance between the rights of believers and non-believers, must be defended. They are inclusive, focusing on those ideals the vast majority of us agree on, instead of what divides us. It would be madness at this point in history, when religion is as disruptive a force as it ever was, to create an unnecessary dispute within the EU about the existence or otherwise of God.
This has been bugging me for a while now. I can't believe this is even an issue here - this is supposed to be the place for agnosticism! Religion has a long, bloody, oppressive History here. There's the crusades, the Inquisition, the Catholics vs. Protestants wars, the economic exploitation by the nobles and the Church, the Absolutist monarchies, the opposition of the Church to democratic movements...Presently, at least where I live, religion isn't even a hot topic. Most people are agnostics/atheists (guilty as charged), and most of the religious are moderate, some even unaffiliated. I can't tell for sure whether the nuts stand a chance at instituonalizing religion - but I intend to oppose that if I can. The last thing I want to see is a Europeean Pat Robertson 20 years from now.
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Re:The EU is utterly godless. Let's keep it that way
« Reply #2 on: 2003-01-23 15:19:41 »
Quote:
"The last thing I want to see is a Europeean Pat Robertson 20 years from now."
I can only agree. However, I am left wondering as to what extent this is bound up with the possibility of Turkey entering the EU. Certainly, several EU countries would be very unhappy at the idea of including a clause which would effectively invalidate Turkish candidacy.
Great article. Have Europeans forgotten their own history? Have they forgotten why the US created a secular constitution that forbids the establishment or promotion of religious belief?
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