Personal, but never private
Source: The Guardian
Authors: Steve Chalke
Dated: 2005-11-21
People inspired by faith continue to improve the world around them, writes Steve Chalke
There is a widespread, popular myth that unless faith is restricted to the private sphere, it will inevitably lead to intolerance and extremism.
But the reality could not be more different. Beneath the headlines of religious fanaticism and intolerance are the untold stories of countless individuals who, motivated by their personal faith, choose to work for the betterment of our society.
For them, faith may be personal, but it is never private.
Like the thousands of churches and other faith groups up and down the country that commit to improving the lives of society's most vulnerable - running homeless hostels, alcohol recovery programmes and youth mentoring schemes in response to the needs they see around them.
Today, the impact of "public" faith can also be seen in the vitality of the British economy. A number of studies have shown that faith groups contribute enormously to local economies by providing skills training, education and local service provision - very often on a voluntary basis. What would happen if their faith remained private and their service removed? The economy would undoubtedly suffer.
Without public faith, there would not have been a civil rights movement in the US or a Jubilee debt cancellation campaign in the UK. Both these movements were inspired and led by people of faith who decided that what they believed about God and humanity should impact on the world around them.
Intolerance and extremism are more to do with fundamentalism, than faith. Indeed, the memory of the 20th century is forever scarred by the fundamentalism and intolerance of communism, whose regimes not only left millions dead, but impoverished and excluded many more.
Britain needs to move away from a fearful, knee-jerk reaction to faith and begin to recognise the extent to which faith is an essential part of everyday public life. Not only is this a reality, it is also a positive and healthy development - whether you are a "believer" or not.
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Losing faith
Source: The Guardian
Authors: Polly Toynbee
Dated: 2005-11-21
In a nation of non-believers, tax payers' money should not be used to promote religion, says Polly Toynbee.
Politicians of all parties have fallen into the unctuous habit of praising the work done by "faith communities" without stopping to think. Britain is the most secular country in the world: a BBC poll last week showed that among the young there are more declared non-believers than there are Christians; in all, 43% of 18-24 year olds said they had no faith.
Yet this Labour government is introducing great swathes of faith-based education. It leaves most non-believers perplexed. Why should the secular state use tax payers' money to indoctrinate a largely non-believing nation?
Remember David Blunkett saying he wished he could bottle the special magic of faith schools? Tony Blair has since then promoted faith schools through academies sponsored by evangelicals who deny Darwin. Two hundred more Muslim state schools are being created. Already a third of all state schools belong to the religions, most of them Christian.
What's the magic? It is called selection. One way or another, most faith schools filter out the most chaotic families. If the vicar or the imam has to sign a form saying the family are regular worshippers, that screens out the disaster families - the drug addicts, alcoholics and mentally ill - who have never got it together to go to church. Their children go to the next door school, which sinks under the weight.
As one school improves, the other suffers and more hypocritical parents hurry to church to get their child into the religious school. The neighbouring school loses all its best children. Hey presto! There is the faith schools' 'magic'. Religion has become a symbol of respectability to keep out bad kids. How holy is that? All this is backed up by academic research into admissions. To be sure a few church schools don't do this, but they sink down the league tables along with other schools in poor areas - no magic after all.
Britain's thriving voluntary sector does a vast amount of good - and some religious organisations do too. Sometimes the church is the only organisation in the worst estates. But some faith-based drug addiction centres, youth clubs and other outfits are naked indoctrination centres - and dangerous.
There is good and bad work done by voluntary groups, but the faith groups have no special magic. They do have special dangers, however, with "charismatic" leaders causing a high risk of abuse - mental and physical - wherever there are closed worlds of believers. A Muslim council employee told an Islamic debating meeting I attended last week that he had recently visited a Muslim school where girls were not allowed to look out of the windows. Is that magic too?
State money should only be spent on secular schools and social services. People are free to believe and practise what they like, but keep God out of state schools and social services. |
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