private religion

There's a meme with an ever-growing strength. It says that religion (or faith, or belief) is for the private sphere, and not something that should impact public life. It says that the state should be neutral about the faiths which compete for attention, and favour none. It says that equality and fairness can be achieved only if we demote religion from its previous normative role. It goes so far as to say that previously long-held beliefs are not merely out of date, they are positively damaging.

In some lights, that perspective seems entirely rational and reasonable to me. If we are not to organise our state as some kind of theocracy (or do I mean thearchy?), then eventually its norms and ruling principles must come from somewhere else; somewhere other than religious faith. Of course, the foundation of the British state is almost postmodern in its multi-faceted splendour: to suggest that church, government, and justice flow from the Crown is just to repeat a convenient fiction; it doesn't really work that way. There are many influences, many norms, and their pattern is constantly shifting.

Should the state get out of the business of who may marry whom, and just register civil partnerships instead? Should a Prime Minister who invokes faith as a basis for decisions of state be excoriated? Is it professional misconduct for nurses to offer to pray with their patients? Can religious symbols co-exist with official uniforms?

I heard a lecture recently by Roger Trigg, a philosopher. He was talking about religion in public life. He was most scathing about a modern tendency to identify religious faith with other kinds of belief (so he dislikes making being a Christian and being a Vegetarian into equivalent categories). I rather disagreed with him, but he put his finger on (but didn't explore) an important point: religious faith matters precisely because people believe it. I could expand: being a servant of Christ is manifestly different from being a follower of Dawkins' flying sphagetti monster, exactly because the former does, actually, in practice, change how a community of people acts, whereas the latter does not (the creative web site linked here notwithstanding).

Many seem to want to argue that faith should hold a privileged place in society because it is religious faith, long-held, and deeply believed. But that seems as amiss as arguing that faith should not be allowed a place in public debate: that an opinion arising from faith is somehow unacceptable (whereas an opinion arising for some other reason is not).

Perspectives which arise from and within community do matter, because people hold them. That doesn't mean they can't be challenged, poked, prodded, re-shaped: unless of course your faith doesn't allow any of that. The idea that we can disentangle this from everyday life is truly fanciful.

Value-free individuals don't exist; value-free education doesn't exist; value-free public policy doesn't exist. I don't necessarily want to elevate my value system above that of others - but to imagine that we can find a neutral place is absurdly optimistic. Being inclusive and affirming is not the same as being neutral or faith-less: indeed, the two can be at odds.

Many/most/much faith cannot be purley private, because it presumes to inform the whole of one's life. That doesn't mean I can impose it upon others given free will in the image of God, but I can't hide it, either.