The critics of secularism are its greatest beneficiaries
When the Pope visited Britain early last year he challenged his audience in Scotland to evangelise society in face of the “rising tide of secularism.” He isn't alone, Baroness Warsi, chair of the Conservative party declared that secularism was 'not the British way' and Lord Sacks, Britain's Chief Rabbi has attacked secularism as “the moral equivalent of climate change.”
An assumption by some of the highest religious leaders in the country seems to be that secularism and in particular, a poorly defined 'aggressive secularism' is both damaging to their religions and a challenge to be countered by adherents. They argue that the voices of religion must be influential, powerful and heard from the very highest levels of government to the everyday level of society.
These are the very people who should be singing secularism's praises from the belfries and minarets across the land.
The established religion of the United Kingdom is the Protestant Reformed Religion as sworn by the Queen in her oath of coronation, it should be noted that the oath is not even to protect and uphold Christianity, much less religion in general. In face of this, it seems odd that a Catholic, a Muslim and a Jew, would would attack the very principle which makes their ability to speak freely and in opposition to the politics of the land a possibility at all.
Secularism is not about removing religion from the public sphere, it is about remaining neutral in matters of faith and religion, making sure that the state favours one religious opinion over another and ensuring that our laws make it possible to freely practice religion or indeed no religion at all. Secularism is about religion controlling government and government controlling religion
It is true that a secular government and society in general make it easier than at any other time in our history to criticise religion, to mock others for professing belief in religion and arguing central tenets which were once sacred unmentionables, but equally we have never been freer to declare support for religion, to evangelise and spread whichever good (or frequently bad) word we choose.
In a non-secular society, the balance of power does not fall, as many of thes many critics of secularism would hope, to religion in general, it falls to one religion, one interpretation, one version of the truth, which is unfairly defended by the agents of the state. In Pope Benedict XVI's vision of Britain, he would not be speaking mass to seventy-thousand people, he would be struggling with protestant authorities to even get into the country. If Britain were as de-secularised as Baroness Warsi hopes, she would not be a proudly Muslim peer in the Conservative party.
But what of Dr Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury? He leads not only the Church of England but the international Anglican community, surely that when he stated that the secularisation of Britain poses great challenges to the church which the clergy need to respond to, he would have nothing to fear and everything to gain from a de-secularised British Society? Not entirely. He only remains head of the Church because of the relative secularity of the British government, in less secular times, the monarch ruled the Church and used it as a political weapon. Would any faithful member of the Church really call for the loss of their own independence, their own freedom?
Freedom, only true secularism can deliver it equally to all religious belief, all religious criticism, all religious apathy, all religious faith and it is no stretch to say that in Britain we need to strive for more secularism, not less-for all our sakes.