A German market has sprung up down the streets of Manchester, a luminous Father Christmas the size of the marshmallow monster from Ghostbusters appeared outside the town hall and first thing in the morning I am allowed to eat chocolate tasting of cardboard. It is hard to escape from the run up to Christmas and the occasional popping up of the question of ‘the real meaning of Christmas’. So what better time to look at the difficult question of how faith and religious groups play a part in politics?
For some reason the linking of these topics leaves both those who practice a religion and those who don’t, feeling uncomfortable in that British feet shuffling way. It seems that there are at least two distinct issues that are conflict points when it comes to the mingling of religion, faith and politics, particularly on a national level.
The first of these is the concept of enshrining religious practices into law. The Pro-Life lobby often seem to lose sight of the fact that the policy they are pushing makes sense for them because of the faith they themselves hold. However, for those without that background it seems like patronising preaching, it seems to make more sense for the Catholic Church to be campaigning on love and understanding.
Focusing on policy often takes away from individuals of faith, who understand that explaining their point of view is more complex than forcing everyone to behave in a ‘godly way’ through law. For example, look at the excellent role Archbishop Desmond Tutu played in South Africa during Apartheid.
The Christian based organisation Traidcraft help found Fairtrade Foundation and brought up the concept of it through churches. There are countless faith based NGOs and individuals who work from the imperative of social justice grounded not spreading their religious institutions. Check out the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu cutting up his dogcollar on the Andrew Marr show as a political statement against Robert Mugabe.
However, sometimes religious groups are pinned into a political corner. Switzerland recently voted in a referendum to ban building new minarets for Mosques. The No camp argued that building new minarets would reflect the creeping in of Sharia law which was incompatible with Swiss democracy. Regardless of the wrongs and rights of this, last time I checked the UN Bill of Human Rights both political and religious freedom came pretty high up (the UN having a large base in Geneva along with the EU Court of Human Rights). Furthermore, this vote has now made minarets an implicitly political symbol, regardless of whether they were or not originally. Perhaps this relates to a fear that people of faith have an allegiance past state borders that can’t be controlled by law, thoughout history people from all faiths (including Atheism) have been killed for holding to what they believe in when it conflicts with the state’s interests.
In the USA it is standard for the President to utter ‘God Bless America’, yet in the UK where the Church of England is linked to the state, when a politician gets ‘religious’ and they are walking on hot coals. Blair has only talked seriously about his faith when he came out of office and Atheists can also feel that they will be victimised if they speak honestly about their faith (see Richard Dawkin’s A Campaign) . Surely we would rather our politicians were able to be honest with us about their beliefs?
Perhaps due to the liberal pluralist society we live in, there is a desire to live and let live, but humans seem drawn towards the desire for a universal theory to string everything together (academics spend their lives attempting this). On the topic of faith this could be the existence of God or the non existence of God, but when someone comes to one realisation or another this conflicts with the liberal pluralistic stance as although – can a universal truth hold for only one person?
Faith comes in many different shapes about many different things. But we all have our own faiths and own politics. Should we put these to one side and move past the political, or do we fight it out and see what our differences collide to make?
Have a comment you want to add? Email Sarah at politics@student-direct.co.uk
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