Faith in Democracy

Jonathan Chaplin

Description

What is the place of faith in public life in the UK? Beyond ‘secularism’ that seeks to relegate faith to the margins of public life, and a ‘Christian nation’ position that seeks to retain, or even regain, Christian public privilege, there is a third way. Faith in Democracy: Framing a Politics of Deep Diversity calls for an approach that maximises public space for the expression of faith-based visions within democratic fora while repudiating all traces of religious privilege.
It argues for a truly conversational space, reflecting theologically on the contested concepts at the heart of the current debate about the place of faith in British public life: democracy, secularism, pluralism and public faith.

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334060253
• Langue: English

Extrait

Faith in Democracy
Framing a Politics of Deep Diversity
Jonathan Chaplin






© Jonathan Chaplin 2021
Published in 2021 by SCM Press
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Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. And from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights to be reserved worldwide.
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Contents
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Faith and Democracy – Defining the Questions Before We Shout Out the Answers
Part 1 Democracy: As If Faith Mattered
1. Defining and Defending Democracy
2. Recasting Constitutional Democracy
Part 2 Secularism: Rights and Wrongs
3. Secularism or Pluralism?
4. Beyond Secular Esperanto
Part 3 Public Faith: Neither Privileged Nor Pliant
5. Faithful Speech
6. Faithful Conscience
7. Faithful Association
8. Faithful Power

Conclusion: Restoring Faith in Democracy





Theos is the UK’s leading religion and society think tank. It exists to bring a thoughtful, non-tribal Christian perspective to the public square and stimulate better conversations about the role of faith and belief in society through research, events, and media commentary.
Theos hosts conversations, debates and lectures on religion, politics and society, and provides commentary and analysis on current affairs and popular culture.
At the core of Theos’ work is an extensive programme of research exploring the big issues impacting UK society, from the ethics of debt to the phenomenon of religiously-inspired violence, from the increasing religiosity of our capital city to faith–based social action and multiculturalism.
Find out more at www.theosthinktank.co.uk



Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Theos, one of the leading practitioners of ‘faith in democracy’ in the UK, for their congenial partnership in this project (which is not to say they endorse everything in this book). The following colleagues commented on all or parts of the manuscript: Paul Bickley, Jonathan Boston, Andrew Bradstock, Julian Rivers, Nick Spencer and Nicholas Townsend. The usual disclaimer applies, but their critical insights have, I think, made the book much better and I am indebted to them. Barnabas Elbourn helped get my legal case citations in order but, again, any remaining errors are my own. Chapter 3 draws on material first published in Thomas Schirrmacher and Jonathan Chaplin, ‘European Religious Freedom and the EU’, in Jonathan Chaplin and Gary Wilton, eds, God and the EU: Faith in the European Project (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), pp. 151–74. Chapters 4 and 5 draw extensively on Talking God: The Legitimacy of Religious Public Reasoning (London: Theos, 2008). I am grateful to the publishers for permission to use this material here.
During the final months of writing, Aldo our two-year-old grandson was hurtling around our house while his parents, our son Paul and his American wife Laura, lived with us, awaiting new accommodation. His presence slightly delayed its completion, but kept me focused on what it was all about. The virtues of ‘democratic pluralism’ are, at this point in his life, a work in progress. My hope is that he will grow up to be not only a person of faith but – as possessor of both British and American passports – one who finds reasons for, perhaps even contributes to, ‘faith in democracy’. The book was completed days before the November 2020 US presidential election. I dedicate the book to Aldo – and to the future of his generation.




Introduction: Faith and Democracy – Defining the Questions Before We Shout Out the Answers 1
In the contest between the principles of modern democracy and doctrines of faith, democracy and the rule of secular law must always win. Janet Daley 2

The question is sometimes raised, whether Catholicism is compatible with American democracy. The question is invalid as well as impertinent … It must … be turned round to read, whether American democracy is compatible with Catholicism. John Courtney Murray 3
It would be hard to find two more starkly opposed judgements than these about the place of religious faith in a modern liberal democracy. The first was delivered in 2008 by Janet Daley in the Daily Telegraph in response to Archbishop Rowan Williams’ proposal that aspects of Islamic law might be accommodated within the English legal system – a prospect that unleashed a firestorm of tabloid outrage that has left permanent scorch-marks on British public discourse about faith. 4 The second, published over half a century ago, was penned by Jesuit philosopher John Courtney Murray in We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition , a book written to overcome deep suspicions still existing between Roman Catholics and political liberals in the USA. It was on account of such suspicions that presidential candidate John F. Kennedy felt bound to insist in 1960 that he believed in an America ‘where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials’. 5
No one needs reminding that the relationship between religion and democracy in many liberal democracies today remains fraught with profound anxieties. This is true also in Britain, the principal focus of this book. Even setting aside fears about violent Islamist extremism, persisting concerns about the apparent threat of Islam as such to British democracy surfaced again in The Casey Review on integration in 2016, which warned that some religious devotees are ‘keen to take religion backwards and away from 21st Century British values and laws on … gender equality and sexual orientation, creating segregation and pulling communities apart’. 6 While the role of religion in the Brexit trauma is not yet easy to specify, the acrimonious divisions Brexit has unleashed pose acute additional challenges to the capacity of British democracy to reckon with deep diversity. 7
In the USA, even before the headlong evangelical embrace of Donald Trump, 8 alarms about religious ‘imposition’ were reignited by the latest wave of the ‘religious right’, from which emerged in 2015 ‘Project Blitz’, a carefully orchestrated campaign to encourage the sponsorship of ‘Christian’ bills in state legislatures across the USA. The project has been described as reflecting ‘a Christian supremacist agenda, the idea that God intended and mandates Christians to lead and control the United States for the religious vision that they hold and the policy implications that flow from it’. 9
The current debate is often framed in a way that is unhelpfully polarizing. Many religious believers profess themselves appalled by the bald assertion that democracy must always win against religion, just as many secular-minded people react viscerally to the claim that democracy must be subordinated to the demands of religion. Each assertion seems to offend against a deep and seemingly non-negotiable conviction held by the other side. The declaration that democratic principles must always defeat religious doctrines whenever they clash strikes many religious believers as a dangerously arrogant vaunting of human political power over divine authority – one that could, at best, leave ‘theology on mute’ in public life, or, at worst, legitimize the kind of systematic suppression of religion witnessed in the ‘people’s republic’ of China. Equally, the suggestion that the legitimacy of democracy might depend on its compatibility with religious doctrine sounds to many secular observers like a reactionary throwback to an age of religious supremacy – potentially unleashing just the sort of ‘theocratic’ adventurism apparently at work in Project Blitz.
This book places itself squarely in the force-field opening up between these contending assertions. It takes the risk of simultaneously addressing two normally distinct audiences. It does so in the hope of kick-starting some productive exchanges between advocates who seem to talk at – or past – each other more than they converse with each other. It is intended, first, for secular-minded citizens who may be troubled by the marked upsurge of public religion