God’s place in a humanist society (17) [Locul lui Dumnezeu într-o societate umanistă]

No matter how obsolete concepts like ‘God’ or ‘faith’ appear to be in today’s ultra-secular Britain, political leaders sometimes find themselves compelled to speak about religion.

Beautiful churches (like the one in the picture***) may be emptier and emptier (unless they are Catholic and frequented by Polish or other Eastern European emigrants), yet they are still visible. And what they stand for is also visible.

There are instances – most often created by the media, as religion is of no interest for most Britons – when prefabricated ‘religious hot topics’ are unavoidable for politicians.

Be it an irreligious society like the British one has become for the past decades, members of the ruling class – in a country where the head of state (Monarch) is the formal head of a religious institution (Church of England) – sometimes have to explain themselves.

After hiding his papist leanings while in office – a Catholic Prime Minister (PM) would have been such a heresy in Protestant Britan, wouldn’t it? – Tony Bliar’s (this is no spelling mistake :-) started parading his belief.

He has been quite vigorously speaking in defence of his faith and of religion in general for the past years. However, from an Orhodox Christianity perspective, his twisted understanding of Christianity is utterly irrelevant.

His confession “I have always been more interested in religion than politics” (in his book: A Journey) can hardly do anything else but offer more loads of anti-religion ammunition for hardline British atheists.

Then, the son of Church of Scotland minister, Gordon Clown (no mistake here either :-) also claimed that religion is at the center of his Government. He praised Catholic for “being UK’s conscience” but stopped short of becoming a Catholic. At least until now.

These days David Chameleon (-:) is in charge at Downing Street 10. Even before the last elections, he diplomatically tried to distance himself from the (apparent) religiousness of his predecessors:

“My own faith is there, it's not always the rock that perhaps it should be. I've a sort of fairly classic Church of England faith, a faith that grows hotter and colder by moments.”

That’s quite a confession of faith, yet here are some other chameleonic addings:

“I think that it’s perfectly possible to live a good life without having faith, by which I mean a positive and altruistic life, but I think the teachings of Jesus, just as the teachings of other religions, are a good guide to help us through.”

Help us through what?! Chameleon, Bliar & Clown see religion as a mere instrument, meant to help us trough (even through a political career), and ‘Jesus’ is no more than a character – a teacher as good as the founders of other religions.

“I suppose I sort of started life believing that one’s individual faith was important, but actually the institutions of the church were less important. I do think that organised religion can get things wrong, but the Church of England and the other churches do play a very important role in society,” he adds.

Organised religion can get things wrong, while personal religion not?! I don’t understand. But the fact that I don’t understand doesn’t mean that I blame Chameleon, nor the other two PMs before him, of anything.

This is the way in which self-described religious people in a humanist society understand religion. They happen to be political leaders, and their outlook on life and religion is not worse, nor better than that of most Britons.

It would be pointless to accuse them of knowing nothing about Our Lord Jesus Christ, as long as even the ‘institutions of organised religion’ in the UK (Church of England, Church of Scotland, Catholic Church etc) know so little about Him.

What I find culpable is their chameleonism. They find it necessary to include references to religion in their public discourse, skilfully trying not too seem ‘too religious’ in their effort of proving that they are not altogether religiously indifferent.

From this perspective, Ed Miliband, the current Labour Party leader, appears worthy of praise for his honesty. He puts it bluntly:  “I don’t believe in God personally.”

His subsequent explanation doesn’t water down his atheist stance: “Different people have different religious views in this country. The great thing is that, whether we have faith or not, we are by and large very tolerant of people whatever their view.”

There’s no doubt that Britain is one of the tolerant countries in the world, nevertheless, Ed Milliband seems to forget that during the glorious years of New Labour rule (1997-2010) more and more British Christians complained of being discriminated.

Two other important political leaders of today’s UK claim to be atheists. One is former Foreign minister David Miliband. The other is deputy PM Nick Clegg.

Both have been accused of a ‘lesser insincerity’ – one has already sent and the other considers sending their children to faith schools.

Only fanatical atheists could blame them for making pragmatic choices. Over and over again, studies show that faith schools are the best in Britain, and even Ed Milliband thinks that these institutions do “a fantastic job” in educating children.

The Lord and none else could know what will happen to Britain with such leaders. Blair claimed to have known Him and to have constantly prayed to Him, while Chameleon says (meaning to emphasize the idea of not being like Bliar) that he has “no direct line to God.”

What matters is that, to a great extent, Britain’s elected leaders (+ the Royal Family) are as irreligious as most of the nation. Neither the elite, nor the electorate could steer the other party in another direction.

*** NOTĂ: The pictured church is the Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, London, the first Catholic place of worship built (1895-1903) in England after the English Reformation. The credit for this photo, taken in February 2011, belongs to my reader Mihai Gociu.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]