We don’t ‘do God’: have we lost faith in secular liberalism?
The shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, triggered a political row this year over public Muslim prayer, after an Open Iftar event in Trafalgar Square. Timothy posted that ‘mass ritual prayer in public places is an act of domination’. He later explained in the Telegraph that people are free to hold exclusive religious beliefs and practise them in mosques or private gatherings, but projecting those claims into civic monuments blurs the line between freedom of religion and imposition. In modern liberal democracies, it was argued, we don’t ‘do God’ in public. And unlike in the USA, where religious affiliation is a prominent axis of political life, faith in Britain is typically personal rather than political.
Yet debates about the role of religion in society are now a regular feature of contemporary political discourse. Undoubtedly, immigration from more religious societies has increased visible difference and tensions: over dress, prayer spaces, food, cultural practices and religious sectarianianism, all issues that citizens in a secular UK assumed were settled. For example, although Britain abolished its last blasphemy laws years ago, free-speech campaigners worry that the government’s embrace of an official definition of ‘Islamophobia’ or ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ will ring-fence Islam from criticism and chill public debate. Is blasphemy making a comeback, through public-order and hate-speech laws? How can that be possible in a secular, liberal democracy?
But those choosing to resist such trends by citing secularism as part of the West’s liberal democratic tradition, grounded in the Enlightenment’s challenge to religious authority, face another stumbling block: we have lost faith in liberalism. Liberalism is challenged by everything from post-liberal theories (often grounded in Catholic social teaching) to the populist revolts rooted in nation states. All agree that accusing someone of being a liberal is the worst possible insult. Liberal economics is rejected as leading to globalism at the expense of sovereignty. Numerous cultural commentators denounce the liberalising of behaviour for unleashing an alleged licentious selfishness that prioritises individualism over community.
There’s also a new fashion for blaming the Enlightenment for creating soulless secularism. The rejection of blind faith in favour of objectivity and evidence – previously embraced as central to technological and social progress – is now indicted for over-emphasising reason at the expense of morality and creating a godless society. Secular liberalism is blamed for leaving Western societies without a higher purpose and morally adrift.
Such sentiments are not confined to supporters of theocratic rule or supporters of sharia law. While the idea that the UK is a Christian country is the way many British people – of all religions and none – conceive of national identity, recently there’s also been a more strident reassertion of Christian cultural heritage and identity. The balaclava-clad Dover protesters were just the most recent expression of the ‘Christ is King’ movement, widely adopted by conservative, Christian nationalists. For many secular Jews, the rise of a visceral antisemitism has led many to turn to Judaism in defiance and for solidarity.
More broadly, there seems to be some evidence that religious faith is making a comeback. Some younger disillusioned people – yearning for solid foundations, historical traditions and a sense of belonging in a fragmented society – have turned to church-going. Pictures of public baptisms are now a regular feature of Instagram. Moreover, some political commentators seem keen to repurpose Christian values as an instrumental device for invigorating political movements to deal with the collapse of faith in politics and to solve a lack of social cohesion.
Has liberal secularism reached its limits? Why are Enlightenment secular values – centred on human agency, civic society and freedom – no longer considered sufficient to sustain a free society? Do we believe that moral traditions grounded in religion are the only way to nourish new generations? Before we throw the secular baby out with the liberal bathwater, should we step back and ask what is being lost?
