The Progressive

Blair is right - religion can be a force for good

I was pleased to be invited to attend last night's lecture by Tony Blair at Westminster Cathedral. The event got off to a bit of a farcical start when Tony mistook shouts from the back of the cathedral asking for the sound to be turned up for hecklers shouting him down - as he said, he is more used to people not wanting him to speak than to those expressing concern because they cannot hear him!

Blair's message was that religion could "awaken the world's conscience" and help to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to eradicate poverty and hunger. He warned against the "extremist and exclusionary tendency in religion today". He argued that it is not extreme for a person to believe their own religion is the only faith - "most people of faith do that" - but said it should not stop them respecting other religions. He said people must accept that faith is not in decline and the world has become more economically, politically and ideologically independent.

"The divide, then, is between those who see this as positive, the opening up offering opportunity, and those who see it as threatening and wish to close it back down," he said. Blair took the opportunity to set out plans for his new Faith Foundation, to be launched later this year. The Foundation will focus on bringing together Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists to promote faith as a relevant and positive force for good.

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Nick Clegg, God, morality and politics

The reaction to Nick Clegg’s admission that he does not believe in God has produced a good deal of heat but not too much light. Unlike in the US, few British politicians ever choose to make speeches that include a reference to either God, morality or both. Is this a bad thing? No and yes.

No:

It is all too easy to conflate morality with faith in a divine being, in other words to form the the view that nothing is right or wrong unless God makes it so. Whatever God says goes. So if God had decreed that adultery was permissible, then adultery would be permissible. Most sensible people would consider this argument to be reductio ad absurdum because it is clearly absurd to think that adultery, wanton killing, raping, stealing or torturing could ever be morally permissible. Moreover, to believe that God could have commanded these things is to destroy whatever grounds one might have for praising or worshiping him. Leibniz was the first to point out that, if things are neither right nor wrong independently of God's will, then God cannot choose one thing over another because it is right. Thus, if he does choose one over another, his choice must be arbitrary. But a being whose decisions are arbitrary is not a being worthy of worship. What Leibniz ably demonstrated is that the view that morality is independent of God is an eminently sensible and loyal one for a theist to hold.

Yes:

It would surely be a good thing if we had more politicians who were courageous enough to argue that what society really needs is not more religion but a richer notion of the nature of morality. If Nick Clegg's admission that he does not believe in God can help move this agenda forward then it would be no bad thing.

Progressive politics and the need to reconcile religious belief and democracy

Is the Left making a mistake when, as it so often does, its fails to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives? Is it time for those who espouse the ‘progressive’ agenda to debate just how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy?

We are not alone in struggling with this issue. In the United States the up and coming Democratic Senator, Barack Obama, has recently argued that his own party has been reluctant to engage in serious debate about the issue of religion and politics. Speaking back in June of this year he said:

At best, we (Democrats) may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands.

The reality of political engagement is that we have to meet people where they are – even if we do not agree with where they are. If, as a progressive movement, we are to communicate our hopes and values in a way that's relevant to the lives of others we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

In his speech Obama argued that secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into public debate. Indeed he makes the case that the majority of great reformers in American history – he cites Lincoln, Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.

Therefore if progressives are more willing to engage with people of faith they might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of modern Britain.