The Prayers Must End

Jack Staples-Butler

Name:Jack Staples-Butler
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Joined: Jan 2012
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As soon as the news broke, the backlash was certain. A High Court ruling has found the inclusion of prayers on council meeting agendas “unlawful” and has declared that local authorities have “no power” to institute them in official motions. What began as a complaint by the National Secular Society and a councillor in Bideford, Devon, has resulted in a deeply unpleasant shock for the established Church and for many religious councillors in England and Wales. Perhaps more importantly, the reaction to the ruling has escalated into a tidal-wave of panic, hyperbole and conspiracy theories espoused by the pious – all within the framework of a persecution complex which rivals the imperious martyrdom of WASP America after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The once-mighty hath fallen from a pedestal of unrivalled power; now, British Christians are claiming that they are the victims of bigotry, discrimination and deliberate marginalisation.

Photo by valakirka

Made by unelected High Court judges, the ruling may be seen as symptomatic of a trend pointed out by Nick Cohen; politicians and journalists of a liberal bent have become too keen on giving such decision-making powers to the unelected judiciary, out of a fear “that the working class is authoritarian and prejudiced and not to be trusted.” Were the issue put to the popular vote, it is possible that the approximately 54% of the population who identified as Christian in the 2011 Census would have voted in favour of keeping the prayers. If a ‘Proposition’ were put to the electorate in Devon, in a similar form to the State of California’s frequent referenda, there is a reasonable chance that the prayers would have stayed. But though we may chide the National Secular Society for using this route rather than a campaign of public persuasion as to the virtues of ridding council chambers of the prayers, we must deal more urgently with how the ruling has been responded to. The reply of leaders, representatives and spokespersons (some appointed, some self-appointed) for Christianity in Britain, has been less than sober and reasonable.

Lord Carey. Photo by Aleem Khan

“An attack on centuries-old Christian traditions.” “This is a truly terrifying prospect.” Admonitions from figures in the Anglican Church, particularly the Rt. Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, have followed patterns of exaggeration and doom-mongering, speaking as if the ruling were the first of a new generation of discriminatory rulings to remove Christianity and Christians from public life. But by far the most cringe-inducing screeching came from the scribes the Daily Mail.

Yet some of the most patronising and historically offensive whining came from the Christian Institute, whose spokesperson Simon Calvert offered the time-tested sermon of is-declares-ought. For years, the assertion that Britain is a “Christian country” and presumably will remain so indefinitely has been wheeled out to demonstrate the support of a preponderant, if unenthusiastic and largely invisible, majority. There may be some weight in this if analogised with the need to preserve other religious cultures – Native American and Aboriginal reservations come to mind – but the simple reasons for why Britain carries the baggage of Christian identity with it in the 21st century are always ignored, denied or expunged from public acknowledgement. Herein lies the Christian Institute, and Calvert’s, most reprehensible display of wilful historical blindness:

“Our Christian heritage is a core part of our national identity. As a nation, it is part of what made us who we are.
Our Christian values gave rise to education for the poor, to adoption agencies for orphans, and to hospitals for the sick – and even our parliamentary democracy is rooted in the Christian belief that every person is created equal under God.”

There are too many flagrant, teeth-gnashing falsehoods contained within this astonishing claim to list with proper regard to detail. What must be challenged above all else is the central tenet of Britain’s religious identity as being morally self-justifying and also justifying the continued hybrid of the state and the church. Another reply, infuriating the historical sensibilities in the same manner, comes from an opinion-editorial in the Telegraph: “Town councillors have been holding prayers before meetings since Elizabethan times; and in doing so, they enjoy the overwhelming support of the population.”

To take just once historical force as an explanation, both Calvert and the Telegraph editorial make no mention of the Recusancy Laws implemented by Elizabeth I in the mid-1500s. The Act of Uniformity of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacrament became law on 29nd April 1559; this law made church attendance compulsory and instituted fiscal and penal punishments for dissenters. The laws were primarily targeting England’s Catholics, after the bloody five-year rule of Queen Mary I which was defined by massacres and targeted killings of Protestants. The revenge of the Protestants and the state-enforced hierarchy of the Church of England were no less brutal. But the Act of Uniformity merely enshrined a state of normality in England which had existed for as long as Christianity had been the established religion; missing church was not to be tolerated, and doing so for religious or secular dissidence would routinely result in death, imprisonment or crippling fines.

This is why our ancestors were almost universally Christians. They did not have much, if any say in the matter. For the vast majority of England’s population, religion held a monopoly on the philosophical, the ephemeral and the ceremonial dignities of life. Of course most who attended church did not merely do so at the point of a sword; belief was typically sincere. But when raised in an environment where the possibility of simply opting out of religious practices did not exist – it had been taken away by the men of God and the State – of course the majority would be religious. So even after the Elizabethan laws had been long repealed it was still considered an embarrassment and a disgrace to declare atheism in Victorian England. A prosecution on a charge for blasphemy was still possible in the twentieth century; a Glasgow-resident anarchist, Guy Aldred, was prosecuted with blasphemy in February 1925. Whether used in pious reaction to hurt feelings, or as a cynical tool of political repression, statutes and precedents of the nation’s “Christian heritage” have provided indefensible suffering for five centuries and more.

Prayers, as a private or communal religious practice, have no place in civic government at any level, from the parish council up to Parliament itself. They are more than a cherished inheritance from our pious past; they are a relic of an age of repression which the champions of religious “heritage” do not care to mention when claiming the moral absolution of persecuted victim.