What is in Kelvin's Head?

A Christian Country?

28/04/2014

I’ve been watching the various debates about whether “we” live in a Christian country with interest over the last 10 days or so. I’m inclined to agree with the notion that the UK clearly has such a great heritage from the Christian tradition that it makes sense to speak of it as having been a Christian country. I also think that we have moved beyond Christendom and that it is obvious that the UK is not a Christian country in the sense of being a country of people who are either united by Christian belief or practise.

What surprises me a little is how little comment there has been about this in Scotland. After all, in Scotland we are currently thinking very precisely about what kind of country we want to either be or belong to.

I remain unpersuaded by the case for independence for Scotland. I don’t think myself that separating from the rest of the UK would be good either for Scotland or for everyone else involved. However, I rather like the fact that in Scotland we are talking about what kind of country we hope for. There are clearer lots of people who want a fairer society. However, I’ve no real interest in building a Scotland that is fairer than England. I want a fairer society for everyone. Compassion has no borders. I care for the poor family in Carlisle as much as the poor family in Aberdeen. (Carlisle is nearer in any case).

What interests me most this week though is that there has been so little discussion of whether Scotland should be a “Christian” nation if independence were to come upon us. I’m quite clear myself that if there is any talk of a draft constitution for Scotland it must be a secular one. I have no problem being part of a historically Christian country and working to make it more secular. I do however have a big problem with starting up a new country and writing Christianity into the constitutional definition of what that country is.

Should independence become a reality, then we have to have a real debate about what kind of country we are talking about. I certainly don’t want to be part of a new country which has a National Church written into its constitution. Members of the Church of Scotland can’t presume that the rest of the Christian communities are going to back any attempt to keep their particular position in society. Similarly, it cannot be presumed that issues like eduction funding will be unchanged in a new country. The settlement by which the Roman Catholic Church is funded by the state to run often excellent schools can’t simply be presumed to be what the people of a new country will want.

I’m very aware that some want to make a case for an established or national church on the grounds that a broad, moderate church is a force for good in society. However, I think that the mainstream Christian churches are currently presumed to be promoting a morality that people who think they are good, decent, upstanding members of society simply abhor. I don’t think there is a long term future for churches to be established or privileged in any way by the law if they are associated in the public mind with discrimination against woman and people who happen to be gay.

In England, I suspect that disestablishment will come about by erosion. In Scotland where a new constitution is on the table, things may be rather different.

I think that a secular Scotland is probably one in which churches like my own will thrive. We all have things to fear from anything else.

5 responses to “Tanzania”

Raspberry Rabbit

31/01/2007

A bit picky, yes. Idris will no doubt correct them when he’s there.

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Simon Sarmiento

01/02/2007

Umm. So Northern Ireland is part of Britain is it?
Four churches in the UK maybe.

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kelvin

01/02/2007

Well Simon, you are correct in your assumption that I was thinking of the Church of Ireland in Northern Ireland, rather than perhaps the Church of Rockall.

People who are being picky deserve to be picked up for slack talk. However, speaking as I do from the Second City of Empire, I hide behind this quote on the website for Number 10 Downing Street:

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page823.asp

“The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Great Britain, however, comprises only England, Scotland and Wales. Great Britain is the largest island of the British Isles. Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic form the second largest island.

The UK is just under 1,000 km long from the south coast of England to the extreme north of Scotland, and is 500 km across at its widest point. It shares a single land border with the Irish Republic. Despite its relatively small size the UK boasts incredibly varied and often very beautiful scenery.

The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom. They are largely self-governing with their own legislative assemblies and systems of law. But the British Government is responsible for their defence and international relations.

On this site the term ‘Britain’ is used informally to mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

I’d also refer interested parties to the Wikipedia page on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute

I offer this topic as a free gift to Bishop David.

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Bishop David

03/02/2007

As you would expect, I am all knotted up on this one. I am a citizen of Ireland – or the Irish Republic – or the Republic of Ireland. Nor Eire – or, as many of my parishioners in Portadown would have called it [never having moved on from 1922], the ‘Free State’. Meanwhile President Mary MacAleese is often termed President of Ireland which seems to me to be as notable a piece of ‘overlooking’ as when Ian Paisley refers to the ‘people of Ulster’ [which means some of the Protestant/Unionist population of Northern Ireland] and Gerry Adams refers to the ‘Irish People’ [which means not the Protestant/Unionist population of Northern Ireland]. I like Wiki’s rather coy description of Ireland as ‘currently split’ – meaning just the most recent 85 years. Which in the context of thousands of years of British misrule in Ireland is but a blink. And finally one comes to the interesting use of the term ‘mainland’ …

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steg

04/02/2007

Must admit when I saw you were writing about primates in Tanzania I thought your blog was going to be about ape conservation………………….

In my experience people from outwith the UK confuse Britain and England a lot. And they have a point. Do you always refer to the Netherlands or sometimes to Holland even when you are refering to the non Holland bits of the Netherlands? And how do you think that makes the Friesian’s feel? And so on.

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