27/07/2022
PRESENTATION BY PROFESSOR PAUL WELLER
Role of IARF in UK highlighted
Freedom of Religion and Belief and the Inter Faith Network for the UK
The Inter Faith Network for the UKâs 2022 Annual General Meeting is taking place at a significant coincidence of timings. First, it is the 35th Anniversary year of the Network. Second, as of yesterday and today, the UKâs Ministerial Conference to promote freedom of religion or belief is being held in which representatives from more than sixty governments are taking part, along with many civil society initiatives. Third, the Networkâs Faith Communities Forum yesterday issued its statement on âFreedom of Religion or Beliefâ. https://www.interfaith.org.uk/news/statements-and-messages
The possibility to enjoy freedom in conscience both to hold, and in community with others to give expression to, religion or belief identity, beliefs and commitments, is one of those freedoms that has - globally, through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; continentally through the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; and at a UK level, through the Human Rights Act, 1988 â become part of the architecture of contemporary life.
Although criticised by some on cultural and religious grounds for being too âsecularâ and by others as too âforeignâ, I would argue that, in general, the empirical evidence suggests that international human rights standards and their associated mechanisms have, at international, European and UK levels, brought about tangible overall improvements in religion or belief freedom in comparison with what existed in the first half of the twentieth century and prior to that. At the same time, one should not idealise these mechanisms since they are sometimes inconsistently applied in ways that can weaken the acceptance of their legitimacy. Also, from a religious perspective, no human system, however noble in its ideals or beneficial in its implementation, should ever be elevated to an absolute status. But, as in Martin Luther King Jnrâs soberly realistic evaluation of the place of law in relation to overcoming racial discrimination, while the law as such cannot change the heart, it can restrain the heartless.
In relation to how the Inter Faith Network interfaces with this secular architecture, one should begin by acknowledging that the formal aims and objectives of the Inter Faith Network itself do not explicitly address religious freedom. At the same time, over the thirty five years of its existence both alone and (as often in the Networkâs modus operandi) in collaboration with others both within and beyond its member bodies, it has made a number of significant contributions towards both the inter-religious and wider public understanding of religion or belief freedom.
In this connection, it is worth noting that among the Networkâs founding member bodies was the British chapter of the International Association for Religious Freedom. On its website, the IARF (https://iarf.net/) explains its central commitment as being to âpromote and support the work of individuals in the cause of religious freedom.â Perhaps not without continued significance, the IARF emerged from within a single broad religious tradition which was that of Christianity, within which those of Unitarian orientation had, in many social, political and religious contexts, been at best marginalised and at worst actively persecuted through application of the law in support of the Churches of the more dominant Trinitarian tradition.
It remains the case today that some minority groups within particular religious traditions which can, from the perspective of some majority groups, be seen as at best heterodox, and at worst heretical, not surprisingly have very immediate, practical and legitimately self-interested reasons to support freedom of religion or belief. But while such self-interests might have been a part of the background to the founding of the IARF, the IARF expressed the main reason for its commitment to religion and belief freedom as being "to open communication with those in all lands who are striving to unite Pure Religion and Perfect Liberty, and to increase fellowship and cooperation among them."
In such a vision of religion or belief freedom one can see the importance of religion or belief freedom not only as it benefits specific groups, but also as it contributes to creating the conditions for positive relations that go beyond the necessary but limited commitment to peaceful co-existence and into the more actively positive vision of âfellowship and co-operationâ. Indeed, it is arguable that it is in precisely this kind of way that the Inter Faith Network as more broadly constituted has contributed to religion or belief freedom in the UK over the three and half decades of its existence. In particular, the distinctiveness of the Inter Faith Network is that it was created not only for inter-faith enthusiasts, however much their focus, energy and commitment is needed by all. Rather, from its beginning, the Network has sought to engage with a broad range of faith community organisations whose overall self-understandings have also â as with the Network itself - not been specifically focused on religion or belief freedom, and among whom if they are honestly self-critical, not all organisational forms have always and in all circumstances upheld religion or belief freedom.
A second member body of the Inter Faith Network that also has religion or belief freedom explicitly at the heart of its aims, is the All Faiths Network. On its website, it articulates its commitment as being to the: âprotection of religious freedom for all faithsâ while making explicit that in doing such it welcomes âpeople of all beliefsâ (http://www.allfaithsnetwork.org/ ). In this is a reminder of great importance for any principled commitment to religion or belief freedom, which is that its scope should not be limited to a certain range of Abrahamic or Dharmic faiths in terms of what used to be called world religious traditions, or even to religious groups as such, but rather that it should become capable of encompassing a wide spectrum of beliefs, both religious and non-religious.
As many veterans of the Inter Faith Network will recall, there was a period in which successive Annual General Meetings of the Network had to return to debates about extending the faith community bodies category of membership to groups within the Druid and more broadly Pagan traditions until the Network itself recognised that consistency and credibility required it to change and evolve on this matter as compared with what had been its position in earlier years. While within the Networkâs national faith community organisation category of membership its self-understanding remains one that is primarily religious, there are many humanists who make important contributions to its work via all three other categories of its membership.
The All Faiths Network also states that it conducts its work âaccording to human rights standards.â Within this, is a reminder of the importance of an equitable and balanced approach in the relationship between religion or belief freedoms and other dimensions of human rights, including those which, in UK law, have been referred to as other âprotected characteristicsâ. It is important to take account of these in their own right, but also because it can sometimes be the case that claims to religion or belief freedom can slide into a special pleading for religion or belief privilege which then act as a smokescreen behind which religion or belief groups seek to justify the abuse of other aspects of human rights. For example, in relation to such, in an entry (19.07.2022) on the Networkâs website (https://www.interfaith.org.uk/members/list)the Interfaith Alliance UK references an aim to: âresearch, expose and challenge sexual abuse, bullying, discrimination and other corruption in faith and interfaith institutions.â
I have chosen to highlight these two organisations from within the Inter Faith Networkâs membership category for national and regional inter-faith groups because their work is focused explicitly on religious freedom in a way that the Inter Faith Network, many of its member organizations, and most of the faith communities are not as such. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that faith community traditions do often cite what are for them foundational sources of one kind or another which they believe are able to become important contemporary resources that can contribute to an enriched wider public conversation of the nature and limits of religion or belief freedom.
The challenge here is that of the extent to which it is either possible for faith community groups and traditions to learn, including within the broad range of their own memberships, how to translate what is expressed in the logic and grammar of their individual religion or belief traditions into the logic and grammar of what the All Faiths Network calls contemporary secular âhuman rights standardsâ and of how far they are able to do this in a way that contributions from these faith traditions can be received, heard and understood by governments; by other faith communities; and by the wider society. This challenge is also there in reverse for other faith communities, for the government, and for the wider society, in terms of the need for them also to invest the necessary effort to have enough religious literacy about the logic and grammar in which things are expressed from within faith communities not to cut off dialogue with them on difficult issues before a real and sustained effort is made to facilitate translation beyond what can otherwise sometimes be initial mutual incomprehension.
The challenges involved in matters of religious freedom or belief that can become matters of wide and symbolic public debate are ones in which, I would suggest, the organisations in the Networkâs membership category of the educational and academic bodies should be able to make important facilitative contributions - not in academicist abstraction from faith communities or inter-faith relations, but precisely as intended by this category of Network membership, in engagement with them. In addition, in the less symbolically visible - but no less vital day-to-work of multiple localities where one encounters the many micro-issues of freedom of religion or belief â lies a territory in which the Inter Faith Networkâs extensive pattern of affiliated local inter-faith groups and initiatives can contribute much that is of value.
In closing I would myself flag up three matters to do with religion or belief freedom for further consideration in the life of the Inter Faith Network and its member organisations:
1. Whatever oneâs personal or organisational position in relation to it, over the past three decades, the legal position on religion or belief freedom in the UK has been anchored with reference to the provisions of The Human Rights Act, 1998. The present Government has recently introduced into Parliament a new British Bill of Rights. Thus far, attention has focused more on the potential implications of this Bill for aspects of criminal law and refugee policy than on the Billâs provisions relating to religion or belief. From some religion or belief perspectives the Bill may, at first sight, be thought to contain welcome aspects - such as the proposed requirement, in specific circumstances (Section 23, see https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0117/220117.pdf) for the courts to âhave particular regard toâ what is expressed in the Bill as âfreedom of thought, conscience and religion.â At the same time, such emphasis is likely to raise the question of equity in terms of balancing the implications of religion or belief freedom with the implications of other aspects of human rights. But whatever positions might be taken in relation to the substantive aspects of the Bill, I suggest that it will in any case be important for there to be scrutiny of how any wider changes in the Bill might either enhance or restrict any continued formal commitments to religion or belief freedom, including in terms of how these interact with other aspects of human rights, including with regard to the wider principle of non-discrimination.
2. In relation to that coming debate I hope that colleagues will excuse me committing what can be a cardinal sin for an academic of self-citation. However, in an article published in the journal Religion and Human Rights (No, 13(1), 76-109) in 2018 called âReligious Minorities and Freedom of Religion or Belief in the UKâ, in the last paragraph of its concluding section entitled: âLearning from the Past, Reading the Present, Discerning the (Post-Brexit) Futureâ, I wrote the following:
ââŚ.in a coming time of at least significant socio-legal debate, contemporary religious minorities in the UK could benefit from an enhanced awareness of what can be learned from UK history about the importance of religious minorities being proactive agents within, and not only passive recipients of, social and legal change relating to matters of religious freedom.â (https://doi.org/10.1163/18710328-13011160, p. 109)
Those who may be interested in the detailed historical and empirical evidence can refer to the full article. However, broadly speaking, in the article I argued that the religion or belief freedom that emerged during the nineteenth century in the UK and upon which our present inheritance is built, did not come about through automatically benign evolutionary processes without active engagement on the part of those who were socially and religiously marginalised. It also argued that progress for all was achieved both by advocacy from particular groups, but also by a coming together in particular initiatives not only of people with different religious persuasions, but also in collaboration with Humanists, Atheists, Free Thinkers and others. And this was on the basis that, although they might have differing understandings of why religion or belief freedom was important, they recognised a shared interest in its indivisibility rather than making mutually competitive claims in relation to such.
3. Finally, over its past thirty five years, the Inter Faith Network has played an important role at the interface between national level bodies from within faith traditions and communities; the powers-that-be as embodied in the institutions of the state; the changing constellations of political governance; and the wider organisations of civil society at UK-wide, national and local levels in this âfour-nations-stateâ. In being able to do that, the criteria for the public funding which the Network has always managed to secure â and which continues to play a critically important role in the work and very existence of the Network â has changed gear.
Initially under the last Labour Governments, this was into a strongly targets-driven culture. More recently, it has further changed into a predominant culture of commissioning specific work for specific outcomes. While it is important to avoid undue alarmism in relation to the future, the year-on-year challenges of securing such a proportionately very substantial element of the Inter Faith Networkâs funding could have an increasingly attritional effect on the Networkâs energies and capacities to deliver what it was set up to do. In this context I would suggest that there could be an increasing challenge for the Inter Faith Networkâs member bodies, and for those within their own networks who value religion or belief freedom, to do all that might be within their power financially to secure the continuation of the Inter Faith Networkâs ability itself to continue to operate in the kind of religion or belief freedom way from which all its member organisations have benefited over the last thirty five years, in order that this benefit can securely continue in future years.
This page contains Statements and Messages produced by the Inter Faith Network for the UK. IFN's policy on the making of statements can be downloaded here.
