Inevitably a fairly quiet week, dominated by the PM’s views on cultural Christianity and complaints about the lousy soundtrack on Jamaica Inn…
A Christian country?
We have studiously avoided posting on the recent dispute about whether or not the United Kingdom (or, as people who should know better nevertheless insist on calling it, “Britain”) is a Christian country. We’ve kept quiet partly on the grounds that if it is a law & religion issue it’s a fairly marginal one, partly because it’s a matter of debate rather than fact, partly because some of the key documents are behind various paywalls – and partly because we’ve no reason to suppose that anyone would be interested in our views on the matter anyway. Following, however, is what we hope is a useful (and balanced) selection of links to some of the main contributions to the discussion:
- David Cameron: My faith in the Church of England [Church Times].
- Professor Jim Al-Khalili & Ors: David Cameron fosters division by calling Britain a ‘Christian country’ [Telegraph].
- Patrick Wintour & Andrew Sparrow: Jack Straw comes out in support of David Cameron on ‘Christian Britain’ [Guardian].
- Andrew Copson: The Prime Minister’s ‘Christian Country’ Claims [Huffington Post]
- Elizabeth O’Casey: Cameron’s courting of Christianity: divisive, inappropriate, cynical and shallow [National Secular Society].
- Steven Swinford & John Bingham: Attorney General: Rise of fundamentalism is ‘damaging’ Christianity [Telegraph].
- Patrick Wintour: Nick Clegg restates view on separation of church and state [Guardian].
- Justin Welby: A Christian country? [blog post].
- Tim Ross, Cole Moreton & James Kirkup: Former archbishop of Canterbury: We are a post-Christian nation [Telegraph].
- (And one you may have missed): Norman Bonney: Would an independent Scotland be a religious or a secular state? [LSE: British Politics and Policy].
But for a dispassionate judicial view we cannot do better than to refer readers to the speech by Sir James Munby P on Law, Morality and Religion in the Family Courts. In light of the above it bears re-reading.
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