It has, perhaps predictably, been a lively weekend for the debate about religion in public life. The most interesting conversation however wasn’t the indomitable former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, taking a pop at David Cameron, nor a group of churches attacking the government on welfare reform. A more entertaining, and I think more telling debate was going on on Twitter between arch-secularist Evan Harris and Christianity’s poker playing defender, Victoria Coren. This highly engaging dingdong seems to be exactly what the medium was invented for. Impossible to capture in a screen grab, if you go to Evan Harris’s profile (@DrEvanHarris) and scroll down to 30th March you should be able to follow the thread.
The ‘debate’ warmed up when Coren responded to Harris sounding off about George Carey. With a brief aside to another Tweeter (“leave @victoriacoren to me”) Harris moved the argument on to that wonderfully irrelevant theo-political shibboleth, bishops in the Lords.
As if by script, Harris said: ”You defend 26 places in Parliament *reserved* for elderly, heterosexual (ostensibly), socially conservative men? Really?”, a decoy ‘argument’ that Coren duly took apart: ”You don't like them because they're ELDERLY?! Maybe they should be boiled down to make soup?; Thing is, Evan, I'm a liberal. I don't mind if people are old and straight.; As for "socially conservative", the sharing principle of Christianity is politically radical, and sadly gone from the Commons.”
Understandably, Harris changed tack – “But, Vicky, [in the style] this argument is about the *fact* of privilege and inequity not *who* is the beneficiary of it”.
But is it? It's fairly clear that those who oppose bishops in the Lords don’t really oppose them because of their gender, race or background, although those are irritants. There is no sense in which women bishops, gay bishops or young bishops would really placate Evan Harris. There are some who oppose bishops in the Lords because if we’re going to have civil society institutions represented in an unelected House of Lords, we should include religions, but it shouldn’t just be the Church of England. This, of course, makes much sense, procedurally challenging as it is. Others would oppose it because they think it's bad for Christianity itself.
However, I would guess there is a third reason, one which Harris and many of the most vocal opponents are motivated by, namely a deep seated suspicion of religion, especially religion wielding power. If the real problem was simply the unelected nature of the bishops, the focus would not be on the bishops at all, but on general Lords reform. Harris doesn’t want a more representative sample of faith voices in the Lords. He wants none. And not just in the Lords, but everywhere, in schools, in hospitals, on the pages of our newspapers; anywhere in fact outside the private confines of the home. The “privilege” is what ostensibly offends, but one can’t help suspecting that it’s the faith that triggers the fear. The strapline of the National Secular Society (of which Evan Harris is an honorary associate) is “challenging religious privilege”, but does anyone really believe that if there were no more bishops in the Lords and schools could be run by businesses, charities or the state but not by churches then they’d close up shop and go home? The protests organised against Pope Benedict’s visit in 2010 were not in response to “privilege”, nor is their often questionable engagement with Islam.
Evan Harris doesn't like religion. Of course he doesn't. I have no problem with that. There are elements which deserve critique, and this critique, both internal and external, can be very healthy for faith communities. Invented controversies about quirks of our legislature or the supposedly malign influence of church schools stop that conversation about real differences from being had. As Victoria Coren wittily demonstrated, using the rhetorical smokescreen of “privilege” is not only less honest, but less interesting and less productive.
