Should The UK Be A Secular Country?

Motivated by Daltervia's commenting to a previous post, I think that this question merits a closer look. I should, before I start, declare that I am Christian, and that this post is intended to encourage thought processes, rather than give an ideological opinion, although I may not be able to resist! Anyway, back to the beginning.

The first case of disestablishment of the Church of England in the United Kingdom was in 1869, when Gladstone, himself an extremely vocal Christian, took the decision to disestablish the Church of Ireland. He did this because a refusal to recognise Catholic churches officially was causing hatred and problems for the Irish people, and that only 8% of the population were protestant. It is worth bearing in mind that Catholics only got semi-equal rights after Catholic emancipation in 1829. I believe that this precedent lays down two conditions after which disestablishment should be considered and either a secular or a non-denominational state should follow. These are that followers of the church need to be in an embarrassing minority, and that the status quo should be causing significant unrest in the country at large.

But some argue that there needs to be secularity so that atheists can be fully incorporated into the fabric of society. But for me this is not valid. Over the course of a century, ever since the first MP refused to swear "by Almighty God" to take his seat, atheist practice has become an option whenever one comes across a godly reference. I am particularly thinking of a courtroom, which is a good case in point, as they have virtually every major sacred text there on which someone can take an oath. Minority religions also therefore have the flexibility of the British Constitution to thank for the right to practice it in public on these occasions.

But if in reality, all religions and no religions are tolerated by the systems of governance, then surely an Established church is irrelevant, and should be disestablished quietly. The only counter to this is the old one that Britain has always been a Christian society, so disestablishing the church would be breaking with the past and disrespect to our ancestors who fought hard for their religion over the last thousand years. It is for the reader to evaluate the strength of this for themselves, as it is a strange, emotive argument.

The dangers of a secular society have been seen in Turkey, where they have gone to such extremes in their desire to be secular that they have very draconian laws with regard to expressing your religion in public. America has a separation of the church and state, but the Constitution does affirm freedom of expression, so I point to America as a sign of a secular state well managed.

To conclude, I cannot advocate disestablishment, but neither can I see anything wrong with disestablishment itself. I do think that becoming a secular state would infringe the right to free expression of religion, so as a conservative, unsurprisingly, I'm opting for the status quo. But I'm not in any way as hostile to disestablishment as I thought I would be when I started. Interesting.