Sally Bercow, wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons, has been criticised for making infelicitous remarks on Twitter. On one occasion she was complaining about the presence of bishops in the House of Lords. "Kick out religion from politics," she said.Archbishop Cranmer has a different idea. (Yes, I know. He did die, quite some time ago, but somehow or other he still manages to write a blog.) Interviewed by Annabelle Williams at www.totalpolitics.com, Cranmer says:
The United Kingdom owes its laws, law-making, customs, traditions and values to the Christian faith. To pretend that this rich heritage can be systematically eradicated in favour of "multiculturalism" and "secularism" is a fallacy. There is a myth that politics should be secular and that secularism is somehow neutral. It is not. It has its own dogma, a distinct orthodoxy and an intolerance of dissent every bit as intransigent as those religions it frequently misrepresents and seeks to neuter. Instead of constantly demanding that religion should be removed from politics, perhaps the time has come for there to be a strict separation of secularism and state.
Now there's something to think about!
