Secular Society poster is offensive to believers

Reproduced below is one of two letters from today's Leicester Mercury, responding to Leicester Secular Society's Census campaign. I've posted each of the letters separately on the blog because I'd like people to read and respond to them distinctly, rather than just lump both together - even if your response, faithful reader, involves no more than thinking about them. The letters as published in the paper are accompanied by that photo the Mercury has used several times now, of Secular Society President Emma Chung holding up the banner in question outside Secular Hall. It's a nice enough picture, but I'm not posting it here again. That would be just too, too lazy - even for me (says the man who has just posted this same paragraph at the start of two different blog entries!) If anyone should question my motives for posting material like this, I'm doing so to give as rounded a view as I can of how such topics are treated in our city. The coming Census has foregrounded issues of religious identity, diversity, conformity and privilege to an uncommon degree. Stuff like this is meat and drink to those interested in what makes Leicester tick.

Secular Society poster is offensive to believers

Leicester Secular Society is calling on citizens not to declare themselves as religious if they do not believe in God in the census (Mercury, March 5).

As a practising Christian, I would endorse that call. Sadly, though, society president Emma Chung defends the use of their campaign slogan, which borders on offensive to faith followers.

In common with the modern vogue for some comedians to rely on offensive material to get them through a sad performance, she claims it is "humour" and, therefore, should be acceptable.

Nevertheless, I would not want citizens to claim to be religious if they are truly not. This does not include, of course, those who believe in God but do not practise their religion.

In fact, I would extend the call from the Leicester Secular Society, who it would appear are becoming the anti-God "shock troops" of secularists.

I would call on those who proclaim no religious belief to desist from their annual pretence and no longer celebrate overt Christian festivals, Christmas and Easter being the two most prominent.

This annual hypocrisy, which would no doubt include many Secular Society members, also generates a false picture of the true numbers of faith followers. I am comforted by the presence of atheists, or humanists as some prefer to be called. For it must be true that those who overtly oppose God, must accept there is a God to oppose.

Stephen A Warden,
Wigston

Read the letter on the Mercury's website, along with reader comments:
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Secular-Society-poster-offensive-believers/article-3313359-detail/article.html