Think before you answer the faith question

The "First Person" column in today's Leicester Mercury is written by Allan Hayes, on the topic of the Census - more specifically, the religion question. Those of you who have read the entry about Allan's presentation on the Mindfulness and Morality course will recognise a few elements from this article as having featured in the dilemma Allan gave us that evening.

Think before you answer the faith question

Allan Hayes, of the Leicester Secular Society, says one part of the census form is not fit for purpose

Concern about the question "What is your religion?" on the census form is fully justified. Given that the answers are to be used to determine public policy and resource allocation over the next 10 years or more it is clearly unfit for purpose – but we are stuck with it and we have to do what we can. Why is it unfit for purpose?

For example, what do you say if you have a religion but have doubts, possibly severe, about faith schools? You know that if you put down your religion then your answer will be used to argue for faith schools. Since the majority of people in this country do have such doubts this will not be an unusual situation.

And education is not the only political issue that is being entangled with religion. This is serious. Another issue: what does having a religion mean? Other surveys show that most of those who say they have a religion are not practising it – they incline toward it, if asked; and the way the question is put in the census encourages this sort of quick response. In view of this, the request "If you're not religious for God's sake say so" is a quite reasonable one. There is no way on this census form in which you can specify how you wish your answer to this question to be used – we must each deal with the problem in our own way.

On past evidence the figure for those who say they have a religion, however tenuously, will be used by religious organisations to make quite exaggerated claims to support for their policies and interests. This is not the way to make lasting decisions that affect our society.

There is a bright side to this – we are talking to one another more – about how to live together and about wider topics. In the last week or so I have had the great pleasure of talking to Christians Aware about humanist approaches to morality, and to the Leicester Sea of Faith Network about a non-religious approach to Jesus. I shall be talking to the Turkish Society about secularism in few weeks' time and have offered to talk to St Philip's Centre. In the other direction, the Secular Society has had talks from a canon of the Cathedral about Northern Ireland, from a leading Muslim academic on British Secularism and Religion, and from a Catholic husband and wife couple on the work they were doing in Africa – and, yes, there have been talks from a Hindu, a Sikh and a Creationist.

Of course I am biased, but it does look as if the Leicester Secular Society is emerging as a major organiser of meetings about issues of importance – please see: http://www.lsec.org.uk/

Read this article on the Mercury website, along with reader comments:
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Think-answer-faith-question/article-3324873-detail/article.html