Photo: Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple (Credit: NPC)
A one-day conference at Blackburn Cathedral in the north of England on December 15, 2022, gave rise to a new exploration of the role of faith communities in their dialogue with the nation-state in the 21st century.
Inspired by the republication in 2022 of wartime Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple’s seminal 1942 work, ‘Christianity and Social Order,’ the conference—jointly sponsored by Liverpool Hope University, the William Temple Foundation and Blackburn Cathedral—brought together scholars, largely from the three Abrahamic faith traditions.
Several Muslim social activists and university lecturers also spoke at the conference, which in its final session, was addressed by three leading contemporary thinkers from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions, Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, the senior Rabbi of Masorti [traditional] Judaism in the UK, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and Dr Tim Winter of the Cambridge Muslim College.
Inaugurated by the chief convenor, Rev. Yazid Said of Liverpool Hope University, the first panel highlighted William Temple’s ideas on community, fellowship and social well-being, emphasising Temple’s view that community should be based on shared values and shared responsibilities without factionalism.
Scholars who specialise in Temple’s work showed how he wanted to ensure greater inclusivity by highlighting how those with power and a voice needed to be advocated for traditions and groups that felt marginalised.
The panel also recognised that Temple’s campaigning for Jewish refugees during the Second World War can provide valuable lessons on how to respond to those fleeing war and oppression and seeking refuge in the UK.
The panel concluded with the view that Temple’s vision for a society based on our shared humanity was something that was more needed today than eve rbefore, given the current crisis that humanity is facing.
In the second panel, Professor Christopher Baker, William Temple Professor of Religion and Public Life at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Director of the William Temple Foundation, emphasised that, despite the apparent decline of religion (or at least mainstream Christianity in the UK), there is still significant interest in religion and spirituality and that two spaces had opened up to have these conversations.
“The first,” he said, “was an intellectual space” created by the famous contemporary German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, with his idea of a post-secular society for the 21st century, in which, the vigorous continuation of religion within a continuously secularising environment must be reckoned with. Professor Baker highlighted the fact that this has allowed for a much more open and dynamic conversation to take place about the role of religion and belief in the public sphere.
The second space, according to Professor Baker, was “more experiential” and looked at the impact of COVID-19 on partnerships between faith groups and the public sector. The research he has undertaken in two reports (Keeping the Faith and Keeping the Faith 2.0, published by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Faith and Society) shows how the professionalism, flexibility, and ability to provide services at scale on the part of faith groups impressed and galvanised the thinking around the role of faith on the part of secular public sector bodies such as local authorities.
Professor Baker emphasised that as a result of the partnerships formed to meet the demands of the lockdowns, 67 percent of local authorities reported an increase in partnerships working with faith groups, with 91 percent of respondents stating that they found the experience ‘very positive’ or ‘mostly positive’, and 76% stating that they would like the partnership to continue on the same or an altered basis.
The rest of the data in the first report strongly suggested a “new normal” for partnership between faith and secular bodies had emerged. The first report, according to Baker, shows a commitment to deepening relationships, a willingness to share resources and innovation, and a development of more inclusive forms of partnership that move from delivery and dissemination to more strategic forms based on ‘intentional co-production.’
Professor Baker’s second report showed what would be required to maintain this ‘new normal —and three elements emerged. The first is a Kenotic attitude, which means the emptying of any institutional perspective and allowing new perspectives to emerge. Granted, there would be an element of risk-taking, but such an attitude also allows “openness” to new thinking; second, the modelling of relationality, authenticity and partnership; and third, creating hospitable and safe spaces for the practical shaping and application of beliefs, values and worldview. The impact of this new thinking on Muslim communities in the UK
There is no doubt that post-secularism holds great promise for increased and more constructive dialogue between faith and state, and more particularly between civil society, the organs of the state and faith traditions—in this case, different Muslim communities in the UK.
For this to happen, many challenges will need to be addressed:
Not all countries in the Western world are ready yet to embrace this new culture of post-secularism. It is still a relatively new concept, and the UK is only just beginning to come to grips with this concept with recent studies in this field.
Some thought needs to be given to the extent to which Muslim communities themselves would be ready to embrace secularism, which is often conflated with modernism and which, coming on the back of colonialism is still often seen as being hegemonic and embodying an agenda to subordinate Muslim peoples.
The Muslim world is not a monolith, and a response to this phenomenon is not likely to be homogenous but will depend to a large extent on the colonial experiences of different Muslim peoples. It will also encompass postcolonial experiences. Sadly, these have not always been positive and tend to play into an anti-colonialist trope.
While responses from across the Muslim world will take some time to assess, it can be predicted with some certainty that the responses will range from outright rejection of secularism on a primarily “theological” basis from some segments of the Muslim world to a rigid adherence to a secularist culture as witnessed in Kemalist Turkey and Borguibist Tunisia, to a readiness by many Muslims, both in Muslim majority countries as well as in the Diaspora, to endorse a religion-friendly “passive secularism.”
We see examples of such endorsement of passive secularism in countries such as Senegal and Indonesia and some segments of Iranian society, most notably among some of its intellectuals, such as Mohsan Kadevar and Abdul Karim Suroush. Rachid Al Gannouchi of Tunisia is a good example of such thinking in North Africa.
One could make the argument that this endorsement of “passive secularism” is very much in line with the post-secularism theory of Jurgen Habermas and is an acknowledgement of the legitimate role of religion in the public sphere, a rejection of the rigid secular-religious binary, and an embrace of pluralism as culture based very much on a constructive dialogue as advocated by spiritual leaders like the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims, and scholars such as Kwame Anthony Appiah, who espouse the notion of cosmopolitan ethics in their relations with the “other.”
This then raises the question of what types of engagement models we might consider. Whereas there are a number of institutions with a national and global reach addressing issues such as poverty alleviation, more equitable ways of creating and distributing wealth, and promoting greater vaccine equity and climate justice, we may wish to reflect on the attributes that characterise institutions—such as adherence to best practice, upholding good governance and promoting projects that are self-sustaining and replicable and those that help people become self-reliant in the shortest possible time, rather than those that create a dependency complex.
Based on William Temple’s vision and ideas as adumbrated in his 1942 work and their relevance in today’s changed world, with particular regard to how we rebuild the public square in post-pandemic Britain, we need to reflect on the basic compatibilities between religious worldviews and secular ideas.
Temple addressed four themes:
The interplay between tradition and reason and the bearing of this relationship on engagement with society.
A commitment to a form of natural law or theology that enables dialogue with others.
Gaining an understanding of the changes we experience in a complex world; and
A concern for well-engaged Christian citizens of the state. Given Temple’s ecumenical worldview and the changing nature of British demography, there can be no doubt that he would include all the faith traditions that make up modern Britain today.
On looking at the Islamic tradition as a whole, the upholding of the role of the intellect is a founding principle of the faith – one that inspired great discoveries and inventions in several fields, from geography, astronomy and physics to medicine and metaphysics. As to embracing change, a cardinal principle of sharia is to be cognizant of necessity (ḍarūra) and public interest (maṣlaḥa) to gain a proper grasp of fiqh – its jurisprudential understanding, to comprehend the higher purposes of the law (its maqāṣid). With regard to commitment to dialogue and understanding the other, we might look at Qur’an 2:62:
“Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, who so believe in God and the Last Day, and do good deeds — they shall have their reward with their Lord, and no fear shall be on them; neither shall they grieve.”
Post-secularism offers Muslim communities significant hope for cooperation with civil society and state institutions while participating in the rule of law. Modern society has a number of issues to deal with, ranging from the alleviation of global poverty to the ensuring of greater climate justice.
If Habermas’s post-secular society has arrived at our doorstep, might the time not be propitious now to avail ourselves of the opportunity of embracing the voice of faith in a mutually respectful dialogue in which both reason and revelation have a role to play in addressing the perennial human quest for meaning — something humankind has been grappling with for over two millennia.
Dr Keshavjee was a specially invited participant to the conference “Rebuilding the Public Square: Religious Engagement and the Temple Tradition in Post-pandemic Britain,” held at the Blackburn Cathedral on December 15, 2022. Special thanks go to Professor Chris Baker and Dr David Shaw for their assistance in writing this report.
Dr Mohamed M. Keshavjee
Author, international specialist in cross-cultural mediation and alternative dispute resolution
