In the so-called season of goodwill, the Archbishop of Wales has made an attack on what he sees as ‘atheistic fundamentalism’, whatever that is. It is difficult to see how one can be a fundamentalist atheist. An atheist can’t disbelieve in a deity to a greater or lesser degree: it’s a simply either/or option where one either believes there is a god or that there isn’t. Likewise, religious fundamentalists do not believe in a god to a “greater degree” that their fellow non-fundamentalist religious worshippers. The difference between them, religious fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists, is one of ideology and intepretation of holy text, neither of which atheism has.
Either way, this “fundamentalist atheism”, in the view of the Archbishop, is apparently responsible for two events in particular: the Winterval festival in Birmingham, in 1997 and 1998, and the recent dispute involving a BA employee’s run in with BA’s dress code.
We have be careful of the “political correctness gone mad” elephant trap. It’s clear that Christmas was never “banned”, and neither was its name changed, in Birmingham: the term ‘Winterval’ was a blanket term to cover a variety of celebrations that occurred during late November and December, of which Christmas was the central event.
Likewise, the facts of the BA case are equally mundane. The Christian Cross was never banned, but the wearing of necklaces outside of clothing was. The emphasis is important – it’s not an anti-religious or anti-Christian edict, but a dresscode with the (no doubt unintended consequence) that would include any necklace with a religious symbol. The reason that came about was simply because no one has ever claimed that the Christian cross on a necklace was part of the Christian faith, one as recognisable as the Sikh Turban, for example. It has echoes of the Great Silver Ring Thing Scandal about the same time – there was no ban against Christian symbols as such, but a ban on jewellry. The essential point in both is the same: neither rings nor crucifixes are central, ideological, manifestations of the Christian faith, and so these dress codes did not seek to include any exception for allegedly “Christian” jewellry.
That these events are cynically distorted by such a senior figure as the Archbishop of Wales is disgraceful, not least because it gives propagates the myth that these event represent rather than the more mundane truth.
Nevertheless, that he saw fit to say such a thing is probably part of the same phenomena, noted before, where the Right in particular is using Christianity to re-label Britain culturally, and to make it easier to divide people into “them” and “us”. In this particular case, the issue is more subtle.
As was said before, we are a largely secular country, hence the news (for example) that more people shopped online than went to an Anglican service. In itself, it is not a surprising story – it only points to the growing use of the internet to shop online, which has been a trend noted before, anyway. As every Sunday testifies, the overwhelming majority of the population are out and about in the High Street, shopping in person, rather than in any Church, Anglican or otherwise.
The point here is that it is not “fundamentalist atheism” (whatever that is) that is responsible for this trend, but the growth of the of the consumer society in the last sixty years or more, and the parallel decline of Christian worship. Hence, the blaming of nefarious atheists for the woes of Christianity, to the point of distorting fact to promulgate myth, must be to try and create, firstly, a sense of identity, and, secondly, a sense that this identity is threatened in some way.
But if not by athiests, who? Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society was quoted in the 2000 Guardian article linked to above as suggesting Islam. Multiculturalism – something that is now openly attacked by the Right – might be more accurate in the dying embers of 2007. It seems to fit into a coalition of interests emerging that is attempting to redefine Englishness and Britishness along exclusive, “them and us”, lines.
Whatever the real reason, it demonstrates the sectarian nature of religion generally, especially when it’s used for political ends. To then claim, as the Archbishop does, that “God is not exclusive, he is on the side of the whole of humanity with all its variety” is laughable, not least because God by any Christian view necessarily excludes those who do not accept Jesus as their Saviour.
