The Writing is Back on the Wall for Christianity, Sort Of
Civitas, 22 September 2009
Within the Roman Church, St Francis’ feast day falls on October 4th and is marked by ceremonies to honour and bless animals. When a Catholic church in London’s Kentish Town sought to display in a local public library a poster advertising a forthcoming ‘pet blessing’ there, it was refused permission on the grounds the event was a religious one.
Camden Council under which Kentish Town falls does not sanction the display in any of its buildings of posters advertising such kinds of event.
Predictably, the refusal triggered outrage among Christian groups. In particular, it outraged members of Climate Change is a Christian Issue (CCCI), a campaign group holding at the church in question a ‘St Francis weekend event on the environment’. They too were not allowed to display in the local library a poster advertising the weekend because it contained the words ‘Christian’ and verse 30 of Psalm 104: ‘Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.’
Being intrigued by press reports about this item, I visited the library today where permission had been refused and was surprised to see that it was displaying a poster for the week-end featuring a talk on climate change by someone described as maker of the Channel 4 tv documentary ‘God is Green’. The library also contained a poster advertising ‘Meditation and Buddhism’ at the Heruka Buddhist Centre nearby in North West London.
Being puzzled as to the apparent inconsistency between Camden Council’s ban on religious adverts and the posters on display, I asked to speak to the senior librarian for clarification as to what Camden’s policy was. She declined to comment, but instead referred me to the Camden Press Office which in turn referred me to Camden’s Head of Libraries, Information and Community Learning and from whom I received very promptly the following helpful reply:
‘Our policy is that we do not display posters advertising religious
services and ceremonies or encouraging people to join any particular
faith group. This applies equally to all faiths. Similarly we do not
accept posters encouraging people to join particular political parties
or advertising party political meetings.
‘We welcome posters advertising events organised by political and
religious groups that are genuinely open to all and do not seek to
encourage membership as their sole purpose: indeed the group concerned on this particular occasion has submitted a redrafted poster invitation for residents to a meeting discussing climate change, which is now on display in the library.
‘We regularly display posters for Christian and other faith groups which comply with the Council’s guidelines. The current guidelines have been in place for more than ten years, and would have been agreed by the relevant committee under the structure of the Council at the time.’
Superficially, the reply clarifies Camden’s policy and explains why an advertisement for the weekend is back on the notice-board, but not on reflection. On the website ‘What’s On in Camden’ is an advertisement for the ‘Fairtrade for the Feast of St Francis’ which states:
‘During the St Francis weekend “Climate change is a Christian Issue” there will be a Traidcraft stall after each Mass selling Fairtrade food and snacks and other fairly traded products. Masses are 8.30 and 10am, 12noon, 1pm (Spanish) and 6.30pm.’
If that advertisement on Camden’s Council own website is not clearly advertising religious services, I do not what an advertisement for religious services is. Likewise, a poster advertising a Buddhist organisation from where may be obtained information about Meditation and Buddhism seems to me to be ‘advertising religious… ceremonies’.
Don’t get me wrong.
I am not complaining about Camden Council or one of its libraries displaying such advertisements. I am merely signalling how difficult in practice consistent implementation of such a policy must be. It presages the day when Camden will go secular and prohibit all such notices, if they contain so much as a whiff of incense, as it were.
So what, you might ask?
I have to say I do not like this mandatory secularisation of public space. It smacks to me of a mindset which would wish to see the secularisation of private space too and would seek to promote it through ostracising religion. In one newspaper report about the matter, Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society was quoted as saying in support of the prohibition of the poster about the weekend: ‘Councils should keep religion in its place. You have to have a policy across the board saying this is a secular library’.
Mr Sanderson seems to me to guilty of a fallacy here. A secular library need not be one from which all advertisements about religions and religious group and services are forbidden. It need merely be one that does not favour any one religious group.
It is noteworthy that, in the email I received from the head of Camden’s libraries, it was stated that the current guidelines have been in place for more than ten years. By my reckoning that means they have not been subject to being re-thought through in light of all the initiatives that have been taken by central and local government since the 2001 riots that led to the Cantle Report on community cohesion.
Surely, in a pluralistic society such as Britain and Camden have each become, a total ban on reference to religious groups and events in public buildings is not the way to promote intercultural understanding and good community relations.
I leave almost the last word to St Francis who supposedly preached to the birds thus:
‘My sister birds, you owe much to God and you must always and in everyplace give praise to Him; for He has given you freedom to wing through the sky and He has clothed you… You neither sow nor reap and God feeds you and gives your rivers and fountains for your thirst, and mountains and valleys for shelter, and tall trees for your nests. And although you neither know how to spin or weave, God dresses you and your children, for the Creator loves you greatly and He blesses you abundantly,. Therefore … always seek to praise God.’
Let us only hope Camden Council chooses not to construe birds singing in its parks as their praising God.