News and Opinion

Our President Emma Chung responded to a letter in the Leicester Mercury fromDr Clive Marsh, Director of Learning and Teaching at the Institute of Lifelong Learning , University of Leicester ( www2.le.ac.uk/departments/lifelong-learning) who stated: Behind the headlines created by Baroness Warsi's talk at the University of Leicester recently was a basic concern which many, religious or not, might agree with: the need for a better understanding of religion in society. It is widely accepted by people across the political spectrum, and with widely differing views about religion, that you don't really understand British culture without grasping religion's place within it. Even if you think religion's a bad influence, and the Church should be kept well apart from the state, it is vital to know something about Britain 's Christian past, and about the many different religions which feature in British society. But how do we develop our knowledge of faith traditio...

The Society with the support of Skeptics in the pub recently announced the launch of this campaign and achieved good coverage in the Leicester Mercury . The article began: People who claim to be Christian when they do not practise the religion are creating a "misleading" picture of Britain , it has been claimed. Leicester Secular Society is calling for non-believers to tick the 'no religion' box on this year's census. The society says that during the 2001 census, many people felt compelled to answer 'Christian' when it came to their religious belief, either out of habit or because they felt they ought to. But it says that doing so leads to inaccurate figures, which are then used to justify policies that "do not reflect the real demographics of our society".  The piece attracted 45 comments, but unfortunately many concentrated on accusing the Society of targeting Christianity and ignoring Islam. Kulgan began:   I wonder what would be...

The speech by Baroness Warsi at Leicester University provoked several letters from members of the Society and comments in the Letters area of the Mercury. The first comment published was from Harry Perry "Some Muslims are extremists" on 26 January. His main point was made at the beginning of the letter: You report (Mercury, January 21) Baroness Warsi saying that making a distinction between "moderate" and "extremist" Muslims fosters prejudice against Muslims as a whole. This is surely nonsense. We make these same distinctions in respect of all political and religious groups. For example, her own government has just barred the American Christian pastor Terry Jones from Britain because he holds "extremist" views! Click here for the full letter. The only comment this raised was "Excellent letter". The next letter " Confrontation will not create a better society " from Allan Hayes  on 28 January began: I came away f...