Secular Australia: Implications for Religious Freedom Rt Rev Dr - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

“Secular” Australia:

Implications for Religious Freedom

Rt Rev Dr Michael Stead, Bishop of South Sydney Thursday 9 November 2017

EdComm Governors’ Symposium

Defining “secular”

u Secular humanism is an ideology that views human reason

as the sole arbiter in decision making, including moral and ethical decisions, and explicitly rejects religious doctrine and texts as having any relevance.

u Secularisation is the historical process by which the social

and cultural significance of religion diminishes over time.

u Secular (and secularism) is a political theory about the

proper relationship between the church and state.

Australian secularisation?

u Secular humanist version of the secularisation thesis:

as scientific knowledge grows, religion and superstition will recede.

u Australian evidence

u Sydney Anglicans – 52% of adult attenders have a uni degree

(compared to 24% of people in the Greater Sydney Area)

u The rise of uninformed unbelief

u 30% “No religion” - half: incompatibility between science and faith u 13% of Australians think that Jesus never existed

Definitional slippage

u An oppositional definition – secular versus religious

“secular” = “unreligious” /“non-religious” /“the exclusion of religion”

2 types of secularism

u Hard Secularism: the removal of all religious influence and activity in

the public sphere. Eg. France - “unreservedly antagonistic to religion”.

u Soft secularism: no religion is privileged over another. Eg. America:

“indifference towards religion or encouragement of religious pluralism”

u Hard secularism leads to State “freedom from religion” u Soft secularism leads to “freedom of religion”.

John Locke (1689), Letter about Toleration “What has produced all the religious quarrels and wars that have occurred in the Christian world is not the (inevitable) diversity of opinions but rather the (avoidable) denial of toleration to those who are of different opinions.” “That’s how church and state come to work

• together. If each of them would stay within its own

bounds—one attending to the worldly welfare of the commonwealth, the other to the salvation

• f souls—there couldn’t possibly be any discord

between them.”

John Locke (1689), Letter about Toleration Voltaire (1694-1778)

French Revolution (1789-)

liberté, égalité, fraternité

John Locke (1689), Letter about Toleration Voltaire (1694-1778)

French Revolution (1789-)

liberté, égalité, fraternité

Rationalism

(reason is the sole path to knowledge)

John Locke (1689), Letter about Toleration Voltaire (1694-1778)

French Revolution (1789-)

liberté, égalité, fraternité

1905 - Loi de séparation des Églises et de l'État French Laïcité (Hard Secularism) Rationalism

(reason is the sole path to knowledge)

John Locke (1689), Letter about Toleration Voltaire (1694-1778)

French Revolution (1789-)

liberté, égalité, fraternité

1905 - Loi de séparation des Églises et de l'État French Laïcité (Hard Secularism) Rationalism

(reason is the sole path to knowledge) American Revolution (1775-83)

John Locke (1689), Letter about Toleration Voltaire (1694-1778)

French Revolution (1789-)

liberté, égalité, fraternité

1905 - Loi de séparation des Églises et de l'État French Laïcité (Hard Secularism) Rationalism

(reason is the sole path to knowledge) American Revolution (1775-83)

Free Religion

1620 Mayflower Pilgrims 1644 “the hedge or wall of

separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world”

John Locke (1689), Letter about Toleration Voltaire (1694-1778)

French Revolution (1789-)

liberté, égalité, fraternité

1905 - Loi de séparation des Églises et de l'État French Laïcité (Hard Secularism) Rationalism

(reason is the sole path to knowledge) American Revolution (1775-83)

Free Religion

1620 Mayflower Pilgrims 1644 “the hedge or wall of

separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world”

1791 – First Amendment –

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment

• f religion, or prohibiting the

free exercise thereof…”

John Locke (1689), Letter about Toleration Voltaire (1694-1778)

French Revolution (1789-)

liberté, égalité, fraternité

1905 - Loi de séparation des Églises et de l'État French Laïcité (Hard Secularism) Rationalism

(reason is the sole path to knowledge) American Revolution (1775-83)

Free Religion

1620 Mayflower Pilgrims 1644 “the hedge or wall of

separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world”

1791 – First Amendment –

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment

• f religion, or prohibiting the

free exercise thereof…”

Epistemic Confidence

Reason provide the only reliable light. Faith is intellectually unreliable.

“religious propositions [are] epistemologically illegitimate, warranted by neither reason nor experience.”

John Locke (1689), Letter about Toleration Voltaire (1694-1778)

French Revolution (1789-)

liberté, égalité, fraternité

1905 - Loi de séparation des Églises et de l'État French Laïcité (Hard Secularism) Rationalism

(reason is the sole path to knowledge) American Revolution (1775-83)

Free Religion

1620 Mayflower Pilgrims 1644 “the hedge or wall of

separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world”

1791 – First Amendment –

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment

• f religion, or prohibiting the

free exercise thereof…”

Epistemic Confidence

Reason provide the only reliable light. Faith is intellectually unreliable.

“religious propositions [are] epistemologically illegitimate, warranted by neither reason nor experience.”

Epistemic Humility There are limits to human reason and empirical enquiry. There is a legitimate domain for religious belief (i.e., faith).

2 types of secularism

u Hard Secularism: the removal of all religious influence and activity in

the public sphere. Eg. France - “unreservedly antagonistic to religion”.

u Soft secularism: no religion is privileged over another. Eg. America:

“indifference towards religion or encouragement of religious pluralism”

u Hard secularism leads to State “freedom from religion” u Soft secularism leads to “freedom of religion”.

Australia’s (historic) soft secularism

u Our cultural heritage – the established Church of England u 3 examples

u The founding of Sydney University as a “secular” institution (1850) u Public Schools: free, compulsory & secular u Section 116 of the Australian Constitution

• 1. Sydney Uni as a “secular” institution

u The University of Sydney was established in 1850 as a “secular”

university in contradistinction to the model of Oxford & Cambridge. Up until the University Tests Act of 1871. At that time, only men who were members of the Church of England were eligible to attend Oxford, Cambridge and Durham Universities.

u secular = education was available to those of all faiths or none.

“all classes and denominations … without any distinction whatsoever”

u Sydney University was secular in the sense that it was not controlled

by the church, + it did not privilege a particular (sectarian) theology.

u “Secular” was not in tension with “religion”

Purpose: better advancement of religion

u The University of Sydney Act 1850

Whereas it is deemed expedient for the better advancement of religion and morality and the promotion of useful knowledge, to hold forth to all classes and denominations of Her Majesty's subjects resident in the Colony of New South Wales, without any distinction whatsoever, an encouragement for pursuing a regular and liberal course of education…

u Royal Charter of the University of Sydney 1858

the duty of our Royal office … for the advancement of religion and morality and the promotion of useful knowledge to hold forth to all classes and denominations of our faithful subjects, without any distinction whatsoever, throughout our dominions encouragement for pursuing a regular and liberal course of education…

• 2. NSW Public Schools: free, compulsory & secular

u NSW Public Instruction Act 1880, clause 7 - In all schools under this

Act the teaching shall be strictly non-sectarian but the words "secular instruction" shall be held to include general religious teaching as distinguished from dogmatical or polemical theology

u “secular” meant “non-sectarian”, not “non-religious”. Secular instruction

includes general religious teaching

u Clause 17 – 4 hours per day of “secular instruction” and up to one hour

per day for children of a particular religious persuasion to be instructed a clergyman of that denomination.

u “Compulsory” (clause 20), “secular” (clause 17); not “free” until 1906.

• 3. Section 116 of the Constitution

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office

• r public trust under the Commonwealth.

u Establishment = the erection and recognition of a State Church, or the concession

• f special favours, titles, and advantages to one church which are denied to others

(Quick and Garran,1901)

u Attorney-General (Vic) (Ex rel Black) v Commonwealth (the DOGS case)

Commonwealth funding of religious schools does not contravene Section 116

u There is no “wall of separation” between church and state in Australia

Recent rhetorical redefinition

u

• 1. The University of Sydney Union (USU) tried to deregister the Sydney

University Evangelical Union (EU) in in March 2016 because of a “discriminatory” religious membership test.

u 2. Marrion Maddox, Taking God to School,

Catherine Byrne’s “Free, Compulsory and (not) Secular” (2012) Tendentious rereadings of the history of “secular” NSW schooling.

u 3. Senator Penny Wong– “The problem in all of this, of course, is the

application of religious belief to the framing of law in a secular

• society. And in societies where church and state are constitutionally

separate, as they are in Australia and the US, this leads not only to confusion, but also to inequity.”

Why hard secularism threatens religious freedom

• 1. It silences religious voices in public debate
• 2. It does not allow space for respectful dissent
• 3. It denies religious institutions the right to employ those who

support its religious ethos

• 4. It requires religious institutions to subscribe to secular values in

the “public” sphere

• 1. It silences religious voices in public debate

u Andrew Denton – those who oppose to euthanasia on religious grounds

should “step aside” from the debate.

u Senator Penny Wong - “The problem in all of this, of course, is the

application of religious belief to the framing of law in a secular society”

u Hard secular (enlightenment) assumption - The only true knowledge is

that which can be demonstrated by pure unaided human reason. “Religious knowledge” is inadmissible, because it cannot be challenged or analysed by human reason.

u Naïve approach to social policy and moral reasoning u Secularism - The unprivileged status of religious belief.

• 2. No space for respectful dissent

u Soft secularism – pluralism of views + toleration of different positions u Senator Wong – “And why, once might also ask, should the gay and

lesbian community be merely ‘tolerated’ when the heterosexual community takes for granted ‘acceptance’ and recognition…?”

u Locke, “A Letter Concerning Toleration”)

Toleration is the cornerstone of pluralism.

u Our laws allow behaviour that not all citizens endorse or approve. u Prosecuting “offence” as a way to silence dissent u Forcing people in employment to act contrary to conscience or

religious belief.

• 3. Religious institutions able to employ

those who support its religious ethos?

u Religious institutions currently have exemptions under

anti-discrimination laws to allow them to employ people who subscribe to particular religious values

u Pushback – discrimination in employment? u In 2016 the Victorian Parliament debated amendments to

the Equal Opportunity Act to establish an Inherent Requirements test

• 4. It requires religious institutions to subscribe to

secular values in the “public” sphere

u Thesis: agencies receiving any government money become an agent of

the secular state, and therefore should comply with all policies of the secular state.

u funding tied to compliance with government policy.

u exemptions for a religious body from anti-discrimination legislation should

be “relinquished as soon as that religious organisation accepted government funds, or, as soon as that religious organisation or body started providing social or welfare services” NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby

u Australian Marriage Equality - “religious welfare and child agencies will

[be] forced to acknowledge same-sex married partners against their beliefs, and religious schools will [be] forced to teach that same-sex marriages are acceptable against their beliefs.”

u faith-based organisations make a significant contribution to national

• good. Christians should be allowed to participate as Christians?

Conclusions