Stephen Law : The War for Children's Minds

Last Friday, I attended a debate on "Is Britain becoming too secular?" organised by the Oxford Literary Festival, and was impressed by Stephen Law from Heythrop College, London. Bought his book (see right), dipped into it, and found I wanted to keep going to the end.

It's a clear, concise and readable defence of 'liberalism', and he is at pains to argue that liberalism (whose clearest exponent, he argues, is Kant) is the only true challenge to relativism - despite the fact that liberalism is frequently accused of being relativist. He challenges the importance other commonly assumed 'opposites', such as theism versus atheism, (he cites research demonstrating that what distinguished those Germans who opposed Hitler, harboured Jews etc. was not their religiosity but their liberalism - the fact that they thought for themselves) and draws a clear distinction between free thinking and freedom of action. (He strongly challenges the idea that liberals are laissez-faire in the political realm). The opposite of liberalism is authoritarianism, and he works through many arguments that authoritarians (religious or otherwise) use to suggest that liberalism inevitably leads to moral and political chaos, demonstrating that the opposite is true.

He is, in keeping with his message, respectful of religion and religious thought (but not of authoritarian religion of course) despite, probably, being atheist himself. However, like so many people he is inclined to see a religion as basically a 'set of philosophical propositions', when (in my view) a religion is more like a language - you can argue pretty much anything with that language if you really want, but before you can use it properly you do actually have to know the texts and the stories - all of them. This has implications for religious formation of children. He's also (at one point) rather too inclined to assume that religion is inherently tribal. Of course, it often is, but there is also evidence that those most secure and confident within their own religious framework are not thereby likely to see people of other religious traditions as 'other'.

It's an excellent book, however, and particularly instructive for my own United Reformed Church I would have thought. It suggests that the URC is inherently liberal - within our structure Evangelicals also have to be Liberal (responsible for their own Evangelicalism, and not autocratic).