Quantcast
Channel: God and Politics in the UK » secularism
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

Are smears and misinformation the best secularists have to offer?

0
0

Poppy Project Salvation ArmySince I wrote a few days ago on the now notorious Cameron/’Christian country’ bashing letter by 55 secularists last Monday, there have continued to be a few notable responses. Justin Welby’s has possibly been both the most amusing and cutting:

‘Judging by the reaction, anyone would think that [David Cameron and others] had at the same time suggested the return of the Inquisition (complete with comfy chairs for Monty Python fans), compulsory church going and universal tithes.’

Perhaps this is the problem: In order to give the impression that their argument is the most valid, certain secularists and their organisations do appear to have a habit of overstating their point and kicking up a disproportionate fuss in order to discredit those they disagree with. On Wednesday eight leading thinkers and philosophers wrote a pertinent letter to the Telegraph challenging the 55 secularists’ approach:

According to the 2010 British Social Attitudes survey, 67 per cent of us described ourselves as either “religious” or “fuzzy faithful” and only 33 per cent as “unreligious”.

It is understandable that convinced atheists will find this situation irritating. But a public orthodoxy of some kind is inevitable, and some citizens are bound to find themselves on the wrong side of it and required to exercise liberal tolerance toward it. It remains open to them, of course, to persuade their fellow citizens that there is a better alternative.

Can we be persuaded that there is a better alternative that seeks to rewrite our country’s history ignoring much of our Christian heritage? And can we be persuaded that our country would be a better place if Christians stopped doing so much in the public realm for the benefit of others? On the same day as this challenge was made, one of the signatories to Monday’s letter wrote an article that was also published in the Telegraph coincidentally tackling this head on.

Joan Smith, the novelist, journalist and Labour Party activist is also an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and ‘Distinguished Supporter’ of the British Humanist Association (BHA). In her piece for the Telegraph, she decided to take on David Cameron by claiming that his pro-Christian language ‘could hurt thousands of British women’. She openly believes that Christian groups should never have access to public funds in order to support any community work that they do. Her line of thinking focuses in on the Government decision in 2011 to award the contract for looking after victims of sex-trafficking to the Salvation Army. Prior to that the work had been carried out by an organisation called the Poppy Project. This is her complaint:

‘[T}he Poppy Project received government funding for the fantastic work it carried out with women who had been rescued from sex-trafficking gangs; many of these women were deeply traumatised and suffering from STDs, and some had become pregnant against their will. Between 2003 and 2011, Poppy received almost 1,900 referrals, housed 334 women and supported another 449. Its work in the field received international recognition.

'In 2011, the government cut its funding to the Poppy Project. It awarded the contract for looking after victims of sex-trafficking to the Salvation Army, an evangelical Christian organisation whose stated purpose is ‘helping individuals to develop and grow in their personal relationship with God’. I doubt whether this is a top priority for women rescued from months or years of sexual violence, some of whom may belong to other religions. It’s also worth pointing out that the Salvation Army opposes abortion except in cases of foetal abnormality or where the mother’s life is at stake.

'This is just one example of public funds being diverted from a secular provider to a Christian organisation... In the rarefied atmosphere of Downing Street, promising to give Christian organisations privileged access to ministers and public funds may sound benign. But the impact on women and girls, in the real world, may turn out to be dire.'

At the time of the contract renewal there was a fuss kicked up about the switch in providers. This is the Church Mouse's blog entry from three years ago that investigated it in more detail:

It has been in the news this week that the Salvation Army were given grant funding by the government to provide services to the victims of human trafficking.  This provoked a response from secularist groups, who have expressed concern that this funding was being diverted from a secular group who had previously benefited from this funding, and that the Salvation Army would use the opportunity to evangelise to vulnerable people.  They accused the government of an ideological move to include religious groups in the provision of services more.

When Mouse first read the story on the British Humanist Website, he guessed that there may be more to the story than they were discussing. He was dead right. The Poppy Project is a feminist organisation with a political campaigning arm as well as a charitable services arm.  In the past they have drawn some criticism.  It is run by Eaves Housing and has been in the news before - rarely for the right reasons. The service provided by the Poppy Project has been criticised by groups representing sex workers.  Notably, in 2009 Cari Mitchell from the English Collective of Prostitutes wrote to the Guardian arguing that the Poppy Project's approach, which insists on sex workers not only turning their back on their trade but also on shopping their former pimp, put women in danger when brothels are closed and they are thrown on the streets.  They also accused the Poppy Project of inflating the number of trafficked sex workers to attract more funding. This suspicion had been very publicly aired the previous year after the Poppy Project published a high profile report on the growth of trafficked sex workers, only for it to be heavily criticised by 27 leading academics in this field who publicly stated that the report was fatally flawed, and the evidence gained in unethical and unreliable ways. Most recently, however, the head of the Eaves charity which runs the Poppy Project, Denise Marshall,  publicly set herself up in opposition to the government.  She started off by giving back her OBE to protest at government cuts, and splashing this in the Guardian. Marshall told the Guardian in that interview that she was refusing to tender for the contract, as the government was asking for a lower cost service.

She has declined to submit a tender to provide services at a radically reduced level, and has pulled out of tendering to continue to provide refuge services in Kensington and Chelsea, west London, at similarly reduced rates.

"I'm not prepared to bid for a service that did not enable women to get the quality of service that is essential," she said. "If you run a refuge where you don't have the support staff it just becomes a production line, where you move people on as quickly as possible to meet the targets. You're not helping women to escape the broader problems they face. They may get a bed, but no help with changing their lives and moving out of situations of danger."

However, the Poppy Project successfully lobbied for the terms of the tender to change, and were eventually happy enough to take part in the tender.

Denise Marshall then took further steps to endear herself to the coalition government by speaking at the March For The Alternative demonstration against government spending cuts, and denouncing them as immoral. So the next question is whether we trust the Salvation Army to provide housing services to trafficked men and women (one of the interesting points about the Salvation Army's bid is that unlike the Poppy Project, they were prepared to work with trafficked men as well as women). Will they seek to take advantage of their position in providing these services to evangelise to people at the point of their greatest vulnerability?

Well we should have plenty of evidence for this, as the Salvation Army is an organisation which has provided similar services to the poor and needy around the world since their formation in 1865.

Backing up their claim that the Salvation Army can't be trusted, the BHA quoted the Salvation Army who said that they cannot be "religiously neutral".  Mouse does not think this means what the BHA think it means.  It just means that they won't and can't forget that they are Christians as they do their work.

If the concern around the Salvation Army is simply that Christians might seek to evangelise as they go about their work, then the logical extension of that argument is simply to ban all Christians from all public service provision.  The BHA insist that legislation is required to prohibit evangelism whilst providing public services.  Targeting Christians for legislation in this way is not necessary, however.  If they pressurise people to follow their religion, then they can be disciplined already, as we have repeatedly seen overzealously applied in areas such as health care.  The concern at the moment is more that they will be sacked simply for mentioning they are a Christian, rather than anything else. Mouse, for one, trusts the Salvation Army, and wishes them well as they embark on this important work.

The BHA's claims against the Salvation Army all sound rather familiar, don't they? Three years into the Salvation Army's contract and I can find no evidence of any recorded complaints against the Salvation Army in this area, yet this baseless accusation that they are simply not suitable is still being promulgated. It is nothing more than a smear campaign using underhand tactics that irresponsibly and deliberately stirs prejudice and seeks to mislead.

At least the Salvation Army have had the sense to respond and put the record straight:

'[W}e {are} able to support female and male victims of trafficking (around 40 per cent of the victims of trafficking are male), whilst the organisation who previously held the contract only cared for women.

'"To deliver this contract we work with partner organisations - some faith-based, others not, and we respect and support everyone who comes to us no matter what their background or religion. Our positional statements, such as the one referred to on abortion, are ethical guidelines for our church members and we do not impose these views on those we serve."'

Back in February of last year the left-leaning think tank, Demos published a report entitled ‘Faithful Providers‘ which looked into the effectiveness of voluntary services provided by faith groups. The summary stated that:

'[F]aith-based providers appear to be especially effective at delivering services when a ‘holistic’ approach is valued: when service users need to be treated as human beings, with patience, empathy and attention to a wide range of aspects in their lives.

‘Critics often argue that faith-based service providers are more interested in delivering faith than delivering services, and exclusively serve members of their own faith community.  Yet, we saw no evidence of aggressive proselytising, and every organisation we spoke to delivered services to a wide-range of citizens, of no faith and different faiths – in accordance with their public service ethos.’

The Salvation Army along with many other Christian organisations have a rich and distinguished history of working with the most vulnerable in society doing a huge amount of good along the way, but for some vocal secularists this should count for nothing, because it is motivated by faith. If the only method they have to convince us that religion is a threat is by publicly spreading misinformation and presenting straw man arguments, then surely that reveals the vacuousness of their position and what they have to offer.

If I was a supporter of secularism, I would be utterly ashamed by this line of attack. If organisations such as the BHA want to be respected they need to clean up their act and work a great deal harder to present something credible and positive, rather than constantly working to destroy much that is inherently good and beneficial to all.



Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images