Peter Mullen: Secularism is Worse than Terrorism

Religious liberals and moderates have, for various reasons and in various ways, been accused of indirectly and inadvertently abetting fundamentalists and extremists. I've never seen them react well to such a claim, no matter how carefully phrased and despite the fact that it's clear that whatever they are doing, they are not doing it directly or deliberately. Now, however, I have found a case where I'm not so sure that it's not direct and deliberate: it involves minimizing the horror of religious terrorism and violence by saying that it's not as bad as secularization.

Peter Mullen, chaplain to the Stock Exchange and rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, writes:

Far worse than the threat from international terrorism is the aggressive process of secularisation that has gripped our country, and most of Europe, and which is becoming ever more frenzied.

Source: The Times

So, blowing the limbs off of children isn't as bad as the state not teaching those children that some religion other than the one they were raised with is the only true religion. Scarring, burning, and maiming people is not as bad as refusing to use tax dollars to promote or encourage one religion over all others. Using private violence to impose your religious beliefs on others is not as bad as the state using public force to impose a set of religious beliefs on everyone.

Is there any world, any set of possible conditions, where such a position is not only completely immoral but also utterly insane? This isn't merely overblown rhetoric, a lack of basic decency and empathy, or a tone-deafness to the suffering caused by religious terrorism. Violent opposition to modernity, secularism, and science is an important motive for many religious terrorists.

Peter Mullen is taking up the cause of religious terrorists by agreeing with their basic position and refusing to condemn their methods. Indeed, by saying that their tactics aren't as bad as what they are fighting against, Mullen is actually justifying those tactics as a legitimate response to a much greater evil. Why not blow up trains, abortion clinics, and gay bars if it means attacking the evils created by secular modernity?

For example, I guess not many people are aware that it is against the law for state schools to teach the Christian faith as true. Teachers are allowed only to teach about religions.

I must have missed the memo where it was explained how and why it's part of the job of state employees to tell children that Christianity is the only true religion — and if those kids follow a different religion or a different form of Christianity, then their faith is wrong. I know that this is Britain where there is an established church, but I was under the impression that most people — including most Christians — recognized that this was the job for priests and ministers, not state-employed bureaucrats. Then again, Peter Mullen is himself a chaplain... maybe he wants state teachers to do this because he doesn't feel up to the job?

This is atheism by decree, for the only perspective from which one can teach about all religions is the secular perspective. So our children are not brought to a sense of holiness and awe, but are merely taught the meanings of religious terms as sociological descriptions. This deprivation of the spiritual is a form of child abuse.

Peter Mullen isn't the first person to demonstrate ignorance about the difference between "atheist" and "secular," but it's disappointing that the standards at The Times have slipped so much that they can't require such rudimentary knowledge before publishing someone's essay. If Mullen weren't so ignorant, he'd realize that refusing to push one religion over all others is indeed "secular" in the passive sense, but it's not "atheist" in any sense because not all atheists are secular and not all theists are religious. Some atheists might want their religion pushed; many theists don't want any religion pushed — including theists who have a religion.

Once again, I am forced to wonder at whether this essay is a cry for help and expression of personal inadequacy. Peter Mullen laments how children are merely educated at what religions believe rather than indoctrinated into accepting one religion over all others as true — but where are the priests, pastors, ministers, and chaplains in all this? Don't they work in places called "churches" where religious indoctrination has for centuries been an important function?

If Peter Mullen believed that he and his fellow church leaders could handle the task, surely he'd have an optimistic outlook and try to rally the troops; instead, his outlook is pessimistic because state employees are not doing a task once performed by members of his profession. I can't think of any reason for Mullen to keep whining about others not doing his job for him except that he doesn't feel up to the job himself.

And then there are the Sexual Orientation Regulations which make it illegal to discriminate on moral grounds between forms of sexual coupling. One might put this epigrammatically: what was once a mortal sin is now only a lifestyle choice.

I suppose Peter Mullen thinks that he looks generous and less reactionary because he originally supported the decriminalization of homosexuality. That's just pretense and ego, though, because there's nothing very laudable about supporting the decriminalization of homosexuality while also believing that it should be hidden away as if it were something to be ashamed of. I doubt he opposes expressions of heterosexual attraction and orientation in public, but he clearly doesn't think that gays should be treated with equal dignity or have equal rights.

Is it just a coincidence that complaints about secularism inevitably lead to complaints about dirty gays (and how hard it is now to discriminate against them) or about dirty women (and their insistence on real freedom and equality)? I don't think so. Complaints about secularism usually involve laments about the decline of Christian privilege or even Christian Supremacy, something which is quite clear here. It's obvious that Peter Mullen is upset that Christianity, Christians, and Christian institutions are no longer privileged as they once were; even worse, he obviously wants Christianity to be supreme in society.

Christian privilege is tightly bound with male, white, and heterosexual privilege. This means that the weakening of any one means the weakening of the others, so attempts to promote one usually requires promoting at least a couple of the others. Christians like Mullen who are trying to make a case for reasserting Christian privilege also simultaneously try to make a case for reasserting male or heterosexual privilege.

The new social morality introduced via these various “reforms” has its dark side. Even the progressive Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported in 1998 that broken families have a higher risk of nine varieties of deprivation: poverty and poor housing; being poorer when they are adults; behaviour problems; performing less well at school; needing medical treatment; leaving school/home when young; becoming sexually active, pregnant or a parent at an early age; depressive symptoms; high levels of smoking, drinking and drug use.

Notice how Peter Mullen implicitly links secularism to all these social problems but without quite saying so directly. He seems to want readers to believe that they are linked without having to take personal responsibility for making the claim. I say that this is cowardly and intellectually dishonest. If Peter Mullen wants to argue that secularism is at all responsible for social problems, he should have the guts to come right out and say so — then support his argument with clear, verifiable evidence.

Innuendo and rhetorical slight of hand might go over well when he's preaching to his flock, but he should be held to a higher standard on the pages of The Times. If he can't meet the minimal standards of reasoned argument and discourse, he should crawl back under a rock and stop abetting religious terrorism by saying that it's not as bad as secularism.