Speaking Truth to Power

Schools in England are to teach students how to Speak Truth to Power, tackling issues like slavery, political violence, repression and religious freedom. Ironic, hypocritical even, in a week when a leaked report suggests that the government is about to implement a national register of faith leaders, who will have to undergo government specified training before being allowed to talk about their faith outside of their places of worship.

Totalitarian control of religion by diktat and Orwellian reprogramming of believers from a government which claims to represent liberal democracy and pretends to espouse religious freedom? The aim, of course, is to bring under centralised control all public places (such as schools, universities and prisons) where extremist ideologies might be expounded. The collateral damage is, presumably, a fortunate stroke of serendipity. No more awkward Quakers questioning from their peace perspective the need for military organisations in schools. No more God-bothering Christians with their inconvenient moral squint. No more Jewish schools with long and honoured tradition of deriving from Holy Scripture an understanding of the created world and our place in it. And definitely no speaking of truth to power – or not without passing it through government approved filters, anyway.

When the British values witch hunt was running at full steam ahead last year, I questioned whether people of faith were welcome in Britain any longer. In response, a Catholic teacher wrote that the British government might as well just go ahead and reintroduce the Test Act. And here we are. Turns out that teacher was prophetic, because this isn’t really about Islamist extremism, or at least, not much. That’s just the excuse, the convenient smokescreen. There are far more effective ways of dealing with radicalisation than this. No, what this is actually about is the eradication of belief from the public psyche. It’s about silencing voices of faith. It’s about enforcing secularism by mandate. Just as David Cameron forced through legislation redefining marriage without democratic debate, he will force through laws preventing every public expression of religious belief under the pretence of protecting national security. His biographer writes that the Prime Minister called those who opposed same-sex marriage Neanderthals. What elegant epithet, I wonder, will he reserve for those who oppose registration? But it doesn’t stop there.

The recent Westminster faith debate report ‘A New Settlement: Religion and Belief in Schools’ wandered so far from its consideration of the role of religion in education as to suggest the following, in the context of the legal rights of children under the age of 16 (Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) to make their own decisions about religion and belief:

‘Religious instruction should be principally the responsibility of religious communities and families … It should take place outside the school, in families, Sunday Schools, madrassas etc. (though there may be a need for inspection, to safeguard against abuse or coercion)’.

So the state monitoring of religion won’t be only in public spaces. Ofsted will be inspecting Sunday schools. Children will be skilfully questioned and if their parents have taken them to church against their will, safeguarding legislation will be invoked. The eradication of anything other than a warm, fuzzy state religion (the people need their opiate, just in diluted form) will be achieved in just one generation.

Except, of course, that it won’t. Totalitarian regimes often try to ban religion, only to find that it just grows out of their control underground. The prophet Isaiah said:

‘As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it’ (Isaiah 55:10—11).

You can eradicate religious freedom. You can try to silence the people. But trying to silence the words of God is like trying to stop the sun from rising or the rain from falling. You can’t do it. God is absolute truth. God holds absolute power. God will accomplish His purpose in spite of government mandates.