Which institutions should arrest moral decline?

[Peikko 1,575]

There is a muddled piece about religion and morality by Bruce Anderson in the Independent today – but the muddle is highly representative of what many people seem to think, and so is worth analyzing. In the first half of the article he reflects on the complexity of the assisted suicide issue, raising the question of what new moral norms ought to replace the old religious ones. He throws in some other moral debates for good measure – abortion, drugs, the family. Our decadent culture is faced with a multiple moral crisis, which we are bad at discussing, he says:

‘The level of moral debate in modern Britain is pathetically, contemptibly low. That is another undeniable sign of decadence, and we should all be ashamed. This applies a fortiori to the churches, which should be taking the lead. Instead, they appear to be suffering from a collapse of intellectual and theological self-confidence. That is especially true of the Church of England, which has ceased to offer any coherent moral leadership.’

This is a slippage into easy rhetoric and lazy thinking. On the one hand he admits that the moral dilemmas we face are painfully difficult – and then he seems to wish that church leaders would step in and give us the answers. In effect he is trying to blame the churches for the fact that ethics is unendingly difficult. Why can’t they just lay down the moral law? This is a silly fantasy. Imagine if the C of E was united and boldly vocal on every big moral issue (and the other churches concurred). If this morally certain church-force was influential, there would be a danger of theocratic incursion into the democratic process. This nostalgic itch is unhelpful. The reality is that we must do our legal-moral decision-making in a secular way. We must trust our parliamentary representatives to make these impossible moral choices, about euthanasia, abortion, drugs and so on. That is why MPs are so important. In the liberal state they have a sort of sacred function. This position is not anti-religious (the MPs may be religious believers). It is, however, anti-clericalist, or ‘secular’ in the strict sense (of excluding religious institutions from political power).

We can only nurture a better moral debate, and a more morally serious society, if we are honest about the sacred moral responsibility of our secular legislature. Let's stop pretending that we can be put right by ancient institutions dusting down their holy laws.

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[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The Church likes to throw down that particular red herring as way of trying to suggest that the institution actually has some relevance in a modern society. Part of the reason Church attendances in the UK have declined is because they have never gotten beyond fire and brimstone / finger wagging patronisms (though a lot less vocal than a lot of what comes out of the Catholic Church).

In fact, the US beats the UK anyday as far as tongue-clicking and finger wagging goes - and this strangely doesn't seem to have resulted in a more moral society.

[Peikko 1,575]

He does make a good point, that the secular nature of the UK's political institutions is something that has served the UK well and the UK certainly does not need 'moral guidance' to be laid out for it by the established church.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

He does make a good point, that the secular nature of the UK's political institutions is something that has served the UK well and the UK certainly does not need 'moral guidance' to be laid out for it by the established church.

I think that's self-evident - people in the UK are still concerned about political freedoms and social issues like whether or not drugs should be legalized, stem cell research, abortion prostitution etc.

This is perhaps the biggest reason why Church attendances have declined in Britain - it is an inherently archaic institution unable to find relevance in a modern secular society.

The COE doesn't wield anything like the political influence that the Catholic Church does in some European Countries (though this has been on the decline for years anyway). In fact, that's part of the reasoning behind the Reformation - to establish a definite separation of Church and State by bringing the Church under the control of the State. Much the same thing happened in France - the Revolution required the dismantlement of the aristocracy and the institutions that supported it.