Calm down dear - the Bishop of Leicester goes off on one!

The Right Reverend Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester, wrote this extraordinary article  in the Leicester Mercury this week attacking secularism.  Wondering what a secular society might look like, he asks :

If there were no public prayers said before any Government proceedings, if there were no great services in our cathedrals, and if there was no monarch to act as head of the Established Church, would our lives be more free and fulfilled? What if the spires and towers of our parish churches were removed from our cityscapes and landscape? What if every village no longer had an ancient iconic building at its heart? What if the mosques, temples and gurdwaras were removed from Leicester?

Hang on a minute!  Nobody is suggesting that prayers shouldn't be said before government proceedings for those who want them, only that those who don't want to worship shouldn't be at a disadvantage.  Who has ever said that there shouldn't be services in our cathedrals?  A central tenet of secularism is that everyone should be free to worship in their own way, or not at all as they see fit.  As for there being no monarch, while most secularists would welcome the disestablishment of the C of E, I think regicide might be taking things a bit too far!

The second part of his piece, where he seems to suggest that secularists want all religious buildings razed to the ground, is really so ridiculous that any comment from me seems unnecessary.

All in all, this is the kind of vicious scaremongering that you might expect from an unreformed Daily Mail columnist, but you might hope a Bishop would know better.  Thankfully, I suspect that the good people of Leicester are not stupid enough to fall for it.  I would advise Bishop Tim to take a deep breath, have a cup of tea, and go and read the NSS website to find out what secularism is really about.