Fair enough, nobody can deny that Christianity has been the predominant faith in Britain for the last 1500 years or so, but is it really true that the values which underpin British society are Christian ones? What are Christian values anyway?
Not surprisingly, very few of those who pontificate on the subject define what they mean, but there are a few websites out there which provide lists of what they say are christian values (see here, here or here). Reading through those lists though, I don't think there's anything about the values they contain which is uniquely Christian. To illustrate what I mean, here are a small selection of them.
- Revering / loving / valuing God. OK, so on the face of it this is certainly a religious value, but is it really Christian? Do followers of any other religion not love or revere their god(s)? For that matter, atheists and humanists place great value on their own belief systems, whether or not they involve a deity. I don't think this can really be claimed as a "Christian value".
- Forgiveness. I don't claim to be an expert on comparative religion, but I can use Wikipedia, and it doesn't take long to discover that forgiveness is inherent in pretty much all cultures.
- Peace. Once again, peace is a fundamental part of all major faiths, particularly Islam. For that matter, I'm not religious, and I kind of like peace too!
I could go on, but it would only get boring. My point here, in case it wasn't clear, is that the values which underpin British society might be ones that Christians adhere to as part of their faith, but they are shared by people of all faiths and none.
I would say that Britain (and most other countries) is founded on human values, not Christian ones and with that we come back to the fundamental point of secularism. However important our own beliefs are to us individually, the state should approach and respect us all equally as humans.
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