Modood, T. & Calhoun, C. (2015) Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education

Religion, the public sphere and higher education

Elite distaste for enthusiasm stretches back to the excesses of the Reformation. (Calhoun, 2015, p.14)

The ‘vaguely Christian’ UK

Religious voices, including centrally Anglican voices but also those of the Roman Catholic Church and others, help articulate an ethical orientation to capitalism, inequality and multiculturalism. (Calhoun, 2015, p.14)

The thin grasp of religion’s place in British history raises an issue for higher education. Religion is unevenly taught and studied, and even where theology and religion are subjects, knowledge of them is poorly integrated into other fields, from international relations and government to history and sociology. (Calhoun, 2015, p.15)

His emphasis, and that of the media and public discourse in Britain, falls particularly on non-Christians, especially those linked to faiths seen as non-Western. While Sikhs, Buddhists and Hindus are all visible, public attention falls mainly on Muslims. These are the face of non-British religion and, significantly, a not-very-British higher level of religiosity. Of course, Britons are urged to recognise that Islam should now be considered a British religion, one of many. (Calhoun, 2015, p.15)

the way religion figures in British public life. It is usually either a matter of elite-led official religiosity – the Anglican hierarchy with an occasional appearance by a Catholic cardinal – or it is about multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is a discourse dominated by Islam and recent immigration, and organised largely in terms of ethnicity, especially non-Western ethnicity. Continental Europeans aren’t the issue (ubiquitous English jokes about the French aside). Nor is race. And the mostly invisible Pentecostal congregants are largely Black (though also East Asian and White British). (Calhoun, 2015, p.15)

In the discourse of multiculturalism, religions are used as names for ethnically marked populations: Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Christians and Muslims. Blacks by contrast are labelled with a racial term. Because blackness is sometimes claimed more widely, the clarification ‘people of African or Afro-Caribbean descent’ may be offered. But the prominence of churches in Black communities is relatively unremarked. (Calhoun, 2015, p.15)

Not least, there is ambiguity about the place of national identity – English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish (or maybe British) – in relation to multiculturalism and to differences in religious history, practice and identity. (Calhoun, 2015, p.15)

As Modood suggests, a vague sense of connection to the Church of England is as much identification with the state as with religion (Calhoun, 2015, p.16)

Religious identities are only partly about religion. They are labels for groups that may be distinct in various ways and have a range of concerns that are not strictly religious. (Calhoun, 2015, p.16)

Religion and dissent in universities

It is commonly forgotten that religion figures not only in the history of suppression of dissent, but as one of the most important bases for such dissent, pushing forward free speech doctrines. (Calhoun, 2015, p.16)

Relations to Israel and Palestine are thus one of the biggest challenges for

UK universities in which religion gets mentioned, but for most participants in disputes or campaigns, they are only indirectly about religion. (Calhoun, 2015, p.16)

Today, fear of extremism is a major and distorting issue. Though ‘extremism’ seems a neutral term, Muslims are disproportionately targeted and recognise this. … That the repression is not aimed at religion as such but at political violence and ‘extremism’ doesn’t eliminate the difficulty. The religious and the secular are not neatly separate. (Calhoun, 2015, p.16)

To many, gender seems a purely secular matter to be addressed in discussions of personal identity or social justice. But the understanding of others is deeply informed by religion, or at least framed in religious terms. (Calhoun, 2015, p.16)

Gender segregation is of course not uniquely a Muslim practice. Neither is

gender differentiation in rituals like washing before prayer necessarily associated with deeper social inequality – though in some contexts it is. Often gender bias

in religion is less a matter of core theological commitments than of customs appropriated from specific cultural contexts. (Calhoun, 2015, p.17)

Those concerned about gender equality feel uncomfortable articulating a position more frequently heard from the anti-immigrant right. And non-religious English people still take controversy in the Church of England to be somehow about ‘us’, while the practices of religious minorities are about ‘them’.  However, reluctance to speak openly about religiously expressed gender bias doesn’t mean the issue lacks force. (Calhoun, 2015, p.17)

Sexuality is also a broader concern often exacerbated by religious intolerance. Like gender roles, it has public importance for some people of faith that may seem disproportionate to scriptural or theological underpinnings. (Calhoun, 2015, p.17)

Discussion of different ‘non-binary’ sexual and gender identities is growing on universities campuses. Liberating for some students, it is unsettling for others. Condemnation of homosexuality is especially prominent, with both religious leaders and lay people citing sacred sources for it (often contested by others). (Calhoun, 2015, p.17)

Gender and sexuality are challenging issues for universities that struggle to combine respect for religion with clarity that a lack of respect or denigration based on gender or sexuality cannot be countenanced. (Calhoun, 2015, p.17)

At the same time, some religious congregations and student groups are specifically welcoming and supportive of sexual minorities. More generally, religious voices are prominent in calls for solidarity and cooperation. Some are active in the pursuit of social justice; many are prominent in peace movements. Not least, religiously motivated students are active in efforts to secure harmony among different religious groups, and lead in efforts to promote greater knowledge of religions beyond their own. They often seek to provide public goods on campuses such as neighbourhood tutoring, peer counselling and mediation. (Calhoun, 2015, pp.17-18)

Religion as a public good

The public sphere is not simply the government or a realm of public ownership. It is the mutual engagement of citizens – and often others – in debate and

the formation of culture as well as voting and decision-making. It is defined by openness of participation, inclusivity and reach of connections, and the capacity to shape shared ways of life so that these are not mere inheritances. (Calhoun, 2015, p.18)

For these reasons, Modood rightly stresses that religion is a public and not only a private good. Attempts to exclude it from the public sphere are intrinsically repressive to it; toleration of private belief is not a substitute. (Calhoun, 2015, p.18)

As I suggested at the beginning, Britain is not in this respect clearly secular. It retains an established church that is publicly very visible. For lapsed Anglicans, this may be easy to dismiss as not seriously religious at all, but for those of other faiths, the one-sided presence of Christian public symbolism is telling. Britain is secular in a way that makes more room for some beliefs than others. At the same time, though, some minority religions get much more public attention because they are objects of public anxiety. (Calhoun, 2015, p.18)

In a pluralist society, public religious engagement could support the exploration of major issues, as indeed it does to some extent in the UK with regard to the nature of contemporary capitalism and the legitimacy of extreme inequality. Its absence means that advancing public values from gender equity to civility and tolerance is inhibited. (Calhoun, 2015, p.18)

The substantial segregation of ethnic communities – some of which are also defined by religion – is one of the greatest barriers to strongly shared citizenship and public values in Britain. (Calhoun, 2015, p.18)

In universities, the creation of successfully integrative academic communities means encouraging abundant activities that cross religious boundaries. If universities accept too much tacit segregation of students into subcultures, they reduce the learning they offer and the contribution they make to the larger society. (Calhoun, 2015, p.18)

Without some level of self-segregation, those in small minorities will always have relationships mainly with members of the majority – and so will the majority. So the burden of integration falls disproportionately on the minorities. If their members want to maintain any level of collective identity or solidarity, they have to work at it, while the majority do not. (Calhoun, 2015, p.18)

Conclusion

The place of religion in the public sphere is an issue for universities because they run public programmes. It is an issue because it shapes the relations of students to each other. It is an issue because many students make religion important to their personal lives and wellbeing on campuses. It is an issue because it either is or isn’t well-represented in what we teach. (Calhoun, 2015, p.22)

Because it is important to many students, but perhaps even more because it is important to public affairs from local to global scales, it is crucial for universities to recognise religion – and the place of religion in public life – as matters worthy of their intellectual attention. Religion needs attention in scholarship, research and teaching because it is important in the world. (Calhoun, 2015, p.22)