HumanistLife

A humanist perspective on the “Common Ground” conference

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“Common Ground: A Conversation Between Religious Believers and Humanists on Values and Ethics” was a conference in Glasgow in November co-sponsored by the UK and US Provinces of the (Catholic) Xaverian Missionaries. Speakers included Chris Stedman, author of Faitheist – How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious and Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University. Jeremy Rodell is Chair of South West London Humanists and was one of seven delegates from the BHA and the Humanist Society of Scotland. They also included Rory Fenton, AHS President and the BHA’s Dialogue Officer.

Here’s Jeremy’s input to the “Common Ground” conference blog.

The “Common Ground” conference: a humanist perspective

As a humanist living in London, it was a bit of a surprise to get an email from the British Humanist Association asking if I would like to attend a conference in Scotland organised by Catholic missionaries. I’m glad I said “yes”.

This was a bold initiative by the Xavierian Missionaries to find “Common Ground” across one of the most important fault-lines of western society, especially here in the UK. I did not need convincing of the value interfaith dialogue involving humanists – I was already involved in it. But I left the conference convinced both that more could be done and that what we’re doing today could be done better.

The conference itself was, of course, an example of dialogue in action. I had never met a missionary before and, if I’d thought about it at all, would probably have come up with the caricature of a Bible-bashing neo-colonialist. What I found were thoughtful people who had made major practical contributions to the lives of people in the countries where they’d lived – in one case helping to end a devastating civil war. That doesn’t make me more comfortable about Christian proselytization, but it certainly provides a more nuanced perspective. Equally, I don’t think many of the religious people present had met a humanist before. There were a lot of fascinating and enlightening conversations.

My main “takeaway” was that, at its core, this is all about human relationships. If people from different backgrounds know each other and have listened carefully enough to understand where the other person is coming from – and perhaps have worked together for a common cause – then it becomes almost impossible to demonise “The Other”. That doesn’t mean they will agree on everything. What Chris Stedman referred to as “Kumbaya” interfaith, where everyone loves one another and genuine differences are suppressed, has limited potential. But we were able to demonstrate at the end of the conference that, once trust has been established, it is possible to articulate conflicting views on controversial issues while maintaining mutual respect.

Chris Stedman, author of Fatheist, who spoke along with Jeremy Rodell

Chris Stedman, author of Faitheist, who spoke at the event.

 

However, we shouldn’t be naïve. There are people within almost all religion and belief communities who have no interest in dialogue – they know they’re right and at best want either to isolate themselves, or to argue, and at worst to impose their views by force. They’re just not interested in listening and understanding people they consider to be “the enemy”. On the other hand, there are people in these same communities who understand that we live in a plural world in which mutual understanding is essential for peace, and where it is often possible to find common ground with those with whom we disagree. We learned from Chris Stedman that Eboo Patel, the US-based founder of the Inter Faith Youth Corps, refers to the divide between these two types of people as the “Faith Line”.

Those who organise and turn up to a conference on dialogue between believers and the non-religious are, by definition, on the liberal side of the Faith Line. But the fact that we don’t directly reach the hard liners doesn’t invalidate the exercise. They can only be reached, or perhaps faced down, by more open-minded people from their own belief backgrounds – people on “our side” of the line. It is by dialogue that we can all become better informed and feel better supported in advocating the interfaith approach within our own communities.

So what does that mean in practice?

Firstly, we need to get past some of the issues of language. Humanists don’t really like the term “interfaith”, or “interfaith dialogue”, which sound excluding, as Humanism isn’t a faith. But we need a term for dialogue between people with differing religious and non-religious beliefs, and “interfaith” is very widely used. Humanists should not be afraid to use it too. But we need the help of religious people to ensure that it’s understood to cover “faith and belief” not just religion.

More significantly, the conference demonstrated a misunderstanding over the meaning of “secularism”. I understand it to mean a level playing field, in which people are free to follow their religious and non-religious beliefs and practices – provided they do not erode the freedom and rights of others – with no particular group or organisation having privileges over others. In a secular society, freedom of religion and belief is protected. Like most humanists, I think that’s a good idea. Unfortunately, too often the term has been used to mean “anti-religious”, not helped by the fact that there are some atheists who, as well as advocating secularism, would also like to see the end of religion. The result was that many of our religious colleagues at the conference thought that, when humanists say we want a secular society, we mean one in which there is no religion. It was something of an “ah-ha” moment when everyone realised that was not the case.

Secondly, “doing interfaith” needs to be more than sitting on a committee, useful though that may be. It needs to involve more people from different backgrounds getting to know each other, maybe in informal settings, through social media or – ideally – through shared community activity. That doesn’t necessarily mean creating a new organisation or activity, but rather finding something that is fun, stimulating and has a doable objective.

At the risk of gender stereotyping, it’s useful to be aware that men and women may come at interfaith, and especially the involvement of the non-religious, from different angles. Callum Brown’s academic analysis suggests that changes in women’s lives have been the main driver of the significant move away from religion in the UK since the 1960s. But he says that arguments about science and rationality have not played the key role here – “community” factors have been much more important. The implication for interfaith work is that the more cerebral type of interfaith dialogue about ideas may, on average, be more appealing to men than women, who may be more attracted by practical community activity. Both have a role to play.

Coming from the south of England, it was interesting to find that Scotland – which is probably less religiously diverse than London – seems to be way ahead in terms of official recognition of the importance of interfaith dialogue and inclusion of the non-religious, as well as providing practical help on how to make it work. “Belief in Dialogue” is an official publication by The Scottish Government providing a “good practice guide to religion and belief relations in Scotland”. Its introduction is written by Sister Isabel Smyth, Chair of the Scottish Working Group on Religion and Belief Relations, who was among the conference attendees. In it she links the need for dialogue back to the values of wisdom, justice, integrity and compassion which we saw inscribed on the Scottish Mace when the conference visited the Parliament in Edinburgh. These are shared human values – no humanist would disagree with them.

“Belief in Dialogue” is clear about the involvement of the non-religious: “The need to recognise the equal legitimacy of every community to exist in Scotland is enshrined as a human right, and by this we need to think about community in the broadest sense of the word. While most religious communities have established formal structures, non-religious communities and groups have considerably fewer formal structures but still need to be seen as communities in the sense that those who advocate such beliefs are bound by the beliefs they share.” It goes on to provide practical ways of building interfaith relationships which anyone can use. You can download it free from The Scottish Government website.

The rest of us would do well to steal its thinking.

 

Jeremy Rodell is Chair of South West London Humanists, the humanist representative on two local interfaith forums, and a humanist speaker for 3FF, an interfaith charity which provides panels of speakers from different religion and belief backgrounds to schools in London and elsewhere. He’s currently co-chairing a local dialogue between humanists and Catholics in Twickenham, following a major dispute about a new Catholic ‘faith’ school with exclusive admissions. If you want to know more, email chair@swlhumanists.org.uk.

Doctor Who: fifty years of Humanism

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Celebrating 50 years of Humanism: Matt Smith, David Tennant and guest star John Hurt, all playing the Doctor.

Celebrating 50 years of Humanism: Matt Smith, David Tennant and guest star John Hurt, all playing the Doctor.

 

Tonight is the airing of a Doctor Who special, The Day of the Doctor. Fans are celebrating the show’s fiftieth anniversary, and as well as lighting up TV screens around the world, the special is showing in cinemas around the UK in 3D.

It’s worth celebrating the show from another perspective, however. It’s one of the most humanist television shows of all time. In fact, at practically every turn up to now it has presented the philosophy of its title character, the Doctor, as an emphatically humanist one. If there’s one thing the Doctor values, it’s human life, and if there’s one thing he consistently stands in awe of, it’s human potential. He abhors superstition; he scorns pointless prejudices; he believes fervently in reason; he is sympathetic to the beliefs of others, but will not kowtow to them when a fundamental liberty is under threat.

The show began in 1963 as a children’s program with an educational mandate. A mysterious old miser known as the Doctor, played by William Hartnell, would take his granddaughter and her two schoolteachers back in time to visit the Earth’s history, as well as into the future and into outer space, using speculative fiction as a means to explore philosophical questions and scientific ideas.

Its second story, The Daleks, was a parable about the evils of Nazism. It gave birth to rich science fiction concepts which took the show into a bold new direction, and would go on to test better with audiences than the historical format of later serials such as The Aztecs. The Daleks produced a strong template for the show’s future, in which it would continue to delve into history, but never again lose the science fiction backdrop which led it to discuss bold themes and big ideas.

The Doctor is one of pop culture’s most popular atheists. Famous atheists on TV tend to play into negative stereotypes. They are either the curmudgeonly, misanthropic intellectual (Dr. Gregory House on House, Dr. Perry Cox on Scrubs) or the sanctimonious liberal douche (Brian Griffin on Family Guy, Kurt Hummel on Glee). But the Doctor, by contrast, has evolved into a life-affirming, swashbuckling hero who is adored by children everywhere.

To maintain the show’s longevity, it introduced the plot device where if the Doctor is fatally injured, his alien physiology can “regenerate,” creating a new body with new personality quirks and a different face. The mantle of the Doctor has been passed on officially to a dozen or so actors in the show’s history, with many other actors playing alternative versions or unofficial Doctors over the last half-century. Like no other character on TV, over fifty years we have seen his many sides. He has been a narcissist, a boor, a clown, a grump, a convincing portrayal of a bipolar person (David Tennant, I’m looking at you) and a wide-eyed dreamer. Whatever his face however, the Doctor always believes in the values of the Enlightenment.

The show has some great pedigree with British Humanism as a movement, as well. Douglas Adams, the legendary writer and ardent humanist, was one of the show’s most influential scriptwriters. It was he who introduced the show’s former leading lady, Lalla Ward, to scientist and BHA Vice-President Richard Dawkins at a party in 1992, with BHA Distinguished Supporter Stephen Fry looking on. The pair would later marry. Professor Dawkins would himself become one of the show’s many scientist cameos, which have included Distinguished Supporter Professor Brian Cox.

The programme’s showrunners have also tended to be socially conscious atheists. When the show was brought back from cancellation in 2005, Russell T Davies didn’t shy away from expressing his opinion of religion. The second episode after its revival features the joke that “weapons, teleportation and religion” are banned aboard a fictional satellite. For its season finale that same year, Davies clearly asked himself what could make a Dalek scarier, given that they were already pitiless aliens bent on racial purity. His answer made terrifyingly good sense:  religion.

Steven Moffat has taken this theme further. All delivered in absurdist good humour, he shows that in the distant future, ‘the Church’ has become a military institution which patrols the galaxy. It is an organisation of superstitious cowards with guns, fearful of its so-called ‘Papal Mainframe’. It is also susceptible to manipulation and influence from others in power. To the Doctor, like every religion, this is just one of the absurd things humans do – he loves them for their potential as much as for their naivety. The Doctor exploits the Church’s weaknesses to great effect in A Good Man Goes to War (2011), when the Doctor (played by Matt Smith), who is for the most part a staunch pacifist, must rescue his companion Amy who has been held captive for the duration of her pregnancy.

When religion is portrayed positively, the show stops short of crediting the tenets of belief themselves. In Davies’ 2007 episode Gridlock, the singing of hymns binds people together in despair. But these hymns are not to a God who will save them. These people are singing to themselves. They are coming together as a community. It is the Doctor who saves them, a man of science who burns with moral conviction. Though he is himself sometimes revered as a god, and even presented with Biblical imagery, he knows better than anyone how far this is from the truth. He is someone who lives with the burden of a dark past, and the knowledge of his own frailty – both moral and physical.

In tonight’s fiftieth anniversary, the two most popular Doctors in the show’s history (David Tennant and Matt Smith), who just so happen to be the most recent, will confront this same dark past. With the exception of the young Doctor played by the old William Hartnell who tried to brutally kill a caveman in An Unearthly Child, the show’s premiere story, the Doctor has always married his Enlightenment values to an adjacent set of progressive ethics. But in 2013, the show has introduced a “dark Doctor,” played by John Hurt, who hails from a time in the Doctor’s life when he was forced to fight a war between his own people, the Time Lords, and the Nazi-like Daleks. The Doctor eradicated both species.

This act is so violent, and so contradicts the Doctor’s strict moral code, that he has worked hard to forget this incarnation of himself and make peace with what he did. As stated in its most recent finale episode, The Name of the Doctor, this is a man who broke the vow his name signifies, and has lost the right to call himself the Doctor. Though John Hurt’s ‘Doctor’ is the same essential person and a man of science, he is also also a warrior, one whose valuation of life is subject to a consequentialist philosophy. Not a great deal is known about him, but he would seem to mark a break away from the Doctor’s strict humanist code. He will go head to head with his less morally flexible replacements.

In its fiftieth year, the show is putting its title character’s values at the heart of the action. Let us see if in the next fifty years, the Doctor’s Humanism will win out.

I haven’t read it, but there’s a critical book on the subject (Humanism and Doctor Who: A Critical Study in Science Fiction and Philosophy by David Layton), and a nifty video on this subject did the rounds on YouTube earlier this year, before getting taken down by a copyright claim. If you can find it, it’s got fifty years of the Doctor’s humanist speeches edited together to great effect.

EDIT: Ah, the creator of the video managed to resolve the copyright issue and upload it anew yesterday. Enjoy!

What’s in a name?

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by Mike Flood

Photograph: GreenConnect Images

The Freethinker has recently published an interesting article arguing the case for new terminology to substitute for ‘atheist’ when describing the ‘new world view’ that has been evolving since the Enlightenment . The article reinforces the case I made in my last HumanistLife piece about the confusion surrounding the use of the term.

The author, Jeff Haley, argues that we need a term that can be “easily understood and used by everyone” and “complimentary inoffensive terminology to label the older worldviews so that we can talk to people who hold these views and cause a minimum of emotionally distracting insult.”

Haley dismisses the term ‘naturalistic’ — whilst it nicely contrasts with the word ‘supernatural’, it also “connotes the essence of the old worldviews much more than the essence of the new”. He also rejects the term ‘scientific’ because it would mean, amongst other things needing to change the generally understood meaning of ‘scientist’. His proposal is ‘evidist’, and or an ‘evidistic’ or ‘evidal’ worldview, with the labels ‘traditionalists’ or ‘intuitivists’ reserved for those who hold the ‘old worldview’.

The article is already causing waves: Barbara Smoker has applauded Haley’s neologism as better than ‘sceptics’ (which is “too equivocal”), ‘atheists’ (“solely negative”), ‘secular humanists’, (“inexplicit”), or ‘brights’ (“distastefully arrogant”). However she prefers the adjective ‘evidistic’, and the noun ‘evidism’. Another correspondent has suggested ‘innovist’. And no doubt there will be more…

But not everyone is convinced: “Whatever label we atheists use, we’re hell-bound unbelievers, so why mince around the subject?” And whilst recognising the confusion and ignorance over the word ‘atheist’ — and much more so over ‘humanist’ and ‘agnostic’ — another contributor argues that “throwing a word like ‘evidist’ into the mix will exacerbate the confusion”.

The practical ethics of smart drugs

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In this first post of a new feature on HumanistLife, one blogger tackles a contemporary ethical concern from a humanist, rationalist or evidence-based position. Below, Laurie Pycroft discusses the smart drug modafinil, and addresses concerns over its use.

Photograph: Anders Sandberg

What if you could make yourself smarter simply by taking a pill? The concept of drugs that improve cognitive functions has been prevalent in science fiction for many years, but only relatively recently has the proliferation of such pharmaceuticals been a serious possibility. “Nootropics” or “smart drugs” have been hitting the headlines lately, with the promise of increased focus, memory, and wakefulness being an appealing prospect for many. Most widely discussed have been stimulants, normally prescribed for medically recognised conditions, being used off-label by healthy individuals seeking to improve their performance at mentally demanding tasks. Modafinil (AKA Provigil) is probably the most prominent of these drugs in the UK. Originally developed as a treatment for narcolepsy, modafinil also improves wakefulness in healthy people and evidence suggests that it may improve other aspects of cognitive function in some individuals. As with any drug, however, modafinil has risks associated with it and may be harmful to those taking it. Furthermore, there is a danger of smart drugs having negative side-effects on a societal level. As such, it is important to carefully consider the ethical ramifications of widespread use of smart drugs such as modafinil. This is a substantial question, far too large for this short article to consider in depth, but hopefully this piece will provide a reasonable overview of the issue and pose a few interesting questions worthy of deeper consideration.

The first important point to consider is the fact that cognitive enhancement, whether using drugs or other methods, is nothing new. Perhaps the most obvious example is caffeine, a substance that many millions of people use on a daily basis with the intent of reducing tiredness and improving focus. Less obvious are technologies such as computers and organised education, along with healthy diet and exercise, all of which offer substantial improvements to our cognitive abilities. When considering the issue of smart drugs, one should always consider the comparison with established cognition enhancement techniques and remember that all of them have potential down-sides. The important question here is – what amount of benefit does the intervention offer, and is the level of risk associated with it acceptable?

Most established cognition enhancement techniques carry relatively little risk, from an individual standpoint. Caffeine is perhaps the best point of comparison for drugs such as modafinil. Caffeine is addictive and can produce unpleasant side-effects, but it is unlikely to seriously threaten health in most people, except at very high doses. Conversely, its benefits are quite minor – primarily improving perceived wakefulness for a short period of time. Modafinil’s benefits are likely somewhat greater, with research indicating that it can significantly improve working memory, concentration, alertness, and other cognitive abilities in sleep deprived individuals. Results are less clear-cut when it comes to those who have had sufficient sleep, but some studies have reported enhancements to aspects of memory and concentration, especially in individuals with a lower baseline performance in the experimental tasks. The negative effects of modafinil use in healthy people are still not fully understood – while it is not associated with the same level of addiction or cardiovascular damage seen with many stimulants, it is thought to carry a small risk of inducing some extremely rare but potentially life-threatening dermatological conditions. Relatively little research has been done into its long-term health effects and future smart drugs are likely to be similarly poorly understood. These risks are compounded by the fact that, currently, modafinil is illegal to sell (although not to buy) without a prescription in the UK, meaning that healthy users must purchase it from underground sources, raising the possibility of being sold impure or mislabelled products. Whether this level of risk is acceptable is, ultimately, a question that each potential user must ask themself.

The issues surrounding smart drugs are not, however, exclusive to the individual. Any new technology that has the potential to alter the cognitive processes of millions of people is bound to have effects on society as a whole. Two inter-related societal issues that smart drugs could impact are those of inequality and competition. The inequality issue comes down to the possibility of expensive new smart drugs exacerbating existing social divides – while modafinil is relatively inexpensive and the benefits it offers are modest, it is not inconceivable that new drugs could be developed offering greater improvements to cognition while being substantially more costly. Such a situation could lead to the rich having preferential access to cognition enhancement, making it even more difficult for the poor to compete. While this is a potential problem, it is far from insurmountable. A drug that offered such major benefits could be worth providing for free (or at reduced cost) to the population at large, whether through state health service or charity.

This already occurs with education, which requires a vast investment of time and money, but offers such great benefits that society is willing to foot the bill. The competition issue is often raised with regards to education – if one group is able and willing to take these drugs, do they have an unfair advantage over those who do not? A problem with this line of reasoning is its comparison of education to a zero-sum game such as competitive sports. In sport, if one person has an advantage, everyone else is negatively impacted as they are less likely to win. In education, however, the goal is not to “win”, but rather for everyone to learn as much as possible, with a better educated workforce tending to benefit society as a whole. There is still the issue of perceived competition and coercion – if society gets to the point where most people are benefiting from smart drugs, those who are not taking these drugs may feel pressured into doing so. Is this fair to those who, for issues of health, ethics, or religion do not want to ingest these drugs? If not, is the unfairness sufficient reason to restrict smart drug usage in the whole population, or to pass legislation preventing employers making hiring decisions on basis of smart drug use?

This coercion issue becomes more complex still when considering those whose job performance can seriously impact others’ lives. A recent study headed by Prof. Barbara Sahakian at Cambridge suggests that sleep deprived doctors may perform significantly more effectively at certain cognitive tasks after taking modafinil, and therefore could be more effective at their jobs when taking the drug. In an ideal world doctors would always get enough sleep, but in the real world modafinil may offer a way to reduce medical errors and improve the lives of patients. If this is the case, should doctors be encouraged or even required to take modafinil when tired? One can extend this reasoning to other professions that are relied upon to make important decisions when deprived of sleep, such as pilots and politicians. Is the risk of side effects outweighed by the risk to patients, passengers, and citizens posed by cognitively compromised decision-makers?

As with the public debate surrounding many drugs, both legal and illegal, the discussion of smart drugs is often typified by moral panic, political posturing, and a poor understanding of the science involved. News outlets are often content to discuss amazing miracle-pills or evil mind-destroying drugs, without seriously considering the risk/reward ratios of putative cognitive enhancers, and how they compare with existing methods. If modafinil and similar drugs continue to become more popular, the individual and societal ethical issues surrounding them will grow in importance. A sober and rational consideration of these issues is critical if policymakers are to make informed decisions on the topic, rather than simply following the knee-jerk reaction of the tabloid press. The questions posed above aren’t trivial, but finding acceptable solutions to them could be highly beneficial to society; if modafinil and future smart drugs can be harnessed appropriately, many people would be able to perform better at their jobs, be more productive, and have more fulfilling lives. Hopefully the novelty and potential risks of these drugs won’t completely overshadow the potential benefits.

 

Further reading:

 

Reflecting on Section 5

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Is the law silencing comedians unjustly? Photograph: Jennifer Moo.

The controversy arising from Rowan Atkinson’s Comic Relief sketch back in March in which he poked fun at the newly anointed Archbishop of Canterbury has this July been cleared of breaking any broadcasting guidelines by Ofcom. It is however, a stark reminder of the precarious nature of free speech in the UK today – epically so in instances where the subject of discussion is religion.

The controversy stems from the omission of the sketch entirely on the iPlayer’s version of the comic relief show in response to 2200 phone complaints received. When questioned on the absence of the sketch, the official response stated that the piece was problematic due to the ‘subject matter’ and the language used. It was pre-watershed so they ‘took a swift decision to remove it’. Given that the language issue could be neutralised by making use of the adult content warning, one is forced to conclude the main reservation the corporation had was with the nature of the material.

Atkinson is no stranger to the fine line that humorists walk when working with potentially controversial subjects, in fact quite the opposite. He was an ardent critic of the Racial and Religious Hatred bill of 2006 becoming law. Recognising the curbs to freedom of expression it could have on satirists alone provided enough grounds to be fearful of its wider social implications. Laying substance on his claims he cited sketches he had been been involved with on programmes such as Not the Nine O’Clock News which could have been prosecuted if the bill had been law at the time. The self-censorship and restraint writers would be forced to employ could render religious institutions and beliefs immune to criticism or mockery, throwing the nation back in time to an age before the Enlightenment.

Such reservations were evidently felt in Parliament, given that this was the third time in four years the government had tried to get such a piece of legislation through both houses. The bill itself sought to make an offence of inciting hatred of a person or community on the basis of their religion. While few would argue over the need to ensure against marginalisation and stop persecution of religious minorities, such a bill would clearly be detrimental to the nature of free speech within a healthy democracy. Atkinson at the time likened it to “using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut”.

Any discussion over the point at which critical discussion, mockery and satire become bigotry and persecution is so evidently a mire of grey. One wonders how much faith to place in the way those required to enforce it would elect to. But against the backdrop of the way Section 5 of the 1986 Public Order Act was being readily invoked at the time – a clause which outlawed harassing and/or causing alarm or distress to individuals or groups – such concerns were anything but groundless.

The infamous Section 5 clause (which has only very recently been revised) was being routinely used to make offences out of incidents so innocuous they’d be laughable if they didn’t carry such serious consequences. These include an individual being arrested for calling an officer’s horse ‘gay’, and a peaceful protester detained for holding a placard saying Scientology is a dangerous ‘cult’ – not that any complaints were raised about the sign by a member of the Church. However, an officer monitoring the protest, who himself was not a member of the faith, saw fit to burden the insult he envisaged a member would have felt before making the arrest.

The point was in fact made at the time that both the Bible and the Qur’an would be in breach of the Religious Hatred Bill if introduced, due to the incitement to violence various passages both texts demand of their followers. Such concerns, however, were ultimately rebuked as the Human Rights Act of 1998 guarantees freedom of religion and self-expression and accordingly, any state encouragement to modify or omit any sacred texts would be in violation of this.

The bill ultimately became law in 2007, making a crime of anyone who “…uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred”, with the aforementioned exemption afforded to religious texts. Despite the campaign against the enactment failing, it did achieve an late amendment stating it could not be used to “prohibit or restrict discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents…” in order to safeguard the perceived threat which critics were concerned would arise.

In spite of even these protections however, discussions of a religious nature – even in private – were demonstrated to be delicate as two hoteliers found in 2009 for suggesting the Muslim veil is oppressive to women and that the prophet Mohammed was a ‘warlord’. However ignorant one may consider such comments, merely having a conversation to illuminate, discuss and challenge such views saw the hoteliers being questioned by the police for potentially violating the act.

Things aren’t all bleak though. Since the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill went on to become law, blasphemy has been taken off the books in England and Wales, though it remains in force in Northern Ireland. The campaign to reform Section 5, which Rowan Atkinson was again outspoken on, was successful and the amendments will become law later this year. And, as mentioned, Ofcom in July that after ‘careful consideration’, Atkinson’s Comic Relief Archbishop sketch was not in breach of broadcasting guidelines. Of more immediate concern is that such conversations need to take place on these matters at all by the regulator, and the level of capitulation broadcasters sink to when they fear religious sensibilities have been offended.

While it is impossible to measure the effect the Racial and Religious Hatred Act then had, and now has on artistic self-censorship, it is against such a backdrop that Atkinson’s Archbishop Comic Relief sketch was delivered. Though offensive to some, to the extent that warranted actively complaining, it was relatively tame by Atkinson’s own standards. For example when comparing it to “The Church’s position on fellatio” sketch this piece was somewhat subdued, albeit still a few notches up from the Four Weddings and a Funeral’s bumbling vicar.

The question one may dwell on is the extent to which Atkinson was being deliberately provocative with his air time. But, when a situation exists where a comedian dressing up in a costume and poking fun at a major English institution may run afoul of legal protections afforded to its sector of society, one ought to commend him for bringing to the fore the ridiculous predicament such ill-conceived legislation can give rise to.

An earlier version of this article originally appeared on the National Secular Society website.