First the godly, then the godless, then the godly again. The public debate about whether Britain is indeed a Christian country, which the Prime Minister kicked off with his article in the Church Times saying that Britain should be evangelical about its Christianity, took legs when fifty-odd self-important atheists took issue with his remarks in a letter in the Telegraph and now the debate has a new spin after a group of academic philosophers wrote to the same paper (lucky letters editor) to contradict the atheists.
“In important ways Britain remains a Christian country, as the Prime Minister has rightly claimed”, they wrote. “The establishment of the Church of England enshrines Christian humanism as a public orthodoxy, which continues to inform a good many of our laws, institutions and public rituals. This Anglican establishment is liberal, imposing no civil penalties on non-Anglicans, which is why so many non-Anglican Christians and non-Christian believers support it.”
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