Atheists and Humanists: Contribution to Society

Lord Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morgan]

My Lords, I will make one point and one point only. Modern Britain has had the enormous benefit of not being torn apart by doctrinal or political conflict between the churches and unbelievers. That has been an enormous contribution to our social peace and very different from, for example, the situation in France, which is relevant as it is my wife’s country. She is a Huguenot—a Protestant—and the Huguenot community have suffered from the savagery of intolerant belief. There has been a long confrontation between church and state in modern France, including bitter assaults on the church by freemasons, republicans and socialists. The church itself has identified with nationalists, militarists and, during the Dreyfus case, anti-Semites. It is still evident today, in the disgraceful attacks on Muslim women in France in the name of secularism. This kind of intolerance is perhaps most notable in Catholic countries but is also visible in Protestant ones—witness the role of the religious right in the United States.

Why have we been luckier? In my opinion, it is for two historical reasons. The churches have discovered how to retreat, while atheists and humanists have discovered how to protest properly. The church, as we know, had a virtual monopoly of civil and social power in the early 19th century in Britain. It was persuaded—or politically forced—to give way on issue after issue, such as admission to universities and religious rites. It retreated in its views on science, coming to accept evolution, and on social issues such as property rights and industrial relations. Most powerfully, as we discovered in this House recently, it has profitably retreated in its views on moral attitudes, most notably on the debate on gay marriage. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, was able to appeal to the better angels of our nature as we considered that issue.

I have the honour of following the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, and one of the most remarkable retreats was in Wales, where the church accepted its own disestablishment and being seized out of the part of the province of Canterbury. The view of the Church in Wales—yr Eglwys yng Nghymru—as a Church of England in Wales is now completely out of date.

Equally, atheists and humanists have become much more effective in their approach. Beginning, perhaps, from a literary or philosophical emphasis—Diderot and the encyclopaedists have been mentioned—they added scientific triumphalism in the 19th century. Humanists assumed power in public life, for example John Morley, who famously described Gladstone with a large G and God with a small one. Atheists were forced to defend themselves—Bradlaugh did, for example, in order to take his seat in the House of Commons—and non-religious conscientious objectors were persecuted in both world wars. However, the more aggressive and divisive forms of protest were broadly rejected. Dogmatic anti-religious creeds such as positivism or Auguste Comte’s religion of humanity were not accepted and made little headway in this country. The emphasis, if one can so describe it, was on humanism—the value of the individual, the power of an individual’s moral quest for truth and the values of human brotherhood resulting from that—rather than on doctrinaire atheism.

I am very struck by the famous atheist George Jacob Holyoake, who chose in 1851 to describe himself as a secularist not as an atheist. He took part in a famous debate with Bradlaugh on the proposition: “The principles of Secularism do not include Atheism”. His heroes were humanist men of letters such as Erasmus and Montaigne, who have been mentioned today and who both of course declared themselves to be Christians. So it has been that humanists, as we have heard, have been able to act effectively with religious idealists in progressive crusades, from the anti-slavery to the anti-apartheid movements.

The outstanding product of that is the outfit to which 10 of the 17 speakers this afternoon belong—the Labour Party. It was hugely important, with all respect to my noble friend who just spoke, that the Labour Party did not lapse into the anti-clericalism of the French or German socialist parties. The views of the Labour Party were pluralist. They ranged from the undoubted atheism of the Webbs, many of the Fabians and HG Wells, side-by-side with members of the Independent Labour Party in South Wales and in the West Riding, which brought in a Christian ethos. Nothing was more stimulating for the labour movement in south Wales than the religious revival of 1904. I make that point because I made it in my first book and nobody paid any attention, so perhaps 50-odd years on people will pay attention.

The Labour Party has had a series of Christian leaders, down to Gordon Brown. The one declared atheist I recall was Michael Foot, whose rhetoric and values were shaped by Cornish chapels. His values formed a bridge, I think, within the labour movement. In the social Christianity of our age, Tawney has been, I believe, our dominant philosophical inspiration. The Labour Party benefited from this. The whole range of creeds has worked for social justice. Now I hope they will work for the doctrine of human rights, which massively appeals both to humanists and to Christians. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is truly universal in that sense. I conclude by saying that modern Britain has found this confluence of faith an enriching experience. It has made it a healthier, more humane and more tolerant society.