#BTColumn – The importance of being secular

The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Father Leslie Lett

It should be clear to everyone that a democracy must inevitably be secular. Not surprisingly then, democratic Barbados is a secular society, albeit one with a long foundational history of Christian influence. And we should not deny this history, but continue to celebrate it, as we do in our National Anthem.

To be a secular society simply means that the Christian church must accept the legitimate autonomy of the secular, and that while it is free to evangelise it cannot impose its doctrines on the nation, and further, it must compete, like every other institution, in the marketplace of ideas, beliefs and actions.

And in a democracy the majority “wins”. Otherwise it’s not a democracy. However, for a democracy to work smoothly the majority must, at the very least, respect the opinions and views of minority groups, and accommodate them where possible.

It is in this requirement to accommodate that the elected government has the difficult, and often thankless, job of making the final decision. Now, it is very important that we make a distinction between “ secular” and “ secularism”. Unlike the secular, secularism is a total rejection of God.

In other words, it is the total victory of the ideology of an autocratic atheism. The old Soviet Union is a good example of this, before it collapsed. Mr Peter Wickham, in his assertion that the Disestablishment of the Anglican Church in 1969 was “ a clear intention towards secularism”, is clearly totally wrong.

Disestablishment had nothing whatsoever to do with atheism. It simply meant that the Anglican diocese no longer had a preferred status and could no longer expect special treatment by the government. It should therefore function like every other registered religious denomination.

In an article published under the title “Wickham: What’s God got to do with it”, Mr Wickham indulges in an absurd bit of logic. He argues that to replace the British monarch with a Barbadian head of state is a rejection of God, so too is the move to Republican status; that Christianity should be rejected as it has been used by many to justify all sorts off evil, like capital punishment, homophobia, and of course slavery.

He forgets that a great many scientists, academics and politicians, especially in the Eighteenth Century, also publicly promoted the innate inferiority of Black people who, they claimed , were best suited for slavery, and even went so far as to ‘prove’ it by claiming that Blacks had smaller skulls, smaller brains and blood vessels, and have a natural tendency to indolence and barbarism.

Does this mean that, along with the church, we should reject science, as well as academic and political institutions? There is a wise and true saying: “The abuse of a thing does not destroy its proper use.”

Christians do not claim that a Godless society is valueless. The problem is not the lack of values but the type of values it promotes. It’s about the State functioning as though it is the author of values and human rights, rather than the protector of these values and rights that are inherent in the human person made in the image of God. And we have some frightening historical examples where “what the State giveth it can taketh away!”

For the Christian, the God who by creating time and space, and who must therefore logically exist before and beyond both (which Mr Wickham denies), entered his own creation in Jesus Christ “in whom we have redemption… and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church” (Col. 1:14-18).

Christians believe that the God who created, and still sustains, everything that exists, is head of the church! This is why God has everything to do with Barbados becoming a Republic and also why all Christians should quite naturally be concerned about every facet and area of human existence, even the small matter of Barbados becoming a Republic.

Father Leslie Lett is an educator and social commentator. This column was offered as a Letter to the Editor.