I’ve been grafting away in the background over the past year to bring my fellow youth leaders together in the pursuit of making Remembrance Day accessible to everyone, specifically ensuring that no one is disengaged for any part of the event.
As a non-religious person, I’ve attended remembrance events all over the world and the one thing they all shared was that I didn’t feel welcome — they focussed more on the Christian religion and public worship than they ever did the reason for us assembling.
I recently wrote an article for Air TLB News on my personal reflections on remembrance, to explain the reason for wanting change and to share my vision for the future of remembrance. I don’t know whether you can access that as CFAV, but I think it’s fair to say it became very active and almost all the comments supported the concept.
I have now successfully delivered the first such inclusive event and the responses have been wonderful. If anyone would like help ensuring all their cadets can feel fully engaged throughout, regardless of their philosophical background, I’d be delighted to share more with you.
Interesting idea, how did you get it started/get people onboard? Our ceremony is managed by the local RBL and local authority, so it’s probably harder to make that transition?
And I imagine you had to tread carefully, I’m sure some clergy wouldn’t take too kindly to being ‘pushed out’?
I’ve considered trying to make moves to push for more inclusion of clergy of other denominations and religions, and representatives from groups like Humanists UK, but I doubt my part of the world would wish to go as far as yours has…
To be clear, it wasn’t clear skies and favourable winds. I won’t go into details here though.
With some good old fashioned liaison and some positive relationships, almost everyone was able to look past the sensitivities and recognise that it was the right thing to do.
We’re inclusive youth organisations, so we need to start walking the walk, especially when it’s uncomfortable.
Remembrance belongs to us all and the Act of Remembrance is secular — making it inclusive isn’t a new concept, it’s a reversion.
The big thing I’d say is that the status quo holds because people don’t want to engage the “fight” they rightly expect to occur. But that empowers the status quo.
If everyone starts asking for it and objecting, people can’t pretend that no one wants change.
All these organisations (and RBL policy, specifically) now put inclusivity first.
This is great. I know there will be some people who disagree massively, but I think this is fantastic.
I’m not religious. And the fact most remembrance ceremonies seem to involve masses of religion, normally Christian, I have always found to be odd in a lot of ways. As a cadet, the majority of our remembrance day time was spent in the church singing hymns off a sheet, which never sat right with me.
As you say, the act of remembrance is secular, and focus should be on that, not the religious side of it.
The statistics have demonstrated that non-Christians are a significant majority for some time now (British Attitudes Survey asks more neutral questions than the Census which, as an example, presumes you have a religion and primes you with talk of ethnic background first).
But still, it’s been amazing to see just how supportive people are. They’re not the loudest cohort, but they’re there for you when you take the leap.
I presume you are talking about the public act of Remembrance in (eg) a town square or similar? In which case I would not have any objection at all to a more inclusive ceremony. In my experience, though, it’s best to secularize the event rather than trying to add in more religious leaders etc. as otherwise there will always be someone left out - you end up with a row of them all wanting a bit! Let us do our religious things before or after the public event.
Won’t happen here, but we are an explicitly Church of England boarding school, with compulsory chapel every day, so the Remembrance Sunday event is and will continue to be CofE. But that’s quite niche these days.
That’s exactly why I stood firm and did exactly what I did, to say nothing of the fact that the non-religious basically end up right back where they were — observing something almost entirely of religious influence and being alienated.
the part that question at is the use of “inclusive” - are you not excluding those who want a religious ceremony?
by pleasing one part of society your are excluding another and thus not inclusive?
if it were inclusive should it not include everyone…so not just Christian preaching, but other religions too?
surely “secular Ceremony” would be a better title?
Indeed a quote from that page: ‘The Act of Remembrance is brief and non-religious’
Those who want to pray, can do so privately or at a church/synagogue/mosque before or afterwards.
I haven’t made the case here - which I could - that we are still an officially CofE country, in which case there is clearly an argument that the CofE has a duty to be there and to take the lead. In some contexts that would be strongly supported by the majority of local people - likely to be the case in, say, a small rural village - but in others it would be wildly inappropriate (say, majority Muslim areas of Birmingham). What it needs is contextual sensitivity.
What it doesn’t need is militant atheism, though. That’s just as insensitive.
An inclusive ceremony does not mean the same as a secular service that omits god & religion completely.
“Religion” is most importantly about self reflection & belief in something other than or outside of ourselves, something more than us an an individual- how an individual defines that is personal & private to themselves.
One of our local schools had an inclusive service led by the chaplain of the local RBL, it had generalised religious/Christian bits but no one felt forced, language was tolerant & in general it was inclusive of all faiths & none.
The act/2minute silence is of self reflection. The rest of the service is there to give context.
Completely agree - it is also not down to others to define what is/what not a following a particular faith - just because you don’t got to church regularly or pray 5 times a day doesn’t mean that your ethical & morale values are not part of that faith & religion.
Militant atheism is effectively a religious belief itself
To be fair, the senior padre at Halton led an excellent ‘padre’s hour’ on a recent camp which was non-religious but spiritual. That’s a hard thing to manage - obviously you’d hope that Halton has the best in the business but I am hard to impress and I thought it was excellent. So it can be done.
The RBLs suggested order of service only includes a hymn and a prayer. It also indicates that the act of remembrance is the key component. You shouldn’t face too much objection even from the RBL.
I suppose it depends who organises your service - the city service nearby is very much multi-faith and multicultural but that’s appropriate because there are living relatives of people from all over the world in attendance, my local village has a small service organised by the church so you won’t ditch the god bothering there.
I think the RBL are increasingly open to both volunteers and suggestions in their smaller services and the best way to become effective in influencing this is to turn up at their meetings. It’s always a lack of engagement and (a bit like our own committees) the willingness to just let retired or winding down people lead the way with ideas and systems that are 20 years out of date that means nothing changes. Alternatively, invite a local RBL representative or two to join your association and become members of the civilian committee. What better way to influence someone than to be one of the people wanting to be influenced.
There’s a very clear reason why including a religious lead makes it not inclusive, because it is alienating to those who don’t believe.
No one of religious persuasion would say (with a straight face) that they feel excluded because we don’t allow personal religious beliefs to infiltrate every aspect of public and working life. The lack of that same infiltration for Remembrance should be viewed the same.
I object to the use of the term militant atheism, but you’ve actually raised a really important point in doing so.
I did not bring my humanist beliefs into this ceremony precisely because that would alienate the religious. Therefore it really was fully inclusive.
Personally, when I have attended Remembrance Sunday events without a church service, it feels too short and a bit empty and, again on a personal level, my favourite hymns are the ones that only tend to be sung on Remembrance Sunday.
On reflection, I can see a way that instead of including one church (usually Anglican) within the proceedings, with a bit of coordination between the denominations and faiths, multiple church and other faith services could be timed to compliment the Act of Remembrance, with separate bodies marching between the war memorial and their places of worship.
A spiritual lead I would argue is needed because without the aspect of reflection & thinking of others outside of ourselves it just all becomes “what’s the point”.
Rightly so & I draw a different between a humanist & a “militant atheist”.
The later is someone who dictates that we shouldn’t be believing & believe in the way they do. This is just as narrow minded as any religious bigot & destructive to a person as any cult.
Interesting I am finding more of the newer cadets are interest in & wanting to attend church despite not having religious parents (Baptist seems to be the popular one at the mo)
Just because a religious person is conducting the ceremony doesn’t mean it excludes. As human beings we tend to project & seek for for confirmation of our own thoughts, beliefs & biases.
Speaking personally I have found that there has been a growing culture of ridicule to those who follow faith - “sky fairies” & other insults without actually caring about people or making a difference to others.
( I did annoy once militant atheist once when I countered his assertion that is was all made fantasy stories by saying it was actually science fiction - he looked at me oddly & kinda wandered off)
The important thing is (& I do think you are doing the right thing) is that things are changed over time to keep them relevant, not narrowed to only a single philosophy & respects that humans are complex beings with complex competing & contradicting viewpoints & needs. In short we ask why we do things & what we are wanting to achieve.
Remembrance is about stopping, thinking, reflecting & being part of something greater than ourselves so as long as you tick those boxes, coupled with the comforting blanket of familiarity I don’t think you can go far wrong.
But hey I identify as a muggletonian Christian & we argue weirdly
