We clearly don’t have a relevant sample size here. But, what we do have is a group who demonstrate that:
We have a padre who sees the value in change
We have religious people who see the value and have expressed varying degrees of support for the idea of splitting the Act of Remembrance and a secular service from a religious service that can be hosted separately for those who want it
I’m assuming we have also had religious people who didn’t share that view, but those may have been some of the posts that were removed by the mods.
We have had people who aren’t religious who really want change, like me.
We have had non-religious people or people with a much looser “spirituality” who sit somewhere on the spectrum of welcoming change to currently going through the Christian motions because that’s just how it is.
So while one certainly couldn’t say there’s overwhelming demand for change, what one could casually observe is that support for updating how we do remembrance comes from across a range of supporter profiles, whereas I’ve only yet come up against stiff objection from Christians. (again, not a relevant sample size).
I think this is valuable in that it clarifies that this isn’t a position that comes from just one easily-divisible part of the wider community, but is something that can quite easily find broad support, even if certain cohorts are more likely to object than others.
Apologies if this has been said above but I’m a bit late to the party and don’t want to read 281 new messages!
Remembrance that I’ve attended was always a parade, no service but had Priest, Imam and Rabbi (not the start of a joke, I promise) all say their own prayers along with the Kohima Epitaph, God Save the King, and a hymn or two.
Always thought it was the most sensible (maybe except the hymns) middle ground as it had most faiths represented to my mind being more inclusive than not having any faiths (YMMV depending on local population and religiousness)
Depends on the Hymn - the forces all have their own hymns, “those in peril” etc, and they are highly appropriate for Remembrance - even if they refer to God (or god)
Unless of course you don’t subscribe to those organised religions. Now you’ve got an entire event specifically built in their image.
If you’re not religious at all, you now have a completely alienating ceremony that has seemingly flexed to roll the red carpet out to other minority UK religions while sticking two fingers up to more than half the population who now feel disenfranchised.
That, in a nutshell, is why a secular event is better. Level playing field which focusses on what unites us.
But absolutely no worries about not reading over 200 posts lol
They might be incredibly fitting for the occasion, just like a Christmas song in December, but if the content isn’t accessible to everyone and it alienates those who would rather like to focus on the reason they’re there without constantly listening to religious references sneaking in, then it becomes unsuitable.
The military is, i’m sorry, exactly why we are there. We are not erasing 100’s of years of history just to make a minority more comfortable - that’s just not how life works.
I am not religious. I was happy to participate as a participant and parade commander and at no point did I feel alienated or that other people were rolling out red carpet. Certainly in an area with a large Muslim population I felt it was a huge step having an imam and if anything made people feel more inclusive.
Firstly, those subscribing to an organised religion / declaring themselves religious are no longer the majority, so if that’s the metric for deciding the form factor…
Those who declare as religious but don’t fit under the umbrella term of “Christian” are about 10% of the population of the UK.
So if it is agreeable to people that we extend representation in leadership of Remembrance events to those religious groups but insist that the non-religious have to put up with people’s private religious beliefs at a civic event, this isn’t a consistent stance.
i think the point @OC.1324 has been trying to make is that it is no longer a minority that feel “uncomfortable” with religion. the majority of the UK population are not church goers, with a fair proportion of these having “no faith”
i too have been to a multi-faith ceremony and was refreshing to experience as someone who is otherwise “white British” having grown up in a “Hot Fuzz” style village where everyone knows everyone with families having many prior generations having lived in the village.
In my Cadet days the Remembrance service the Squadron attended had a piece delivered by a representative from every church in town, and so had Catholic, methodist, Baptist and CofE elements all thrown in together - this made sense as it was representative of the town at that time…
…i dare say if there was an atheist “church” it would be appropriate to have a representative included too…although that becomes less “inclusive” by removing any faith bias (you could argue bias towards a secular “belief”) and instead “inclusive” by including everyone in some part of the ceremony
But as discussed previously, that then means that I have to listen to a mostly religious event and, let’s be honest, it’d be alienating to the religious if I then used my time to start talking about how god doesn’t exist etc
I’m sorry - but as per the 2021 census you are incorrect -
Across Great Britain, 46% of people identified as being Christian, 38% said they had no religion, 6% identified as Muslim, and 2% identified as Hindu. Around 2% identified as being Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish or of another religion
That means the majority (62%) still delare they have a faith, and non-religious is the minority. And a massive 46% still identify as Christian.
which suggest there is no “happy medium” either everyone “loses” by having to put up with something they don’t subscribe to, or a proportion do by making it one flavour in the hope it meets the majorities approval
as indicated i have been at a multi-faith ceremony when at uni given the diversity of the community it made sense.
for the “non Christian” elements i was alienated as I am ignorant of Muslim beliefs and prayer etc.
Just to clarify that I’m going by the British Attitudes Survey, which asks more neutral questions, doesn’t presume you have a religion, and doesn’t link it to your sense of ethnicity growing up.
Clearly the actual answer is that we make it secular which doesn’t lean towards anyone’s personal religious beliefs or non-religious world views and focuses on the reason we’re there at a shared event.
Remember that “religion” vs “secular” is a falsehood.
But how you ask the questions can massively change the results.
The British attitudes survey gives answers consistent with the population’s views on things like bishops in the House of Lords and compulsory worship in school, so it more accurately represents people’s religious views when they’re not primed to equate “going to a CofE primary school” with “therefore I’m a Christian”
