Interfaith week

Here we are at the start of "Interfaith Week’, a government-funded project that aims to strengthen good inter-faith relations, to increase awareness of the different and distinct faith communities in the UK, and to celebrate the contribution they make to their neighbourhoods and to wider society.

While on the surface these are all very laudable aims, I am nevertheless deeply concerned that the government is taking the wrong route to community cohesion by focussing almost exclusively on the ‘faith’ element of people’s identities.

My concern is that by supporting ‘faith groups’ over and above other groups in the voluntary and community sector, they are helping to promote the fallacy of distinctive ‘faith communities’ that somehow stand apart from wider civil society.

However, given that one of the aims of the week is to increase understanding between religious and non-religious people, I shall be attending one of the events later on in the week.

I look forward to a more inclusive approach next year!