For real?
A London council was at the centre of a religious row last night after it announced it had dumped Christian prayer in favour of poetry readings at the start of council meetings…The vast majority of councils choose to start meetings with Christian Prayers while a handful of other local authorities begin with other faiths.
Is that true? Most councils start meetings with prayers?
It sounds crazy. Anybody know the facts?
Don’t know about councils, but the House of Commons starts with prayer every day it convenes. There’s no separation of church and state here; the Church of England is the state religion.
I know there’s no separation of church and state (which in any case doesn’t stop the US Congress beginning with a prayer every day too)…but it sounds odd for councils. It seems like beginning each shift at Tesco’s with a prayer, you know?
I don’t know if most councils start with prayers. Certainly many of them do, including my own local council (it’s actually written into their procedures that they must start with prayers). The NSS is currently campaigning against this.
http://www.secularism.org.uk/nss-to-launch-legal-challenge-ov.html
There have been quite a few press articles about it in the UK. As usual there’s been lots of indignant “If you don’t want to say prayers, why don’t you eschew the democratic process or leave the country…” type responses.
Interestingly, down in Devon, where there is a huge storm-in-a-teacup going on over this, one christian has put the cat among the pigeons.
By siding with the secularists, and saying, effecively, that council business is “Ceasar’s business” and should be kept separate from christs’ business, and that council prayers are, therfore, inappropriate, to say the least.
Ah – thanks, Peter, I wasn’t aware of that.
It’s quite a good statement. Not hostile, not “offensive” – not anything a reasonable person could object to.
Neither Oxford City nor Oxfordshire County Council has prayers. The mayor of Leicester has just decided to stop them.
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Lord-Mayor-bans-prayers/article-2335314-detail/article.html
Rows over this have been going on for years.
See http://menmedia.co.uk/news/s/1025659_fury_at_council_prayers_ban
Most of the objectors seem to be the sort of Tories who conform to the “Who would vote Republican?” criteria.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html
Well done, mayor of Leicester.
They should start council meetings with ‘Jabberwocky’.
And read Larkin at school assemblies.
They could even read vaguely “spiritual” stuff like the Immortality Ode at school assemblies, along with Larkin, and I wouldn’t object.
It’s the same in Australia. Almost all local council meetings start with a prayer.