Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I hope that your Lordships will indulge one more Bishop speaking. These Benches have just been presented with quite a challenge and I hope that we do not respond in the acerbic language of theology. I was not aware that theological language was acerbic, but that is the kind of language one hears in some places. Rather, I think there are more fundamental issues here than have yet been addressed. There is an irony here. Let’s face it, we in this country and in the western world are in the middle of a stand-off between secularism, for want of a better word, and fundamentalism, for want of a better word. When you are in that polarised situation, the danger is that anyone who tries to have something reasonable which is neither of those is shot at from both sides as though they are colluding with whichever side the shooter does not happen to like. The secularists clearly want to abolish the blasphemy laws for the same reason that they want to abolish the establishment and lots of other things. The fundamentalists want to keep the blasphemy laws for the same reason; namely, in my view a mistaken belief that this forms an absolute linchpin of the Christian establishment and that if you pull it out the whole lot will come tumbling down. I simply do not believe that. I defy anyone on these Benches or elsewhere to call me a liberal for it. I think that my friends here would be surprised to know that the Bishop of Durham happened to be a liberal. That may have been the case in times past but I hope that is not the case at present. As some noble Lords will know, I was invited to give a lecture at the London School of Economics three weeks ago. It is a strange place for a Bishop to lecture in; a sort of high temple of secularism. I argued as strongly as I could that the Christian faith should be considered an honoured, valued and fundamental part of our society and, indeed, argued for the establishment of the church. I just about got away with my life. It was an interesting experience. So I am not going to collude with the secularists for one minute. But here is the paradox and it is the paradox of democracy itself; namely, that democracy has to tolerate some forces which might make for its overthrow, otherwise, it is not being true to itself as a democracy. Likewise, for Christians at the heart of the Christian faith there is a re-evaluation of power which is focused on Jesus himself, who refused to be defended and, indeed, spoke very severely to one of his followers who got out his sword to try to protect him. Rather, he was content to be mocked, spat at and ultimately crucified precisely on, interestingly, a charge of blasphemy, which was then transformed into a charge of sedition. Edward Shillito, one of the First World War poets, wrote: ““The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak; They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds but Thou alone””. It is because I uphold that at the centre of my Christian faith that I find it very odd then to think of mounting laws to say that we must defend Jesus against wounds today. When Christians say, as we do, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow—as the noble Baroness quoted from Philippians—that is a statement of sure and certain faith about the future, not a statement of social policy to be enforced by statute. It subverts the normal types of power; it does not imitate them. Therefore, I fear that the existing law, by appearing to defend Jesus—as some Christian groups are insisting it does—is in an odd paradoxical relationship at best with the Jesus of the Gospels. This is a biblical and Christian argument for abolition. I am sorry to have to make it at a time when the head of steam happens to have come from secularism but it is an argument that I have made over the past 20 years whenever I have been asked about it and that happens to coincide with things that have come from the other place with the secularist tag on, to which the noble Baroness drew our attention. Of course there is such a thing as offensive behaviour. Recently in the BALTIC on Tyneside, in my diocese, there was a deeply offensive statue of Jesus which I shall not even attempt to describe—I was going to say in a family newspaper but I should say in your Lordships' House. If that statue had been proposed of any other religious leader, I wonder whether the museum would have allowed it to be seen. That is a problem but in my view that should not be dealt with by a blasphemy law but rather under other statutes—which we are getting—dealing with offensive and inflammatory public behaviour. Recent legislation has attempted to address that and we are grateful for it although, as my noble friends here have said, we could have wished that this issue had come up after that new legislation had had a chance to be road tested in the courts. We look eagerly to see how the Government and the courts might apply it. Rather, what we need is protection for groups, communities and individuals who are at risk. We look to this Government to provide that as they have said. Some people are vulnerable in this respect. Public order is vulnerable when there is gratuitous and inflammatory material. Therefore, I hope it is clear that in supporting the government amendment I am not for one minute colluding with the mood towards secularism, liberalism or any such agendas. I am grateful for assurances on this subject. Actually, if paradoxically, I am doing my best to work through the implications of the fact that it is Jesus himself, not some power-hungry demigod of the same name, who stands at the heart of the faith professed by over 70 per cent of people in our country and whose strange presence continues to haunt and challenge our culture in ways that many understandably find disturbing but to which we on these Benches do our best to bear witness.