by Giles Fraser, UnHerd
It is now a hostile place for the faithful
Quebec is set to ban prayer in public — with a fine of over C$1,000 for those who dare invoke the deity outside. This strengthens an existing ban on public officials like teachers from wearing the kippah or turbans at work, and follows a number of pro-Palestine events that included Islamic prayers as a part of the demonstrations. Opponents of the bill argue that this will make the Canadian province one of the most hostile places for religion anywhere in the world, especially when it comes to Muslim women. Supporters, for their part, argue that freedom of religion is maintained insofar as everyone is allowed to practice their religion, just not in public.
But “religion” is a surprisingly tricky term: and not just for Your Party who offended their Muslim members by signing off their recently chaotic Liverpool Conference with John Lennon’s “Imagine” (“and no religion too”). In our Western post-secular world, we tend to think of it as the kind of thing that goes on in specific spaces — churches, mosques — where it is appropriate to speak of God. Religion thus understood is a kind of specialist pursuit that religious people are into, like a hobby you do on the weekend. Sport is an obvious comparison here. Max Weber coined the term “specialisation” when talking about the changes brought about by modernity. Different social activities — whether football or faith — did their own thing, established their own rules and institutions, and existed in a semi-detached way to other activities in life. And just as it is possible to live without knowing how Chelsea got on, so one can live, for the most part, without knowing or caring that we are now in the season of advent.