Britain is no longer a Christian country and should stop acting as if it is, said a major inquiry into the place of religion in modern society commissioned by the Woolf Institute.
The two-year commission, chaired by the former senior judge Baroness Butler-Sloss and involving leading religious leaders from all faiths, calls for public life in Britain to be systematically de-Christianised.
It says that the decline of churchgoing and the rise of Islam and other faiths mean a ‘new settlement’ is needed for religion in the UK, giving more official influence to non-religious voices and those of non-Christian faiths. The report, by the Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life, claims that faith schools are ‘socially divisive’ and says that the selection of children on the basis of their beliefs should be phased out.
