Freedom of Religion or Belief: 40th Anniversary of UN Declaration

Steve Baker Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am incredibly proud of the UK’s law in relation to freedom of religion and belief. I think that in Wycombe we can be incredibly proud of the number of religions that get along with one another peacefully and in harmony. We have various denominations of Christian faith, various branches of Islam, a Hindu temple and a Sikh temple, and I am sure many other religions are represented. I am very pleased and proud that people get along very peacefully together.

I want to explore why other countries and sometimes places in the UK, as the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) said, exhibit Islamophobia. Why does tolerance break down? Before I do so I would like to thank the hon. Lady for her kind words. I am very pleased and proud that she is in this House. I hope she will not mind if I say that I think she is a wonderful champion for modern British Islam. My only regret is that she is not on the Conservative Benches, but I am grateful to her for her kind comments.

Why does intolerance arise? My first observation is that people sometimes seem to forget, as they live out their faith, that it is a faith, They sometimes talk about their religion as if it was a matter of fact. I only wish sometimes that I had their certainty about the Lord in my life, but I am afraid people need to remember that they have a faith, which means matters are disputable, and they get on to very grave territory—very thin ice over very hot water—if they forget that they are holding on to a faith and that the things they believe cannot be proven. Indeed, I think that when atheists look at those of us who profess a faith, they are quite reasonable in thinking sometimes that what we believe is absurd. We all need to remember that we cannot prove those things that we believe, and therefore it is totally unacceptable to impose those beliefs on others.

That brings me on to tolerance. We in the UK have in several areas started to forget what it means to be tolerant: we have started to behave as if to be tolerant is to all agree on a consensus of what goes, but that is not right. To tolerate something is to put up with it despite profoundly disagreeing with it; in other words, it is to live and let live—to agree to disagree. The things we tolerate are things that we do not like, yet we do not proceed against them by force. That is the crucial principle of a free society: it is a crucial principle that allows us to live in peace and harmony with one another that when we disagree we just tolerate; we do not proceed using force, legal or otherwise, against those with whom we disagree.

That brings me on to a sensitive subject. I really lament blasphemy laws around the world. We have heard how Christians are persecuted in several places in the world, and I do not mind saying that occasionally I am asked to support blasphemy laws but my answer is always the same. If somebody says to me, “But prophet Isa would be protected by a blasphemy law”, I always have to say to them, “I’m so sorry, but your prophet Isa is to me the incarnate and risen God, and I know that what I’ve just said is a blasphemy in your religion and I hope you won’t mind my saying that your characterisation of the incarnate and risen God might be characterised as a blasphemy in mine.” For that reason we simply cannot have blasphemy laws: for me, that example is a way of illustrating, in a way people can accept, why blasphemy laws are totally unacceptable, and I have not yet found a single person who has refuted that.

What I am trying to say to my right hon. Friend the Minister is that, as we go about the world trying to promote freedom of religion and belief, can we please not just look at the leaves of this terrible tree of suffering where people are persecuted; can we also please try to get down to the roots? I believe that the roots are that people forget that their faith is just that: a faith that cannot be proven. They forget that one of the most important principles of a free society is that we should tolerate things that are doing no harm.

As a Christian, I believe in the eternal, and I believe therefore that what really matters is what is true in religion, but I accept that I cannot prove it to anyone and I am thoroughly prepared to believe that each one of us is responsible for our own salvation and it is not my problem or responsibility in the end to save the souls of others; it is their problem, much as I might be willing to evangelise. I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister as he goes about the world to try to persuade politicians and indeed electorates elsewhere that what they need to do is learn to be tolerant: to let others go their own way in search of their own salvation in peace, and that way to enjoy freedom of religion or belief.