What is the place of faith in public life in the UK? Beyond ‘secularism’ that seeks to relegate faith to the margins of public life, and a ‘Christian nation’ position that seeks to retain, or even regain, Christian public privilege, there is a third way. Faith in Democracy: Framing a Politics of Deep Diversity calls for an approach that maximises public space for the expression of faith-based visions within democratic fora while repudiating all traces of religious privilege.
It argues for a truly conversational space, reflecting theologically on the contested concepts at the heart of the current debate about the place of faith in British public life: democracy, secularism, pluralism and public faith.
Jonathan Chaplin is an Associate Fellow at the think tank Theos and a member of the University of Cambridge Divinity Faculty. He is the author or editor of numerous publications on faith and politics in Britain and beyond, including The Future of Brexit Britain: Anglican Reflections on National Identity and European Solidarity (2020) and God and the EU: Faith in the European Project (2016).