England is now a multi religious, multi cultural and multi ethnic
country. In the last 50 years, England moved from a country dominated
by the quasi Protestant Christian faith, with a small but active
Catholic Christian minority plus an even smaller Jewish population, to
a more secular country accommodating, if somewhat reluctantly and
apprehensively , people from all the worlds major religions. Also in
the last fifty years, leaders in the Church of England who had
previously preached strict moral codes (rules of behaviour in day to
day life) started to endorse (or at least not restrain) a freer
lifestyle made possible by scientific inventions. (The main
scientificcover invention fuelling this cultural revolution was of
course the female contraceptive pill.) The always more conservative
Roman Catholic church and the newer Asian immigrants practising the
Islamic faith take a much more reserved view on newer freedoms and
equalities now available to women following the advances in medical
science. These more conservative faiths would point to the breakdown of
the family unit, the increases in divorce and the increase in sexually
transmitted disease as examples. Indeed Muslim women who before 1970
were pressing for more liberal rules for women within Islam were both
repulsed and frightened by how they observed their "Christian" female
contemporaries embrace this new freedom. This killed off the liberal
thoughts of this movement which resulted in the return to the stricter
codes of the past as is manifested by their veils and other
distinguishing and sometimes even harsher dress rules.
Over the years religious differences could have either generated
interest and cultural exchange, or envy, jealousy, hatred and religious
wars. Unfortunately more often than not the latter, why? What are the
differences which can be so destructive? Is there a common thread which
should be working as a harmonising factor? The facts behind this debate
will be discussed on this site.
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Religion