Compared to America, most of Europe finds little place for religion in public life. Yet it is America that has a secular constitution, in contrast to the formally religious constitutions of many European countries.
In an article for Aeon, Ronan McCrea notes that –
McCrea has an explanation for this apparent paradox:
However, mass immigration means that this religious homogeneity – however nominal in nature – no longer applies:
A few months ago, the Labour MP and former Anglican minister, Chris Bryant, proposed that the chapel of St Mary Undercroft, in the Palace of Westminster, be turned into a multifaith prayer room so that it could be used for same sex weddings. Leaving aside the SSM issue, let’s just consider the multifaith angle.
Anyone who’s ever visited the chapel will know that every inch of its richly decorated interior is infused with High Anglican iconography. It would be hard for many low church Protestants to worship there, let alone members of non-Christian religions. Unless one were to remove or cover-up the imagery – which would be an act of sacrilege and of cultural vandalism – the chapel doesn't exactly lend itself to a multifaith purpose.
For a certain kind of secularist the answer is not multifaith but no faith. In the case of St Mary Undercroft, that would mean shutting the chapel as a place of worship altogether – perhaps redesignating it as a museum, in the manner of the Bolsheviks.
The chapel is a symbol of a wider debate, which, according to Ronan McCrea, has been sharpened by the challenge of integrating immigrant communities into mainstream society:
Instead of standing firm against the minority-of-the-minority who genuinely pose a threat to our society, there are those who would have all expressions of religious faith restricted equally. With the best of intentions, Mr McCrea would appear to be among their number:
Except that everything would not be the same. Christian traditions are woven into the very fabric of our national identity. The institution of the monarchy, our constitution, our flag, our national anthem, our public holidays, if you tear the religious symbols out of our national institutions, what would be left of them?