British Parliamentary Committee Hears From Faith Leaders On "Big Society" Program

A Select Committee in Britain's House of Commons is conducting hearings on the government's flagship "Big Society" initiative that is designed to create  a more socially active country in which citizens can  control functions and activities of local interest such as schools, pubs and community centers. (Issues and Questions Paper). There is now available on the House of Commons website a full transcript of the June 30 testimony on the relationship of the Big Society initiative and various faith groups.  Witnesses were Andrew Copson, British Humanist Association; Lord Jonathan Sacks, Britain's Chief Rabbi; Rt. Rev. Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester; and Charles Wookey, Assistant General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.  The testimony was wide ranging.  For example, Bishop Stevens said:

I think we in the Churches need to be alert to the dangers and the possible devices that might be used to turn Churches into utilitarian deliverers of services, that we become, as it were, the means to a political end, whereas I think we see the pursuit of our religion as an end in itself-it has meaning in itself. Volunteering, serving others, reaching out to the poor, is not simply a device; it is the way in which human beings discover who we truly are. It is the means to human flourishing. That is what we want to hold as a vision before people and why we want to continue to participate in this conversation.