Tim Farron spoke recently about the conjunction of Christianity and liberalism. As has been recommended in another place, his entire Theos speech is worth reading but I would pick out one of his conclusions:
I believe in pluralism, I am not a secularist but I believe in a secular society where there is no ‘state faith’. That in Britain we have a church trapped as part of the furniture of the state is a waste of a church. A boat in the water is good. Water in the boat, is bad. A church in the state is good, the state in the church is bad. Really bad. It pollutes the message of that church. It compromises it. Weakens its witness.
I am a secularist, but I agree with that. We are fortunate in Wales in that there is no established church.
The media and the public generally should not give Tim or any other declared Christian a harder time than they do Sadiq Khan, a practising Muslim, or Lord Winston, an observant Jew, or any of the prominent practitioners of other faiths. We should also recognise the liberal aspects of most other great faiths of the world.
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