I do not agree with Keith Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society’s definition of secularism as ideologically neutral (The Tablet, Letters, 7 May). One must distinguish the promotion of a secular state, as in France, which set out to ensure that the Church did not wield power via the political process over those who did not belong to the religion, from the promotion of a critique or alternative view to the Catholic or any other religion.
The secular state therefore gives no privilege to religious views or their adherents, but neither does one enter into ideological dispute. Citizens are free to live their lives within a religious framework, subject to the rule of law, and they may neither claim advantage [it’s my religion] nor be required to put any religious beliefs into the public domain. Adherence to a framework of belief becomes ideological when one seeks to impose or promote it over other beliefs as an absolute.
Wood is rather confused about "relentless attempts over the centuries to weld Church and state", as the rule of bishops gave way to the creation of the state, and the Papal States eventually were no more. Many of today's problems in other parts of the world are a product of their failure to go in that direction.
Jacqueline Castles, London, W2
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