Tasha Dhanraj’s Thought For Week: 1

There’s been all sorts of chat about whether Britain is still a Christian country. I’d say that if anywhere in Britain has any claim to be Christian, it’s got to be Oxford.

For centuries it has been the home of British theology and has produced 12 Saints and 20 Archbishops of Canterbury. You can barely walk half a mile without finding a church that every Sunday is the destination for literally tens of people.

Almost all of the colleges were born out of some kind of religious affiliation. It even turns out that Oxford’s motto “Dominus Illuminatio Mea” actually translates to “The Lord is My Light” and not “Domino’s illuminates my mind” as I always presumed. In truth, a tribute to pizza would be a better reflection of the feelings of the general student population than the God one.

Celebrating the true meaning of Easter

Even as someone who is a bit Christiany, I don’t want to think of Oxford as a Christian city or Britain as a Christian country. Most of our Christianiness is rooted in our history. To define our city or country by our religion is essentially to define it by its past, when we can all agree that huge swathes of British history are not to be proudly identified with.

What I find far more exciting is our multicultural, multi-religious present. Cowley Road is festooned with halal restaurants, we have an active Jewish population and there are several Buddhist centres scattered around the city. Meanwhile, more people at this university are studying Oriental Studies than my historical, Christianity-centric degree of Theology.

And of course, lest we forget, Oxford is home to this country’s most successful new religious movement of Dawkinism whose mighty leader resides in our humble city. (Truly, we are blessed for his existence.)

Why would we intentionally define ourselves by something that excludes many people who make Oxford and this country what it is?

Why are some people so desperate to cling onto this Christian country business anyway? What benefit does it have? This whole “Christians do good things” shtick is bollocks and everyone knows it. Christianity, like a lot of religions, calls people to a certain set of ethics that most people completely fail on.

Nobody’s going to wake up tomorrow, read David Cameron wittering on about our nation’s proud Christian heritage and think “well golly, I’d better get myself down to a church.” Acknowledging our Christian heritage both as a university and a country is pointless unless it’s to raise our own awareness of when we are being discriminatory in some way. And if that happens, then we should take steps to be more secular and inclusive.

In today’s secular Britain, we can and should enjoy the religious buffet that greater tolerance and immigration has brought us and stop being so prissy. Who knows? We might even get a few more bank holidays out of it.