God grief

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Nick Clegg's revelation yesterday that he doesn't believe in revelations of the divine kind is that it merits so much concerned coverage and twittering worry from some around him.

Personally I've been a secular humanist or non-believer as long as I can remember. Something about being dragged to St. Mary's CofE Church in Birmingham for 12 years had a debilitating impact on any nascent faith that I'm sceptical ever existed within me. But did have the upside of making me extremely interested in religion and scepticism of it.

To avoid the extreme boredom of hour-long services, and utter strangeness of the rituals in the church, which meant nothing to me, I joined the choir (better seats and good pocket money at weddings), progressing later to play the chapel organ at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital where my mother had become an ecumenical Chaplin.

It was a somewhat capitalist approach to Christianity, but £10 for a half hour service was a good whack at 14, and every Christmas I got taken around the wards on a large white wooden sledge with the carol singers. The services also gave me a chance to read the vicar's library which included the Qu'ran and some pretty interesting stuff from some Hindu gurus.

At university, college food was bad so I felt it was time to get back in touch with the other half of my family's religious heritage, Judaism. Much of my father's side of the family had escaped from Germany in the 1930s and his older sister hid in a monastery in France for much of the war. We now have a wonderful diaspora of family around the world and the weddings are much more fun. Anyhow, I attended Oxford J-soc for about two years for the food and company as a secular associate and have developed like Nick Clegg a profound respect for chicken soup.

After university, I shared a flat in Ealing with one of my best friends Richard, who when not engaging in pro-European politics had become an evangelical Christian. A rare defection from atheism. We would entertainingly try and convince one another of our respective beliefs at various points, but to no avail. Richard went on to train for the priesthood and I'm now the co-opted secular humanist rep on Southwark Council's SACRE (Standing Advisory Committee on Religious Education).

What I find different today, that I didn't find growing up, is that being a non-believer, or in my case a believer in people and their power to do good without the assistance of God(s), fairies or magic, is that it is not controversial. I have never felt any pressure to conceal my beliefs and I find most theists perfectly accepting and often interested in finding out what makes a sceptic tick.

That is why I find Clegg's concern to highlight his caution in his non-belief a matter he needs to think on some more. He has only just narrowly escaped losing the party's leadership election for showing unnecessary reserve and blandness against convinced opposition. He needs to be more firm in his resolve.

Humanism is not nihilism. It is not defined by a belief in nothing, but a belief in reason. A faith in people and today rather the ineffable and hereafter. It is a facility to stand in the face of the enormous unknowns and uncertainties of life, the anarchy of reality, and not be afraid or feel the need to explain through the invention of divinities who we can never truely know.

Nick should take more pride in his non-belief. If he doesn't he will leave people less with the impression that he is a sincere and thoughtful man, and more with the view that his deepest thoughts may well be a pose to win their favour. No one, in Britain at least, would feel the need to explain themselves to non-believers for their views on the grounds of being Christian, Muslim or Jewish. Nor should they. And the latter two at least are minority positions compared with non-belief.

Hesitancy is dangerous for a politician, and one thing that is often misunderstood about Tony Blair is that while he could appear as many things to people, underlying it all was a very sincere core of Christian democratic socialist thinking that helped him navigate through the hard times when he went from being on the winning side of most arguments to a lonely and despised minority.

Nick has a good story to tell here. That he is still an atheist while married to an equally sincere Catholic shows thoughtfulness and sincerity on both parts. He does not need to explain that he has respect for other faiths, that he is married and prepared to respect his wife's wishes in regard to their children demonstrates that.

He might wish to keep his reasons for his non-belief private, he might wish to discuss them. If he does and he wishes to make common-ground with people all faiths and none across the country, then he should consider focusing on our common belief in people rather than the differences between us.

In the 21st century one should no longer have to feel the need to explain why one is moral despite not believing in any God, anymore than a notional Christian should need to justify their beliefs despite only going to church at Christmas. Liberalism in faith means opposition to the oppressive authoritarianism of doctrine and custom through reason, evidence, and free debate.

Nick is now the leader of British liberalism and we have high hopes that he will help encourage the continued spread of that movement against oppression.