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News

News: July/August 2009

The impermanence of the Dalai Lama-ship • Happiness breaks out everywhere • Bishops still generally annoyed — News reports by Sue Roberts

Souled Out

A senior Catholic bishop believes that Britain has sold its soul to the pursuit of scientific knowledge above all else. The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham, believes that because only provable facts are now considered valuable, arguments based on morality and spirituality are being ignored. In a new book about the rise of secularism, The Nation That Forgot God, Nichols claims that faith has been relegated to an individual pursuit, and the country has sought to define itself by secular and material standards. In his view, society lacks cohesion when there are no common values, while the virtues of compassion, respect and tolerance cannot survive once severed from their roots in Christian teaching.

However, this view of Britain as a secular society isn’t shared by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

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