'The Inter Faith Network is in peril - please support it'
The government is withdrawing funding from the Inter Faith Network, leading to its potential closure. Paul Weller, a member of the Baptists Together Inter Faith Working Group, is encouraging Baptists to urgently protest the decision
As a Baptist Christian who, between 1988-1990, was employed as the Resources Officer of the then new Inter Faith Network for the UK; and who, more recently, until July 2023 was its Christian trustee, I am calling on all Baptist Christians to make urgent representations to the government.
Please sign the petition in support of continued government funding for the Inter Faith Network’s vital work.
From their beginnings onward, Baptist Christians have supported religious freedom as something that is theologically mandated. The Baptist Inter Faith Working Group of which I am also a member, is itself a member body of the Network and has actively contributed to, and benefited from, the work of the Network.
The Inter Faith Network has on a national level acted as an inclusive forum for engagement on the part of the UK’s diverse religious communities and traditions, both with a whole range of government departments and with public life more broadly.
Locally and regionally, the Network has been of particular help as a focus for exchange of good practice to local inter-faith groups, many of which have testified to the importance of the Network’s practical advice and support in bringing their vital, but often relatively fragile, local work into being.
Since 2009 it has developed and promoted an annual Inter-Faith Week, which has encouraged and resourced diverse bodies, including local church congregations such as my own at Broadway Baptist Church in Derby, to make some focus on matters of inter-faith relations and dialogue.
Before I completed my last term of office as a Network Trustee, I was greatly reassured to learn that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities had, subject to the Network's submission of a work plan (subsequently submitted), decided to continue its funding of the Network for the financial year 2023-24.
However, it seems that as late as six months following the Department's in principle positive funding decision, the Secretary of State, Michael Gove MP, is now apparently "minded" to withdraw funding from the Network. Mr Gove expressed this intention in a letter on 19 January.
In the light of this the Network’s Trustees have decided that, unless this funding is restored or similar funding secured, there will be no other option than to close the Network.
More details can be found in this Religion Media Network video briefing, which describes the IFN's impending closure as 'devastating' and 'outrageous'.
TheNetwork’s own special issue newsletter also contains background to the decision, and details the 'hugely damaging' effect on the charity.
The Secretary of State's newly articulated position seems to be informed by a concern that the Muslim Council of Britain (in relation to which the government has a policy of no direct engagement, even though it is the largest representational body of Muslim organisations in the UK) is a member of the Network, and that one of the MCB's officers is a Network Trustee.
However, the MCB’s longstanding membership of the Network has never previously been raised by this or any other government as a potential barrier to government funding, and the MCB is neither a proscribed organisation, nor has it been found guilty of any illegal activities.
Therefore, in addition to its likely highly detrimental impact on UK inter-faith relations at precisely a time when its expertise and experience is very much needed, the timing, manner and substance of Michael Gove’s intervention could, at the very least, be perceived as an attempt politically to interfere in the governance of a charitable organisation, the aims, objectives and effectiveness of which require it to engage with all faith community bodies which operate within the law.
The IFN Board meets on Thursday 22 February to make a final decision on closure.
Time is of the essence - please consider signing the petition 'Urge Michael Gove to maintain funding for the Interfaith Network for the UK!' here.
Paul Weller is a Non-Stipendiary Research Fellow in Religion and Society, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford and member of Broadway Baptist Church, Derby. He is a member of the Baptists Together Inter Faith Working Group
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Baptist Times, 20/02/2024