Tag: interfaith

Bishop of Lichfield asks about interfaith work in government following attack on Manchester synagogue

On 15th October 2025, the The Bishop of Lichfield asked a question on interfaith work in government following a statement on the recent attack on a synagogue in Manchester:

The Lord Bishop of Lichfield: My Lords, my prayers are with the victims, their families and all our Jewish communities following this appalling attack. It is shocking that the ancient evil of antisemitism is currently resurgent in our society. We must remain vigilant against it and all forms of religious hatred. No one in this country should ever feel unsafe because of their faith, and particularly not unsafe in their place of worship.

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Church Commissioners Questions: Same-sex couples – Church Blessing Services, Occupied Palestinian Territories – Christians, Interfaith Cohesion, Safeguarding, Leaseholds, Church Assets – Historical Link to Slavery

On 22nd May 2025, the Second Church Estates Commissioner, Marsha De Cordova MP, gave the following answers to questions from MPs in the House of Commons:

Same-sex couples: Church Blessing Services

Steve Race MP (Lab, Exeter) asked: What steps the Church is taking to roll out stand-alone services to bless same-sex couples.

Marsha De Cordova MP (Lab, Battersea): A proposal to enable churches to opt in to the use of prayers of love and faith in stand-alone services is out for consultation and will come back to the House of Bishops in October.

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Bishop of Manchester urges re-funding of the Inter Faith Network

The Bishop of Manchester urged the government to consider re-funding the Inter Faith Network on 22nd January 2025, during a discussion on extremism and community engagement:

The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, a decision under the previous Government about a particular Islamic organisation being characterised as extremist led to the defunding and collapse of the national Inter Faith Network. I wonder if the Minister agrees that the Inter Faith Network provided a vital role in co-ordinating interfaith work at a national level. We do great things at local level, but we need some national work as well. Will he urge His Majesty’s Government to commit to refunding the Inter Faith Network?

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Bishop of Lichfield speaks on impact of community tensions and the importance of interfaith work

On 6th December 2024, the Bishop of Lichfield spoke in the Archbishop of York’s debate on social cohesion, highlighting the impact of community tensions, exacerbated by global events, on faith communities and particularly Jewish and Muslim communities in the UK:

The Lord Bishop of Lichfield: My Lords, I am sure that on these Benches and more widely, all of us as Bishops will register and take to heart the searching and challenging words of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, and I thank her for them. We recognise the urgency and centrality of independent scrutiny in the life of our Church.

The UK is home to communities that are richly diverse and in which people of different cultures, beliefs and faiths live alongside one another. Social cohesion acts as the bridge between those differences. It enables us to live well together, providing resilience to communities when faced with adversity and enabling us to coexist peacefully, but as demonstrated by the riots this summer, this kind of social cohesion can no longer be taken for granted. The consequences of growing divisions should not be underestimated, and we must not ignore the increasing threat of erosion that the social cohesion binding us together faces.

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Bishop of Lichfield asks about funding for interfaith community work

The Bishop of Lichfield asked a question on government support for community interfaith initiatives on 9th September 2024, during a discussion on drivers of prejudice and hate-crimes against Muslims:

The Lord Bishop of Lichfield: My Lords, some of the most valuable and effective work that is being done to improve community relations, and so to counter religious hate crime and prejudice, is at a local and grass-roots level; for example, in Walsall we have community iftars, church-mosque twinnings, multifaith drama groups, and so on. Can the Minister tell us what the Government are providing in funding and support for local initiatives and groups of that kind?

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Bishop of Hereford asks about government approach to intrafaith issues and community relations

The Bishop of Hereford received the following written answer on 24th May 2024:

The Lord Bishop of Hereford asked His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the review by Colin Bloom Does government ‘do God?’ An independent review into how government engages with faith, published on 26 April 2023, in particular, the recommendation that “more could be done to resource and equip policy makers and officials to increase their level of awareness and discernment regarding intrafaith issues concerning exploitation and abuse”; and what steps they are taking in response.

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Bishop of Manchester details benefits of partnership working during debate on local government finances

The Bishop of Manchester spoke in debate on the state of local government finances and the impact on communities on 21st March 2024, highlighting the efforts of faith groups and partnership working to combat poverty and homelessness:

The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for securing this important debate, but I am doubly grateful for its full title. This is not simply a debate about local government finances; it is a debate about the impact on local communities, and that is a vital distinction. Money is only ever a means to an end. It is an input—a crucial one—but what really matters are the outcomes and, in terms of local government, what really matters is how well local communities are served.

I still recall that back in the 1990s, when I started attending and speaking at national housing conferences, there were some where every positive mention of housing associations brought an audible hiss from some local authority members who were present. They saw us as rivals, and in some cases even the enemy, as we were taking money that had formerly gone to them to provide services that they had previously enjoyed delivering. I guess their attitude could be summed up as: if a job is worth doing, it is for the public sector to do it. I hope that we have long moved on from those attitudes. Local authorities have a vital and leading part to play in the service of their communities, but they are not the sole provider. Other agencies are not competitors; they are partners in the common task of supporting the local community.

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Bishop of Worcester responds to government statement on the closure of the UK Interfaith Network

The Bishop of Worcester asked a question in response to a government statement on the closure of the UK Interfaith Network on 22nd February 2024:

The Lord Bishop of Worcester: My Lords, I too pay tribute to the work of the Inter Faith Network. As has been stated, surely the optics of this are not good. I would like to ask the Minister how far non-engagement extends, because surely, in our society, we want to encourage dialogue, even with those organisations that may express some views with which we disagree. To not be willing to engage at all with an organisation that has not been proscribed goes against all the efforts being made to bring our society together—it seems very strange.

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Bishop of Chichester asks about closure of the UK Inter-Faith Network

The Bishop of Chichester asked a question on the impact of the closure of the UK Inter-Faith Network on 21st February 2024, following the withdrawal of funding from the network by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities:

The Lord Bishop of Chichester: My Lords, this is an extremely difficult time, in which we hear profoundly disturbing reports of the rise in race and faith-based hate crimes. Tomorrow, the board of the UK’s Inter Faith Network will meet to confirm its closure following the withdrawal of funding by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. This comes at a time when we urgently need to promote interfaith dialogue and the expansion of religious literacy in schools, as has been mentioned, and elsewhere. What assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of the impact of the closure of the Inter Faith Network, and what will replace it?

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Bishop of Leicester asks about the UK Inter-Faith Network

The Bishop of Leicester received the following written answer on 14th June 2023:

The Lord Bishop of Leicester asked His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of (1) the value of the Inter-Faith Network, and (2) the risks of withdrawing funding from the Network.

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