UK haunted by religion, says archbishop

Riazat Butt
religious affairs correspondent
The Guardian
23 March 2009

Britain is not a secular country but it is "uncomfortably haunted by the memory of religion", the archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday.

In a lecture called Faith and the Public Square, delivered at Leicester Cathedral, Dr Rowan Williams said Britain was "not necessarily hostile" to faith and that the church continued to offer people something that could not be found elsewhere.

He said: "I don't believe we are living in a secular society and I don't believe we are living in a deeply religiously divided society. I believe we are living in a country that is uncomfortably haunted by the memory of religion and doesn't quite know what to do with it ... a society which is religiously plural and confused and therefore not necessarily hostile." the rest