The charity sector in England and Wales is enormous. Over 180,000 organisations today benefit from tax relief, better access to grant funding and the reputational cachet of being a registered charity. The justification for this special treatment is that charities are supposed to act for the public benefit. It might surprise you, though, to discover just how many of these charities are religious in nature. In a search I recently made of the charity register, the term “religious” was included in the “objects and activities” section of nearly 20,000 organisations. Of these, a significant proportion specifically included the “advancement” of Christianity or other religions as one of their purposes – by which they claim their right to charitable status.
In other words, everyone who pays taxes or votes in England and Wales today is helping to subsidise the advancement of religion by thousands of organisations, and to support its approval by the state. This is despite the fact that the country itself is less and less religious. The results of the 2021 census have revealed that less than half of the population (46.2 per cent) are “Christian”, while 10.6 per cent follow minority religions, and 37.2 per cent have “no religion”. Christianity has decreased significantly from the last census in 2011, while non-religion has increased.
Despite this, charity law continues to consider the “advancement of religion” as in itself a purpose which qualifies an organisation to be a charity – quite separately from any other charitable aims such as advancing education or relieving poverty. In theory, such an organisation must demonstrate that its advancement of religion is publicly, and wholly, beneficial. But in practice, the Charity Commission, especially in the last decade, seems to have put little effort into requiring organisations to produce evidence to prove this. The current state of the law means that religious organisations – particularly those associated, however loosely, with a mainstream faith – are given government-backed support to promote their views. Why is merely “advancing religion” enough to qualify an organisation for the privileges of a charity?
The idea of charity, in Europe at least, has its roots deep in Christianity. “Now abideth faith, hope, and charity,” wrote St Paul, as translated in the King James Bible, “but the greatest of these is charity.” But while the Church encourages the practice of giving alms to the poor and other worthy causes, it has also long taught that one of the worthiest causes is giving to itself. This was already a target for satire in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. “Therfore in stede of wepynge and preyeres / Men moote yeve silver to the povre freres,” he wrote ironically of the rapacious Friar.
The first modern law about charity in England, the “Statute of Charitable Uses” of 1601, contained in its preamble a list of purposes, donations for which were to be protected from misappropriation. Some “charitable uses”, such as ‘“Releife of aged impotent and poore people” and “Schooles of Learninge”, are still familiar. “Religion” itself was not on the list, although the “Repaire” of “Churches” was, among other public works. In 1891, however, the “advancement of religion” was definitively established by the House of Lords as a distinct “head” (or “purpose”) of charity, along with the advancement of education, the relief of poverty and “other purposes beneficial to the community”.
'Any religion is better than none'
In the 20th century, there was a legal presumption that the first three heads – on religion, education and relief of poverty – were inherently of “public benefit”. Thus there was usually no need for religious organisations to provide any evidence that advancing their faith would benefit wider society. As the High Court put it in the case of Neville vs Madden (1962), which concerned a synagogue trust, “As between different religions the law stands neutral, but it assumes that any religion is at least likely to be better than none.”
In the early 2000s, the Charity Commission – the government organisation responsible for regulating charities – seemed willing to judge for itself whether advancing a particular religion was in fact solely “religious”, or beneficial. In 1999, it held that the Church of Scientology could not rely on the presumption of public benefit, because it was relatively new. It had also failed to demonstrate that its activities were of public benefit. Finally, the Commission held that Scientology was not a religion in the first place: although its faith did involve a “supreme being”, its practices did not count as “reverence or veneration” of that being. (Which leads, of course, to the knotty question of how a secular body like the Commission is supposed to determine what is or is not a religion.)
In 2004, the Commission rejected the application of Good News for Israel to register as a charity, because one of its objects was to promote Aliyah, “the return of Jewish people to the land promised to them by God”. This, the Commission concluded, had “implications… beyond the religious and spiritual”, raising “political, economical, social and civil order issues”. This disqualified GNI from registering, because, as is still the case now, the purposes or “charitable objects” of a charity, as set out in its governing document, must all be charitable.
It was only in the Charities Act of 2006 that the “presumption of benefit” for religious (and other) charities was finally removed. The new state of affairs, as the Commission put it, was that “advancing religion can be seen as a public good if such advancement can be demonstrated to be in relation to a system having a benign and positive content which is being advanced for the benefit of the public”. Parliament had belatedly recognised that the benefits of advancing a particular religion could not be taken for granted.
Charitable advantages
At least, that was the theory. There were, however, warning signs that the presumption of benefit for religions might not be displaced so easily. One of these was the Labour government’s refusal to insert “or belief” into the relevant clause that confirmed the “advancement of religion” as a charitable purpose. Adding “or belief” would have brought the clause into line with other legislation, like the Equality Act 2010, which recognised “religion or belief”, including lack of belief, as a protected characteristic under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, taken together with the prohibition on discrimination under Article 14.
There seems to have been a feeling that there were enough charitable purposes already, and any deserving non-religious-belief organisations would be covered by a clause allowing stated purposes to be extended by analogy, or else they could be considered educational charities. This had been the case for the South Place Ethical Society (SPES), now Conway Hall, which won a court battle in 1980 to give it recognition as a charity under the “advancement of education” head – specifically, “education in humanist ethical principles”.
Today, the “advancement of religion” remains in the Charities Act 2011, which replaced the 2006 Act. Now is the time for this clause to be repealed. Above all, because it perpetuates a systemic favouritism towards religious organisations which is not justified in modern Britain.
Register a charity and your organisation will receive a host of benefits. Gift Aid and other tax advantages, like on income tax and stamp duty, business rates relief and better access to grant funding are only some of these perks. Add to that improved public trust and confidence in your organisation, including from having a registered charity number and information being shown on the public register.
In other words, registering as a charity enables an organisation to be subsidised by the taxpayer, to obtain additional funding more easily and to benefit from the reputational cachet of being a charity on the official Register of Charities, with an appearance of oversight by a government body. These are significant advantages.
Who benefits?
The very concept of “advancing religion for the public benefit” is riddled with problems. Some of these emerge from the Commission’s own guidance on the issue, first published in 2008 (it has been marked as “under review” since at least 2018).
According to the guidance, to “advance religion” means “to promote or maintain or practise it and increase belief in the supreme being or entity that is the object or focus of the religion” – for example by “seeking new followers” or “promoting particular tenets”. As an example of “promoting tenets”, it posits an Islamic charity that could help Muslims in hospital to “observe the requirements of the Islamic Halal practice”.
There is no explanation of how this practice – involving the consumption of ritually slaughtered animals – might benefit anyone beyond those individuals concerned.
Or take a real example: the Christian Science Society, Oxted, which first registered in 1965. The sole purpose of this registered charity is “to maintain and spread the truth as set forth in the Bible and interpreted in ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’ by Mary Baker Eddy”. In Chapter XII of this curious text, first published in 1875, Eddy proclaims that “If you believe in inflamed and weak nerves, you are liable to an attack from that source. You will call it neuralgia, but we call it a belief…” Whatever this means, it is hard to see how promoting such a tenet would be for the public benefit – or, indeed, what basis the organisation has for characterising their unprovable beliefs as “the truth” in a public secular document.
“Seeking new followers” certainly benefits the religions themselves. As the Evangelical Alliance, a Christian charity, put it in 2008, “religious organisations need to be able to sustain themselves into the future, something that has always been done through the medium of evangelism” – and through the extraction of funds that inevitably follows.
But the ability of religious organisations to fund themselves cannot be of public benefit, unless the practice of the religion itself is. Most of the examples the guidance offers of the benefits of a religion, such as “the spiritual and moral education of children”, primarily concern its adherents rather than the public, or else would qualify under other heads of charity, such as the relief of poverty.
Advancing religion could, the guidance says, “contribut[e] towards a better society, for example by promoting social cohesion and social capital”. On the other hand – a point which the guidance does not consider – advancing one religion at the expense of others, or other non-religious beliefs, could also sow mutual distrust. Altogether, the guidance is nebulous and weak on what should be the crucial section, namely why advancing religion – whatever the content of its teachings – should qualify an organisation to receive public money.
A fourth, practical difficulty concerns how the Charity Commission is supposed to determine whether the views and practices of thousands of religious charities are of public benefit – or whether they might be positively harmful.
Examples of types of harm associated with religious charities include conversion therapy, circumcision, political extremism and discriminatory religious “courts”. These were discussed in “For the Public Benefit?”, a 2019 report by the National Secular Society. More examples keep coming to light. Take the Moray Coast Baptist Church, which registered as a charity in August 2022. Its pastor, Donald Clough, posted a sermon on its website in which he said that “society would be a lot better if women would submit to their husbands and tend to their children and take care of their home.”
The conclusion drawn by the NSS report still holds: the Commission is “not regulating the sector as rigorously as it should”.
5 reasons to change the system
Another question concerns equal treatment between religious and non-religious organisations. Not more than a handful of organisations advocating non-religious views have applied to register as charities via the “analogy” clause. The biggest one that has is Humanists UK (HUK), whose first charitable object (out of four) is “the advancement of Humanism, namely a non-religious ethical lifestance the essential elements of which are a commitment to human wellbeing and a reliance on reason, experience and a naturalistic view of the world.”
In 2011, after an extensive campaign by HUK, the Commission accepted “the advancement of Humanism” as a charitable object in its own right. This seemed tacitly to admit that the “advancement of religion” could be extended to non-religious beliefs by analogy, thereby avoiding claims for discrimination under the ECHR.
Religion, however, remains the paradigm. Indeed, the Commission’s acceptance of humanism, according to Richy Thompson of HUK, was “without prejudice as to whether the advancement of other beliefs might be considered charitable”. In other words, it seems to have been a decision on the particular merits of humanism (as defined by HUK), not on the general desirability of non-religious views.
In fact, one of the prejudices that non-believers have always faced in Britain, and continue to face today in some quarters, is that without the guidance of a religion, they have no moral code by which to orient themselves. HUK’s characterisation of humanism as an “ethical lifestance” seems to have been partly shaped in response to this perception; the motto on its website, “think for yourself, act for everyone”, illustrates the explicitly moral outlook adopted by this organisation.
Yet no one seems to have considered whether a non-religious approach might be beneficial, not because it is still moral despite not being religious, but rather because it does something that is not analogous to religion.
For instance, the purpose of Atheism UK (which is not a charity) is to “challenge religious claims and the propagation of religious faith” – not to present a moral code. My own magazine, the Freethinker, is funded by Secular Society Ltd, which is also not a charity, even though it is a non-profit whose objects include promoting the “utmost freedom of enquiry”.
Apparently criticising belief systems is less beneficial to society than simply propagating them. The only charity that came up on the Register under “atheism” was Genexis, an organisation run by an evangelical church in Leamington Spa. Its sole object is, “for the public benefit, the advancement of the Christian faith worldwide with a particular emphasis on cultures and geographical areas which are facing a rise in secularism, humanism and atheism, in particular by advancing the case for theism (as opposed to atheism) based on scientific, philosophical and historical evidence.”
In other words, an organisation whose explicit aim is to oppose atheism can be charitable, but not one designed to promote it. This is not to argue that every association of unbelievers ought to be a charity. Equally, organisations from Humanists UK to the Church of England can, and do, still qualify as charities under other perfectly legitimate heads, such as the “promotion of religious harmony” or the “advancement of education” – one of the purposes of the Rationalist Association, which publishes New Humanist. My objection is simply to the specific provision of “advancing religion”, or even humanism, as a separate head of charity, for a number of reasons.
1. Because this provision is unfairly biased in favour of established religions, as opposed to either new religions or many non-religious approaches to life.
2. It assumes that propagating a belief system or ideology is better than criticising it.
3. The Charity Commission is either reluctant or does not have the resources to question the public benefit of many charities whose only purpose is to “advance religion”.
4. The provision adds a superfluous head of charity to an already inflated list.
5. Charities that qualify as such purely for “advancing religion” are often undeserving of public support. (Even Humanists UK, as Richy Thompson said, “would be happy to see the advancement of religion removed as a head of charity” and would be prepared to dispense with the “advancement of humanism” by the same token.)
When religion meets politics
There is also a final reason why “advancing religion” should be removed as a head of charity: because religious ideologies are so often closely entwined with politics. According to the Commission’s current guidance on “Campaigning and political activity”, charities “can campaign to achieve their purposes. But a charity can’t have a political purpose, or undertake political activity that is not relevant to the charity’s charitable purposes.” The reason for this is that, “constitutionally, it is not possible for the Commission or the Courts to make decisions about whether a change in the law or government policy would be for the public benefit.”
However, despite the prohibition on political purposes, the Charity Commission’s own guidance recognises that “campaigning and political activity can be legitimate and valuable activities for charities to undertake” – provided that such activity be undertaken by a charity “only in the context of supporting the delivery of its charitable purposes” and does not become “the reason for the charity’s existence”.
You might wonder if there were a certain equivocation here. Moreover, in its most recent update to its guidance on political campaigning, published in November 2022, the Commission emphasised that “campaigning, advocacy and political activity are all legitimate and valuable activities for charities to undertake.”
Such guidance is hardly likely to strengthen the already thin line between religious and political beliefs. Moreover, religious charities frequently run campaigns for or against legislation – such as on assisted dying, abortion, same-sex marriage or hate speech laws. In contrast, organisations which, like the National Secular Society, do not invoke any sort of belief system cannot benefit from government subsidies when campaigning, usually against religious groups, on the same issues.
The subsidies also continue. In July 2022, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced grants for 16 religious charities to work in partnership with secular authorities on community projects, under a pilot “Faith New Deal Fund”. Among these was the (Anglican) Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT), whose charitable object is “the advancement of the Christian religion”, and one of whose aims on its website is “the evangelisation of the nation”. CRT received a grant of £200,000 to help “plant… churches in key cities across England and Wales”, as well as to “recruit and train clergy”. In other words, more government money is being used to prop up the Church of England.
In the last resort, the decision whether to lend support to an organisation promoting Paganism, Pastafarianism, Christianity, atheism or none of the above, should be a matter for the individual conscience. Retaining a clause like the “advancement of religion” effectively gives some religious beliefs and practices a free pass to subsidies and status on a preferential basis, regardless of whether they offer any real benefit to the public.
The only just way forward would be to repeal the clause. This prospect seems distant, however, given the current religious influences on both the Conservative and Labour parties. This is unfortunate, because the longer religious organisations are allowed to cling on to their privileges, the harder it will be to take them away.
This piece is from the New Humanist summer 2023 edition. Subscribe here.
