Lapido Media launches at Frontline Club

Independent columnist and former Spectator Editor Dominic Lawson will interview Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, at the official launch of Lapido Media on Thursday.

The Bishop’s focus will include shari’ah law and theocracy – a political arrangement that brought the might of Africa’s second biggest state down on the head of a British primary school teacher over the naming of a teddy bear. 

The Bishop will also comment on the need of society at large to become more culturally and religiously aware to avoid pitfalls. The Bishop will also focus on freedom of belief and freedom to change one’s belief as undergirding principles for a free society.

Pakistan-born Nazir-Ali, who has a Christian and Muslim background, is Patron of Lapido Media, a registered charity set up to improve the national discourse about faith.

The conversation at the invitation-only event at the Frontline Club, Paddington has the title: ‘Neutrality or Truth? Reporting Islam post-7/7’.  Guests include journalists, diplomats, church officials, lawyers and authors.

Dr Nazir-Ali, who has both a Christian and Muslim family background, has been critical of the way religion is treated in public life, and of the moral equivalence which he feels is mistaken for objectivity.

In an interview with Mr Lawson at the House of Lords for the Mail on Sunday in November last year, he was critical of multi-culturalism:

‘Yes I think it was a mistake. It was based on a confusion between civic morality and theological pluralism. Of course we have to recognise difference; of course people have the right to worship in the way they wish to in their own homes.

‘But you need much more than that if you are going to be a cohesive nation. You need some sort of subscription to a common vision, to shared values, and that has been neglected, not so much because of the presence of other faiths but because of the spiritual and moral vacuum that has come to be at the heart of British society.’

The Bishop will point to successful inner-city projects, often initiated by churches, but where Muslims and Christians serve the whole community together within a shared understanding of freedom, excellence and well-being. 

Last week the Bishop said he was sorry Tony Blair had felt unable to talk about his faith during his time as PM. 

‘It would have led to more constructive social policy at home and principled policies abroad’, the bishop said.

Lapido Media has been founded to resource and improve the national conversation about the religious content of society.  Said founder Director Jenny Taylor:  ‘Unless we can talk the talk, we cannot walk the walk.  An impoverished discourse about religion – perhaps for the best motives – is nonetheless having tragic and profound consequences across the board, from social work to international relations.’

A registered charity, Lapido Media is funded by fees, donations and trusts including the Jerusalem Trust.  The launch event has been sponsored by the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life.

The word ‘lapido’ means ‘to speak up for’ in the Acholi language of Northern Uganda.  The charity honours the courage of Acholi church leaders who campaigned for an end to a 20-year war there, involving the abduction of 25,000 children – a war the secular world largely ignored.