IT IS often said that we are becoming an increasingly “secular” society.

However, churchgoers may be delighted to know that our own government has announced a programme to “strengthen faith institutions” and to do so by means of a grant of just under half a million pounds.

Some will say “thanks be to the Department for Communities and Local Government, and to its secretary of state, Eric Pickles MP”.

Those of us who march behind godless banners are less impressed.

We do not judge that religious organisations are necessarily any more deserving of public funds than are non-religious ones.

The DCLG’s “project specifications” state that public money can help faith institutions in:

a) Finding suitable training, advice and support

b) Using social media effectively

c) Learning of others’ approaches to problems and using them to improve practice

d) Engaging with with places of worship of other faiths

e) Engaging with women and young people

f) Being known by, respected by, and having strong links with, the wider community You don’t need a doctorate in divinity to to work out that of these six, only the fourth applies especially to “faiths”.

This new initiative from Eric Pickles will have costed £400,000 of our money.

It comes at a time when about a half of the population declare themselves to be not religious (and when a good many religious folk state that religion itself is becoming less of a defining aspect of their identities).

John Ricketts

Gloucestershire Humanists

Cheltenham