In a guest post, Martin Weightman, Director of The All Faiths Network, finds serious shortcomings in the report of the Bloom Review

There is much to be said, and has already been said, about the Bloom Review – written by Colin Bloom, who was appointed in 2019 as the Faith Engagement Advisor by Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister, to do an Independent Faith Engagement Review. The report was issued earlier this year.

In this article, one particular aspect regarding generalisations about smaller religious movements is examined.

The Good

The “good” from the report is that it very clearly states that government must interact with religions and beliefs, that they are an overriding positive influence on society and that government (local and national) and other sectors of society (police, army, education system) are not sufficiently educated about beliefs for it to properly understand and engage with them. There is much positive and encouraging language alongside proposals calling for greater interaction and education to take place and Mr. Bloom is commended for this. These recommendations should not be underestimated, but for the sake of brevity they are not covered further here.

The Bad (and moving into the Ugly)

However, Bloom’s analysis of believers is simply bad. He categorises believers into three different types: Continue reading →