London - Chief Orthodox Rabbi: Britain's Broken Society Caused By Lack of Religion

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London - The root cause of Britain's broken society is the loss of religion, the Chief Rabbi said today.

Sir Jonathan Sacks pointed to the collapse of faith as the key factor behind the failure of relationships, the weakness of marriage and the fragmentation of communities.

He said declining religious belief has led to the spread of depression, stress, eating disorders and drug and alcohol abuse.

In a speech to the bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion meeting at the Lambeth Conference Sir Jonathan appealed for Christians, Jews and people of other faiths to work together.

Sir Jonathan is the first orthodox Jewish leader to be invited to speak to the conference, which is staged once every decade. His call for unity among those of different faiths was delivered to Anglicans who have already fallen out among themselves in a row over gay rights.

The Chief Rabbi said that a country which lost its religion lost 'graciousness'.

'Relationships break down. Marriage grows weak. Families become fragile. Communities atrophy. And the result is that people feel vulnerable and alone,' he said.

Sir Jonathan added that the effect was that mankind is now 'living through one of the most fateful ages of change since homo sapiens first set foot on earth.'

He said: 'The sanctity of human life is being desecrated by terror. The integrity of creation is threatened by environmental catastrophe. Respect for diversity is imperilled by what one writer has called the clash of civilisations.'

The Chief Rabbi told the disunited Anglicans that the failure of religion was hastened by 'conflict between faiths, and sometimes within faiths.'

He reminded the 670 Anglican bishops of the long history of persecution of Jews by Christians and said he could not speak honestly without opening the 'book of Jewish tears'.

'Friends, I stand before you as a Jew, which means not as an individual, but as a representative of my people.

'As I prepared this lecture, within my soul were the tears of my ancestors. We may have forgotten this but, for a thousand years, between the First Crusade and the Holocaust, the word "Christian" struck fear into Jewish hearts.

'Think only of the words the Jewish encounter with Christianity added to the vocabulary of human pain: blood libel, book burnings, disputations, forced conversions, inquisition, auto da fe, expulsion, ghetto and pogrom.

But, he said, the past could be redeemed. Sir Jonathan said that since the foundation of the Council of Christians and Jews by the Church of England and the Chief Rabbi in the 1940s members of the two faiths met as 'beloved friends'.

He called for the extension of the same friendship to other faiths including Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims.

'Because though we do not share a faith, we surely share a fate,' Sir Jonathan said. 'Religions should not fight each other but work together to face the challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental disaster.'

The Anglican bishops meeting in Canterbury are trying to put together a scheme to save the 400-year-old worldwide Anglican Communion from schism. Already more than 200 bishops have boycotted the conference in protest over the American appointment of a gay bishop.

A deal in preparation would require American and Canadian leaders to stop appointing gay bishops or running blessing services for same-sex couples, and could require the sacking of the openly homosexual Bishop of New Hampshire, the Right Reverend Gene Robinson.

At the same time it would tell African bishops to stop taking over leadership of conservative parishes and dioceses in North America.

However liberal American bishops are thought unlikely to accept the settlement