32. Alan Palmer on Finding Common Ground Through Faith Dialogues

“If we focus so much on the 5% that divides us, we miss the 95% we already share.” — Alan Palmer

Alan Palmer is the former Chair of Central London Humanists, a trustee of Humanists UK, and a long-time NHS Trust Director. With over 17 years of experience in grassroots organising, Alan shares how London’s most active humanist group grew from pub chats to public campaigns, and how dialogue, ethics, and diversity remain central to its mission.

In This Episode

• How Central London Humanists became the UK’s largest humanist group
• Why participation is harder in a more secular, but less mobilised, society
• Lessons from pioneering Catholic-Humanist and Muslim-Humanist dialogue
• The power of repeating others’ views honestly in effective dialogue
• Working on COVID-19 triage ethics as an NHS Trust Director
• Why diversity, campaigning, and neutrality all matter in modern humanism
• Reflections on political inclusivity and unity across difference

🔗 Learn more or join a CLH event
www.centrallondonhumanists.org.uk

🔗 Learn more or join The Blackham Society
https://humanists.uk/join-the-blackham-society/

This episode was originally recorded in January 2024.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Alan Palmer
• 1:14 Building Central London Humanists
• 2:35 The Challenge of Community Organising
• 4:48 Catholic-Humanist Dialogues
• 9:05 Difference between Dialogue & Debate
• 9:31 The Blackham Society
• 10:46 NHS Experience and Ethical Challenges
• 13:09 Future of Humanist Groups
• 17:00 Changing Minds and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

James Hodgson: 0:01

Welcome to Humanism Now, the podcast from the Central London Humanists. I'm your host, james Hodgson. Alan Palmer has a distinguished career both in business and volunteering in humanism, as a former trustee of Humanist UK and also working for a long time as executive director with an NHS trust. He's also a passionate chess player and is the current president of the London Chess League. But, most importantly to our interview today, alan is a fellow committee member, having been the immediate past chair of Central London Humanists and being involved in organising the group with various roles on the committee for the past 17 years. So, alan, thank you so much for joining us on Humanism Now.

Alan Palmer: 0:45

My pleasure.

James Hodgson: 0:51

Great. So, as mentioned, you've been involved with Central London Humanists Now for 17 years, so I think it's joining only a couple of years after its inception and with your most recent role as chair, which I understand is potentially second or third time filling in as chair, can you share your views on the importance of the group and how the Central London Humanists have fostered community and dialogue amongst the citizens of a very diverse city like London?

Alan Palmer: 1:14

I came to it, as you say, about 17 years ago and it was a small discussion group that met upstairs in the Drury pub in Drury Lane and at that stage we didn't even have a committee. Well, sometime not long after that, it was decided to form a committee and there were, I think, 16 people present in the room when we did it and 15 of them said they would join the committee and I don't think we saw seven or eight of them ever again. That was that I was the first vice chairman. I took over chairman there and I remained chairman for about four years. That was my first stint. No, to me the great thing about it is we quickly became the largest group within the British Humanist Association, and indeed remain that way today, and we've always been very active, and being in the capital city has given us the opportunity to be involved in quite a number of events during that time. So it's been a great pleasure sharing at times and being part of it all, and I've made many good friends.

James Hodgson: 2:21

I'm glad to hear it. It's been a pleasure to work with you on the committee for the past few years, from our perspective as well. So what have you found to be the most challenging and rewarding elements of community organising?

Alan Palmer: 2:35

I think the biggest challenge with our group in particular has been keeping attendance up at meetings. In the early days it built up and up and I think at Pete we touched even 100 a single meeting and that was tremendous. But I think in those days there was a lot of people escaping from religious backgrounds or they were gay or something like that, and found a place of safety or like-minded people in our group and there was a lot of encouragement to join someone like us. But more recent times it's sort of okay to be a humanist at home. You don't have to join a humanist organization. They're non-religious statistically in the majority in this country now and it's much more of a challenge to keep that interest up and to give ourselves a good sense of purpose.

James Hodgson: 3:26

Yes, I definitely think there's a general difference between those who join the group having left particularly a high control religion, as opposed to those who've come from potentially a more agnostic or apathetic upbringing or even in just a moderate form of religion. Broadly speaking, there can be quite different perspectives as to what the group should be for and what our main objective should be. I think it's always important to involve that in the conversation. But I agree I think the general change, as we were saying, in a diverse city like London and the UK has become a lot more secular in the last 20 years. I can understand why there have been periods where attendance has been challenged, particularly after COVID, but it's great to see now that numbers are back on their way up again.

Alan Palmer: 4:10

Yes, so we've got members, very good committee, and it's been great to be around to picking up a game. And we're not only the largest group in the UK, we're also the most active.

James Hodgson: 4:20

That's something to be proud of. Absolutely yeah, I that's something to be proud of. Absolutely yeah, I think the range of events as well is really something to be proud of. I think we ran about 75 different events last year catering probably over a thousand people here in london, so it was fantastic. So I'm interested as well you know speaking of those who've come from a religious background in your involvement the first catholic humanist dialogue. We're hoping to talk a bit more about the importance of dialogue on the podcast over the next few episodes and I'd wonder, firstly, what was your incentive and motivation for helping set up that forum and what meaningful engagement did you gain from attending those events?

Alan Palmer: 5:00

Well, just a step back from that. When I first came out as a humanist, it was not long after I'd read Richard Dawkins' book the God Delusion, and I spent about the first year being what might have been described as an aggressive atheist. I was constantly challenging people on their religious beliefs and so on. But that eventually settled down and I became a good humanist and much more tolerant. And it rose out of particularly when the former Pope visited this country Somebody who was on my committee, marco Ciancino. He was also active within the National Sexual Society. He led the organization of the Protest the Pope campaign. Was this John Paul II? No, it was Pope Benedict, oh Benedict.

James Hodgson: 5:51

Yes.

Alan Palmer: 5:52

We organized the largest protest march against the Pope anywhere in the world at that time and we organized all sorts of events, including a big debate in Conway Hall where we had debate between some leading Catholics. On the humanist side there was Professor AC Grayling and Peter Tatchell and it filled the hall about 450 people in there and it was a stormy sort of meeting, people shouting each other down. Following that meeting, a chap I had with the Catholic side, a chap called Jack Valero who was the spokesman for Opus Dei. Catholics, which are not exactly a moderate group, decided it would be much better if we could sit down and actually listen to each other a little bit more. So we organized a dialogue. A journalist from the New Humanist along and listened and reported on it that they had set a number of questions to be debated and we chose one person on each side to listen to what the other said, to repeat back what they'd heard without any cynicism. It made us all concentrate and think constructively. Then we went down the pub with them afterwards and organized another dialogue meeting and that sort of kick-started.

Alan Palmer: 7:11

Somewhere further down the track we organized a meeting with a fairly moderate group of Muslims and met them at the BHA headquarters then and also in the central london mosque. We had a meeting there and that again was conducted constructively. And since then jeremy rodell, the dialogue officer in the uk, organizes regular meetings I think there's one coming up this sunday or sunday week to discuss and report on any dialogue sessions that groups have had and so on, and it is constructively done. The idea is to listen and one thing I have learned from dialogue is that If you think through probably even people you're very opposed to for their particular religious or other views, you probably can agree on about 95%. You know, because you share a lot of the same culture living in this country, you maybe support the same football teams, you have the same taste in dress and so on. We focus so much upon the differences maybe the hijab's worn or something like that and that difference is emphasised and distorts what could be otherwise a constructive, meaningful conversation and finding out what you can agree upon.

James Hodgson: 8:31

Yeah, absolutely. I think this is such an important point, particularly the point you mentioned about repeating back the arguments of the opposite side in as honest and as charitable a way as possible to develop that understanding, so that we're not working on the wrong assumptions when we enter into these discussions. Let's find out where that 95% that we agree on is, so that we can in good faith argue about the 5% where we may have different views, whereas I think a lot of the time with debate, parties are starting with assumptions of the other side or accusations.

Alan Palmer: 9:04

In the early days of the central audience group we did organise one or two debates. The supporters of each side would come along and cheer on their own particular spokesman, and that is the trouble with a formal debate as such, whereas dialogue does involve asking and listening and reflecting on each other's points of view.

James Hodgson: 9:24

Would you advocate much more for dialogue as a route for mutual understanding and potentially even changing minds? Definitely, I'm interested as well to find out a bit more about your role within the Blackham Society. I think you might be our first guest who's part of the group? Obviously, this is another big humanist group, mainly across London, I believe.

Alan Palmer: 9:45

Well, my role is a very passive one, but when I was trustee of the British Humanist Association at the time when Jim Al-Khalili was the president, we were stretched for financial resources. Jim Al-Khalili was the president, we were stretched for financial resources and it was his notion that he would happily lead a group and have interview important people to have a discussion with them and for people who paid over the odds towards the Hubris UK would be invited along. We have an evening with a sip of wine and some engaging discussion with whoever was the speaker of the evening. That I think has run quite well, because it's certainly, from my own point of view, brought me close to quite a number of people who are well engaged in the Humanist UK circles and helped to raise a bit of extra money for them at the same time.

James Hodgson: 10:44

It sounds fantastic and, from your professional experience, as you say, prior to coming out and joining and giving your time to the humanists, I wonder what your experience working in the NHS, how that experience has helped shape your views and values and does it give you a unique perspective on humanism. Do you see the NHS as a humanistic institution?

Alan Palmer: 11:00

Well, I suppose it touches somewhere. It's more on political rather than humanistic ones, but, yes, no, it's a great experience. After I left the city I was keen to put in rather than take out of in my life to follow a non-executive career. I was a non-executive of two housing associations and two NHS trusts. The latter one, most recently the North Middlesex University Hospital Trust, was at the same time as COVID was going on and we were judged to be the second most pressured hospital trust in the country.

Alan Palmer: 11:40

But the mall was full, staff were, a couple of a doctor and a nurse died with it all. We had a very mixed ethnic community in terms of patients and staff, with all the issues that arose from that, with all the issues that arose from that. So that was very interesting. But one was also faced with. The committee was set up to try and give advice and lead on the decisions that doctors in the front line had to take whether to give priority one patient to another, where one patient live or another one die, and basically it really came down to it that sort of issue, and that was quite testing, but it was conducted in a non-religious way. I'm pleased to say the whole thing. I've never kept my humanism secret and so on, but it wasn't in itself a particular issue there. But but it was a very interesting time to join in with it all yeah.

James Hodgson: 12:36

Yeah, and I think one of the big Humanist UK campaigns is to have more humanist pastoral care as well associated with this, which I'm assuming again that there's some religious involvement across NHS trusts when required. But yeah, that needs to be reflected, the humanist beliefs more and more as well.

Alan Palmer: 12:55

But yeah, it was a great time and I made good friends with it and I stayed in touch with them and it was good to have a say in how the hospital should be organized lovely well.

James Hodgson: 13:07

Coming back to central london humanists, as mentioned, we were our immediate past chairman and pleased to say that you'll be staying with the committee um for little while longer, which is a huge benefit to have your knowledge and experience and wisdom from being involved from the outset. Looking back at how the group has changed over the last 17, years what would you like to see from Central London Humanists or we could extend it to other humanist groups going forward? What changes do you think you'd like to see?

Alan Palmer: 13:36

Well, I would like to see perhaps its membership continuing to strengthen so that its continuity and its activities are reinforced. One measure of success, I think, is the turnout you get at meetings and so on. I think we might have lost a little bit of our international diversity. I remember going to one meeting some years ago and counting people from about 14 or 15 different countries of origin at that meeting. I mean, that's London for you, isn't it? And that's something I've really enjoyed. The group has really given that opportunity to meet with people and to hear their experiences and why they've joined us. But no, possibly I'd like us to do a bit more campaigning or get involved in some issue that we can really put our hearts into, like the Protest, the Pope campaign and that sort of thing. You need a challenge from outside to galvanize activity. It'd be good something like that to chalk up and say, yes, here's another achievement of ours, we did this, we were there, and so on.

James Hodgson: 14:45

Yeah, is there an issue that you see either currently or potentially on the horizon that you think is something that we should be starting to raise concerns about?

Alan Palmer: 14:54

Well, of course there's the Middle East situation and so on, which has the danger of being, in part, a Jewish versus Islamic standoff. I know it's much, much more complex than that, but maybe that's somewhere where humanism has something to say for the cause of peace and mutual understanding and dialogue between the groups and so on. I'm not quite sure what we can actually do that would make a difference, but maybe we should attempt to bring some Jewish and Islamic groups together to meet with each other and us. It'd be an interesting thing to do.

Alan Palmer: 15:37

I think I did wonder if maybe we should do something similar with Ukrainians over here, you know, and with the Orthodox church people, russian and Ukrainian, but that's more difficult to organize. I think and we have to be a little bit careful, of course that we don't spill over in politics. So, you know, most of our members have got strong political views. I suppose the group tends to have a less thing, more leftish bias, but we are not aligning with any particular party political views and I think it would be a mistake if we wander down that route at all. We've got to be open to people of all backgrounds.

James Hodgson: 16:16

Yes, yes, I agree, and I think that's been something that's been very pleasing being involved in the group, in that people are quite open and free to share their political views, but we're not exclusive.

Alan Palmer: 16:27

Oh no, I mean, people will express their political views, and that's great. We provide a forum for discussion, certainly, but we don't have a creed that we insist everyone adheres to, and that, to me, is one of the humanisms that we don't have that sort of strictures that are regarding our beliefs.

James Hodgson: 16:46

Absolutely, and we come back to that point of dialogue and listening and seeking for us to understand before we express our views or judge others. So, before we wrap up, thank you very much for your time. I'd like to end with our standard closing question. I would like to ask all our guests, which is what is something that you've changed your mind on recently?

Alan Palmer: 17:05

I was thinking about that and, as you gave me a chance to think about it in advance and I couldn't think of anything actually, if it were recently, I'm in a bit long in the tooth now and I think many of my views formulated in my middle years certainly my beliefs are well away from what they were in my younger days. So, yes, I have changed my views, opinions and so on along the way. I suppose the only thing I think of is about five or six years ago at our book group, we had a book that discussed universal basic income and at the time I was very critical of it because you know it had not been terribly successful where it had been. Where I've actually thought through my politics, my family, my work and so on, no, I've been pretty consistent.

James Hodgson: 18:09

I think that's a fantastic example and actually something we really should delve into on a future episode, because I think that's going to be an increasingly relevant conversation going forward, and it would be interesting to assess both the arguments for and against UBI. So, alan Palmer, thank you so much, not only for joining us on Humanism Now, but for everything that you've done with Central London Humanists and all your great activities over the past years, and very much looking forward to working with you with the Central London Humanists going forward. Thank you so much for joining us on Humanism Now thank you, it's been a great pleasure.

Alan Palmer: 18:43

Thank you very much.