I never thought I’d take to the web to defend David Cameron
from attack by some of my favourite writers (quite the reverse), but here it
goes. Easter in Christian tradition is a festival full of strange reversals of
fortune and inversions of ideas, and this past season has been stranger than
most, having seen a group of avowed atheists and secularists take a more
orthodox position on religion than the staunchly Anglican Prime Minister.
Something weird is going on.
First, to the clash that’s revealed this difference in
conceptions of religion. David Cameron wrote a column in the Church Times, which
follows the pattern of politicians’ essays in being full of generally
unremarkable platitudes, standard shallow defences of policy with a few key
phrases desgined to grab headlines. The latter, in this case, was the belief
that Britain “should be more confident about our status as a Christian country”.
This was a dog-whistle not only to the disgruntled Tories the Prime Minister
was trying to woo back into the fold after the rise of UKIP and the passage of
gay marriage, but also to the British Humanist Association, who promptly and
predictably fired off a letter
to the Telegraph signed by Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman and a host of other
luminaries, accusing Cameron of fostering “alienation and division”.
My eye was caught by the comments of the BHA’s chief
executive, making the statistical case that Britain was not Christian on the
grounds that 60% of people never attended a religious service (though this seem
a lot of people who never get invited to religious weddings or funerals), and
that the census data recording 59% of people as Christians as “gives an
inflated figure and measures cultural attachment rather than religiosity”. He
is likely write that those identifying as Christians are doing so for cultural
rather than religious reasons. But does the fact they do so no support the idea
that British culture is in fact tinged with Christianity? If a large number of
Britains identify as Christians, even if very vaguely, on the grounds they also
identify as British, that surely means Britain is, even if very vaguely, a
Christian country.
The use of Christianity as an adjective here is not meant in
an all-encompasing description of Britain as uniformly Christian. Britain
clearly isn’t, and hasn’t been for several centuries. Rather it is to imply
that Britain has long been influenced by Christianity, has a large number of
adherents, has many shared values and is in these terms more Christian than
some other countries, and isn’t meant to suggest there aren’t countervailing
British traditions. These are the same criteria by which we might describe Britain
as liberal, eccentric, pleasant, sarcastic, hypocritical, animal-loving,
football-obsessed, cricket-obsessed, moderate, conservative, secularist,
class-ridden and rainy. All these and more form a part of our ‘nation character’,
and it seems churlish to deny ‘Christian’ a place in the frequently
self-contradictory list.
It is a little strange that in their attempts to cut down
the statistical significance of self-described Christians, the BHA end up
presenting themselves as arbiters over what ‘really counts’ as Christian. I’m
particularly struck that they use belief in the divinity of Christ and the
Resurrection . These are topics over which Christians in the past two centuries
have spilt a great deal of ink (and, in earlier centuries, more than a little
blood). The divinity of Christ, and exactly what that means, has provoked
Christians to disagreement and schism, and to this day different denominations
label each other as not being properly Christian for not believing in Jesus’
divinity in the right way, for all that they share a devotion to the same man. While
clearly these things are important to Christians, it’s strange to see the BHA
doing the same. Belief in the Resurrection as a historical fact, which is
probably what the BHA would understand as belief, is a touchstone for many
Christians. But others (like myself and, I suspect, David Cameron) struggle to
reconcile this, much as the BHA would, with a scientific and historical view of
the universe, and hold to the Resurrection as a spiritual truth. To its critics, inside and outside the
church, this position seems vague and woolly, and I can hardly deny it, but here
is not the place to defend it, only to note that it exists within Christianity. At any rate it is surely encompassed within David Cameron’s
vision of the Church of England. He defends its “percieved wooliness”, saying:
I am not one for
doctrinal purity, and I don't believe it is essential for evangelism about the
Church's role in our society or its importance. It is important - and, as I
have said, I would like it to do more, not less, in terms of action to improve
our society and the education of our children.
If anyone is being religiously
divisive here, it isn’t the Prime Minister. The BHA wants to define
Christianity in terms of beliefs and church attendance. David Cameron describes
a typical member of the Church of England, like himself, thusly: “not that
regular in attendance, and a bit vague on some of the more difficult parts of
the faith.” The BHA is falling in line with a very traditionalist measure of
faith. Cameron, like other Anglicans, is trying to move to something different.
More interesting than the back-and-forth over what counts as
a Christian country is whether the BHA is fair in calling Cameron divisive
simply because he invokes Christianity. This certainly doesn’t appear to be his
intention. Although Cameron sets out how his government policies (like keeping
foreign aid at 0.7% of GDP) can be supported by Christian morality, he also
explicitly recognises that other Christians oppose him on the basis of that
same morality. He could hardly do otherwise when the Archbishop of Canterbury
spent his Easter sermon laying into how his policies affect the poor. While he
is encouraging more interaction between faith and politics, Cameron frankly
admits that the same faith can lead to different politics. This is a strikingly
pluralistic model of how faith and politics should interact- rather than religion
dogmatically dictating political positions, it provides a shared moral
framework differing opinions can debate within.
This inherent pluralism means that the role Cameron sees for
Christianity in multicultural Britain is far from divisive: “Being more
confident about our status as a Christian country does not somehow involve
doing down other faiths or passing judgement on those with no faith at all,”
Cameron says. Much like traditional dogma within Christianity, Cameron appears
to expect Christianity in British public life to be a starting point for
debate, a spur to action. To inspire non-Christian voices in response, not
suppress them, is the purposes. The aim of asserting Britain to be a Christian
country is not to make Britain more Christian in its religion, but to restore a
language of morality to its discourse- nor of particular morals but ethics in
general:
Crucially, the
Christian values of responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion, humility,
and love are shared by people of every faith and none - and we should be
confident in standing up to defend them.
Cameron opposes this language of morality with “secular
neutrality”. This surely means the generation of politicians after Alistair Campbell’s
famous declaration that “We don’t do God”, and their constant, bland,
meaningless assertion to be “doing the right thing” with little consideration as
to what makes a thing right. Cameron himself is as guilty of overusing this
lazy phrase as much as any of his colleagues. But if greater public discussion
of faith means politicians talk more about “compassion, humilty and love”, this
can only be an improvement.
It is worth emphasising that we are talking about how
morality is publically discussed. Campbell uttered his famous phrase not
because his boss, Tony Blair, was an atheist, but quite the reverse: he thought
that if Blair talked about his deep faith, voters would be weirded out. The
alternative, adhering in public to secular neutrality, has lead a vacuous political
discourse. As well as being shallow, today’s political language is misleading,
since politicians do not talk about what truly motivates them: is Cameron not
being more honest that Blair by talking openly about his faith rather than
hiding it? In doing so the aim is to encourage others, whether Christian or
not, to do the same. This is where Cameron’s point that some Jews and Muslims,
for example, find it easier to publically assert their religion in a society
with an establish church opens out to include people of all faiths and none. By
making a break with secular neutrality, assertive Christians open a space for
others to do the same, and assert their own moral perspective, be it religious
or secular.
This is quite a way from the BHA’s fears of “alienation and
division”. I may have read too much of my own thought into what is essentially
a piece by a Conservative politician designed in the main to reassure the
unhappy right-wing of his party. But the BHA too have focused too much on the
phrase ‘Christian country’, taking it as asserting the Britain is a religious
monolith, whereas the rest of Cameron’s column is shot through with an
awareness of pluralism, and a vision for how it might work that takes a far
more interesting and open view of faith. I don't hold out much hope for David Cameron actually leading a charge to bring a new awareness of ethics to public debate. After all, as the one currently at the top of the pack, he would have most to lose from a change from the status quo. But if I've read him right, he sets out some interesting ideas, trying to marry the British Christian tradition to British multiculturalism. The BHA would be quite right to question whether a more assertive Christianity is the best way of achieving a greater moral awareness in British public life. In doing so, they would be entering into the very debate David Cameron (if I've read him right) intends to start.
