Weblog Entry - 12/08/2003: "Politics and faith"

12/08/2003 Entry: "Politics and faith"

On Sunday, Scotland's Sunday Herald ran an opinion piece expressing surprise at the enduring place of Christian faith in American and British politics

More than two hundred years after the Scottish Englightement philosopher David Hume first tried to drive religion out of human affairs, could it be that God is now staging a Millennial comeback? Political scientists claim the world is polarising into rival civilisations, based on Christianity and Islam, and a century after Charles Darwin destroyed the Creation myth, we have a US President who seems to believe the Bible is the literal truth. On top of it all, one of the least religious countries in the world, Britain, has a deeply religious leader in Downing Street....Sir Peter Stothard, former editor of The Times, spent 30 days with the Prime Minister at the height of the Iraq crisis. He says Blair simply can’t function if he doesn’t worship regularly. He loses all confidence and conviction if he is detached from his hotline to the divine – so he keeps God on hand at all times.
Blair’s faith inspires his politics and his approach to world affairs in a way we haven’t seen in this country for generations. British political culture was predominantly secular throughout the last century. Many leaders have been Christians, like the late John Smith whom Blair succeeded, but their faith has always been a private affair.
Blair makes no secret of his conviction. He is ostentatiously spiritual and seems to positively relish being filmed in church. He is almost certainly the most devout prime minister since Gladstone, and has the Bible with him at all times.

The spiritual roots of some politicians convictions are noted but with disapproval. The underlying assumption of the piece is that faith represents a threat to rational good order. By contrast, there's an article in the the Scotsman headed Like it or not, this country is a Christian one

Whether our secular leaders like it or not, Britain is a Christian country, because Christian belief has underpinned all the societal developments of which we are proud (education, charity, individual conscience) and some of which we are not proud (intolerance, bigotry, arrogance). It would be nice to get rid of the latter, but we cannot do this by pretending that Christianity never existed. It will be achieved only by learning more about it and how to express it in its best form so that everybody, not just those brought up as Christians, can have some understanding of what the whole thing is about.

I almost missed that point and it's a really important one. Christians are used to being reminded of the wars that have been prosecuted in its name, but the great goods that have resulted from the practical expression of Christianity are often overlooked. I can't think of a single instance of major social progress -- the abolition of slavery, universal education, free access to healthcare (I'm British, remember) -- that has not had it's origins in Christian faith.

Whether Britain is a Christian country or not is a moot point. It is certainly true that a small minority of our citizens ever find themselves in church on a Sunday. The church bears some of the responsibility for that, but I don't think widespread sociological changes can be ignored either. In many ways, the church in Britain is in the same position as our early church forebears. A small, misunderstood minority with a message that goes against the grain of our contemporaries. And like our forebears, it remains true that the church "punches above its weight" in social terms. I think I'd want to say that not only was Britain built on a foundation of faith, that same faith is an essential part of the life of the nation today albeit often unrecognised or disregarded. But just as it is for individuals, so it is for nations. For Britain to warrant the title 'Christian' means that the life of the nation needs to bear the marks of Christ. God's people of old were commanded to care for the poor strangers who lived among them, to protect the widowed and the fatherless and to give justice to needy neighbours. I'm not at all convinced that we are living up to that calling.

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