Who Cares if Britain isn’t a Christian Country?

Empty pews? A view of Westminster Abbey © John Stillwell / PA Archive/Press Association Images In Philip Larkin’s poem “Church Going,” the poet visits a country church and wonders who “Will be the last, the / very last, to seek / This place for what it was.” Though Britain has changed in unimaginable ways since Larkin published his poem in 1954, the question he posed is more pertinent than ever. The number of self-identifying Christians has declined steeply and there are many more of other faiths. At the British Academy debate on 28th January, four expert speakers, chaired by myself, Prospect’s Arts and Books Editor, came together to discuss what place religion should—or should not—have in modern Britain, under the title: “Who Cares if Britain isn’t a Christian Country?” Rev Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University, questioned whether Britain was ever a unitary Christian country. Britain is made up of four nations, he said, each with its own religious heritage. England was born out of the church, he added, something evident in “our landscape of churches and the formal rituals of our state occasions.” But Christian England has a darker history. In 1290 the Jews were expelled. They were only readmitted after the Civil War because Puritans required Jews to fulfil their eschatological worldview. So since 1656, “these islands have been officially multi-cultural.” Catholics were also a persecuted minority. Even Protestantism was divided between those loyal to the established Church and Dissenters. This required the kind of accommodation and compromise that, MacCulloch argued, is the basis of our Parliamentary democracy. So what’s the modern Church’s role? “Despite its increasing numerical weakness in terms of church-going,” said MacCulloch, it is used to coping with difference.” That means it can act as a “referee” between faiths, “despite the present idiocies of the Church of England’s leadership.” Asked by the Chair what these “idiocies” were, MacCulloch replied that on the issue of sexuality, the church’s leadership has been “wooden” and “unimaginative.” Professor Iain McLean, Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford, provided figures to show that on key issues UK Christians diverge from their leaders: 80 per cent support assisted suicide, for example, in line with the population; 47 per cent support same-sex marriages compared with 60 per cent of non-Christians. It’s just that “those who are opposed tend to be fervently so.” The bishops in the House of Lords do not represent all Christians, let alone all religions. But, he continued, giving special dispensation to all faiths in the Lords is impractical since many religious authorities—including the Catholic Church—would refuse to allow their cardinals to sit in government. And what about religions without obvious hierarchies, such as Islam? Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist and Vice President of the British Humanist Association, told the audience that she “welcomed the decline of religious belief.” In the 2011 census, only 59 per cent of people defined themselves as Christians. If the Church continued to hold on to its privileges, she argued, then more religions will demand the same rights, meaning more children will be brought up in “segregated groups.” The fact that one third of our schools are religious, she said, was “profoundly divisive.” She said middle-class parents pretended to be religious to get their children into good schools—something not very Christian. Religious lobbies, she said, were adversely affecting public debates on abortion and gay marriage. The presence of the bishops in the Lords, “makes us the only theocracy in the west.” She objected to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day for banning all but religious believers—and of only taking the “mild and sweet voices” of faith rather than fiery Islamists or Jehovah’s Witnesses. She ended with a call for faith to be kept in the private sphere. Asked whether the secular liberal world had enough social glue to maintain an identity, Toynbee replied that religious people were neither better nor worse than anyone else—though she noted a recent survey that said religious people were less likely to volunteer than non-religious ones. Professor Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Inter-religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, is also a regular contributor to Thought for the Day. She picked up Toynbee’s earlier comments on the slot’s supposed mildness, saying she was happy to call herself an “Anglican Muslim.” She contended that Britain is still largely a Christian country, even though, in the words of the philosopher Charles Taylor, “religion has lost its public hold.” Secularity as a process has been successful, she said. But Islam has recently been seen as a challenge with its “visible and awkward” practises. While once there was a Jewish Question, there is now a Muslim Question, she said, with politicians defining themselves as defenders of Christian heritage in opposition to Islamic practises. But even if the Church is no longer representative of the nation, it can be one powerful moral voice among many. Asked whether the perceived reassertion of Islamic certainty was envied by the wider community, Siddiqui replied that it was more like curiosity and in recent years concern—especially given recent terrorist attacks in the west. On the positive side, MacCulloch pointed out that cathedrals were having a revival—congregations were up 30 per cent. A spiritual urge still existed, and Anglicanism could fulfil it. Toynbee said the rise of the “New Atheist” movement, led by Richard Dawkins among others, had been a positive influence. The idea that someone might “literally believe” in ancient books, she said, was not rational. When asked whether the state should accommodate religious beliefs by, for example, moving exams for fasting Muslim pupils in Ramadan, she replied no. She said that imams should provide an exemption for the children because “God would want you to pass your exams.” For Mona Siddiqui, the rise of conservative Islam had brought the question of faith back into the public sphere. The urge for certainty, what she called “dial-a-fatwa,” was “frightening.” Toynbee complained that she had been labelled “Islamaphobe of Year” for expressing the same critical views on Islam she had always held about Christianity. Siddiqui added that she had been put on a recent list of top 10 Islamaphobes for an article she had written for The Daily Telegraph. “I’m up there with Donald Trump!” she said, to audience laughter. Toynbee and Siddiqui agreed that the term Islamaphobia has ceased to be useful, and “shuts down debate.” Picking up Siddiqui’s phrase about the “awkward” nature of Islam in Britain, Iain McLean said that was some benefit in being part of the “awkward squad.” McLean, a Quaker, said that his religious group had a history of support for pacifism and conscientious objection. I mentioned that he had recently visited a Church of England School in East London with a 98 per cent Muslim Bangladeshi population. For their daily collective act of worship, the prayer was Christian but the word “God” was replaced with the Arabic word “Allah.” Such issues were not merely theoretical but being being grappled with every day across the country. Listen to the podcast: