The right does need religion

“Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” The Critic’s own doubting Thomas, Tom Jones, recently welcomed the withdrawal of polling that had been suggestive of a “quiet revival” — a surge of interest in Christianity in Britain, especially amongst the young. 

Tom’s argument is that Christianity in politics is a non-starter. Any actual increase in Christianity, he writes — to the extent that it is plausible at all — will be weaponised by both sides of the aisle, used as a justification for socialism and immigration on the left, and to inspire a wave of so-called “Christian nationalism” on the right.

I certainly don’t want more socialism or immigration, either. But as much as there are of course left-leaning Christians, this is not an essential feature of Christianity. Look at, well, hundreds of years of British history! Bijan Omrani’s book, God is an Englishman, beautifully shows the influence of the Christian faith on all aspects of Anglo civilisation — the way that our villages, our family structure, the law, our language, our art, time itself through the calendar, and much more are suffused with the teachings and moral guidance of the Bible.

It would be fanciful to suggest that we would have reached the heights of civilisation we have without it — as ignorant as Homer Simpson sleeping through his sherpa carrying him to the top of a mountain and believing, upon waking, that he managed the ascent by himself. Christianity is the bedrock of practically everything in our society. Once you strip it away, what is there left to conserve?

Indeed, without it, we can already see Western civilisation start to shake — the contradictions in ideas about liberty and society, once Christian ethics are removed, become too much for a secular public sphere to bear. We were promised by Richard Dawkins that ending Christianity’s involvement in public life would bring us flying cars and secular compassion. Instead we have rampant Islamism, 87 genders and cancel culture with no recourse to forgiveness.

So what is a case for more active Christianity in politics today, especially for the right? Firstly, the Established Church can again become a powerful focal point for a humble but substantive civic national identity rooted in ethics, compassion and community. I mean community in the proper sense of people who live around you — not some abstract, or extremely online, sense but your actual neighbours. At a time when the left attacks the very idea of nation as evil, and the online right is not so much dabbling with blood and soil as actively wallowing in it it, the deep-rootedness of the Church of England in the very fabric of our lives could be restored as an agent to bind us closer to one another. There is something immeasurably beneficial for a society that comes from getting people in different stages of life, occupations and outlook together in a shared experience.

Then there is the prospect of greater civic and voluntary engagement with the provision of public services. We know about the benefits Christianity still provides through schools. But we also know that the welfare bill and health spending are out of control. One major source of alleviation would come from a much higher number of people being influenced by the specifically Christian ethos of charity — especially of the most vulnerable whose care provision has the highest costs. This would be David Cameron’s Big Society but with a real (holy?) spirit animating it.

Tom worries about Brits being inspired by the American Christian right. Well, it’s true enough that what plays well in American megachurches would go down very badly in the Church of England. But conservative Christians in the USA are worth emulating in some respects. In emphasising marriage and the essential significance of the nuclear family, for example, the right in America is bucking the trend of civilisational collapse. Conservative women are having around 40 per cent more children than their liberal counterparts, according to the Institute for Family Studies. This is good for the economy, and good for their electoral chances, but most importantly it is good that wonderful children are brought into the world in loving families. They are not to be mocked or feared.

These are all tangible benefits from which a more re-Christianised right would benefit

We should not underestimate the usefulness of Christ’s teachings in alleviating the sickness at the heart of modern culture. Christianity understands that we are all sinners, but through the sacrifice of Christ and His resurrection, He points the way for forgiveness, for redemption. Cancel culture — both on the left and now increasingly on the right — misses this key element. Grace means to forgive people even when they don’t deserve to be forgiven. There is no way back from cancellation in the teleology of post-Christian “woke” society. Without redemption, we will fracture along ever narrower fissures of purity tests until we end up in a Hobbesian war of all against all.

These are all tangible benefits from which a more re-Christianised right would benefit, rather than the terminally online “Christbros” just sharing “Deus Vult” memes and larping as crusaders. Of course, Tom would argue that our secular times make Christianity politically unhelpful, inasmuch as most people are not Christians. Tom, most people are not conservatives, or even right-wingers, at all. Politics is about pitching your ideas and values, not just telling people what they want to hear. Of course, I don’t expect all British people to become Christians. This is the nation of Hume and Russell as well as Wesley and Wilberforce. But even non-believers can appreciate Christian values and heritage.

For me, though, I think that what is most valuable about Christianity is that it is true. Tom exposed his theological naïveté when tweeting on Christian resurgence in politics thus: “As a political project, it is as dead as the corpse on the cross.” Well, I’ve got some Good News about that “corpse”, Tom …