This October marks two decades since the release of The God Delusion. As Britain’s leading New Atheist, the book made Richard Dawkins a totemic figure in our culture — inspiring antitheists, rallying the godfearing in response, and delighting not a few contrarian schoolboys with all the fuss.
Like many modern radicals, Dawkins was shadowboxing with a Britain that hadn’t existed since the 1950s. While the other Four Horsemen of New Atheism – Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett – aimed their polemics at an America still in thrall to religion, back in Blighty even the sitting prime minister could be bullied by aides into concealing his faith.
Tony Blair may have since outed himself as a practicing Catholic, but the rest of the country has continued to move the other way. By the reckoning of the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey only 40 per cent of the country is Christian. It is perhaps already the case that a majority hold the same opinion of the almighty as John Lennon.
So it’s rather odd that political entrepreneurs on the right have taken up the cross with such zeal. Speaking to The Times last weekend, Reform’s would-be home secretary Zia Yusuf promised that the country’s Christian heritage would be protected should Nigel Farage become our next prime minister.
Mostly, this will be done through protecting churches. Arguing that Christianity is “core to the history and the DNA of the country”, Yusuf said that Reform would ensure all such buildings would be listed — though presumably not the late 20th-century Methodist ones that look like the unholy offspring of a community centre and a flat roof murder pub.
The nativist motivation behind this is to prevent churches being turned into mosques or other places of worship – though some wags suggest the Right Reverend Tim Martin might be allowed to pull up a pew. Reform claims that it has a list of 40 churches that have already suffered the fate of the Hagia Sofia: it’s unconfirmed whether the congregations would be remigrated to another venue if these mosques once again became churches.
Yusuf also promised that Christianity would be placed at the heart of a “patriotic curriculum”, no doubt hawking our efforts to abolish slavery and other godly works. “I do think a sense of belief in God and patriotism, while they’re not necessarily the same thing – I think there is some connection there,” he added.
It’s less clear what the connection is between God and deporting illegals. Indeed, the irony for Reform’s flagship policy is that it’s the migrants that have been propping up Britain’s ailing national faith. Many an Anglican church in London is being repopulated by African congregants, with other migrants setting up branches of churches they attended back home.
Among Britain’s indigenous population, the faithful are a dwindling bunch. Those who have bothered to interrogate the BSA and census data conclude that most white people in the UK are not religious, a figure that is only likely to increase as newer generations replace the older ones.
Even among the natives who declare a Christian faith, it is at best regarded as an eccentricity to genuinely believe, let alone attend church. Newspaper articles investigating the rare young person who finds faith read like missives from a Victorian explorer discovering an uncontacted tribe, rather than somebody returning to the folkways of their forefathers.
At worst faith is seen as a cloak for bigotry, and a blasphemy against the liberal mores that are obligatory among the ruling class. The fate of the SNP’s Kate Forbes and the Liberal Democrats’ Tim Farron, coupled with the prosecution of street preachers and those who pray outside of abortion centres, has shown that traditional Christian belief is unacceptable in public life — much as it was when early Christians started bothering Rome about their God.
Nigel Farage might be many things but he is not the next John Wesley
One can bemoan the social stigma and legal restrictions on what would ideally be matters of conscience, and the inability to divide between what is God’s and what is Caesar’s. But little of this is the result of political tinkering. The shunning of Forbes, Farron and the lesser known faithful is only possible because Britain has already lost its faith.
Some Christians have hopefully declared that Britain is undergoing a “quiet revival” — though sceptics have argued that it is very quiet indeed. If there is to be any kind of revival, though, it will not start in Westminster. The roots of modern secularisation lie in culture and philosophy, not in politics. Politicians can barely inspire most of us to go to a polling station every four years, never mind to church every week. Nigel Farage might be many things but he is not the next John Wesley.
