I was sent a link recently to a broadcast from the States lamenting that "Christian Britain" was "under attack again". It's a polemical report scattered with stories about the persecution of Christians in the workplace and the inevitable and inexorable erosion of Christian values in the nation. I'm reminded of a great story that the artist David Hockney tells. His mum is visiting his villa in the hills overlooking LA, all the way from industrial Yorkshire. As she looks out over the vista of swimming pools glinting in the sun below them she remarks to David (cue broad Yorkshire accent): "It's disgraceful! All this sunshine and no one has got their washing out."
Well the supposed decline of Christian Britain really depends on how you're looking at things and where you're standing. Admittedly, many of our inherited denominations are struggling with numbers and finances, but look across at the growth of black-led churches. What of persecution then? I don't want to be complacent, and there are real issues for many converts from other faiths seeking to become Christians in Britain, but is our country really a harder place to be a disciple than even 20 years ago? Look at the profile of religious issues in the news and documentaries. We have to thank our Muslim neighbours for some of this, but I believe that we are in a far healthier state than we have been for the significance of religion in the public square.
The broadcast I linked to began by referencing Winston Churchill's Christian battle against the forces of Nazism...(These days, anything that defaults to using Churchill as an emotive way in to making a point deserves deep suspicion!) I think what we are seeing is a genuine distinctiveness in the church from society, and that is something to be welcomed. It is not as simple as separation of church and state; the American model which originates the broadcast gives the lie to that pretence. Rather, it is about the genuine reality of diversity and the church being a voice of pastoral and prophetic concern. It will at times agree and affirm, and at others at will contradict. But being a critical friend means that, as Christians, we have to make sense of our beliefs to others, communicate why they are "good for all" and expect that they will not be the aspiration of many.
Having a Christian core to the constitution from our history gives us a duty that cuts both ways: to be faithful to pointing out the one hope of all humanity but to be humble about where the church has failed. Invoking the ghosts of Churchill et al means we need to tell the story of colonialism, patriarchy and the class system. Loving our country and witnessing to Jesus seems to me to be less about bemoaning how far we have sold off the crown jewels of our Christian inheritance and more about pointing forward to the new humanity that Jesus has inaugurated.
