The death of Christian Conservatism
Most people over the age of 60 have probably heard of the quip about the Church of England being the Tor y Party at prayer, but history moves on. For a long time there was a sense that the Conservatives, following Burke, sought to conserve what was best from the past, and it was assumed that some of this reflected Christianity. There was also a class loyalty of the upper and middle classes to the Tories and nonconformity and dissent to Labour or Liberalism. As a result of these features a large number of Anglicans did move from the pews into voting Conservative mainly out of habit.
Sometimes the commitment was a bit more passionate and principled. I remember seeing a dear old Christian Conservative MP fighting in Committee against the extension of drinking hours to the afternoon and late at night. The drinks lobby smoothed the way, but he kept saying, “People are going to be killed by this measure.” He was right, but he lost.
But times have changed. Mrs Thatcher marked it by attacking Sunday as a day of rest and worship in the name of the commercial interests of the supermarkets, who were prepared to break the law in order to swing the law their way. Around that time it become clear that the Conservative Party loved money rather than God.
As Mrs Thatcher said, with obvious disrespect for Christian teaching, “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.” It was money first. The unions were broken, the banks were deregulated, capitalism was given its head and the modern Conservative Party was born.
Yet, despite “Keep Sunday Special” and other disputes, probably most Anglicans kept on voting Tor y. Each election they would be given a little sop, or a cosy speech to make them feel good about Conservatives, and they gave them the benefit of the doubt.
Yet the rhetoric had changed. Almost never, and I listen for these things, would Conservatives argue any of their policy in terms of Christian principle. And Anglicans were also different. No longer were they presenting their Christian principles in open political debate, except as a limited pressure group defending, say, bishops in the House of Lords. They were retreating from the public square into quirky internal issues like whether women could be clergy and bishops. It was a level of failure that allowed them to be easily dismissed.
Meanwhile, the Conservative Party had become fundamentally unprincipled in the sense that its prime concern has been to get back into power and it is prepared to do most things to do this. The same concern drove the Blair New Labour Governments. Indeed, the Conservative Party abandoned the Conservative faith, except the principle of favouring the rich.
It was ironic that Cameron at the last election, copying Obama, made “change” the central point of appeal of his party. The word occurred 46 times in his key electoral address. The conserving party is hey presto the party of change - a slight inconsistency there.
Of course, the slogan is empty. Is it the party of climate change and global warming, of small change for the poor and big change for the rich, of changing the guard at Buckingham Palace? Change is the end of principle, as the gay marriage legislation shows.
Civil Partnerships allow the legal equality of gay couples, and we can welcome this fairness to the people involved even when there is disagreement over the form and norms of marriage. So the present legislation is about the word, “marriage”, which is understood in Christian terms as a monogamous, faithful, man-women relationship of love into which community of love children are born and reared.
This is actually the normal understanding in British culture at large given the aberrations that happen in soaps and the varied lives of all of us. It is also its use in 90 per cent or more of the relationships that happen throughout the world; it is worldwide normal and this understanding does inestimable good. All words discriminate and it is no political problem to anyone that “marriage” is what it is.
Cameron is therefore seeking to legislate about a word, which given his expressed views about overlegislation in the European Union, is a bit of a cheek. His agenda, we all know, is to appeal to the gay vote and to change the image of the Conservative Party with its shrinking membership. And so he bins the Christian meaning.
Cameron thinks that he has the Anglican vote in his back pocket by habit. The time has come for Anglicans to examine their faith and their vote and recognise that Christian Conservatism is dead. If they so decide, they will be wooed a little before the next election, but they will find it is not a real marriage, but more of a one-night stand, which they were better to decline.