Britain is more Christian than you think

To a recent report announcing that ‘Britain is no longer a Christian country’, CHRISTOPHER HOWSE retorts that Christianity still saturates everyday life

A VISITOR from France recently told me he agreed that St Pancras was a fine terminus for the Eurostar, but he regretted that an old monastery should have been completely gutted for the purpose. He had mistaken, not merely the name, but even the medieval appearance of Barlow and Scott’s Victorian architecture for remnants of an old religious foundation.

Though factually wrong, he had the right idea, because we mostly overlook the Christianity saturating everyday life. It’s like a fish saying ‘Water, what water?’ This was part of the trouble at the end of last year when headlines appeared saying ‘Britain is no longer a Christian country’. That was a fair summary of a report by a commission sitting under Lady ButlerSloss, an eminent retired judge, herself a churchgoing Anglican. I want to say something later about that commission, but the question remains: if Britain isn’t Christian, what is it?

I mean, if you were going to Nepal and weren’t quite sure whether it was Buddhist, Hindu or Muslim, you’d soon get some idea from the buildings and the behaviour of the people: what they ate and drank, how they dressed. In Britain once a year, 90 per cent of families put up a tree, 76 per cent eat turkey and 25 million Christmas puddings are consumed. If a visitor from Nepal enquired what all that was about, the answer would not be Hanukkah, Diwali or Eid.

It’s easy to draw up a little questionnaire for yourself to see if you are infected by Christian culture. What day of the week are you most likely to eat fish? What day of the week are you most likely to have off? When you swear in English, it may mostly be obscenities, but might you sometimes take the name of the Lord in vain: Jesus, Christ, or just OMG?

What is the oldest, most striking piece of architecture in the neighbourhood? This last question reveals a lot about England. (And it’s England that is at the heart of it, though in the Celtic regions Christianity is even more obvious.) About 10,000 of the C of E’s churches are mediaeval, and people like us love them. Looking at it the other way, 45 per cent of architecturally listed buildings are churches. They largely fill Pevsner’s shelf-full of county guides. You don’t have to be a believer to enjoy them, but every inch of England is covered by a Church of England parish. The clergy count themselves responsible for everyone in the parish, not just churchgoers. A vicar or rector can legally marry any resident of the parish in the church (though new laws specifically prevent Church of England clergy from conducting the new kind of marriage between people of the same sex).

Britain is not like America, which separates state and religion. The head of state in Britain (the Queen) is also Supreme Governor of the Church of England. It is not a state church (as state officials and MPS can quite happily not belong to it), but it is the Established Church. The Commons formally begins the day’s session with prayer. In the Lords, 26 Church of England bishops sit by right. They are not representatives of the people, for the House of Lords is not electively representative.

We thought we’d settled doubts about Christianity’s right to a place in public life in 2010, when the Pope visited Britain. Stephen Fry and his allies thought the nation should take to the streets to resist the outrageous assault of papistry on vulnerable rationalists. In the event, crowds greeted Pope Benedict cheerfully. The turning point came during his address in dear old Westminster Hall. ‘Those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged,’ he said, showed a worrying failure to understand ‘the legitimate role of religion in the public square’. He was applauded by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, John Major, Margaret Thatcher and hundreds more, who stood up as he made his way through the huge building. Fry, at the end of his Twitter-feed, slunk away to his cave of spleen.

If the nation is wondering again about the place of Christianity in public life, it is because of people like Lady ButlerSloss’s Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life. The twenty commissioners were an odd lot: the chief executive of the British Humanist Association; a couple of people connected to the Equality and Human Rights Commission; a professor who at present ‘explores the adjustments that may need to be made to feminist theory to accommodate increasing cultural pluralism’; a Presbyterian, a bishop of the Church of God of Prophecy, an imam, a rabbi, a lecturer in Sikh studies and a Hindu priest who used to be a Catholic. So it was hardly top-heavy with Anglicans, though it did include a clergyman who runs the Contextual Theology Centre and a retired Bishop of Oxford.

I am glad these people exist, but it must be borne in mind that they have an iron-bottomed capacity for sitting on committees to reach consensus, refreshed only by breaks for stewed coffee in overheated fitted-carpeted rooms. Their report was just what you’d expect. I don’t want to get bogged down with the commission, but it was, for a start, commissioned by no one but itself.

A little historical perspective produces a clearer picture of Britain as a Christian country. We may be tempted to think the Victorians were frightfully Christian, but the Church of England nearly went smash twice in the 19th century. Once was just before the first Reform Bill of 1832. The previous autumn, disestablishment of the Church became a question for street mobs. The Bishop