Here’s one: “The British public want politicians to steer clear of religion just as key Westminster figures amp up debates on Christianity’s role in the country, new polling shows.”
The British are bit funny. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to make of them. They are a strange mix of tradition and innovation, formality and creativity, stuffiness and cheerfulness. They are so schizophrenic in their customs and beliefs that even THEY don’t know what to make of THEMSELVES. This shows itself in a post-empire, post-Brexit lostness, where the average Brit doesn’t know if they are European, or American, or something else, or nothing in particular.
And then there’s religion. This is where the agonizing conflict within the heart of the British people is so awkwardly obvious. There is no separation of church and state in England. Church of England bishops sit in the House of Lords by right (the equivalent of the US Senate), King Charles (the man, not the spaniel) is the Head of the Church of England and its priests swear an oath to him at their ordinations.
And yet, any casual visitor to the UK on a Sunday will notice a huge difference from the US, especially the Deep South. Very few people go to church. If you listen to people’s conversations, they seldom contain any reference to moral values, spiritual communities, or existential realities. People’s ignorance of the faith of their ancestors is shockingly complete. It’s like the nation has been gifted an extraordinary history of faith-inspired culture but doesn’t know what to do with it, and is rather embarrassed by it.
So, that headline and the research by Politico which it summarizes ... 65 percent of British voters back a separation between Christianity and politics — a view held by a clear majority of supporters of all the main political parties. 40% see Christianity as a clear part of Britain’s history, but less than a quarter (23 percent) want Christianity to play a greater role in politics.
“They don’t like politicians moralizing,” says the guy who led Politico’s research. “The public views ‘Judeo-Christian values’ as an important part of the country’s history, but not of modern-day politics. A majority oppose a greater role for religion in politics, with most voters also resistant to it being used as a political wedge.”
And yet, a shockingly large number of people are happy for the Church of England to continue to be the established church. 40 percent reject disestablishment, and only 21 percent are in favor of it. (The other 39% have presumably never thought about it.)
So, what’s up with Britain? Why do so many people support an established Church, but so few want Christianity to be involved in politics? I suspect the reason lies in what comes to mind when people think of the Church’s involvement in politics. They assume it means legislating people’s personal morality, opposing science and progress, telling people what they can and cannot do with their time, their money, their bodies, their anything.
This is tragic, because the nation that produced the greatest social reformers in the history of the industrialized world has lost its memory. It was the Church and its members who reined in the appalling excesses of the Industrial Revolution. It was devout members of the Church of England who ended slavery in the Empire, passed laws protecting workers’ health and safety, built schools and hospitals, healed sick people, and made houses habitable.
Somewhere and somehow the dynamic, healing, transforming, loving Faith of the Church got lost in political mayhem, and a lost nation is suffering because of it.