To those who live outside the bubble of Daily Mail “why oh why” anxiety about a nation going to the dogs, the latest remarks from the Anglican Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, will probably seem little more than the fulminations of an irate cleric who didn’t succeed in his candidature for Canterbury. But there’s rather more to it than that.<\/p>\n
Nazir-Ali is not, as some of his critics will want to claim, a stupid or bigoted man. He is, rather, a representative of a whole swath of opinion (some of it militantly Christian and some of it agnostic but conservative) that finds itself up a cultural cul-de-sac and cannot think of anywhere to go but backwards – towards an imagined society of stability and order based on allegedly Judeo-Christian values.<\/p>\n
Much like the idea that churches used to be full to the brim in the Victorian era, a popular misconception punctured by the research of Professor Robin Gill and others, this notion holds little water. The era of Christendom in Europe, one where institutional religion found a secure and privileged place in the social order in exchange for pronouncing its blessing on governing authority, is coming to an end. For many of us, Christians included, that is a sign of hope not despair.<\/p>\n