But today, according to Farron, that doctrine of liberalism has become dominant, and like state-sponsored Christianity, instead of being \u2018emancipationist\u2019, has become oppressive. Liberalism has today become like the \u2018established church\u2019 of Constantinian or post-Reformation times, wanting a monopoly of power, no longer a philosophy which challenges the human tendency to lord it over others. For Farron, the foundation of liberalism is Christianity (and particularly non-conformist evangelicalism), not political correctness masquerading as a kind of self-evident \u2018liberalism\u2019. \u201cSecularism is a totalising creed that reduces everyone down to either consumer or regulatory units\u201d, he says, and cannot be a basis for \u2018shared values\u2019.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Christianity must be \u2018liberal\u2019, sticking to the Bible\u2019s teaching, but not seeking to impose this on society in such a way as to restrict freedom of thought and action within the law. Farron isn\u2019t saying, as some evangelicals do, that Christians should just focus on the local church, and be indifferent to the lives and choices of society outside the Christian community and those being evangelised on the fringe. As he said: \u201cGod will judge\u2026it is not unloving or judgmental for Christians to point that out\u201d. But he warns against the kind of close association of church and state:<\/p>\n
\u201cThat in Britain we have a church trapped as part of the furniture of the state is a waste of a church.\u00a0 A boat in the water is good.\u00a0 Water in the boat, is bad.\u00a0 A church in the state is good, the state in the church is bad.\u00a0 Really bad.\u00a0 It pollutes the message of that church.\u00a0 It compromises it.\u00a0 Weakens its witness.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This serious criticism of the Church of England\u2019s basic DNA, which Tim Farron did not develop in his argument, puts a finger on a key issue for thinking about the future of Anglicanism in Britain. Bible believing Christians in the C of E have always argued that Establishment ensures a place for influence at the high table, and an open door into communities at the grassroots. But if Farron is right, and the state is no longer Christian-liberal, and instead has become increasingly secular-authoritarian, then the state church no longer influences positively for Christianity. It must conform to secularism in order to stay at the high table \u2013 and in doing so must of necessity shed much of its Christian character, and collude in the persecution of orthodox Christianity.<\/p>\n