Ian Linden: Is Christianity a 'luxury' belief?

Professor Ian Linden

Sometimes a seemingly minor story speaks reams about this Government. Last week, The House, Parliament's in-house magazine, reported 'a former senior adviser to the [Church of England's] bishops in the House of Lords' as saying that bishops were coming away from encounters with junior Home Office staff 'feeling like lepers'. Relations with the Home Office had become 'toxic' and 'unfixable'. Might then Christianity be one of those 'luxury beliefs' shared with the 'woke elite' which Home Secretary Suella Braverman, during her 3 October Conservative Party Conference speech, positioned herself as opposing?

During the Lords debates on the Illegal Migration Act of July 2023, the Archbishop of Canterbury described its key measures as 'morally unacceptable and politically impractical'. His forthright condemnation seems to be the reason why, when he 'reached out' to the Home Secretary - Americanisms seem to have reached into Lambeth Palace - he was rebuffed. Radio 4's 1st October Sunday Programme ran the story with comment from Dominic Grieve, a practising Anglican and former Conservative Attorney General purged from the Party for incorrect views on BREXIT. Grieve's view was that Suella Braverman's refusal to discuss immigration with the head of the established Church flew in the face of constitutional conventions and was 'inexcusable' and 'extraordinarily rude'.

Chris Loder, an Anglican and Conservative MP for West Dorset responded that the Lords Spiritual, all 26 of them, were politically biased: they took a left-wing approach, acted as 'campaigners and commentators', and 96% of their votes - where are you More or Less when we need you? - had been cast against the Government. If Loder's voting figures for the bishops were to stand up to examination, they would be open to interpretation as a reflection on the tenor of government legislation as well as the bishops' 'luxury belief' that strangers should be welcomed and the needs of the poor prioritised. Not just a storm in a tea-cup. More revealing and important.

To read on see: www.ianlinden.com/latest-blogs/is-christianity-a-luxury-belief

Professor Ian Linden is Visiting Professor at St Mary's University, Strawberry Hill, London. A past director of the Catholic Institute for International Relations, he was awarded a CMG for his work for human rights in 2000. He has also been an adviser on Europe and Justice and Peace issues to the Department of International Affairs of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales. Ian chairs a new charity for After-school schooling in Beirut for Syrian refugees and Lebanese kids in danger of dropping out partnering with CARITAS Lebanon and work on board of Las Casas Institute in Oxford with Richard Finn OP. His latest book was Global Catholicism published by Hurst in 2009.