Jason Hadden MBE is a barrister, broadcaster and author. He currently specialises in Children’s Law and domestic abuse.
With Christmas over for yet another year, many will suggest that we put Christianity and those headline Christian values back in the box with the decorations until next time.
There has been a curious reluctance in British public life for the past twenty years or so about acknowledging Christianity; not as a matter of private belief, but as the moral and cultural architecture on which this country was built.
Yet, our politicians and our public servants have allowed a sustained attack on the religion that in many ways helped craft this nation. An increase in religious hate crimes (often ignored), crimes at churches and the indulgence of woke attitudes against Christians. Internationally the incidents of violence and murder are much worse.
That is a mistake.
The consequence of this approach (not only in Britain) has seen persecution, hate and anger. The simple truth is that this undermining of Christianity has weakened our social and democratic structures.
We may speak comfortably about institutions, traditions and values in public debate, in pubs (those still open of course) and at work (unless it offends) yet we hesitate to name the source from which many of them flow. A nervousness prevails to admitting to being Christian, for some more so than others.
That reluctance is beginning to be challenged (and long may it continue).
In recent remarks, Kemi Badenoch has spoken plainly about the role Christianity has played — and continues to play — in shaping Britain’s moral instincts, social norms and understanding of responsibility. She is completely right. But this must not be a simply a nod to that electorate; of box ticking as its Christmas, as we have perhaps seen from other leaders. It needs to stand for something.
Christianity is fundamental to who we are as a nation. To what it is to be British (or indeed Australian, by way of example). It doesn’t matter if you are Christian, or some other religion, or indeed of no religion. It is about our freedoms and understandings. About a social responsibility, about choice and liberty.
Christianity is not merely one belief system among many in the British story. It is the wellspring from which our concepts of human dignity, duty, restraint and justice emerged. The idea that every individual possesses inherent worth; that power must be limited by conscience; that the strong owe obligations to the weak.
Some would suggest these are almost socialist ideologies. Gosh. In truth, there are foundations of the best parts of Conservatism.
Conservatism is not a theory of perpetual change, nor is it an exercise in nostalgia. It is a recognition that societies are fragile, that moral capital can be exhausted, and that institutions only endure when the values underpinning them are renewed. Christianity has historically supplied that renewal, not through coercion, but through a shared moral grammar.
The erosion of Christianity has not produced a calmer or more coherent society; it has coincided with rising loneliness, family breakdown, declining trust and a loss of shared purpose.
Christianity offered a framework in which freedom was balanced by responsibility, rights by duties, liberty by self-restraint. Without that balance, freedom curdles into entitlement, and rights become detached from obligation.
Badenoch’s intervention is important precisely because it rejects the idea that acknowledging Christianity is exclusionary. On the contrary, Britain’s Christian inheritance is what made pluralism possible. Tolerance, charity and the peaceful coexistence of difference were not imported despite Christianity but developed through it. A society confident in its foundations is more capable of welcoming others than one uncertain of what it stands for.
There is also a political realism here that conservatives should not ignore. Voters sense when leaders are uncomfortable with their own country’s story. An issue which Starmer and the Labour Party are currently going through (not for the first time). They notice when traditions are treated as embarrassing relics rather than living sources of meaning. Reconnecting conservatism with Christianity is not about preaching; it is about grounding politics in a moral tradition that people intuitively recognise, even if they no longer attend church.
Kemi Badenoch is right to remind us that nations, like individuals, cannot live indefinitely off moral credit they no longer replenish. The task for modern conservatism is not to force belief, but to defend the cultural conditions that made Britain stable, humane and free in the first place.
Christianity remains central to that task, and it is for us to recognise once more its significance and its benefits.
Jason Hadden MBE is a barrister, broadcaster and author. He currently specialises in Children’s Law and domestic abuse.
With Christmas over for yet another year, many will suggest that we put Christianity and those headline Christian values back in the box with the decorations until next time.
There has been a curious reluctance in British public life for the past twenty years or so about acknowledging Christianity; not as a matter of private belief, but as the moral and cultural architecture on which this country was built.
Yet, our politicians and our public servants have allowed a sustained attack on the religion that in many ways helped craft this nation. An increase in religious hate crimes (often ignored), crimes at churches and the indulgence of woke attitudes against Christians. Internationally the incidents of violence and murder are much worse.
That is a mistake.
The consequence of this approach (not only in Britain) has seen persecution, hate and anger. The simple truth is that this undermining of Christianity has weakened our social and democratic structures.
We may speak comfortably about institutions, traditions and values in public debate, in pubs (those still open of course) and at work (unless it offends) yet we hesitate to name the source from which many of them flow. A nervousness prevails to admitting to being Christian, for some more so than others.
That reluctance is beginning to be challenged (and long may it continue).
In recent remarks, Kemi Badenoch has spoken plainly about the role Christianity has played — and continues to play — in shaping Britain’s moral instincts, social norms and understanding of responsibility. She is completely right. But this must not be a simply a nod to that electorate; of box ticking as its Christmas, as we have perhaps seen from other leaders. It needs to stand for something.
Christianity is fundamental to who we are as a nation. To what it is to be British (or indeed Australian, by way of example). It doesn’t matter if you are Christian, or some other religion, or indeed of no religion. It is about our freedoms and understandings. About a social responsibility, about choice and liberty.
Christianity is not merely one belief system among many in the British story. It is the wellspring from which our concepts of human dignity, duty, restraint and justice emerged. The idea that every individual possesses inherent worth; that power must be limited by conscience; that the strong owe obligations to the weak.
Some would suggest these are almost socialist ideologies. Gosh. In truth, there are foundations of the best parts of Conservatism.
Conservatism is not a theory of perpetual change, nor is it an exercise in nostalgia. It is a recognition that societies are fragile, that moral capital can be exhausted, and that institutions only endure when the values underpinning them are renewed. Christianity has historically supplied that renewal, not through coercion, but through a shared moral grammar.
The erosion of Christianity has not produced a calmer or more coherent society; it has coincided with rising loneliness, family breakdown, declining trust and a loss of shared purpose.
Christianity offered a framework in which freedom was balanced by responsibility, rights by duties, liberty by self-restraint. Without that balance, freedom curdles into entitlement, and rights become detached from obligation.
Badenoch’s intervention is important precisely because it rejects the idea that acknowledging Christianity is exclusionary. On the contrary, Britain’s Christian inheritance is what made pluralism possible. Tolerance, charity and the peaceful coexistence of difference were not imported despite Christianity but developed through it. A society confident in its foundations is more capable of welcoming others than one uncertain of what it stands for.
There is also a political realism here that conservatives should not ignore. Voters sense when leaders are uncomfortable with their own country’s story. An issue which Starmer and the Labour Party are currently going through (not for the first time). They notice when traditions are treated as embarrassing relics rather than living sources of meaning. Reconnecting conservatism with Christianity is not about preaching; it is about grounding politics in a moral tradition that people intuitively recognise, even if they no longer attend church.
Kemi Badenoch is right to remind us that nations, like individuals, cannot live indefinitely off moral credit they no longer replenish. The task for modern conservatism is not to force belief, but to defend the cultural conditions that made Britain stable, humane and free in the first place.
Christianity remains central to that task, and it is for us to recognise once more its significance and its benefits.