The Pope throws a punch while our archbishops merely throw sand

Adam Boulton Published: 18 January 2015

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Muscular Christianity is back and it has come out punching. Proving that you can take the pontiff out of the barrio but you can’t take the barrio out of the pontiff, His Holiness Pope Francis warned that those who “curse my mother . . . can expect a punch”, acting out the gesture to make sure nothing was lost in translation. It was a colourfully belligerent and not altogether reassuring comment on the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

Meanwhile the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury and York have booked Church House for a press conference this Tuesday in which they will deliver a metaphorical punch to the government.

The occasion is the launch of On Rock or Sand?, essays arising from seminars held by John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York. In the book he makes a direct link to then Archbishop Robert Runcie’s Faith in the City report in 1985, which provoked sustained fury (“pure Marxist theology”) from the Thatcher government.

Sentamu accuses the church of losing its nerve since then and freely admits that its limited scope and analysis betrays a troubled and confused institution whose significance is dwindling towards vanishing point. Church of England congregants are down 30% since 1985 to around 800,000.

The early reception of On Rock or Sand? has not been encouraging for those hoping for deadly thunder from the pulpit. Far from fury, David Cameron’s first reaction was to defend his tormentors. “I’ve never complained about the church for getting involved in political issues — they have a perfect right to speak out,” he observed charitably.

Faith in the City stung, not just because Margaret Thatcher was a true believer, schooled on the hard pews of provincial Methodism, but also because there was a crisis in the cities then. Although he later admitted that this was not technically possible, Runcie claimed he compiled his report because he could see the fires of the Brixton riots from Lambeth Palace. The grim mood on the streets inspired Michael Heseltine’s efforts at urban regeneration that reverberate to this day in George Osborne’s “northern powerhouse” rhetoric.

Cameron likes to joke that his faith flickers. He is a baptisms-weddings-and-funerals Anglican, familiar with the faith from public school chapel. Like that of many other parents, his church attendance these days seems linked to getting his children into Church of England state schools.

Unlike the 1980s, Cameron’s term in office has not been characterised by a mood of simmering confrontation. Street disturbances have been rare. And those protests that have taken place, such as the student fees demonstration and the 2011 riots, have not systematically targeted the incumbent regime.

The lines of attack are familiar from the populist Sentamu but why has Justin Welby associated himself with the cause?

If not quite to the point of a mortal sin, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is proud of his previous career as a middle-ranking oil company executive. He took on the banking and loans industries in their own terms. He is attempting a business school-style reorganisation of the church and has indeed decreed that those who want to become bishops should first acquire mini-MBAs.

But Welby’s background has not brought any relief to Cameron, his fellow Old Etonian. Rebukes from the church are still business as usual. In March 2013, as he took over from Rowan Williams, Welby attacked Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms, claiming that he would force 200,000 children into poverty.

Since then his bishops have denounced gay marriage and the need for food banks and claimed many face the choice of “heat or eat”.

Welby is the living embodiment of the tension between the traditional leftist instincts of his activists, the clergy, and the small “c” conservative inclinations of their grassroots, the dwindling number of churchgoers.

In 2014, YouGov and Lancaster University conducted extensive research into the church’s shepherds and their flock. According to Linda Woodhead, the professor in charge, they found a “gulf between recent church statements on welfare and the attitudes of a majority of churchgoers in the C of E”.

Almost three quarters (74%) of Anglicans believe that the benefits system creates a culture of dependency but less than a third of their vicars agreed with them.

“Overall, Anglicans are more right-leaning than the general population,” Woodhead noted, “but are increasingly liberal over issues like same-sex marriage and permitted assisted dying.” Their priests, especially the burgeoning faction of evangelicals, are moving in the opposite direction. Though few politicians can be bothered with the issue, among the clergy this raises questions about the Church of England’s established status, in particular the presence of 26 senior bishops as lords spiritual in parliament’s upper house.

Reluctant to be associated with any government, more than 40% of Anglican priests now favour full disestablishment or looser ties with the state. In a forthcoming Cambridge Union debate, the ordained minister Giles Fraser will propose cutting the link, while the avowedly profane national treasure Stephen Fry will argue against him.

French-style secularism would carry some advantages in the view of evangelicals. The church could slough off onto the state the onerous responsibility of maintaining historic buildings, that is, most churches, and with it the chore of marrying and burying people who don’t otherwise turn up for worship.

On the other hand, many bishops, including the two archbishops, relish their status and positions of influence, courtesy of the state. It was an archbishop, William Temple, who coined the phrase welfare state. Clerical salaries are in the £20,000 range, so many in the ministry join their less fortunate parishioners as clients of the benefits system.

Sentamu insists “the book is neither left nor right. It is about greater truths”. The church’s chief spin doctor cites the Brazilian liberation theologist and Catholic Archbishop Dom Helder Camara: “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist.”

More sand than rock, this latest intervention by the archbishops certainly asks more than it gives and offers few answers to what distresses its authors. It’s much easier to understand a bullish papal punch.