The British have become uneasy with public protestations of private religious belief, doubly so when the language of faith is entangled with the practice of politics. The Prime Minister’s own closest advisers believe that any overt religiosity on Mr Blair’s behalf is dangerous. When the Prime Minister was asked about his faith by a reporter for Vanity Fair, Alastair Campbell cut in to insist: “We don’t do God.” The Prime Minister was also persuaded not to end his Iraq war broadcast with “God bless you” because his advisers believed “people don’t want chaplains pushing stuff down their throats”. In the party which once owed more to Methodism than Marxism it is now the love of God that dare not speak its name.

Mr Campbell’s almost vampiric aversion to anything that smacks of Christianity reflects the widespread assumption that nothing opens a politician to ridicule like religion. When George W. Bush declared that his favourite philosopher was Jesus Christ, the scorn on this side of the Atlantic could not have been greater if he’d said Homer Simpson. The idea that the President was a fundamentalist crazy itching to turn the US into the Republic of Gilead was confirmed, for many, when it was disclosed that there are White House Bible study classes. To listen to the European reaction, one might have thought they were bringing back witch trials in Massachusetts.

The ruling assumption, in rationalist, relativist, Britain and post-Christian continental Europe is that religion, especially anything that smacks of traditional Protestantism, renders its followers beyond the pale. Bush’s preparedness to use words such as “evil” in the context of foreign affairs betrays the simplistic mindset of the Bible Belt, and renders him incapable of practising the subtle diplomacy a complex world requires. Blair’s willingness to invoke God suggests that he too is over-prone to moralising and insufficiently attuned to the nuances and compromises statecraft requires.

The assumption underlying this unease is the prevailing secular belief that religion is the handmaid of inflexibility, arrogance and intolerance. To open your heart to Christianity is to narrow your mind to others. But do the facts support that prejudice? Is it true that religious faith, in particular the Christianity avowed by Blair and Bush, is a distorting and unhappy influence? I don’t think so, and the facts seem to suggest not.

For non-believers, Christianity is assumed to offer certainty and to incline its adherents towards dogmatism. But the belief that one is answerable for one’s actions before a higher authority, as Blair affirmed in his interview with Peter Stothard on Saturday, inclines a man to humility rather than arrogance. An additional constraint is placed on your actions, beyond a judgment of what the public or the Labour Party will support.

Christian faith, particularly for those schooled in the Protestant tradition, compels an examination of the conscience. As well as weighing the consequences of an action, the genuinely Christian politician will examine the sincerity of his intentions and be acutely aware of the fallibility of human reason. Far from encouraging rashness, Christian belief creates another hurdle a politician must clear before he acts. Subjecting decisions to extra moral tests that have nothing to do with strictly political calculation can only help to foster responsible leadership.

Aggressively secularist critics of Blair and Bush find it hard to understand why those who proclaim belief in a faith that places such a high value on innocent life could have prosecuted a war in which so many innocents would die. But it is precisely because both take religion seriously that they appreciate inaction is itself a positive moral choice, with consequences one cannot escape.

Blair has previously talked of his fascination with Pilate, the quintessential politician who listened too much to his advisers, bowed before public opinion and acquiesced through inaction in the perpetration of evil. To have left Saddam Hussein in power, and let him pursue his ambitions unmolested, would have invited terrible consequences, not just for the Iraqi people but the concept of international order. Blair could not wash his hands of the problem, because inaction would have left them steeped in far more blood.

The Christian faith that Bush and Blair share, and which is also held by Iain Duncan Smith, enriches these men as politicians and extends their sympathies. Although it is not reported here, because it conflicts with the caricature, Bush has made support for the educationally disadvantaged, help for Aids victims in Africa and social action among the poorest, signature elements of his political programme. Blair’s own social vision is palpably Christian Democrat, but so also is Duncan Smith’s. Unnoticed by the metropolitan press, the Tory leader has devoted most of his time outside Westminster to exploring the condition of society’s least well off, whether victims of drug abuse in Glasgow or failing schools in Hackney.

These priorities are not, of course, the exclusive preserve of those who profess religious belief. But Christian faith inclines public servants to look beyond public opinion when they think of service. Far from being embarrassed when our leaders “do God”, we should be grateful when those who wield power over us acknowledge their own humility before a higher power.

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