Smash hit

The central problem has been the problem of faith. If people cease to believe in Christianity, they will not bother to listen to Christian teaching. The culture will swing away from Christianity, taking the people with it. In such circumstances, the role of an archbishop becomes almost impossible. The Christian culture is still very strong in some parts of the world, even in the United States, but Western Europe, including England, seems to have become a post-Christian society. This cultural movement did not start in the 1990s, when Archbishop Carey was at Canterbury, or even in the 1960s. It goes back much further.

About the time he went to Canterbury, in 1942, Archbishop Temple wrote to a correspondent: “You would hardly find any theologian now who supposes that Christian ethics can survive for half a century in detachment from Christian doctrine, and this is the very last moment when the Church itself can come forward with outlines of Christian ethics in the absence of the theological foundation which alone makes them really tenable. Our people have all grown up in a generally Christian atmosphere, and take it for granted that all people not actually perverted hold what are essentially Christian notions about human conduct. But that is not true.”

In 1942 Temple saw that it was late in the day for the Christian culture, but could still write that: “Our people have all grown up in a generally Christian atmosphere.” That is no longer the case. Nowadays the English have all grown up in a generally post-Christian atmosphere. Some believe in science, some in humanism, most in sex, fame and money. Some are Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus. But only a minority are Christians and that minority is still shrinking. George Carey has found himself in the last hours of the day of which William Temple experienced the early evening. He had to choose a different role. He could no longer plausibly pretend to be the spiritual leader of a Christian nation, because England has clearly ceased to be a Christian nation. Reasonably enough, he decided to maintain the morale of his Church and of those who remained Christian.

He has been admirably ecumenical and orthodox. He has neither joined nor favoured factions. He has been an example of the good parish priest. The role from which he was unexpectedly promoted. Yet he has not seriously engaged in the impossible task or reversing the tide of the national culture. He did not have the weapons with which to do that. In what he has done, he has been more modestly successful. His successor, Dr Williams, is likely to take a different view. One may think him right to do so, yet be doubtful of his prospects for success. It is extraordinarily hard to reverse the process of cultural deterioration. The Church of England has been faced with the decline of both its cultures, of Christianity and of the old English culture which had its roots in the Christian religion. The process of liquidation of the old values is, if anything, accelerating.

There is, I suppose, some hope that the neo-pagan culture, the “sex ‘n’ fame ‘n’ money” culture, will blow itself out. It already seems to be stale, trite and nauseous, where Christianity in comparison is fresh, deep and vital. The new culture daily demonstrates its infectious power to destroy human happiness. Who would envy the unfortunate Ulrika Jonsson or the man she alleged to have raped her — a now shamed “celebrity” who had previously been little heard of, except on daytime television? The tabloids sweep up the detritus of ruined neo-pagan lives.

In the meantime we live through a prolonged period in which the lights of Christian doctrine no more than flicker through the gloom. The Churches, and the archbishops, fight to maintain their position, but it is the neo-pagan celebrities, not the archbishops, who win places among the absurdly chosen 100 Great Britons on the BBC. Dr Carey has fought an honest battle — but his career has been at best a Christian Dunkirk, a noble retreat.

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