Why should politicians take the Church seriously?

“Moral, but no compass,” a new report commissioned for the Church of England and written by my colleagues at the Von Hügel Institute, Cambridge, claims that the British Government should take faith communities seriously, and that with the exception of Islam, it is failing to do so.

I share with the report its central conviction that faith and society are interwoven at the most basic level. I also share its view that church-based agencies typically do a superb job in promoting social welfare. But I’m much less clear about why the British Government should allow its policies to be shaped by this.

In a preface, the Bishop of Hulme, the Right Rev Stephen Lowe, who commissioned the report, asserts that “the Church of England . . . has earned the right as the largest voluntary organisation (and so much more) in the country to be listened to and worked with as a respected partner in the area of welfare provision as it is in education”. But is he right?

There is a strong theological case for saying that while the Church has a God-given authority to set its moral compass in ways of which governments might disapprove of, governments have an equally God-given authority for setting theirs in ways that the Church might disapprove of. Though the Church has a responsibility to challenge governmental authority when it is abused (as in Mugabe's Zimbabwe), it does not have a claim on a government’s ear simply because it is the Church.

Politicians rely on many things and a “moral compass” ought to be one. But politicians also rely on votes and ideas. If the British churches want politicians to take them seriously they need to show that Christian faith influences the electoral behaviour of a significant number of voters, or that the churches shape the agenda on which an election can be won.

In Britain, the churches struggle to show either. But in the United States they are showing both, with the result that once again the candidate who wins over most Catholic and evangelical voters is likely to win the keys to the White House.

What is interesting this time round is that it is not clear that the religious vote will automatically swing behind the Republicans.

Professor Shaun Casey of Wesley Seminary in Washington advises the Obama campaign on faith communities and faith issues. In the US as in Britain, he told me at the height of the primary battles, the professional political class “has a tin ear with regard to religion”.

Moreover, in the US, trying politically to organise churches has proved as successful as trying to “herd cats”. So the Obama campaign is trying to forge an alliance with a progressive social agenda in America that is increasingly being set by religious individuals and communities.

“Social principles cut left,” Professor Casey says, and the Obama campaign, in recognising this, has made real headway in linking faith values with its progressive political agenda. In the US, that is, the churches are winning influence by winning arguments.

“Moral, but no compass” wants a fresh dialogue with politicians in the United Kingdom, insisting that “both Church and State must become more receptive of the other”. But there is no “must” about it. Church and State will only become receptive to each other in the United Kingdom when the churches meaningfully set the agenda for politics in the way that the churches are setting the agenda in America.

— Stephen Plant is Director of Studies at Wesley House, Cambridge, and a research associate at the Von Hügel Institute, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge.