At prime minister’s questions this week Boris Johnson vehemently denied beating up on the BBC the night before for being hard on him but soft on Russia. But had he accused the Church of England of being “less vociferous in their condemnation on Easter Sunday of Putin than they were on our policy on illegal immigrants”. Yeah, well maybe.The Church, perhaps seeking to head off any Tory knights en route to Lambeth Palace to rid the boss of turbulent priests, pointed out that the archbishop had repeatedly described Putin’s invasion as “evil”. Which in Church lingo usually means “very bad indeed”.But what I thought was, “Bring it on.” Because the re-entry at last of moral debate into the fields of politics and government in Britain would be to find water in a desert.Let’s begin with the question itself. Many British religious leaders have been saying that the government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda (bearing in mind there are nearly no “legal” routes to claiming asylum in Britain) is immoral. Justin Welby argued that the principle of sending away asylum seekers “must stand the judgment of God, and it cannot”, because “sub-contracting out our responsibilities . . . is the opposite of the nature of God who himself took responsibility for our failures on the Cross”.Henry II was quickly reincarnated on the front page of Daily Express in the headline “MPs Attack Welby Rant”. A senior Conservative commentator, fresh from his Easter alleluias, strenuously objected to the archbishop’s argument that the Rwanda policy was ungodly and suggested the prelate turn his attention to arguing against abortion.This might have contradicted the tweet from John Redwood who wrote: “I thought the Easter message was love conquers all. We should forgive and reconcile. Could the archbishop help do that instead of sharpening political divisions?” Another with strong views about the duty of priests on holy days was a young MP called Tom Hunt who warned: “The leaders of the Church of England should be wary of clumsily intervening into complex political issues.” Hunt may have failed to notice that bishops of the established church sit by right in the second house of parliament, presumably precisely so they can intervene in “complex political issues”. Then there was Nigel Farage accusing the most important religious figure in this country of “virtue signalling”. After all, who is an archbishop to say what God’s judgment might be when you have GBNews?But enough of this stupidity, because there is a much more important point at stake. Of course rows between faith leaders and politicians on points of disagreement are common to all parties. Back in 2019, for example, the then Unite leader Len McCluskey called it “quite wrong and extraordinary” for the Chief Rabbi to criticise Jeremy Corbyn’s record on antisemitism. In one sense this is all very traditional, from Becket to Wolsey to the modern day. This is Caesar feeling insufficiently rendered unto. Figures with transcendent claims on popular loyalty, from Marcus Rashford to Joanna Lumley, are quite threatening to politicians.The conflict between Margaret Thatcher and the CofE is usually seen as a modern template. I’ll come to that in a moment, after noting that quite a few of our recent prime ministers have been religious people. Tony Blair attended a choir school but really took to God at college. His mentor, a priest called Peter Thomson, helped him in what Blair later called “a rediscovery of religion as something living, that was about the world around me rather than some sort of special one-to-one relationship with a remote being on high. Suddenly I began to see its social relevance.” Blair not “doing God” in interviews wasn’t a sign he lacked religious-based morality, but the opposite — the fear of showing how powerful it was. His successor Gordon Brown was the son of a minister of the Church of Scotland; Johnson’s immediate predecessor, Theresa May, the daughter of a vicar. When she spoke against the Rwanda plan this week it was partly on explicitly “ethical” grounds.But Thatcher is probably the most interesting of all, because her dispute with the Church was actually theological. Brought up a Wesleyan Methodist by a shopkeeper father who was a lay preacher, her reforming zeal was underpinned by a faith-based morality.In 1988 she went to Edinburgh to deliver what was known as “the Sermon on the Mound”. Her underlying ethos was provided by the Parable of the Talents: virtue is to be found in individual responsibility, which is undermined by the state. “We simply can’t delegate the exercise of mercy and generosity to others,” she argued. “The politicians and other secular powers should strive by their measures to bring out the good in people and to fight down the bad: but they can’t create the one or abolish the other.”This was held to be a reproof to the theology underpinning the CofE’s interventionist Faith in the City report, published three years earlier and described as “Marxist” by one cabinet member. Today it has become simple “levelling up” orthodoxy.But another passage from the Sermon on the Mound catches the eye. “There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.”If Margaret Thatcher learnt this moral seriousness from her father and mother one wonders what Boris Johnson gleaned from his. It used to be that whether something was morally right played some role in creating policy, mediated by the question “will it work”. Today’s political discussion seems entirely dominated by the questions, “How will this play on the red wall”, or “How will this go down with Tory/Ukip swing voters”? Or, “Will this cut through?”Moral seriousness has been out of fashion for some time and the ruling party, in power now for 12 years, is led by a man whose governing credo is “whatever it takes”. Or, as Dominic Cummings put it concerning Johnson’s Potemkin policies, “everything is reversible and everything will be reversed”.It’s as much my fault as most people’s. I derided Thatcher’s and Blair’s religiosity when I should have been commending it. Not because it was religious but because it grounded political debate in the question of what is right, not what is expedient. Now, after a decade of moral frivolity, I realise I want not less religion in politics and politics in religion, but more. A whole lot more.
An important exhibition opens at the British Library in London this week. It's an exhibition taking a timely look at the news and the role it plays in our society – and I'm looking forward to visiting it.It opens as 'the news' has never been more contentious and, sadly, the public's trust in journalists – in the UK and around the world – remains low.Yet the reports coming out of Russia of how the Ukraine war is being falsely portrayed by government-run media, and the increasing persecution of journalists by totalitarian states across the globe show the importance of a free press to the flourishing of democracy.As Christians, we have a special calling to stand up for truth, and to support those journalists and news organisations seeking to communicate that truth – often in the face of violence, threats and murder.I've been involved in a project, based in the Anglican Diocese of St Albans, north of London, for the past several years, looking at post-truth, fake news and disinformation. We have brought together a wide group of people to examine issues around post-truth, and to help to formulate a Christian response.Key findings include the importance of keeping conversations going including with people with whom we disagree, being willing to ask questions about what we are being told, and to refuse to succumb to cynicism. Most importantly, to stand for truth in a climate of mounting disinformation.So I welcome the exhibition, 'Breaking the News', that opens on Friday 22 April and runs until 21 August. It is the British Library's first major exhibition to spotlight the role news plays in our society, exploring issues of choice, interpretation, truth and trust in the news.The British Library – the UK's national library, based in Euston, London – explains: "From the earliest surviving printed news report in Britain on the Battle of Flodden to smashed hard drives used by The Guardian to store Edward Snowden's hard files and an original BBC radio script of the D-Day landings, 'Breaking the News' will go beyond physical newspapers to examine the role news plays in our lives."The Library says the exhibition "will interrogate what makes an event news, what a free press means, the ethics involved in making the news, what objective news is and how the way we encounter news has evolved."Delving into the biggest collection of news heritage in the UK, housed by the British Library, these pressing issues will be set against the backdrop of more than five centuries of news publication in Britain through newspapers, newsreels, radio, television, the internet and social media."The exhibition is supported by Newsworks, the marketing body for the UK's national news publishers. They describe their mission as "championing the importance of a free press and leading collaboration across the industry to support the future for trusted journalism." Its members include the Guardian, Telegraph and News UK newspaper groups.The British Library exhibition aims to prompt big questions about the news we consume including:How do your opinions and beliefs influence the news you choose?When does news become propaganda?Why do we devour crime stories and sensationalism?Who decides which stories to suppress and which to spotlight?At a time when the global trustworthiness of journalists ranks at only 23 per cent – with only bankers, business leaders, advertisers, government ministers and politicians ranking beneath them – it's time for Christians and all people of faith and goodwill to look at how they receive their news, and how they view it.Churches such as St Bride's Church in Fleet Street, London, have long had a ministry to journalists and others working in the media. Organisations like Christians in Media support Christians working in media in all its forms.Making a visit to this high-profile exhibition could be the first step in re-evaluating the importance of reliable news sources and the role Christians could play in supporting diverse and trustworthy media.Rev Peter Crumpler is a Church of England minister in St Albans, Herts, UK, a former communications director with the CofE, and the author of 'Responding to Post-truth' (Grove Books).
Boris Johnson is a proven liar and a proven criminal, who broke his own laws, and continues to insist this is compatible with remaining as Prime Minister. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not a proven liar, not a proven criminal, and has a long record of genuine public service.Yet yesterday morning newspapers which present themselves as arbiters of the public interest, and opine endlessly on questions of ethics and morality, decide that it is the proven liar and crook who deserves their support in an argument over, of all things, Godliness. To justify their screaming headlines they dismiss Justin Welby’s thoughtful and measured Easter sermon as a ‘rant,’ and call in support a succession of rentaquote Tory MPs who urge the Archbishop to stay out of politics. Among them of course MPs who were keen to parade their Christian credentials over Easter, tweeting the news, Alleluia, Christ has risen, prompting most of the Jesus parody accounts to point out their rank hypocrisy. The message of the Mail, Express type of propaganda rags and of the Tory sycophant MPs is that it is fine for ministers to talk about Jesus but religious figures should keep out of politics. But dig a little deeper and they are frankly suggesting religious leaders should keep out of religious affairs too. This is the madness, I fear, that the pro-Johnson, pro-Brexit, populist, anti-fact, anti-reasoned debate right-wing media has inflicted on our debate. And I for one have increased my respect for the Archbishop in hearing him speak out as he did, on such an important day in the Church’s calendar, fully knowing that as a consequence that the pro-Johnson, pro-Brexit, populist, anti-fact, anti-reasoned debate right-wing rags would set upon him with their customary venality and viciousness. When Parliament is failing to hold a lying crook properly to account – and we shall see this week if they fare any better than they have so far in the 1,000 days of Johnson’s dreadful Premiership; when the rule of law is being wilfully undermined; when the media is in the main so supine, then thank God for someone in a position of spiritual leadership speaking out with such clarity on such an important issue. I hope in a future sermon he turns his attention to the damage being done to our country and our public life by the incessant lying and the defence of lying that has become, according to a polling word cloud, the single most recognised quality associated with Johnson. ‘We don’t do God’ is probably the most quoted ‘soundbite’ of my time in Downing Street. But, as I told the Archbishop when I interviewed him for GQ a few years ago, though I am an atheist, I am a pro-faith atheist. I am interested in religion and I like and respect the faith of others, provided it is not used as an excuse for violence or hatred or division. If you want to get a sense of the character of the Archbishop I suggest you take forty minutes of the day to watch the interview. He comes over as thoughtful, humane, wise, and humble, four qualities rarely associated with the man whose policy on refugees and asylum seekers he was criticising. Welby is living proof that while many Etonians turn out as selfish, narcissistic, arrogant and believing they are born to rule, not all do. Despite – or perhaps because of, who knows – my atheism, I have been lucky enough to meet him and talk to him fairly often. We share an interest, not least through personal experience, as we discussed in the interview, in depression and mental health more generally. We share an interest in prison reform and it was through him that I met the Pentonville mental health and chaplaincy team with whom I have kept in touch and tried to support. I also always enjoy talking about the Bible, which whether you are a believer or not is one of the most remarkable books ever written, and of which his knowledge, even for an Archbishop, is remarkable. If only ministers and MPs thought as deeply about their responsibilities to those they represent as he thinks about his. If only newspapers were as committed to fact and reasoned debate as he is.What the Tories and their rags do is reshape any debate to suit whatever passing narrative is being dreamed up in Johnson’s journalistic head. So whereas once the narrative was that no laws were broken in No 10, and there were no parties, now it is that it is ok to break the law and because there is a war in Ukraine, it is time to move on from parties. Whereas once the narrative was that the Church of England was the Tory Party at prayer, when Welby speaks out, it is a hotbed of liberalism which should stick to God. But if the Church has no role in our political life why do we have bishops in the House of Lords? As ever the Tories and their rags pick only on those parts of the debate that suit the current Johnson agenda.But when we have a liar as Prime Minister, and several parts of the media not merely failing to challenge the lies, but actively promoting and ventilating them, then we need the voices of people like Justin Welby more than ever. Likewise when those with an active role in the running of our constitution trash it so badly, we need voices like those of Peter Hennessy more than ever and once you have listened to the Archbishop, I strongly recommend you listen to our foremost constitutional historian too. Here is the Mirror story on his comments, and here are some of his words set to Johnson’s face as he tried his latest greased piglet wriggle from responsibility and accountabilityPartygate is now no longer about parties. It is about whether our politics and our constitution can survive if a thoroughly bad man reaches the top and decides that the rules simply do not apply to him, and if the normal checks and balances fail to deal with the crisis his conduct has created. Knowing them both as I do, I think I can say with some confidence that Johnson is a genuinely bad man whose role in public life will do more and more damage the longer he is in office. Justin Welby is a good man who should be praised not criticised for speaking as he finds, according to beliefs that are deeply held.
