Kemi Badenoch has vowed to defend cultural Christianity. I worry she's missing the point

In a recent interview with Piers Morgan, the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch spoke about having lost her faith but still describing herself as a cultural Christian. She also spoke about the vast influence of Christianity on British culture.

“The culture of Christianity is one which I think is a force for good,” she said. “I think churches are a good thing. I think that the Protestant work ethic…is very important. I think the Christian values, forgiveness, turning the other cheek, truth telling, all of those things are important, and I think that they are very much part of the culture of this country. ” 

Christianity as culture

Defining culture can be one of those jellyfish concepts - the harder you try to pin it down, the more wriggly it gets, and more complicated things get. Most simply, culture is sometimes defined plainly as ‘the way we do things around here’.

If that is the case then Christianity is a vital anchor and sustainer of how things should be done. I don’t think we can simply say we have a Christian culture. We can have a more Christian culture, and Christianity can be the primary influence on culture, but the reality is that any society will have multiple influences, some of these will be positive, some benign, and some far more harmful.

Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making, talks about how the things we create shifts the horizons of the possible, how when we change one thing it affects our ability to do other things, and this can open doors to new possibilities, but also close off avenues in other areas. Culture is built not by vibes, but by the layers of ideas, artefacts and institutions that embed and strengthen our society.

Kemi Badenoch commented in this interview: “We talk a lot about values but not enough about culture.” Values are one of the building blocks of culture, but they are strengthened by what they help to create, which in turn helps to remind society of those values and why they matter.

By this account, the ideas and values of Christianity, built into the systems and structures of Britain, matter a great deal. Undoubtedly having a Christian influenced culture is better than having a culture without Christian influence.

And yet, something is missing. And that is the sustaining force for this cultural influence. Because as much as the institutions built on Christian values and teaching help to remind us of what matters most, those institutions are not the thing that matters most.

Fruits or roots?

I’m particularly intrigued by the appreciation, from Badenoch and also others who might describe themselves as cultural Christians, of churches in our villages, towns and cities in every corner of the UK. Badenoch said, about churches: “So I fight for churches, I want to see them fixed. I want more money going in to preserving churches, which are often a repository of the history of every village. They tell a story of who we are and maybe where we’re going.”

Churches, when designed at their very best, don’t quite work like that. They do not tell us about who we are, they provide a space of transcendence. A church building can provide a place where we recognise our limits, and the limits of this world, and a place where we focus on how God came into this world to transform and redeem all things.

The fact is Christianity has to be personal if it is going to be transformative. We are transformed by knowing and encountering God, by recognising our need and our limits. Which is why we don’t baptise culture as Christian by restoring churches or memorialising the cultural artefacts of our Christian heritage.

Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car

It also brings me back to the idea of being a cultural Christian. This strikes me as wanting the fruit of Christianity without being willing to put down the roots. The roots are not in buildings or culture, nor in telling the truth or turning the other cheek. The classic evangelistic line is that “going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car.”

If we want our society to be influenced by Christian teaching in the decades to come the thing we need to fight for is not bricks and mortar, but for the presence and power of God transforming lives in every corner of our nations.