BY STEWART SLATER

“Politicians want to talk about moral issues and bishops want to talk about politics.” While this was undoubtedly true when uttered by Sir Humphrey Appleby in the 1980’s (Mrs Thatcher being the very model of a moralising politician), the times, they have a’changed. Mr Sunak is no-one’s idea of a fire and brimstone tub-thumper, Mrs Truss, well she wasn’t around for long enough for anyone to find out, and the Blond Beast, perhaps due to the self-awareness which was one of his more attractive characteristics, was remarkably reluctant to tell others how to live (pandemic aside). With a few exceptions, (Yvette Cooper has usually condemned three things as “disgusting”, “outrageous” or “disgraceful” before breakfast), the modern politico doesn’t do morality.

The modern bishop, however, very much does do politics. That Justin Welby chose to intervene in the House of Lords over the Immigration Bill was not, in itself surprising, nor was the content of what he said. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear would have assumed that his beliefs were as he spoke. Nor is there anything necessarily wrong with this – if we are to have freedom of speech, it must surely extend to the clergy, and if we are to have bishops in the House of Lords, it is not reasonable to insist they act as silent but voting onlookers. But having rights is not the same as using rights and, in this case, we might fairly ask the archbishop, as another sitcom character might have done, “Are you sure that’s wise, sir?”

For the Church of England has what might crudely be termed a “bums on seats” problem. The numbers claiming allegiance to it have fallen dramatically over the past decades as have those who actually bother to go to services. According to the church’s own numbers, average weekly attendance in 2021 was 605,000 people (yes, there was doubtless a Covid impact, but in the “beforetimes” of 2019, the number was 845,000 or just over 1% of the population – for reference, 5.7mn people are members of the National Trust).

Theses can, and have, been written on the reasons for the decline in Christian belief. The rise of textual scholarship in the 1800’s started a trend of treating the Bible as a work of literature rather than the word of God. Science attacked the account of the Creation given in Genesis. Globalisation brought populations into contact with other belief systems they found more congenial. But in the specific case of the Church of England, there is a persistent sense of a hierarchy drifting further away from its base or, to put it in footballing terms, of a management losing the dressing room.

For while the congregation remains, to generalise, the conservative party at prayers, there is little doubt that the officialdom has, like a good Home Counties Waitrose shopper, switched its allegiance to the Liberal Democrat/Green/Labour tripoint of terror. It is thought that two thirds of those in the pews voted for Brexit, while perhaps one member of the House of Bishops did. The Archbishop backed Marcus Rashford’s campaign to extend free school meals to holiday times. A popular campaign certainly, but at a cost of roughly £125 million, an organisation with an endowment running into the billions, a commitment to charity and a nationwide chain out of outlets might have offered to solve the problem itself. It certainly managed to commit a similar amount to slavery reparations. Which do we think would have been the choice of the membership?

The Church of England is supposed to be a broad church. And in some senses, it still is. The laity are on one side, the clergy another and the gap between the two grows ever wider. But it is not meant to be this way. Different shades of opinion are meant to be reflected in pew and pulpit, rather than two separate monocultures. Not only is this the only way to construct a national church, it is also the best reflection of Christianity.

For it is a remarkably broad religion, allowing those from all parts of the political spectrum to see something in it reflective of their beliefs. At almost 800,000 words, most people can find something in the Bible to justify their inclinations. Don’t believe in abortion? “Thou shalt not murder” Exodus 20:13. Do believe in abortion? Genesis 2:7 suggests that life begins at first breath while Exodus 21:22-25 suggests that a foetus is not to be valued the same as a human life.

It is this breadth that is behind Christianity’s success because while humanity may share a common set of moral concerns, the way in which individuals treat them differs. There are, broadly, two tribes, one of which has a deep but narrow moral sense, the other shallow but broad. A belief system which caters to just a few of our moral foundations will satisfy the former, but seem wanting to the latter. Resolving such a conflict is hard because, while we think we reach our beliefs after a careful process of reasoning and so can persuade our opponents that we are right, increasingly it seems that we do not. We decide on our positions by intuition, and then use reason to create justifications for them and our intuitions, it appears, are strongly influenced by our genes. It is not so much that our opponents are wrong, but that they are different and man cannot be reasoned out of a position he has not reasoned himself into.

This, then, is the problem with the Archbishop’s intervention. While to those of one tribe, a focus on the rights of migrants is right and moral, to the other, the interests of the existing national community are equally valid. No amount of archiepiscopal hand-wringing will change that fact. It is, in all likelihood, the way they are made. But Welby had nothing to say about that, no acknowledgment that welcoming migrants places a burden on those who already live here. No plan save some vague imprecations that the government do something. Nothing to offer those parishioners who support the government but the implication that their spiritual leader thinks them immoral.

But they do not think they are immoral. They are using a broader frame of moral reference than the Archbishop and his episcopal fellow-travellers. Nor are they likely to be persuaded that they are immoral – it is, after all, one’s neighbour one is supposed to love as oneself, not some rando from half a world away with dodgy papers and an oddly full beard for one claiming to be twelve.

The Archbishop certainly got attention with his intervention but at what cost? He got praise from the secular elite who will never darken his doors, and he condemned those who fill his pews every Sunday. The former oil executive must see the problems with that business model. The tragedy is that he did not need to. Christianity is big enough to unite Guardian and Telegraph reader. A bigger leader would have found a form of words to tread the Church’s famous via media, to have acknowledged the legitimate concerns of both tribes, not just his own. But Welby didn’t. Instead, having united the country (save a few beardy malcontents) on Saturday, he tore it apart on Wednesday. And that’s just not very Christian.

Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.