So, I have been continuing to ruminate on the Rob Rinder quote I talked about a couple of days ago.

Here it is in all its glory,

‘The story of Britain, at the moment, tragically, is being hijacked, perhaps by some people who claim to speak for its soul while doing everything to hollow it out. If you want to see the real British values at work … go to a church on a rainy Tuesday or Wednesday night. There you’ll find people of every colour, every faith, every accent, quietly holding our country together. To save these buildings is to save something fundamental about Britain itself, the Britain that still believes in fairness, hospitality and humour … the Britain that looks after one another quietly.’

So much of this resonates with me and suggests something beautiful and essential about church. I love the picture it conjures of a movement, a group, quietly getting on with doing what it’s meant to. No noisy claims about having the answers to all life’s problems, screaming dayglo posters, just people looking after one another.

More broadly, it chimes in with a lot of recent narrative about the Christian faith. The rising groundswell of the great and the good saying how important the Christian faith is for the fabric of the nation – often called ‘cultural Christianity’. It is frequently couched in terms fearful of the rise of Islam in western society, as if Christian faith is a bulwark against the invader, and changing social attitudes lumped under heading of ‘being woke’.

This, of course, is monumentally unhelpful. But it is behind the phenomenon of high profile celebrity commentators embracing the Christian faith in defence of a little Englander social programme.

Then there are the more considered arguments of Tom Holland in his book Dominion which argues that Western values, are rooted in the Christianity of St Paul, St Augustine and the Reformation. It’s a powerful argument worth wrestling with.

Finally, there the Guardian newspaper which in editorials some years ago argued that the west’s commitment to human rights and equality was rooted in its Christian tradition and that if the Christian faith ebbs away for our culture, there will be nothing holding these commitments secure. It said,

‘What Christianity brought into the world wasn’t compassion, kindness, decency, hard work, or any of the other respectable virtues, real and necessary though they are. It was the extraordinary idea that people have worth in themselves, regardless of their usefulness to others, regardless even of their moral qualities. That is what is meant by the Christian talk of being saved by grace rather than works, and by the Christian assertion that God loves everyone, the malformed, the poor, the disabled and even the foreigner.

‘The idea that humans are valuable just for being human is, many would say, absurd. We assert it in the face of all the facts of history, and arguably even of biology. This idea entered the world with Christianity, and scandalised both Romans and Greeks, but it is now the common currency of western humanism, and of human rights. It underpinned the building of the welfare state, and its maintenance over the years by millions of people of all faiths and none.’ (Guardian 2 April 2015).

And again,

‘The welfare states, which seem to have replaced the social functions of Christianity, had deep and often explicit Christian roots, as do the ideals of secular democracy. You need only look at Greek or Roman attitudes to slavery, genocide, or even infanticide to realise what a revolution Christianity brought into the world, and how this change has shaped modern, secular Europe.’ (Guardian 31 Oct 2016)

So, Rinder stands in a noble tradition which he sums up eloquently and elegantly. He speaks of congregational activities holding the fabric of the nation together. More than that, he suggests that these gatherings embody the British values of ‘fairness, hospitality, and humour,’ that here we see ‘the Britain that looks after one another quietly.’ Elsewhere in his address, he said, ‘A woman who has organised a jumble sale since 1982. A young Muslim volunteer who runs a foodbank in the vestry. A Britain powered by tea and biscuits and a refusal to give up on one another.’

There is much to celebrate here. And there is much that as a Christian leader, I want to foster in my community.

But his first sentence hints that the church needs to be more than this. The story of Britain (whatever that really means) is being hijacked by those (unnamed) who ‘claim to speak for its soul while doing everything to hollow it out.’ We see this in marches awash with crosses and flags, where speakers warn of the attack on our values by those from without (migrants of all kinds) and within (the ‘wokerati’ – whatever that is!). I think I know who Rinder has in mind.

What it tells me is that gathering is not enough; quietly embodying our values is not enough; offering an open door to any and everyone in need is not enough. All these are essential and we must keep doing them. I say this a week before our night shelter opens for the winter season – a small church doing what it can to embody gospel values for those in greatest need.

But Rinder is right to talk about story. Our actions embody a narrative, but our words need to as well. While there is something fundamental about church in the fabric of our nation, there is also something uncomfortable about its presence, embodying as it does the life and message of a rebel Christ, one who challenged his nation’s story and the empire that was stifling it.

We see this discomfort every time a church leader says something that the spokespeople for our Christian nation do not like. We saw it recently in a Daily Telegraph commentator warning that the new Archbishop of Canterbury needed to talk less about migration and more about people’s souls. It was another reminder (if needed) that we don’t take discipleship lessons from the Daily Telegraph!

We hear it in the champions of traditional values, wrapped in the cross and the flag, berating trendy clerics for speaking up on behalf of the poor and the voiceless. More than ever we need to embody our values and shout them from the rooftops.

The gospel is a radical call to unseat the rich and powerful who are hollowing out our nation’s soul and create a movement of equality where everyone gets a shot at a decent life. I think this is what it means for the church to hold the country together, for the church to embody values of fairness, hospitality, and humour, the church to be a community that ‘looks after one another quietly’.

Perhaps next time, a little reflection on the bible will show us why this matters.