Secular Britain worships destructive new gods

As long ago as 1867, Matthew Arnold was writing about the “long, withdrawing roar” of non-belief. In the intervening years, that roaring tide has become a deafening torrent. For the first time, the census has found that less than half of the population identifies as Christian. The number describing themselves as “non-religious” has almost trebled since the millennium. In a press release, Humanists UK boasts that ”England and Wales are among the least religious countries in the world”. Days such as these are always enjoyable for those of a New Atheist/Dawkinsian bent; folks like the rapier wits who answer “Jedi Knight” or “Flying Spaghetti Monster” on the census. (How do I know? I used to be one of them.)

But while we may be losing our faith, that doesn’t mean society is losing its religion – if indeed, that is even possible. As Tom Holland brilliantly observes in Dominion, Western idealists who consider themselves emancipated from religious thought are beneficiaries of an inescapable Judeo-Christian inheritance that seeps into everything, even – especially – their own liberal and progressive beliefs.

The very idea that we can purge ourselves of superstition to reach some higher understanding is an inherently scriptural belief, visible in everything from the lamentations of Jeremiah to Elijah confronting the prophets of Baal. Not that divorcing ourselves from that inheritance isn’t risky all the same. A society that no longer understands the Bible is a society that will struggle to commune with its past – or with itself.

The secularist fallacy goes further still. Religion’s departure invariably leaves a vacuum in our worldviews; which new shibboleths will emerge to fill. This is because the needs religion addresses haven’t gone away: to belong, to trust, to hope and to sense a dimension beyond our own. But do new communities spring up, miraculously, to replace their faith-based predecessors? More often than not, we are left with atomisation, the snarky faux-communities of social media, or cult-like devotions to contemporary fads: my diet, my wellbeing, my half-marathon times, my gym sessions.

Other arguable substitutes include politics, doomsday environmentalism, even more marginal observances such as the anti-Brexit movement that still descends on Westminster with quasi-religious fervour. As Parliament Square regulars can attest, Steve Bray, the “Stop Brexit Man”, is often indistinguishable from the preacher who mounts his pulpit nearby to rant about the end of the world – just louder and more annoying. To paraphrase G K Chesterton: “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in everything.”

While Christianity begins with the idea that we are all fallen beings, implying a certain level of humility, new articles of faith are invariably of the “me-me-me” variety. What are Tik-Tokkers if not preachers? But what they preach is the self, and all the attendant anxiety that comes from never getting away from it. Cancel culture assumes a religious censoriousness without the possibility of forgiveness or redemption.

In the adherents of extreme gender identity, we see the certainty of pure faith, without any of the “honest doubt” we might associate with religion. Some secularists clearly believe that, if they rip everything down, people will magically start aligning with their own progressive norms – a level of credulity unmatched in any religion.

Another article of faith is the all-powerful state. During Covid, we saw this worldview writ large, as “following the science” became the equivalent of morality, and appalling things were justified in its name. People were stripped of their customary mourning rituals. In one horrific case, an official wrenched two brothers away from their grieving mother midway through their father’s funeral service – zealotry an Inquisitor would be proud of.

Religious institutions can act as a bulwark against state power – no surprise that authoritarian movements are often suspicious of them. Sometimes, they even try to ape their traditions. When they weren’t busy drowning nuns in the Loire, French revolutionaries devoted themselves to reworking Christian rituals in a secular fashion. Instead of saints’ days, they began venerating household objects, like the artichoke, shovel and watering-can. Notre-Dame was looted and repurposed as a “Temple of Reason”, where crowds were invited to gather and worship a Goddess of Reason. When that didn’t take off, Robespierre tried inventing a new deist tradition – a Cult of the Supreme Being – before the Revolution devoured him, too.

Anthony Trollope’s The Warden offers a brilliant warning against iconoclasm for the sake of it. For decades, Mr Harding, a sweet old man, has managed an almshouse that cares for the poor. Eventually this happy idyll is disrupted when a liberal idealist teams up with a London journalist to launch a campaign accusing Harding of greed and corruption. Some of the ecclesiastical bigwigs are convinced. Eventually, the Warden leaves the hospital for an impoverished parish on the edge of Barchester. In his absence, the post is left vacant; the paupers lose Harding’s kindly ministrations, without getting a penny in benefit. Like Arnold, Trollope may have been writing in the 19th century, but the message is timeless. Destruction is no guarantee that a brave new order emerges in its stead.

So a moment’s hesitation before dancing on the grave of religion; what you wish for might just come true.