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How Christianity kills itself The death of Anglicanism is not the end of this country's religious story

The founder of secularism


July 16, 2021   7 mins

Perhaps the most extraordinary cultural transformation in Britain over the past half-century is the decline of Christianity. Two generations ago, two-thirds of the country identified as Christian; fewer than 40% now do. Only 12% of British people now identify as Anglican — the state religion of the country. Only 1% of 18 to 24 year olds are Anglicans.

In America, the picture seems more rosy. 65% of Americans identify as Christian. But ten years ago the figure was around 75%. And in the early 1980s it was close to 90%. The trajectory is clear.

There is, of course, a distinction between identifying as a Christian and going to church every week. On the latter front the picture in Western Europe is strikingly bleak. As Harriet Sherwood puts it in the Guardian: “In the UK, France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands, between 56% and 60% said they never go to church, and between 63% and 66% said they never pray”. But what interests me more is disaffiliation — the lack of willingness to espouse even a Christian identity.

This is secularisation: the transformation of religion from an integral part of civic life to a fading husk. The relationship between Christianity and secularisation, framed this way, looks antagonistic. Secularisation is Christianity’s bête noire.

David Lloyd Dusenbury’s new book, The Innocence of Pontius Pilate, investigates the relationship between Christianity and the secular. And he comes to a radically different conclusion. Rather than viewing them as conflicting poles, Dusenbury argues that the secular is a product of Christian thinking.

This viewpoint, or something very similar to it, is advanced in Larry Siedentop’s Inventing the Individual, Tom Holland’s Dominion, Nick Spencer’s The Evolution of the West, and many works by John Gray. I don’t think Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are fans of this view.

Secularity, he writes, doesn’t come “from a priest-baiting eighteenth-century philosophe”. Rather, “it is a coinage of medieval Christian writers”.

To substantiate his thesis, Dusenbury goes further back than medieval Europe to the most consequential legal judgement in the history of western civilisation: the Roman trial of Jesus.

When we think of secular, we immediately conceive it in terms of the privatisation of religious belief. Properly speaking, the secularist would say, religion does not belong in the public sphere. But a more fundamental distinction is between the temporal and the divine: what is secular is the distinction between the laws of man and the laws of God.

What constitutes the secular, in this frame, owes much to an utterance made by Jesus in the Gospel of John. As he is tried and convicted by Pontius Pilate, Jesus proclaims: “My kingdom is not of this world”.

This still seems abstract. How does that allusive proclamation lead to a greater limit of religion’s role in society? A famously doctrinaire bishop in an African port city is the first person to edge us towards our modern conception of the secular: Augustine of Hippo.

Augustine’s Homilies on the Gospel of John is crucial for understanding the secular. Augustine insists on the guilt of Pilate in the trial of Jesus. And he contrastingly affirms the innocence of Christ. Augustine, writes Dusenbury, is thus “led… to theorise the reign of God and the kingship of Jesus in a way that radically contrasts them with the ‘reign’ of any human empire and the ‘kingship’ of any human sovereign”.

When Augustine examines Jesus’s statement “my kingdom is not of this world”, according to Dusenbury, “he hears a delineation, by Jesus, of a novel form of jurisdiction that renders all other forms of jurisdiction, eo ipso, worldly — which is to say, secular”. Most human judgements are, according to Augustine, “melancholy and lamentable”.

This means “they derive not only from human laws and insights but from human ignorance and prejudice”. Human laws are provisional and subject to the failures and biases of human reasoning. By contrast, the law of the Lord is perfect.

Another Roman African, Pope Gelasius, substantiated this distinction in the late 5th century when he proclaimed in Latin duo sont. This means: “there are two”. The laws of Caesar are distinct from the laws of Christ. According to Gelasius, “no Caesar is competent to clarify the ‘venerable mysteries’ that are celebrated, and promulgated, by the church”.

Ultimately, writes Dusenbury, “it is the African prelates Augustine and Gelasius, I believe, who transmit to medieval clerics and legal theorists in Europe a lexicon of ‘secular power’, and an interpretation of the Roman trial of Jesus that will be cited and reconceived, between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries, in continent-shaping ways”.

How is this interpretation of what is secular seen in the early modern period? This was the time when our modern notion of toleration was first thoroughly systemised. Hobbes, according to Dusenbury, argued that the “Ecclesiastics ‘have not Regal Power in this world’, Hobbes writes, for the simple reason that ‘the Kingdom of Christ is not of this world’. It is only because of this – which is to say, because of the Roman trial of Jesus – that Hobbes can definitively state that ‘Faith hath no relation to, nor dependence at all upon Compulsion’”.

Because the law of God has no jurisdiction in the world of man, people should not be compelled to subscribe to religious doctrine. The case for identifying with Christianity thus rests on the persuasive power of Christian doctrine itself.

Dusenbury also examines Samuel von Pufendorf’s interpretation of the trial of Jesus in light of secular power. Pufendorf, little read now, is according to Dusenbury “Locke’s rival in forging the modern logic of toleration”. Jesus, according to Pufendorf, is a king but “his kingdom is not of this world. A correct reading of the Roman trial of Jesus is thus, according to Pufendorf, a sine qua non of a European political culture in which ritual and confessional differences are tolerated”.

Because the sovereignty of Jesus does not extend to the drama of human life, differences between communities need to be tolerated — as a way of managing the conflicts and imperfections that come with being human as much as anything else. To assume Christian doctrine ought to have a monopoly on human behaviour is to suggest Jesus does in fact have jurisdiction in this world. This goes against the injunction: “my Kingdom is not of this world”. The interpretation expressed from Augustine to Pufendorf, by contrast, underpins one of the distinguishing features of modernity: religious and ideological tolerance.

Tolerance also immediately evokes the Enlightenment. And one of the most striking parts of his book is Dusenbury’s comparison between two giants of the French Enlightenment: Voltaire and Rousseau. “Voltaire”, he writes, “is obsessed, in a thoroughly provincial way, with the infamies of Christian Europe”.

The Voltairian position is familiar. Christianity is a bastion of intolerance and persecution. A religion which, left unhindered by the civilising force of secular power, is a threat to universal human rights.

But Dusenbury adds that, “Rousseau, levelling his eye on further horizons, realises that it is Christianity’s critique of cultic violence, and its unease with the archaic temple-state, that must be entered into what Paul Veyne called the ‘inventory of differences’ of global history”.

The temple-state is the synthesis of religion and state. And it is an integral part of the non-Christian world. The key point, as Dusenbury puts it, is that “Pilate is a legate of the Roman temple-state in the Judaean temple-city. For Pilate, as for the Judaean Temple elites who charge Jesus with blasphemy and treason, the codes of religio and the saeculum had not been decoupled. It is in part because Jesus decouples them that he is sent to the cross”.

What are the implications of this? If Jesus died not only to redeem humanity but also to “decouple” the temple from the state, then embedded within Christianity itself is the conviction that religion should have a limited role in organising the civic life of a nation. Expressed another way, the fact that people don’t feel obliged to identify as Christian anymore, and are thus rapidly peeling away from it, is itself a consequence of Christianity.

A large part of why there are so few Christians is because many baby boomers lost interest in Christianity and raised their millennial children without any religious affiliation. The conventional explanation for this is the permissive society from the 1960s onwards, but if permissiveness — my kingdom is not of this world — is deeply woven into Christianity itself then the rapid decline of Christian affiliation is unsurprising. Some now joke, with a mixture of Wildean exuberance and smirk, that the Anglican Church is no longer a Christian institution. But it is simply following a normal path.

Which is not the same as saying it is following a necessary path. There are many strands of Christianity. During the medieval and early modern period many Christian churches did embody intolerance. Today, many Christians (and non-Christians) do intelligently argue that Christianity should play a more prominent part in public life. But religions are complex entities, entangled with deep tensions.

Dusenbury emphasises the oddity of Christianity when he mentions the Justinian law code. The central irony, as he puts it, is this: “Justinian inscribes, at the head of his foyer-text to his monumental code of Roman law (and with it, of much European law), as a sanctifying and legitimating figure, the name of a man who was crucified by a Roman judge as a Roman convict”.

Christianity is, of course, flourishing in sub-Saharan Africa. And the most Christian part of Britain is London — in part due to immigration. But is it any surprise that a religion with the Code of Justinian can also provide the context for its own material demise?

Another counterpoint is that America is officially a secular state while European countries usually have state religions — and the former country has a more vigorous religious culture than the latter countries. This is true. But I am interested in secularisation less as a description of how a country is constituted, and more as a social fact and an evolving process. And even in America the prominence of religion in civic life has been in decline.

Dusenbury’s dense, erudite book is not only a historical account and an exercise in theological exegesis; it is also a veiled commentary on our contemporary religious landscape.

Is this increasingly post-Christian landscape sunny? There was a recent report by a think tank called Onward which found that the proportion of under-35s saying they have just one or no close friends has trebled in the past 10 years: from 7% to 22%. Millennials and members of Generation Z are less likely to be members of a group or participate in group activities than previous generations were at similar ages. And people under 25 are three times more likely than people over 65 to distrust their neighbours.

Joining a Church won’t be a panacea to these issues; but it probably will encourage a wider network of friendships and a greater sense of civic belonging. Then again, as Joseph Henrich pointed out in his book The Weirdest People in the World, the move away from extended family networks to smaller-scale communities is itself a consequence of Christian marriage norms.

Christianity gives with one hand and takes away with another.


Tomiwa Owolade is a freelance writer and the author of This is Not America, which is out in paperback in May.

tomowolade

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Peter LR
Peter LR
3 years ago

Generally the loss of faith in Christianity has been put down to two chief sources (Dominion, Tom Holland): the theory of evolution and doubting the bible’s authenticity. The first allows God to be dispensed with and the second gets rid of the significance of Jesus. Where Christianity thrives these two are either ignored or kept in a balanced context.
I’ve always thought that it was a mistake to give Christian faith a secular role, ie make it political. Unlike the Ko ran it does not describe laws to keep, but love to practise. It’s much like the ‘laws’ that keep a marriage together: they are based on mutually beneficial behaviour and not just following prescribed rules.
But it is fascinating that when secularism drives Christianity from the public square it replaces it with its own religion and blasphemies. This religion has no forgiveness and in its most advanced forms (varieties of communism) treats humans as commodities to control.

J Bryant
J Bryant
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

Very insightful comment.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

Social structures resembling religion arise in every society. IF traditional religion is displaced it’s by something similar. Environmentalism is the most obvious and direct remapping of Judaeo Christian religion into something not called a religion but that behaves exactly like one. In the east they had Marxism. Plus ca change.

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

About to say the same. But couldn’t do it as well.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago

OMG, as the saying goes, what a snarled mess this entire thing is. If you made sense of it you have a keener mind than I do, and bloodhound like have fallowed the writer’s thought through dozens of thickets and swamps and jungles of obscure and mixed quotes and references to a great many esoteric writers.
Ever see one of those puzzles – ‘Plot the path through the maze the mouse must use to get to the cheese at the far end’. OK, now do it with Hobbes and Augustine of Hippo and Rousseau sprinkled about like a trail of breadcrumbs….. good luck.

So why not just get to the heart of it, Mark 12:16
“Paying Tax to Caesar
…15 But Jesus saw through their hypocrisy and said, “Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to inspect.” 16 So they brought it and he asked them, “Whose image is this? and Who’s inscription? “Caesars” they answered. 17 Then Jesus told them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” And they marveled at Him.…”
And so Civil law, the weight and measures, the Mint, the soldiers, the roads, the courts, the laws to keep society working, Taxes, Jesus said to honour them because there was Gods Law, and Caesar’s law, and both are needed. Now isn’t that a simpler way to put it all?

But then Islam….Not like that, the Koran is a law book. Secular law is not separated from Gods. From when to brush your teeth, which hand to use in greeting, what interest law is, contract law, and everything is codified in Sharia Law. And so yes, Christianity did form the secularization principals which no other major religion has, one of its many remarkable qualities.

Now as far as how Christianity kills its self, “Twain said:
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
the writer is getting ahead of himself a bit – the secular, Liberal, Humanist world is KILLING ITS SELF. The covid response spending Lefty/Liberals foisted on the West may bring about the end of Fiat money as the Liberals bankrupt the world to give Granny another year in her care home.

And then AI may use all human knowledge and become devoutly Anglican, who knows – But the amazingly intellectual Christian Church has brought about almost all which is great and good in the world, often incidentally by creating education as it were, Philosophy, Literature, tens of thousands of Monks hand copying classic books for centuries to educate the world leaders wile armies of university level educated Priests taught thinking and reading/writing to the Barbarian rulers, established the schools, Universities, and the very ‘Scientific Method’ it’s self.

Christianity, 2020 Years, Modern Secular Humanism Liberalism, maybe 40 years, and it is eating its own and tearing at its self, and destroying the very economics which support it.

This obituary is being penned a bit early….

Dan Gleeballs
Dan Gleeballs
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Sanford, I swear you’re worth the subscription all on your own.

Very interesting, thought-provoking article, T.O. Thank you.

chris sullivan
chris sullivan
3 years ago
Reply to  Dan Gleeballs

AGREED. A further point could be made here and that is that unless hmo sapiens has some kind of ‘spiritual/higher’ value system – then h sapiens will only have its own primitive drives to guide it – and we all know where that leads – and you really cant get much more enlightened than ‘do unto others etc’. However living in such a primitive world mans that the ‘do unto others’ needs to be tempered with some added survival wisdom eg ‘but carry a big stick because it is OK to survive the attempt at “do unto others’……………

Martin Adams
Martin Adams
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Excellent! Thank you!

Mark Vernon
Mark Vernon
3 years ago

But isn’t the question: why the decline now? Christianity thrived in the western world for nearly two millennia alongside Jesus’ otherworldly remarks.

I think it must be because the reality of the otherworldly has been lost, paradoxically not by people at large, but by the church itself, which has an increasingly this-worldly feel. It seems unable to hear its founder saying, my kingdom is not of this world.

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Vernon

Every time I read an article about CofE activity, it seems increasingly “managed” like most of the large corporations I have worked for – with a large dose of “woke” thrown in.
I’m secular, but am increasingly saddened to see the genuine benefits of local churches – to their local communities – being undermined by all this hogwash
It may well “die the death” of many inverted-pyramid organisations.

Last edited 3 years ago by Ian Barton
Alastair Herd
Alastair Herd
3 years ago

As an evangelical Christian (adult convert), I think the biggest reason for the decline in faith is simply people find themselves unable to believe it’s true.

I look at Douglas Murray, a man who strongly defends the Church’s right to exist, yet wouldn’t be a member of it because he can’t bring himself to believe it.

Ironically, despite their being more historical evidence for Christianity than any point since the Ancient Church, we have now culturally totally bought into the “fake news” of 19th Century Theological Liberalism.

If you appreciate Christianity as an institution, I think it’s worth giving it a genuine investigation.

Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
3 years ago
Reply to  Alastair Herd

I think it’s more that people don’t want to do what they don’t want to do.

Peter Francis
Peter Francis
3 years ago

I enjoyed reading your article (as usual), but I have to pick you up on one point. You say “Only 12% of British people now identify as Anglican — the state religion of the country.” There is no British “state religion”. The Church of England is the Established Church in England, with the reigning monarch its head. But the Church of Scotland is a separate entity and the monarch is not its head. (There is an Anglican communion in Scotland, but its status is just another faith group.)
Each individual parish church in the Church of Scotland has a “Kirk Session”. Under Scots Law, it was a legal court that could punish and fine individuals. The punishments have stopped now, but in its heyday, the Kirk ran Scotland like an Iranian theocracy. John Knox would have laughed at a phrase like “the law of God has no jurisdiction in the world of man”.

Last edited 3 years ago by Peter Francis
Andrew D
Andrew D
3 years ago
Reply to  Peter Francis

‘The Church of England is the Established Church in England and Wales’. You’re 101 years out of date, the Church in Wales has been disestablished since 1920.

Peter Francis
Peter Francis
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew D

Thanks, Andrew. I have amended my comment.

Aidan Twomey
Aidan Twomey
3 years ago

The Dusenbury book is absolutely superb, full of interesting ideas and beautifully written.

Arnold Grutt
Arnold Grutt
3 years ago

‘Anglicanism’ is not the ‘state religion of the UK’. It is the religion of the monarch in England. In Scotland she belongs to but is not head of a different Church. In Wales it’s ‘The Church (of England) IN Wales’

Last edited 3 years ago by Arnold Grutt
Douglas Cumming
Douglas Cumming
1 year ago

Being a newcomer to UnHerd, I have only just come across this excellent 2-year-old article.
After all the analysis is done, just one question really remains.
What now?
How does an increasingly marginalised Church (not just CoE!) respond to the uncoupling brought about by the very ‘yeast of the Kingdom’ being spread in the dough of the world? (Mat 13:33).
Are we returning to a pre-Constantinan state of affairs, where the Church spoke from the margins and suffered for it? Or has over 2000 years of history now made that impossible?