Enlightenment values
In the Guardian on 31 August 2025 Will Hutton wrote:
“Enlightenment values across the West are under assault as never before. For right-wing populists, the new injunction is to dare to be ignorant and to insist that the best compass for action is to follow your prejudices uninhibitedly. Whatever the evidence, climate change is a hoax, prison only works if punitive, universities are havens for the woke, the mainstream media lies and immigrants are all a threat to women and girls. Autocracy is more effective than democracy. In international affairs, might is right. My freedom of speech is to spread these attitudes as facts without constrain.”
Far right ideology and populism is become increasingly dominant in Western democracies. Nigel Farage’s Reform agenda. Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda, Marine Le Pen’s agenda in France and Viktor Orban’s in Hungary are al manifestations of the same right wing ideologies and movements.
On Sunday, a hostile, aggressive crowd of between 110,000 and 150,000, followers of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon/Tommy Robinson attended a far right protest addressed by Elon Musk. Splinter groups outflanked the police and trapped a group of anti-fascist counter protesters, outnumbered 20 to one, in Trafalgar Square for six hours, almost overwhelming the police. While Keir Starmer is increasingly being accused by Labour MPs as failing to speak up in defence of diversity and against the growing dominance of far right activist networks, liberals in general have failed to recognise the lightening-fast economic and social changes taking place, and are not countering them either culturally or economically.
The Church of England
Church of England congregations are composed of members of English society living within a culture increasingly affected by far-right ideologies and movements. I used to think of the congregations I knew and ministered to in Southwark Diocese as composed of like-minded people – broad-minded, progressive, open to change, tolerant, common sensical. But congregational profiles have changed over the past three decades, as the culture around us has changed – and from my perspective, regressed. There has been a leavening of what I took to be the general culture of the Church of England.
The decline of wisdom
The growing influence of right-wing populism and ideology in Western culture is having a visible effect on the culture of the Church of England. I am witnessing the effect as I visit churches in the area of the Diocese of London where I’m living. I witness it in the corporate culture of the Church, in the performance of the House of Bishops and General Synod, in clergy and bishops and lay people, in the quality of worship and the decline of what I might call Wisdom people, those with prophetic vocations, vision and courage,. Conversations with local clergy and lay people have reminded me of the potency in the recent past of wisdom people and their declining numbers today in the Church. I’m thinking of philosophers, visionaries, theologians and activists and the organisations they inspired. The exemplars in earlier decades were many, mostly catholic theologians such as Ken Leech, Malcolm Johnsona and Eric James, wordsmiths like Jim Cotter and movements: the Jubilee Group, the Runnymede Trust, Parish and People, Christian Action, Faith in the City, St Botolph’s Aldgate and the Royal Foundation of St Katherine. These individuals and organisations (and others elsewhere in the country in other dioceses) focused the energies and ideas into movements for radical Christian action, aware of the past, rooted in the present and with an optimism that Christian hope and spiritual presence will leaven change in society, bringing life in all its fulness to reality within local Christian communities. Such movements and individuals now seem to be largely absent from the Church. I am trying to understand why, hoping at the same time fervently that such a state of affairs is not permanent.
I have written before about witnessing signs of decadence in the Church of England but of course, I am identifying signs according to my own opinion about the changes and manifestations that signify decay and decadence to me. It can take great courage today to imagine the counter-cultural movements in contemporary society and identify the patterns that are the potential sources of life all its fulness.
We need to be emotionally vigilant. Our anxiety-fuelled, acquiescent, simplistic, on-message global culture facing an existential global climate crisis in which the social contract that underpinned the liberal order of the 20th century together with the juridical architecture that reinforced it is being gradually unpicked. Today’s populist conservatives seek to demolish the framework of race relations and LGBTQIA+ equality law, women’s rights’ worker’s protections, and the democratic mechanisms that provide a protective casing in which vulnerable people can live with dignity.
We need to be emotionally vigilant and cognitively alert. Today’s social networks and online culture open us to constant emotional and ideological manipulation, including in the Church. In charismatic worship, singing repetitive, simplistic phrases about Jesus. All forms of worship have the potential to externalise power and authority, giving God, Jesus, clergy and leaders of worship an authority and power that I have experienced as manipulative and controlling. Despite the uncovering of abuse by specific individuals in different areas of the Church, Catholic and Charismatic, we, congregants, are often still unaware of how we can be manipulated into forsaking our own inner wisdom and awareness to external authorities.
Dreaming the Future
How do we discern and consciously, actively develop a counter-culture, a healthy, Gospel-centred, Christ-like, incarnational culture? I have been challenging myself to dream. What does a Church that is fully inclusive look like? A Church in which equal marriage is the norm, where equality is visibly present, whatever your colour, race, nationality, gender, sexuality, ability or age, where congregations are integral to their local community, Christ-like and Christ-centred, embracing life in all its fulness, valuing and celebrating diversity.
Practical transformations
How do we change the present systemic failures and inequalities in the Church? How do we develop the financial potential and enhance the resources of each congregation? Some churches have the advantage of access to the funds of the Revitalisation Trust – and others are very clearly excluded. I have now visited over forty churches. Some are maximising income from renting their plant to other organisations and for community activities. The majority of churches I’ve visited on a weekday are closed, locked 6 days out of 7 (including the churchyard when it is surrounded by railings and gates that can be chained and padlocked. These have been primarily HTB plants, conservative or charismatic, SAINT churches). They are, on weekdays, a very exclusive, unwelcoming presence. A minority of churches are open almost every day during the week, among them: St George in the East, St Peter’s London Docks, St James’ Prebend Street Islington, St Peter de Beauvoir Town Dalston and St Paul’s Bow Common. All but one of these identifies as an inclusive church.
I have been struck by the huge amount of plant the Church of England has that is either lying idle and unused, or is being used exclusively by the institution. The cost of maintaining buildings is daunting (unless, like SAINT St John at Hackney you have benefitted from £6million thanks to The Revitalise Trust and the National Lottery to renovate the church for commercial and charismatic use). My dream of a revitalised church is best exemplified by the churches that are open for prayer and day-dreaming and hosting activities that are of real value to the local community, sacred and secular. These congregations are already embodying a Christian culture and vision that is taking risks to embody unconditional love and life in all its fulness.