I spent one glorious summer as an Anglican. I rediscovered my faith while at university and the only place to explore it was the Church of England. I wasn’t interested in the non-Conformism of my parents and I had been raised to think that the Pope was the Antichrist, so the Anglicans it was. I settled on an Anglo-Catholic bastion called Little St. Mary’s and was Baptized there in the New Year of 2003. It was a magical place. It was very old and the grey stone steamed with incense. In winter, three tramps slept in the hallway. I went there one snowy night for Mass and found myself alone with the priest in the Lady Chapel. You could see his breath in the air as he muttered the liturgy. I can close my eyes now and still hear the choir signing the Antiphon on a Sunday morning. That is what Heaven will sound like.

I became an Anglican around the time that Rowan Williams became Archbishop of Canterbury. At first, I was very excited about the new broom. Something about Rowan spoke to a peculiarly English spirituality – half druid, half monk. He was a soft spoken intellectual in an age that abhors thoughtful silence. Rowan’s language was uncompromisingly difficult and ripe with metaphor. Best of all, he was an Anglo-Catholic. I hoped – and I still do – that the English and Roman churches might be reconciled. Aside from institutional oddities (married priests, female clergy) the Anglicans seemed spiritually in “the right place” for reunion. 

But it all went horribly wrong. Poor Rowan had an impossible task. Anglicanism is home to a liberal Protestant movement that orientates towards social reform. Unfortunately, it is also home to an alliance of Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals that is more conservative in hue. The conflict isn’t just realized in opposing theologies. The liberals tend to be Western and rich; the traditionalists are found more in developing world congregations and among the poor. While the liberal group is older and smaller, it is institutionally far more powerful. The Christian Left predominates in the universities and conclaves.

The liberal and traditionalist viewpoints were irreconcilable. Rowan responded to the crisis in the only way that an Englishman knows how: he compromised. The result was nine years of confusion. He might say that he wanted women bishops, but he opposed them in the pursuit of unity. One day he would lament the “dim witted” attacks on Christianity and another he would describe crosses as “religious decoration.” He seemed personally open to gay priests, but tried to ram through an arrangement within the Anglican Communion that would keep them from becoming bishops. Intellectually, he was a liberal. Organizationally, he always accommodated traditionalists. In practice, he frustrated both schools of thought and only deepened the divisions within the Communion further.

A lot of people have concluded that his failure was the fault of his personality. To be sure, he is an irremediably and unforgivably boring priest. Often I would hear one of his sermons on the radio and be outraged by its multitude of blasphemies. Only later, when I had the chance to go through a hard copy with a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, would I realize that he was actually talking perfect sense. The man made an art out of muddle.

Yet, there was nothing Rowan could have done to resolve the contradictions of the Anglican Church. Division within the Communion is nothing new: disagreement over theology was at the heart of the English Civil War. But what makes the current struggle impossible to resolve is that it isn’t just about doctrine – it’s about the very purpose of the Anglican Church itself. The liberals think that the Church should be the servant of society. The traditionalists think that society should be the pupil of the Church. Servant or teacher, which is it to be? You can’t be a servant if you spend all your time lecturing your master about his many sins. Nor can you be a teacher if you believe that your pupil already has all the right answers. The Church had to decide what it was and stick to it.

I recall one evening watching a debate on television between a liberal woman “vicar” and a conservative male “priest.” They were arguing over female bishops. The woman vicar said that the Church should adapt to reflect society’s makeup and mores, or else it will become irrelevant and thus a poor servant. The male priest replied that the Church was there to teach eternal truths and that the World of God wasn’t up for consultation and reform. I asked my mother, who was also watching, who she thought won the debate. She replied that she felt the woman vicar was nicer and that my mother would be more likely to go to her if she was seeking comfort. “But,” I asked, “who would you want to marry or bury you?” “The man,” she replied instantly. “He actually sounds and looks like a priest.” The woman vicar had compassion but the male priest had authority. 

This existential conflict – between whether to be a servant or a teacher – was physically embodied by Rowan Williams. Ultimately, he failed to satisfy on both counts. He refused to “teach” the public because he didn’t want to drive anyone away. But he also failed to “serve” us because the confusion he created made the Church even more irrelevant. Nothing speaks more to Rowan’s ineffectuality than his parting words: “I think there is a great deal of interest still in the Christian faith.” After nine years of leadership, is that all he has to offer? People are sort of curious about faith? One would hope that they would feel a stronger emotion than “interest” for a religion that thousands have died for, which is the official faith of England, and which is, by Rowan’s own reckoning, The Truth.

I did not stay an Anglican long. I wasn’t raised in it, so I felt little affinity for the endless round of lunches and tombolas. Nor was I impressed with where it was headed. It seemed to offer no resistance to the de-spiritualization of Britain; in many regards it felt like a conspirator.

Of course, there are flourishes of nostalgia. A snatch of Parry, a few lines from the Book of Common Prayer, Remembrance Sunday etc etc. But these are, I fear, relics. Britain is now a post-Christian society. Little St Mary’s isn’t a church – it’s a museum.

I’ve always had a romantic attachment to Christian socialism – the idea that if love is so great an idea then why not make it government policy? I don’t write that with any sense of irony. As the state grew in the late 19th century and social problems that were once grim tragedies became curable problems, it was logical to make Christian compassion the cornerstone of government policy. That effort was combined with a dash of Millenarian zeal. We could, with high enough taxes, build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land. 

Although the Anglican Church doesn’t have a strict doctrine, Christian Socialism has become its unofficial agenda. Because it is an established church, it has evolved into an unofficial branch of the welfare state. Because people are born into it, it also doesn’t feel the need to evangelize quite as much as its competitors. The result is an organization that exists to serve the community without question or reciprocity. The Church of England is a triumph of love.

Yet there have been consequences. The BBCTV show Rev explores them rather well. It features a well-intentioned vicar whose faith is tested by the sheer awfulness of his congregation. The show covers every stereotype of the Anglican fellow-traveler: an Afro-Caribbean lady who is in love with the priest, a socially awkward deacon who approaches religion with all the mysticism of algebra, people who demand “bells and smells” on their wedding day but literally never attend church any other day of the year, a cadging drug addict etc. The most pitiful and atrocious character is an alcoholic tramp who shows up on the Rev’s doorstep every morning to demand food. Only in season two is he actually baptized a Christian, and that doesn’t stop him head-butting our hero in the Christmas special. When he has sobered up, he says to the Rev, “You’ve got to forgive me. You’re a priest, that’s what you have to do.” Contrition isn’t in evidence, but the Rev forgives him anyway.

Religion is ever present in Rev, but faith rarely puts in an appearance. Tellingly, we never see a sermon. The Rev believes deeply in God, but he doesn’t like to bring it up too often. He isn’t a priest, he’s a social worker. In many ways, he is a living martyr. But then “martyr” actually translates as “witness,” and the whole point of martyrdom is to suffer as a testament to God’s existence. The Rev doesn’t do that: he just suffers. And because he never engages with the appalling immorality of his congregation – he never points out their failings but instead indulges them by “forgiving” them without demanding contrition in return – his suffering feels pointless. In some ways, his charity is selfish because it seems to be all about a dialogue with his own faith, a constant test of will. It feeds the flesh, but it doesn’t save souls.

Rev’s experience is a legacy of Christian Socialism, with its priority on social justice rather than personal salvation. It is also horribly common. A friend called me this morning to tell me about his new life as a deacon in a working-class parish in the southwest of England. Nearly half of the people in his parish live on benefits. Their town was destroyed by the recession of the 1980s, throwing much of the population onto unemployment relief. Long periods of doing nothing sapped their health and they graduated to incapacity benefit. Families were torn apart and most of my friend’s congregation is on a third or even fourth marriage. Seeing all of this, one can understand why everyone there votes Labour.

Yet, my pal senses that he isn’t saving any souls. The congregation is tiny (about 26) and he is basically a social worker to 10 of them. He listens to their complaints but is at pains not to judge. The vicar rarely raises theology in her sermons and some services consist of showing a video. One week they screened a documentary about Margaret Thatcher. It was an exercise in exorcising the ghosts of the 1980s.

My friend is suffering in two regards. First, one might infer that his clerical training was a waste of time. He spent six years studying theology, including learning Greek and Latin. Yet God is almost a taboo subject. When it is raised, it’s as a conduit to a discussion of human problems: God is shorthand for the compassion of friends, Satan for absent fathers. The emphasis is upon how much Jesus loves us – not who is he is, what he died for, or why. There’s a lot of yoga and Eastern religion thrown in for good measure. Faith as therapy.

Second, he is frustrated by the fact that he can’t engage in moral theology. Christian Socialism teaches that sin is either encouraged by, or is a product of, material circumstances. So how can one preach moral behavior to people living in grinding poverty? They have no agency. Yet, my friend is aware that many of the bad things about life in his parish are the product of lifestyle choices. There is nothing to stop anyone getting a job, sticking to one partner, quitting the booze, or picking up a Bible. But he is compelled by the “turn the other cheek” culture of Anglicanism to offer comfort but never criticism. His moral responsibility stops at the point of making a cup of sugary tea. 

We see the problems of Christian Socialism on a macro level with the church’s opposition to the UK government’s program of welfare reform. It is the church’s duty to stand up for poor people and challenge the establishment. But the Anglican hierarchy’s position in favor of social justice doesn’t seem balanced by an articulation of the value of work, personal responsibility, or moral order. Its approach is more suited to the 19th century – an age of robber barons and villainous pit owners. In those days, if you didn’t work – you starved. If you left your husband and had a kid out of wedlock – you starved. If you spent all your money on alcohol – you starved. Back then, poverty was truly a question of material iniquity.

But today, poverty is as much cultural as economic. The Anglican Church, which is a church after all, ought to be well placed to offer moral leadership and a path of redemption. Instead, it is trapped by the romanticism of Christian Socialism. Rather than being an opponent of poverty in every sense, it is its enabler.

At a Labour Party Christmas dinner many years ago, I sat next to a lady who attended church in someone’s front room. Her congregation counted nine and was convinced the world would end in 2008 (I sometimes wonder if she was right). Over turkey and roast potatoes, she detailed for me all the people in the world who called themselves Christian but who really weren’t. “The Catholics aren’t Christian because they worship Mary. The Baptists have got it wrong because they don’t christen their children. And the Anglicans are the worst because they encourage men to fornicate with other men.” “So who is going to Heaven?” I asked. “Just the nine of us,” she replied.

It’s a tricky business, deciding who is and who isn’t a Christian. The Roman Catholic Church, to which I belong, used to have a very simple rule: extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (“there is no salvation outside the church”). We stopped believing that in the 1960s because, well, it was the 1960s. Nowadays, accusing other people of not really being a Christian is politically incorrect and politically unhelpful. A return to Sectarianism could undo the precious coalition between Christian groups that sustains us through these dark times. Also, any attempt to try to judge the content of another man’s soul implies that we know others better than God does. As Rev. Peter Mullen writes in the Telegraph, “The fact is that it is only God to whom all hearts be open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid.” 

But saying that anyone can call themselves a Christian without undergoing some sort of quality control has its drawbacks. We risk if we allowing public persons who are self-evidently not Christian to go about misappropriating its imagery and muddling its message. That’s why I was at once heartened and then dismayed when I read that the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, had declared himself to be a “committed Christian”. Looking closer at the words he used, it is obvious that while it's possible he is a Christian, he is hardly a poster child for orthodoxy. But by claiming that he is, he risks leading others to error. That’s why it’s appropriate for people who are making an effort to live orthodox lives to correct his mistakes.

Cameron (o, heck, let’s call him Dave – it’s what he wants), gave his speech this week to mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. It’s a Protestant document but I do believe that, alongside the Book of Common Prayer, it is the English people’s greatest gift to literature. Dave said, “I claim no religious authority whatsoever. I am a committed, but I have to say vaguely practising, Church of England Christian, who will stand up for the values and principles of my faith but who is full of doubts. Like many (I am) constantly grappling with the difficult questions when it comes to some of the big theological issues.”

Only a Tory politician can get away with making a statement and then retracting it in such a self-effacing manner as to make it sound like an admirable and rare act of honesty. And only Dave could do this twice in the same sentence. Consider contradiction #1: “I am a committed, but I have to say vaguely practising, Church of England Christian...” So he is “committed” but not to the extent of actually going to church. Contradiction #2 (from within the same sentence!): “… who will stand up for the values and principles of my faith but who is full of doubts.” So he will publicly defend a faith he only half believes in. Why bother? The picture emerges of a man who rarely attends church and who doesn’t believe in the full teachings of Christ, but who is also “committed” enough to his faith to die for it. Dave is simultaneously Richard Dawkins and St. Sebastian. 

Dave has shown little sign of being a “committed” Christian as Prime Minister. His chancellor has pursued a fiscal policy that may well be necessary but hardly drips with charitable goodwill. In social policy, he has shown total disregard for the faith by backing gay marriage and refusing to support a tighter limit on abortions. He said, “I don't support gay marriage despite being a Conservative but because I’m a Conservative.” It’s another classic latter-day Tory contradiction. In the revised version, it reads, “I don’t support unpicking two-thousand years of social consensus despite being a Conservative but because I’m a Conservative.”

So in what sense is Dave a Christian? Dave’s remarks about the King James Bible were predictably asinine (it is full of “arresting phrases that move, challenge and inspire”), but he did add that it’s “values” bind Britain together. “The Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today. Values and morals we should actively stand up and defend. The alternative of moral neutrality should not be an option. You can't fight something with nothing. If we don't stand for something, we can't stand against anything.”

I would argue that a country that witnesses corporate greed, underage looters, evergreen dole queues, and roughly 180,000 abortions per year is not united by Christian “values”. That’s probably partly because “values” is an empty word that contains little theological value, and its overuse in our society has weakened us. Christians are guided not by values but dogma – and dogma contains rules for living that demand sacrifices. A country without dogma is a country that asks nothing from us and gets nothing in return. It is a nation of laws, routinely disobeyed. 

Cameron does offer us a coherently Tory vision – the idea that the Anglican Church is the embodiment of English culture. Tories tend to see national identity in terms of shared “values”, summarized in Fr. Ray Blake’s response to Cameron’s speech as “honesty, integrity, charity, respect for law and order, neighborliness.” This is The Big Society: the free association of high-minded individuals.

However, this has nothing to do with religion. Faith is not bound by national identity, on the contrary it is something timeless and spaceless that connects us with every man and woman on the planet. For me, one of the attractions of Catholicism is that it is a stubbornly universal faith. Practiced properly it often stands in opposition to national law, morals, and culture. Its refusal to acknowledge the authority of local tyrants is precisely why the Tudor Monarchs banished it from England. The Catholic Church asks us to be something bigger and better than loyal Englishmen – to be Christians.

The heresies of Dave are typical of the establishment strain of Anglicanism. By eschewing dogma in favor of English good manners, it has preserved our national culture at the expense of preaching Christian doctrine. The critic might ask, what right have you, Tim Stanley, to determine what is and what is not concomitant with Christian teachings? If only I had the chance, I would answer that by posing this question to Dave: “From where should a man derive his authority when trying to define truth?” A Catholic might say, “the Church”; a Fundamentalist, “the Bible”; a charismatic, “the Holy Spirit”. I wonder what theological authority Dave bases his “values” on? Papal infallibility is a no-no and his position on gay marriage suggests that he’s unfamiliar with the Bible. Perhaps it is his conscience, but a conscience uninformed by tradition or Scripture is hardly a reliable guide. No, I suspect that Dave believes that the law should reflect the will of the people – that God exists to serve society, rather than the other way around. He is a secularist agnostic, not a “committed Christian”.