It was good that your leader looked at an issue that has been too long ignored (The rise of Christian-nativist populists is a worry for all, 26 December). It needs to be addressed seriously by asking the question that the philosopher Jürgen Habermas has long posed to German society: “What is missing?” That is, what is missing in the current secular climate which makes some people turn to a religiously based rightwing politics?
I suggest that this should result first of all in affirming the profoundly moral view of what it is to be a human being in society held by secular humanists. This is the equal worth and dignity of every human being. Second, it would mean affirming, as several major books have done recently, the profoundly Christian foundation underpinning this in western culture. The problem at the moment is that the decisive shaping influence of the Christian faith in our history, literature, art, music, law and culture is too often simply disdained or whitewashed out.
This is not to downplay the real political differences between some Christians and some progressives, or the philosophical ones between those for whom belief is fundamental and those who reject it. But the present secular climate is very “thin”. If its moral and spiritual depths were more to the fore, it would better resonate with those who now feel alienated by it and who, not feeling at home, turn to an unhappy union of religion and rightwing polemics.
Richard Harries
Crossbench peer, House of Lords; bishop of Oxford 1987-2006
• How about a story of God being on the side of slaves, and freeing them from their oppressors? Or punishing kings who abuse their power? Or inspiring men to decry the evils of their society by warning the people to treat others well?
This is the (Hebrew) Bible – that which Jesus would have imbibed as part of his Jewish childhood in that particular religious milieu. It is composed of various texts spread over millennia and has within it material far less lofty, but much other material no less aligned with the marginal, the maligned and the poor.
Paul himself is a troublesome character: his writings about women and their place are vile, his attacks on the prevailing traditions of the time unpleasant, and his knowledge of any historical Jesus clearly lacking.
So I find it all disturbing that your editorial refers to “ideas of human dignity and equality that can be traced back to the first formulations of early Christianity”. I cannot speak for Buddhists and Hindus, both ancient religions, but I can quote from early (earlier than Christianity) Judaism: “So God created the Adam in God’s own image, male and female created God them.” Or Micah: “God has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Eternal require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
All of our religious traditions contain wonderful and inspiring teachings about humanity, and, with respect for each other, we should strive to live up to the highest ideals in what we believe.
Rabbi Dr Barbara Borts
Newcastle upon Tyne
• Your editorial on the rise of Christian-nativist populists offers an excellent exposition of Paul and the Gospel, but underrates a bad effect of the Enlightenment. If it promoted the separation of church and state, it also encouraged the assumption that religion has nothing to do with politics and so created a vacuum that Christian populists like Trump and Orbán have been quick to exploit.
In the last century two great Christian thinkers in Oxford, AD Lindsey and Nathaniel Micklem, found it hard to decide whether to become ordained ministers or members of parliament. Both seemed to them equally important Christian vocations. Lindsey opted for politics but based his resistance to Hitler’s tyranny on his Christian faith, as in his I Believe in Democracy. Micklem, as a theologian and principal of a theological college, argued in his Theology of Politics that “all political problems are at bottom theological” because they raise questions about our relation to God, other human beings and all creation.
As you urge, such convictions need to be more powerfully shared.
Rev Dr Donald W Norwood
Oxford
• Thank you for your Boxing Day editorial. According to George Lakoff in his book The Political Mind (pages 117-118), cognitive science has shown that there is a biological basis for empathy, cooperation and community. We are born to empathise and cooperate. I suggest it is not merely a coincidence that the tenet to love our neighbours as ourselves is written into the formative holy books of all the major faiths.
Lakoff contrasts the strict father with the nurturing parent as metaphors of government. We are all susceptible to messages from both metaphors. Rightwing narratives are about the strict father. In the UK they implement policies preventing adults looking to the government for assistance lest they become dependent. Alternatively we could promote the the empathetic metaphor of government as a nurturing parent responsible for the health and wellbeing of every UK citizen. We need a moral narrative that could end the indignity and humiliation of homelessness for families and individuals.
Rev Paul Nicolson
Taxpayers Against Poverty
• It is absolutely correct that all liberals – whether religious or nonreligious – should come together to oppose populism (whether Christian populism or not), but your leader falls into the same Christian exceptionalism as the populist in asserting that human equality and dignity begin with Christianity. To fight fire with fire is never productive, especially when it involves such historical revisionism. Accepting the reality that modern human rights are built on a blending of human traditions and rooted in our common humanity is the best path to the outcome of progress and solidarity that we should seek.
Andrew Copson
Chief executive, Humanists UK
• Having outlined the disastrous consequences of the rise of religious identity politics, it is bizarre that you then suggest that US Democrats “wearing their faith on their sleeve” is a happy circumstance. The fact that they too “have begun to play this game” is beyond depressing. All the evidence points to the fact that religion only exacerbates division and discord in society. Keeping all religion and associated sectarian ideology out of the political sphere is the only way of uniting “liberals of goodwill … across the religious/secular divide in 2020”.
John Dillon
Birmingham
• Re your excellent editorial and Mark Redhead’s letter (26 December), on Christmas Day, following our morning service, two young Muslim men arrived to wish us a happy Christmas, to offer chocolates to everyone and to offer a free Christmas Day taxi service to older people. Religion can be a uniting force for good when followed as it should be.
Barbara Thompson
Sheffield
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