Whatever happened to liberal Christianity?

1. Whatever happened to liberal Christianity? Linda Woodhead FOR INCLUSIVE CHURCH, YORK, JULY 2014

2. Liberalism – boo hiss • Many meanings, huge slippage • Now used by critics to mean ‘secular’, ‘theologically woolly’, individualistic etc. • (Yet something of its force is still retained in its opposite, ‘illiberal’. Who wants to be illiberal? Not to mention the fact that we live in a liberal democracy – hands up who would rather not?)

3. Recovering ‘liberalism’ • To make the term powerful again it is best to strip it down to two of its most basic senses. • 1.Ethical or political liberalism: the belief that each individual should have the right to decide how best to live his her life (JS Mill) • The opposite is not conservatism but authoritarianism, illiberalism, paternalism. ‘There is a higher authority to which you should defer.’

4. Recovering ‘liberalism’ • 2.Hermeneutical liberalism. The belief that the meaning of no text, including the Bible, can be accessed directly and without human interpretation, or that there is a text which does not itself involve human interpretation. It is perfectly possible – and common – for hermeneutical liberals to believe that the Bible is nevertheless the Word of God.

5. Recovering ‘liberalism’ • I suggest that we need to recover these cleaned and stripped-down meanings of liberalism and discard the extra baggage. • Liberalism is a stub to which can be added right wing or left wing politics, various kinds of theological approach and system etc. None of these should be used to define its core meaning.

6. Recovering ‘Christian liberalism’ • So for my purposes, liberal Christians are Christians who see ethical/political liberalism and hermeneutical liberalism as integral to the Christian faith. (Not as secular ‘add-ons’, but as growing out of the Christian tradition itself.) • And for the purposes of clarity in this short talk I am going to focus only on the ethical/political sense.

7. How many Britons are liberal? • Before I tell you the answer, based on my surveys with YouGov last year (google ‘Faith Debates’ & click the ‘Research’ tab) let me ask you the same questions I used on the surveys. • This will give you a liberalism score. • As it turned out (a finding not a presupposition) 3 issues in GB tpday proved to be the litmus test issues: abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia (a contingent fact).

8. ABORTION • Start with a score of 1 • If you: • favour the current time limit of 24 weeks (or think it should be relaxed) ADD 0 • believe the current time limit should be reduced or don’t know ADD 1 • believe abortion should be banned ADD 2

9. SAME-SEX MARRIAGE • If you: • Think it is right ADD 0 • Think it is wrong ADD 2 • Don’t know ADD 1

10. ASSISTED DYING • If you: • Think the law should be changed/liberalised ADD 0 • Think current law should remain ADD 2 • Don’t know ADD 1

11. HERE IS YOUR LIBERALISM SCORE

12. HERE IS THE LIBERAL PROFILE OF GB ADULTS 18+ 2013

13. LIBERALISM IN BRITAIN TODAY • We are overwhelmingly liberal • There is a “Liberal moral majority” of 83% • And an authoritarian/paternalist moral minority of 17% • Who are the moral minority (MM)? • 45% of Muslims are MM • Over a third of Baptists are MM • 15% of Catholics are MM • 8% of Anglicans are MM • Practically none of those who say “no religion” are MM Counting 1 - 4 as liberal

14. VALUES PROFILE GB Let’s put the liberal scale on a vertical axis And a social/welfarist to individualist scale on a horizontal axis The %s show where GB population is, and where self-defined ‘CofE’ members are. Conclusion: Anglicans are as liberal as everyone else, but a bit more right-leaning.

15. Liberal Anglicans Our survey shows that every generation has become more liberal than the one before

16. THERE HAVE BEEN TWO WAVES OF LIBERALISM IN GB (AND MORE WIDELY) • First-wave liberalism: extension of liberties from property-owning males to all males, including all races • Up to 1970s and the civil rights movement. • Second-wave liberalism: extension of liberties and rights to women, to LGBT, and to children. • From the 1980s to the present – ongoing and unfinished. • Most Britons have embraced both waves. The CofE (and RC Church) embraced and sometimes led the first wave, but not the second. This is the ‘leadership liberal reversal.’

17. NOW I WANT TO ADDRESS TWO PUZZLES • Why has the power of liberalism in the CofEdeclined when Anglicans and the country have been getting more and more liberal? • And why has the influence of (liberal) Anglicanism in British society declined? ‘Whatever happened to liberal Christianity?’

18. Liberal reversals in the CofE • Michael Ramsey on Honest to God 1963 • Higton motion passed by General Synod 1987 (& Some issues in Human Sexuality 1991) • Exemption from equality legislation (2003 on) • Anglican Covenant What are the emblematic events? Possibly these

19. 6 REASONS TO EXPLAIN LEADERSHIP ILLIBERALISMIN THE CofE • 1.Rejection of second-wave liberalisation (reluctant to admit women, hostile to LGBT, reactive not active in relation to children’s rights). • 2.Effective anti-liberal mobilisation by minority groups in the CofE • 3.Global religious anti-liberal alliances • 4.Media representations amplify the illiberal minorities • 5.Growing isolation of leadership from society • 6.A ‘post-secular’ turn in theology

20. 4 REASONS TO EXPLAIN GENERAL FAILURE OF LIBERALISM IN CofE • 1.Lay disengagement from the Church • 2.Clerical divisions and the decline of Anglo-Catholicism • 3.Failure of liberals to mobilise effectively • 4.Failure of liberals to make the theological case

21. THE GROWING ‘VALUES GAP’ BETWEEN LIBERAL ENGLAND AND ILLIBERAL CHURCHESHELPS EXPLAIN DECLINE

22. ALIENATED FROM CHURCH BUT NOT NECESSARILY FROM FAITH

23. WEAKNESS OF LIBERAL ANGLICANISM ALSO TO BLAME • 1.Too disembodied – all about ideas, not embedded in the Church’s symbols, rituals, power structures • 2.Persistence of paternalistic authority, rather than a more liberal model • 3.Liberalism often inward looking and churchy • 4.Liberals often narrowly focused and divided, not embracing genuine pluralism (which liberalism implies –freedom to follow own interpretations) FOUR REASONS WHY LIBERAL ANGLICANISMFAILED

24. A SERIOUS QUESTION • Liberals don't like being preached at; why do they need to go to church at all? 

25. HOW CAN LIBERAL ANGLICANISM RECOVER AT LOCAL LEVEL? • A huge dose of humility needed (the CofE is a very arrogant Church) • 1.LOOK outwards, learn from society • 2.Partner with appropriate laity and organisations (obligations on both sides) • 3.Be a resource (amongst many) for people to draw on as they live their lives • 4.recognise that people today have multiple identities; religion is only one • 5.Reject division; embrace all liberal Anglicans and genuine pluralism – inc. non-liberals

26. RECOVERYat NATIONAL LEVEL • 1.Embrace genuine pluralism, not chimerical unity • 2.Effective liberal mobilisation • 3.Open debate and real research, to re-engage Church with society & Anglicans • 4.Creative re-imagining of church structures • 5.Empowerment of all Anglicans • 6.Set the agenda; stop allowing anti-liberals to set it • 7.Maximal tolerance + zero tolerance for bullying and manipulation = genuine liberalism

27. Come to our Westminster Faith Debates series on ‘The Future of the Church of England’ this autumn

28. A closing thought Oprah 24.7m Twitter followers Pope Francis 4.2 m Archbishop of Canterbury59.6K Liberal religion lives on – it’s just a pity the Church isn’t benefitting/able to re-engage and revivify its own liberal heritage… at the moment. But the signs of change are all around us – it’s time for the liberal majority to remember it’s the majority.