A Christian country?

I am intrigued by all the fuss there has been over the recent speech by Prime Minister David Cameron affirming that Britain remains a Christian country, should be proud of it, and should evangelise the fact. A letter signed by more than 50 prominent figures protested against this, maintaining that Mr Cameron had no right to call this a Christian country as only a small minority were Christians.

I have always been of the opinion that you cannot truly call a country Christian until every last person has bowed the knee before Jesus Christ and acknowledged Him as Lord. This runs counter, I realise, to the view held since the days of the Protestant Reformation that a person’s country determined his or her religion. This strange concept produced the historical oddity (as I would call it) that anyone resident in a parish had an automatic right to a baptism, a wedding or a funeral in their local church, whether they were believers or not. To my mind this has resulted in no end of disastrous misunderstanding.

So talk of a Christian country seems to me misleading. What you can reasonably say, however, is that we have a country whose laws and institutions have been based on Christian values. We abandon these at our peril. I found it most unsettling when a leading judge gave as his opinion that judgements in court could no longer be given on the basis of Christian values and standards of behaviour. Does that mean that people will be able to get away with behaviour that has always over the years been considered unacceptable? A great deal of misery, it seems to me, will follow.

A Christian country? What really counts is a Christian heart and spirit triumphing in one individual after another. The Book of Acts talks about this in terms of “souls” being added to “the number”:

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”
So those who received his word were baptised, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. … And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Acts 2:38-41,46-47 ESV

I was mightily encouraged by a service of believer’s baptism I attended on Easter Sunday. Four young adults declared their allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, and all in their different ways witnessed to the fact that this allegiance had transformed their lives. It was a thoroughly wholesome and positive experience.

But there’s another country I’ve heard of long ago,
most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
we may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And all her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.

Cecil Spring-Rice, 1859-1918

That, of course, is anathema to the sceptics. A great deal of work needs to be done to dispose of the persistent opinion that Christianity is dangerous and that by teaching Christian ways to children we will somehow pervert or brainwash them. In fact the reverse is true. Letting them find their own way and giving them no guidance for belief will result in despair. Generations will grow up following patterns of thought and life that are harmful, because different from what the Maker originally intended. If this is allowed to continue, we will all be the losers.