LEO McKINSTRY: The moving sincerity of my brother’s religious faith made his passing easier and reflects a revival of interest Church leaders must not squander
Sarah Mullally will take office as Archbishop of Canterbury in January (Image: AFP via Getty)
In the months before Christmas, a dark shadow was cast across my family when my elder brother Simon was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. The end came with tragic swiftness, and he died in a Belfast hospice in late October. Yet, amid the heartfelt grief felt by loved ones during his funeral, the ceremony was also uplifting, due to the Christianity that was a vital part of the life he shared with his devoted wife Pauline. Indeed, they had met through a Christian group in Belfast and retained a wide circle of friends with the same beliefs.
It was the sincerity of their faith that brought such comfort to Simon’s funeral. These devout Christians participants were certain about the veracity of the resurrection and the Bible’s message of salvation. For someone like me, who has long struggled with religious faith, this sureness of conviction was impressive.
A few years ago, Belfast’s evangelicals would have stood out like rocks against the swelling, incoming tide of atheism, agnosticism and indifference. In Britain, Christianity appeared to be in remorseless decline. Desperate to show that it still had relevance, the Church of England accelerated its transformation from a spiritual body into a dreary left-wing pressure group, full of bleats about equality and diversity.
In the Victorian age, the established Anglican Church was known as “the Tory Party at prayer,” whereas today it is just “the Labour Party on its knees”. That trend will certainly not be reversed by Sarah Mullally, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, who is a stereotypical right-on modern cleric, dripping with all the correct fashionable opinions and secular poses.
A former chief nursing officer for England, she has sobbed about “micro-aggressions” against women, called on the government to welcome more refugees and boasted of “standing together” with the radical Black Lives Matter movement.
But beyond the self-destructive Church of England, something is stirring within the spiritual realm. In our troubled times, when the foundations of our civilisation are under attack, there is now a palpable yearning to rediscover our Christian roots. Yesterday’s Christmas celebrations took place against the backdrop of a religious renaissance, reflected in rising attendances in many churches, especially those belonging to the Roman Catholic and Pentecostal denominations.
According to a study by the Bible Society, the number of adults who go to church at least once a month rose from 3.7 million in 2018 to 5.7 million in 2024. Among those aged 18 to 24, monthly church-going has quadrupled.
Christianity is reasserting itself. Only last week, the insurgent Reform party launched its Christian Fellowship, where thoughtful former Tory MP Danny Kruger is a leading light. Unlike progressive agitators who want our religions to become more political, Kruger wants our politics to become more religious. “Our democracy is founded on Christian faith,” he said.
Another sign of this “Quiet Revival”, as it has been dubbed, is the surge in Bible sales, up by 87% over the last five years. Meanwhile, the television adventurer Bear Grylls topped the bestsellers charts recently with his new illustrated version of Christ’s story.
So what explains this heartening new interest in Christianity? One answer is that many citizens, exasperated by the wilful erosion of our Christian heritage, want to stand up for our traditional culture and identity. Particular antipathy is aroused by the accelerating Islamification of our land – something no Briton has ever voted for.
In addition, secular materialism has failed to secure prosperity or provide spiritual nourishment, so people turn to Christianity to combat the inner hollowness they feel. That process was at its most intense during the Covid pandemic, when millions – bruised by isolation, financial crisis or severe ill-health – felt compelled to re-examine their values. Tellingly, eight million online prayer apps were accessed in the year from March 2020, a rise of more than 50% on the year before.
Today Christian leaders in Britain have a golden opportunity to strengthen the impact of the creed that built our civilisation. It would be unforgivable if they squandered this change through the shallow attachment to progressive politics.
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British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and his wife Violet in July 1945 (Image: Getty)
“And a little mouse shall lead them,” the senior Labour politician Hugh Dalton wrote bitterly in his diary when the modest Clement Attlee was elected Labour leader in 1935. Yet Attlee remained in his post for two decades, by far the longest continuous spell as a party leader in the history of British democracy. There were regular plots against him even by senior front-bench colleagues, but the party was never able to unite behind another candidate. That was partly because the party’s rule book heavily favoured the incumbent, partly because none of the alternatives were obviously better, and partly because the forces of sentimentality and inertia are so strong in Labour’s ranks.
Since the first Labour government was formed in 1924, no party leader has been forced out by a vote of MPs or members, even disasters like Michael Foot or Jeremy Corbyn, That is why I think Sir Keir Starmer will still be in charge this time next year.
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Labour politicians and anti-hunt campaigners like to portray themselves as the guardians of animal welfare. That sense of compassion, they argue, lies at the heart of their new plan to ban trail hunting. This practice – which involves using an animal-scented rag to lay a trail for the hounds to chase – remains legal under the 2004 Hunting Act because the intention is not to kill anything.
But the anti-blood sports lobby claims trail hunting regularly leads to incidents where foxes, other wildlife, and even pets, are attacked by hounds. So a comprehensive ban is supposedly required. I have always felt that class envy is what really motivates the determination to shut down country sports, the same spirit that wants to “soak the rich” with wealth taxes or punish private schools.
The obsessive focus on fox-hunting is riddled with hypocrisies. There are far worse forms of animal cruelty, like battery farming. At least a fox can live his life in the open and has a chance of escape. More importantly, anyone who eats meat has no right to pontificate about fox-hunting. After all, for every fleshy dish enjoyed by the consumer, some animal has been reared, then executed just to bring some momentary pleasure to the tastebuds.
Hunting hounds gathered on Parliament Square during a pro-trail hunting protest (Image: Getty)
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Throughout my adult life, I have been mistaken for a variety of celebrities. Once on a train to Nottingham, I overheard a fellow passenger claiming he had seen the Tory politician Kenneth Clarke in his carriage, as he discreetly pointed his finger at me.
In a pub in Islington, a drunken customer was convinced I was Stephen Pinder, the actor who played the smooth executive Max Farnham in the Channel 4 soap Brookside. One night at Ramsgate railway station, a group of well-lubricated lads looked in my direction and then began to yell at each other in incredulous tones: “Look, it’s Boris! Oi, Boris, what you doing down here?” Luckily, my train arrived before I could be subjected to further scrutiny about my movements through East Kent or my alleged resemblance to the former PM.
But I will concede that I have always looked like Jamie Blandford, now the Duke of Marlborough. I have never met the man and we have little in common, but it is uncanny how we have aged in exactly the same way, our cheeks becoming jowly and our unkempt hair turning grey. But, with the Duke facing charges of intentional strangulation of his wife, the idea of being his doppelganger no longer brings me any amusement.
