Is God a Tory?
PERSONAL COLUMN PATRICK COSGRAVE
Speaking recently at Archbishop Tenison's Grammar School Mr Harold Macmillan com- municated his fear that, without the continu- ance of church schools and religious educa- tion, the world might sink into a new and despairing paganism, a moral and intellectual nihilism, perhaps protracted rather than alle- viated by 'our boasted material progress.' He thus testified, not only to the bygone days of the nineteenth century, when the nation as well as politics was dominated by at least some version of the Christian hope and message, but also to the universal assertion of Conservative writers and publicists that Conservative poli- tics have as their basis a religious perception.
The occasion and the .man, for all the rich- ness and lustre of their Christianity, were also distinctively Tory. And, if those agitated by the larger cultural effects of the present general decline of religious belief consider that any revival must have a political dimension—among others—they must also accept that, in so far as a political manifestation of al revived Christianity is an autonomous movetriait,, not attributable simply to the accident that some leading politicians in any party might be Christians, then they must look to the Tory party and not to its rivals. The moral essence of the Labour party consists in its hope of secular, human perfectibility; the very nature of Conservatism is intimately bound up with obeisance to truths and beliefs felt to be larger and more important than any programme of political action. Such programmes form the kernel of socialism : for Tories they are—or ought to be—less important than the three historically defined pillars of Conservatism: religion, patriotism and individual freedom.
But politicians are, of course, most often dominated by the rude intractabilities of day- to-day government, by their competitive and vulgar appeals to the electorate and by the siren attractions of power and office. Except in times of acute challenge, faith, patriotism and freedom are not in the forefront of their ) thoughts, nor do they constitute the„main stimulus to action. They may be none the less important for that, if they form a vital part of the fabric of man's life and so con- dition to some extent all his actions. It is in the sense of fear and damage to this fabric that Mr Macmillan seems to have spoken of religion.
And yet it is impossible to pretend that religion plays a large, civilising and influential part in the lives of many politicians or party workers. To some degree politicians may be shy of seeming in public to appropriate God as an ally: there was a minor furore in 1963 when Sir Alec Douglas-Home told the Tories they would do electoral battle with God's hand on their shoulders. But, even more, the -- unannounced paganism of our politics is due to a simple and devastating collapse of faith.
It would be profitless to attempt to examine the causes of that collapse. But if we take our stand in the present moment we can with plausibility argue that Christians and insti- stutionalised Christianity itself have failed to articulate the relevance (if it exists) of their message to the modern world. In part this may be shyness or lack of nerve but, equally, it may betray an inner incapacity of the Christian himself. When, some time ago in these columns, I quoted Mr Quintin Hogg's view (and Mr Hogg is neither shy nor ner- vous) that there could be `no genuine Con- servatism which is not founded upon a re- ligious view of the basis of civil obligation' and challenged its truth for today, he replied with an attack on my logic, not with a par- ticularised defence of his proposition.
Now, that seemed to me to be unduly de- fensive. Not that anybody could suggest that Mr Hogg's whole political life is not indeed imbued with the most zealous and humane Christianity : the moral integrity as much as the intellectual distinction with which he has discharged his responsibility on the home affairs front shows this clearly. But it may be added that his Christian perception often seems intermittent. At the time of the Govern- ment's exclusion of Kenya Asians from Britain, Mr Hogg seemed little troubled by what Mr Macleod openly described as a breach of faith: his Christian concern for his fellow man seemed on that occasion to pale by com- parison with the shining charity of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury.
Again, even taking into account what can In all these daunting circumstances it is small but was in some respects halting. In particu- ence to Christianity) that leaped to his mind, and not the high seriousness of the Christian message.
The sideways fashion in which much of the Christian message is now presented is added to by the frequent mediocrity of that ex- pression. Not that this is a fault of our Chris- tian politicians, but it is a part of the general climate in which they struggle. The hostility ,with which the brutally clear claim to author- ity of Humanae Vitae was received may be --1491 put down as much to the simple, logical in- adequacy of its reasoning and the unimagina- tive lifelessness of its attempt to comprehend the agonies to which its message would reduce many Catholics, as to the dislike of the mes- sage itself. To many (if not to most) non- Christians, the abbreviated and abrupt re- sponse of the Christian and of Christianity— where that response exists at all, or where it is not dominated by a desire to be trendy—to the convoluted agonies of the human con- dition seems the best proof of the irrelevance of organised religion.
Once Conservatism, like religion itself, could lay a claim to allegiance on the basis of grander preoccupations and more spiritual in- - sights than could be encompassed by the most comprehensive economic policy. There is now a measure of the effect of the loss of belief on the Tory party: in. the distinctively eco- nomic character of its utterances, in the fact that its continual claim to replace Labour is often based exclusively on its claim to possess a . different expertise in economic manage- ment. The meritocracy so frequently applauded by Tory spokesmen seems hardly influenced by the Christian message. But the fault lies less with the politicians generally than with the weakness of perception of the Christians among them. So weak do these perceptions seem that it would appear reasonable to decide that Christians have no • -.more to say to us politically. Nor is it also, 4rue to say, does the leadership—or the leader —of the Tory party seem to be able to draw from an alternative well-spring of inspiration. Mr Heath's most deeply felt speeches are marked by close pragmatic reasoning and an anxiety to respond even to the mean-minded- ness of the electorate rather than by the elo- quence that follows on a deeper perception. And yet there is an alternative source of r inspiration, and Mr Heath once drew on it. It is patriotism, and, in his last TV broadcast before the 1966 election Mr Heath spoke of its relation to Toryism with a hesitant elo- quence that was moving because he was dis- covering the extent of his own feelings as he went hlong. He proved then what the frustra- tion of the people with our present humilia- clehrly demonstrates: there is life in the nation and the patriotic principle. Even if God is a Tory he scarcely seems to be an effec- tive one. It is to England we must look for a life spirit.
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