Easter and Christian Culture

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Easter, Christian culture and heritage.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting me the time in this great hall. I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to this debate on Easter and Christian culture and heritage.

Easter is one of the two most important dates in the Christian calendar, and one that I hope we will all be celebrating next weekend. The cross symbolises what Christ did for us on Good Friday, which is wrapped up in the most famous verse of the Bible, John 3:16:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

We celebrate on Easter Sunday the resurrection of Christ, giving us not just a God, but a living God to believe in, to worship, to help us and to make us right with Him, with the promise of eternal life. What a wonderful gift.

I have said much of this in my previous speeches on Christianity, so let me just say that within much of our heritage is woven our historical Christian past, and it is therefore extremely important not just to this place but to our nation as a whole. It is the “Christian culture” part of this debate’s title that I will spend my time on today.

As we know, much rhetoric is expended on culture wars, at least in this place. This, in my understanding, refers to what people believe in. As a Christian, I am told through scripture to love everyone; I try to do so, but often fail, so I can understand the concerns of others when they see beliefs and practices that are not the so-called British way. Some may not believe in progressive ideologies; I understand that. Some may believe that those who have joined us from other nations should embrace our British way of life; I understand that, too. That got me thinking. What exactly is our culture? What is our British way of life?

Like most people these days, when I do not know an answer or I am unsure of a definition, I google it, so I did, and this is what Google said:

“The culture of the United Kingdom is influenced by its combined nations’ history; its historically Christian religious life, its interaction with the cultures of Europe, the individual cultures of England, Wales and Scotland and the impact of the British Empire.”

There is a glaring omission: what about Northern Ireland? Perhaps the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) can take that up with Google, because it is important. But there we have it, according to Google. There are three words in there that I believe to be very important, but I will come back to them.

I scrolled down a little further on the search engine and found numerous sites, all listing their top 10 ideas of things that make our British culture. These are some of the things that apparently make us British: the royal family, our cuisine, the English breakfast, our love of a curry and fish and chips, how we like to queue, the pub, our humour—mainly sarcasm and banter—a cup of tea, sport, the BBC, and so the list goes on. Then I thought of a scene in the film “Love Actually”. There are a few scenes in there I do not like—I will not go into those now—but who can forget the one in No. 10? No, not the singing and dancing Prime Minister. Do we think our Prime Minister sings and dances in there when he is on his own? I can assure the House that if I am ever Prime Minister, I will. If my right hon. Friend is listening —I hope he is—I should add that, no, I am not after your job, sir. The scene I mean is the one where Hugh Grant, who plays the Prime Minister, tells the US President what he thinks. He says:

“We may be a small country, but we’re a great one, too. The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham’s right foot. David Beckham’s left foot, come to that.”

I have to admit that the first time I saw this, it brought a lump to my throat. I felt genuinely proud to be British.

As good as all those things are, and some are truly wonderful, one thing that binds most of them together is that they are ways in which we enjoy ourselves, whether it is reading the sonnets—“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Not really me—watching our favourite team or player, eating our favourite food, or just simply having a laugh down the pub, which is definitely me. But are they really our culture? I am not so sure. Does not everyone the world round enjoy entertainment of some kind? No, I think our culture goes back to those three words I spoke about earlier—Christian religious life.

I have mentioned the royal family. Our King is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the state Church, so he is extremely important to our Christian religious life. I also mentioned Sir Winston Churchill, who did so much to defend and preserve our way of life, as have our armed forces over the centuries. But what is our culture? I believe it is not quite Christian religious life, but more our Christian way of life—the Christian way of life that has enabled us to live in freedom in this wonderful country. And trust me, it is a wonderful country, but it is even more than that—much more. It is about a life with Jesus and what that life offers, not just to the individual but to society as a whole.

Sadly, when mankind removes God from the equation, mankind resorts to its base nature. Man’s base nature is not what we think it should be—it is not good. Watching two infants play, we often see them snatch and not want to share. We must admit that we are all born at least a little selfish, if nothing worse, which is the start— the start of a life that can often lead to things going drastically wrong without correction.

If the teachings of the Christian way of life are slowly eroded, which I believe they have been, I am afraid that each generation will fall further away from our God. Life can and will definitely get worse for us all.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He talks about culture and the changing generations. We met a group of people yesterday—the Christian creators, I think they called themselves—who broadcast their Christian views on TikTok. That is very different from my form of worship, but does my hon. Friend agree that they are getting the message across? Is that not an example of how Christianity will continue through the generations?

My hon. Friend is right. The group of Christian creators on TikTok we met yesterday were wonderful. It was a joy to meet these fantastic young people, who are all spreading the word of the Lord through social media.

I am struck by my hon. Friend’s reflection on a Christian way of life. In the UK, we are very fortunate to have giants in our history—people such as Josiah Wedgwood, Lord Shaftesbury and William Wilberforce—who improved the lives of thousands, millions potentially, of the poor, the oppressed and the enslaved, and who all claimed a strong Christian faith as a motivating factor. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as a country, we are freer, more equal and better off for the influence of those Christian figures in our history?

I agree with every single word of my hon. Friend’s contribution. As I said, this is not just about society’s relationship with Christianity; it is the individual’s relationship with Christ that gives them the strength to do wonderful things for society as a whole. My hon. Friend mentioned three wonderful people who were all devout Christians.

Our need for something to believe in is always present and if it is not in the Christian teachings and God, what is it in? If we have no faith or turn our back on faith, we search for something to fill the void. Often, we start looking inwards. We start to lust after things that are not good for us. Like a drug, we may get a quick hit of happiness, but it is soon gone. Some may ask, “Where is the proof?” Here is the proof: with all the ways we have to entertain ourselves and spend our time, how many people in the UK are struggling with their mental health? Despite all those wonderful things Google thinks make us British and that I have spoken about, we have so many unhappy people. Why?

The Bible is clear: it tells us that if we turn our back on God, He will give us up to our natural state. We become filled with all kinds of wickedness, evil and greed. We gossip and speak badly of one another. We become proud and boastful and, when young, disobey our parents. It teaches us that we lose our conscience and do not keep our promises. We show no kindness or pity for others and become unforgiving souls. If we turn our back on God, He will give us up, and I think that in many places in society he may already have done so.

How did this happen? I remember many people calling anyone who believed in Christ a Bible-basher, a God botherer, and many laughed; I was called one myself. Then Christians were told, “It’s okay that you believe, but don’t ram it down my throat,” so guess what? That happened. In many quarters, the Church listened, Christians listened, and I listened, too. Many of us stopped talking about God for fear of being accused of ramming it down other people’s throats—not that other people seem concerned about sharing their beliefs. What is worse is those who do not want a faith did appear to want others not to have a faith either. Christians have been ridiculed on the big stage across the country, and now many believers have been too quiet for too long.

I commend my hon. Friend on promoting this magnificent debate, so well timed in advance of Easter. I am sure he agrees with me that our entire heritage—the foundations of our laws, customs and conventions and our entire British way of life—is founded on the Christian heritage of these islands. Although we cherish the principle of freedom of religion for all and respect for people of no faith and other faiths, it is nevertheless the Christian foundations that have allowed a free society to develop, where anyone can choose the life they lead. We should therefore defend that Christian heritage because if we undermine it, we undermine the entire free society that so many generations have built.

My hon. Friend said in 30 seconds what has taken me 18 minutes to say, so I thank him for his contribution. He is completely right.

As I was saying, I am sure there must be a way the Department can do much more to promote faith and family and our Christian heritage, values and way of life; encourage the country’s people to look out for each other instead of focusing inwards; embrace a culture of forgiveness and love for all our neighbours; and lead the nation to speak proudly of its past. The formidable Douglas Murray once urged people to have “an attitude of gratitude”. A nation that knows the boundaries of right and wrong sets them in stone so that we all know where we are and that no means no, not maybe, especially when speaking to and guiding our young. That is a nation where opportunity is available to all for the better of all. I want a nation’s people that believes what CS Lewis once stated:

“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.”

Can we not do all that while letting those who have called our shores home enjoy their culture, too? I think we can and we should.

If our Christian culture with its faith and families shines like the beacon of hope that it should, the ideologies and desires that are often negative will be starved of oxygen and will fall away one by one. The new people we welcome will see our culture and maybe even want to be a part of it, too.

I endorse my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on securing this debate. He is articulating the fact that the most corrosive force in our country now is nihilism and the moral relativism associated with it. We hear people speaking not of truth, but of their truth, as though truth could be negotiated. But truth cannot be negotiated; it is an absolute, and is embodied in the message of Christianity.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his contribution. I know that he believes, as I do, that the truth is in the Bible and is in the name of Jesus Christ.

If the Christian culture of faith and family shines like the beacon of hope that it should be, the ideologies and desires that can often be negative will be starved of oxygen. The new people we welcome will see our culture and may want to be a part of it. I know that this sounds utopian, but we are told that faith can move mountains. We must admit that we have a mountain to move.

My faith only grows stronger day by day. When I look for the good, not the bad, in everyone I meet, it gets stronger. I know that I am a sinner. I have turned my back on God before, but 15 years ago I gave my life to Jesus forever, and I know that He is with me now. I know that at Easter, Jesus died on a cross for me—yes, for me, and for you. Through my repentance and my belief in Him, I am saved. Although that fills me with great joy, I want all the world to know that Jesus loves them, too. I want the people of this nation to fix their eyes on heaven, not on themselves or their earthly desires. I want them to believe in a living God, not fashionable ideologies.

This Easter will our Government promote celebrating what Christ did for us on the cross on Good Friday, and His resurrection on Easter Sunday? Will they encourage the nation to go to church and embrace our Christian culture? If the people do so, and if they search and listen, they will find God, too. He is waiting with open arms. The angels are ready to sing for every sinner who repents and believes in our Lord.

If the Government get this right, we will all instinctively know what our British culture is. God will not turn his back on us. He will hold and love us, and the culture wars will be no more. Can the Minister imagine being part of a Government who eradicated the culture wars and got the country to be proud of its past, content with its present and sure of its future in Christ? There is a challenge. If the Minister and the Government wish to take it, I will be right behind them, and so will millions of Christians across this land.

I have to start by congratulating my hon. Friend the wonderful Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher). In the short time he has been in the House, he has proved himself a superb Member of Parliament and has become embedded in his community in Doncaster. I salute his courage in applying for this debate, the third such debate that he has secured. I am not aware of anyone else, in the many years I have been in the House, who has had the courage to promote such debates.

Politicians are naturally averse to talking about their faith. I suppose they think that if they talk about their faith, they may be putting themselves on some kind of pedestal and that, being sinners as we all are, they will eventually be brought down and mocked. But my hon. Friend expressed himself in such a humble, forgiving and self-deprecatory way that nobody could accuse him of putting himself on a pedestal. He was simply trying to make the very powerful point, which too few of us have the courage to make, that Christianity is at the very heart of our nation and its history. So much of what has made us such a great nation and a wonderful place to live is embedded in Christianity. So many of our freedoms relate to Christianity.

Of course, people will criticise the history of Christianity and the way Christians treated and persecuted one another in the past. We all know that, but undoubtedly what has made this nation is the Christian faith. That is not to belittle other faiths; one thing I liked about my hon. Friend’s speech was that he was complimentary about people of all faiths. It is no accident that the great religions of the world—whether that is Islam, Judaism or Christianity—all have the same kind of moral code. In promoting Christianity, he was not trying to downplay the importance and the wonder of all of the other religions.

Our forebears who made this building—I think a lot about this, because I serve on the restoration and renewal board—knew this. When we walk around this building, we see Christian iconography scattered all over it. Only this morning I was showing some visitors around the Robing Room in the House of Lords. The paintings on the walls depict compassion, mercy and forgiveness, all of which are Christian concepts.

It strikes that my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) are describing something bigger and more enduring than much of what we concern ourselves with as politicians. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a dislocation from those eternal and enduring beliefs or values is perhaps giving us a sense of drift or lack of purpose in society today?

Yes, we have to recognise that there is a sense of drift and pessimism in society. However, this debate is about Easter, which is the great feast of the Resurrection—the great feast of hope. It is wonderful that my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley has expressed himself in such a positive way.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), I represent the most beautiful and wonderful county in England, namely Lincolnshire. We have the finest medieval churches in the country: in every single village in my constituency there are wonderful expressions of piety, faith and hope, built hundreds of years ago. I sympathise with the Church of England, which has to maintain that huge structure. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley has asked the Government to do many things. I think that even this wonderful Minister may find it difficult to recreate this country as a faith-loving community, but one thing that the Government can do is to help and enable the Church of England to preserve that amazing heritage. In France, for instance, all churches built before 1900 are funded by the state. The Church of England is on its own, which is a tremendous burden. It is to be commended for keeping this wonderful architectural heritage going.

I will, again, make a gentle criticism of the Church of England. I am very much on the side of the Save the Parish movement and on the side of the Church of England putting whatever resources it has into the parish ministry. There is some criticism that in the Church of England, resources are being diverted away from the parishes and into the centre, and too many people are being hired at the centre.

To give one example, the diocese of York is advertising for a racial justice education adviser. The job specification elaborates that the role will cover unconscious bias and diversity training. The concept of “unconscious bias” has no evidential basis in scientific, psychological or medical research. It has been years since the Government dropped it from the civil service. In 2020, the Government Equalities Office commissioned the behavioural insights team to summarise the evidence on unconscious bias and diversity training. Its report highlighted that

Thank you for calling me to speak in this significant debate in Westminster Hall, Dr Huq. I again commend my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for calling this debate as we approach the Eastertide period. May I also say what a privilege it is to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)? Throughout his many years in this House, he has demonstrated clear Christian leadership in so many areas of British life. I thank him for the service he has given to this House and to our country, always standing up for the Christian heritage of the United Kingdom. It is that which I want to refer to today, because the title of this debate is Easter, Christian culture and heritage.

We can talk about religion, and we have done, and so we should—my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley rightly made that the focus of his speech—but the cultural side is also vital. Not everybody in these islands considers themselves to be Christian: many have no faith; many have different faiths; many are unsure where they stand. However, I believe that what most people stand strongly for is the upholding of the heritage that goes with the Christian faith—the culture; our customs; our way of life; our laws, which are founded on Christian teachings; our constitution; our monarchy; our flag. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough mentioned, all the great national symbols of this nation have Christian symbols embedded within them. One only needs to look at the crown that His Majesty wore in the coronation, only a year ago. On the top of that crown is a cross. It is there for a purpose, because it signifies the foundations of our society.

We have an established Church, and I am glad we do, because having the Church of England as our established Church protects all other religions and denominations to worship freely in a free society without being persecuted, belittled, sidelined or attacked in any way. We have a society in which freedom of religion is cherished and protected under the rule of law. Having an established Church prevents sectarianism and prevents different religions from vying for power or domination, because everyone accepts that our King is the head of the Church, and that the Christian faith has made the foundations of our society. Everybody can worship freely under that framework. That is why I strongly support the Church of England as both the religious leadership of this country and part of the culture of our nation.

I was struck by the fact that my hon. Friend described Christianity as a source and not an addition, a bolt-on or a replaceable extra in the culture and heritage of our country.

My hon. Friend is exactly right, and that brings me to some of the points that I would like to make.

Christianity is everywhere around us. We may not be a Christian; there are people who are not Christians, but the Christian culture of British society is everywhere, and to remove that would undermine the foundations of our society. One only needs to think back in history. The Vikings came to these islands a thousand years ago, but it was the Christian faith that united England under the banner of King Alfred and then of King Æthelstan. It is St George who is the embodiment of England, and we will be celebrating St George’s day on 23 April. As chairman of the Houses of Parliament branch of the Royal Society of Saint George, I will be hosting, I hope, an event in Parliament for all Members to celebrate the heritage of England. That includes hon. Friends from other parts of these islands, especially Scotland.

Of course, our national anthem is a prayer itself—a prayer to God. The de facto anthem of England is, of course, “Jerusalem”. It is not officially recognised, but nevertheless I think “Jerusalem” is the hymn that most people sing when we celebrate England, and English heritage and culture. Of course, our monarch is anointed in Westminster Abbey, and our royal motto translates to “God and my right”.

The Bible has transformed the way our civilisation has operated, through law, governance, art, architecture and so many other areas of life. It has shaped the way all Britons—everybody in this country, including those with no religion—think about family, community and morality. It was through the lens of the Christian faith that we were the first nation on the planet not only to outlaw slavery permanently, but to enforce that ban worldwide through the West Africa Squadron.

We do indeed have a proud history, based on our Christian heritage and our Christian customs—long may they continue. But it has not always been quite so straightforward. I have been a Member of Parliament for 23 years. In my second year as a Member of Parliament, there was almost outrage when some local authorities suggested that the hot cross bun should be banned, can you believe? I remember it happening; I think it was in 2003. There was political correctness even then. I think it is probably worse today: anything can offend anybody, and that is dangerous because then we lose our heritage.

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, which I wanted to raise earlier. It is very important that we should defend the right of people to speak their mind freely about religion. So, we should defend the right of Richard Dawkins, atheist, to attack religious people or religions in general. We have got to also defend the right of religious people to have their space, whether it is Orthodox Jews, or devout Muslims, or evangelical Christians. We must also defend the right of people, not just to attack religion or religious people in general, but also to criticise particular religions. There is a sort of dumbing down of debate and people are afraid, increasingly, to express their viewpoint, but in a vigorous democracy there must be this freedom of expression.