Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, recently explained (in an interview for the BBC series Political Thinking) that she doesn’t wish to be defined by her religion any more than by her ethnicity (she’s from Nigeria). She had already explained why she isn’t a Christian – interestingly, it was the problem of evil, expressed in the case of the frightful Josef Fritzl, that caused her loss of faith – but she has attracted rather less attention for a speech last month in which she explained the influence that Christianity has had on her. In the Wilberforce Lecture last month (November), which Conservative leaders have given in memory of the great campaigner for the abolition of slavery, she outlined the ways in which the faith has affected her politics. It turns out that it is much the same aspects – of self-reliance, care for family and community, and paying debts – which appeal to her as appealed to Margaret Thatcher.
Indeed, in her lecture, she pointedly quoted Margaret Thatcher’s observation that the Good Samaritan is remembered because he could do good, for he had money to spend. She showed a genuine familiarity with Scripture; unsurprising for the grandchild of a Methodist pastor. But her choice of quotation was very much conditioned by her political philosophy.
She dwelt first on her family background:
“The influence of Christianity in my life is not an abstract subject. It is personal. I was raised in Nigeria by Christian parents and their faith meant duty, responsibility and stewardship. These are Christian values which have shaped my Conservatism. Those values are deeply rooted in my family. My paternal grandmother was a Muslim who chose to become a Christian. She witnessed a miracle, or she certainly believed that it was, when my father was very ill and she thought he was going to die. A priest came over and laid his hands on him and healed him. My grandmother believed that this must be the one true God and she converted from Islam to Christianity.”
This Muslim grandmother who became a Christian has not been something she has dwelt on since becoming party leader. But the Catholic element in her life comes from her husband, Hamish, who is a Catholic; their three children have been baptised as Catholics. Or as she put it: “I’ve given the Catholic Church three children… I’ve done my part. And every day, I see this religious tradition expressed in how we live our lives.”
She identified the influence of Christianity in the party’s philosophy:
“Not only has Christianity inspired our island story, I believe it has also shaped the Conservative tradition, and we must not let it go. Our party is the fortunate custodian of a practical philosophy, shaped by three Christian ideas that have stood the test of time. The first is Stewardship, that what we inherit we hold in trust for those who come after us. The second is the dignity of work and responsibility, that effort should lead to reward, and that rights come with duties. And the third is Compassion through community, that care is best rooted in family, in faith and in the local ties that bind us, with the state as a safety net, not as a first resort.”
It’s always interesting to see what scripture texts a politician quotes, and Kemi’s bear out her insistence on self-reliance:
“In Scripture”, she says, “we see the virtue of living within our means. In the Second Book of Kings, Elisha tells a widow: ‘Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons live on the rest.’ The message is simple and profound: clear the liabilities, live on what remains.”
Kemi insists, “There is a very strong Christian case for fiscal responsibility…. As Margaret Thatcher put it: ‘No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions, he had money as well.’ Prudence is what makes compassion possible.” It is a very Methodist view – Mrs Thatcher too was a Methodist.
Similarly, her view of “responsibility and the dignity of work” is framed by scripture.
“In the Parable of the Talents”, she says, “a master rewards servants who wisely use and grow what they are given and condemns the one who does nothing with his gift. For a very, very long time, I never understood why that last servant was condemned. I just thought: Well, he didn’t do anything wrong. Why not just leave him alone? Now, having been in government for five years, I understand why it is important to make sure that people work, that people are productive. That parable is a reminder that success is a product of work and risk-taking. St Paul, in the First Epistle to Timothy, proclaims that: ‘Anyone who does not provide for his own household… is worse than an unbeliever.’ Those are strong words. This is the Christian recognition that we all have duties to ourselves, to our families, and to the communities we are part of. Conservatives believe in making work pay, in rewarding risk, in ensuring effort matches reward.” The surprise was that she did not go on to quote St Paul saying that “he who does not work, let him not eat”, which is even stronger.
Her omissions are also interesting. Critics might observe that Christ also taught in the most emphatic manner that riches are themselves an impediment to salvation; “Woe to you rich,” and referred in Luke 16 to money as “that tainted thing”. There’s none of that in her speech.
Kemi also has her own take on Christ’s call for workers at the harvest: “When Jesus tells his followers: ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few…’ it is a call to mobilise, to step forward, to serve. Britain has talent and potential in every town. Our task is to remove the barriers that keep people idle when there is work to be done.” Well, indeed, but Christ’s call was for labourers in the spiritual harvest of souls rather than in the private sector; invoking the Lord in the cause of hard work is an idiosyncratic interpretation.
Then she discusses her third value: compassion through community. “The Christian story teaches that love of neighbour is lived close to home, in families who care, in churches that organise, in volunteers who give up their time without asking for reward. Yes, the state matters. No decent society abandons those with severe needs. But a healthy society equips people to care for themselves.”
Well, the Christian story teaches rather more than that: loving your neighbour as yourself is a far bigger ask than any political party requires of individuals. But at least Kemi knows her scripture – like so many from an African background – to quote it so fluently. And so very few contemporary politicians do.
She concludes with a rousing affirmation of the value of Christian values, taken from a Conservative perspective.
“The influence of Christianity on Conservative thinking is not about imposing belief. It is about recognising that Britain flourished most when it took seriously the virtues Christianity helped embed. It is our history, it is our tradition, it is our inheritance. We must not disavow Christianity. Duty before entitlement. Truth over convenience. Love of neighbour, expressed in the service of others. Mercy with justice.”
So, in laying claim to Christian values as the moral underpinning of the Tory party, Kemi may be trying to return to basics a party which has for quite some time seemed to have lost touch with its own roots. It is striking that Sir Keir Starmer, an atheist whose mother was a regular churchgoer, has never sought to restore the Christian values of the Labour Party, which, as was said, owed more to Methodism than to Marx. The truth is that all the main parties in Britain were profoundly influenced by Christianity – there was no more combative Christian than the Liberal William Gladstone – but that debt is insufficiently acknowledged in the present generation of political leaders. Kemi Badenoch, in paying tribute to William Wilberforce, is usefully reminding her party of what used to be axiomatic: that Christianity provides the moral underpinning of the nation, and without this influence, it’s not just the Tory party that is rootless and adrift.
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