A Cathedral Without a Creed.

There was a period, not especially long ago, when sections of the western right regarded organised Christianity as faintly embarrassing. Churches were soft. Clergy were progressive. Bishops apologised for things. Public religion belonged somewhere between suburban moderation and elderly women arranging flowers near the altar.

Then, quite suddenly, Christianity returned.

Not necessarily Christ, which is a different matter entirely, but Christianity itself. The branding. The architecture. The civilisational atmosphere of it all.

Across the United States, Britain, parts of Europe and increasingly Australia, political movements which once treated religion as an optional cultural accessory now speak of Christianity with the urgency of men rediscovering sandbags during flood season. Podcasters discuss cathedrals. Commentators announce conversions. Atheists defend Christian civilisation. Politicians invoke “Judeo-Christian values” with the solemnity of people reciting terms and conditions they have not actually read.

One notices that these conversations tend to revolve around immigration, borders, masculinity, national decline and Islam considerably more often than they revolve around the Gospels.

This is not entirely new. Politics has always borrowed religion when useful. Rome itself eventually discovered that Christianity worked rather well as an organising principle once the lions became administratively inconvenient. Kings, empires and political movements have spent centuries wrapping themselves in divine legitimacy. What feels different now is the oddly secular character of the revival. Many of the loudest defenders of Christian civilisation appear curiously uninterested in Christianity itself.

A genuinely Christian politics would have awkward things to say about wealth, punishment, refugees, pride, mercy, vengeance, public piety, sexual morality, forgiveness and empire. The New Testament is not especially tidy material for nationalist politics. Christ spends a surprising amount of time with social outsiders and an alarming amount of time criticising the religiously self-assured.

This creates certain practical difficulties for modern culture wars.

What much of this new “cultural Christianity” appears to want instead is borders without the Sermon on the Mount, hierarchy without humility, morality without repentance, civilisation without transcendence, and Christian identity without Christ himself becoming inconvenient.

The tension becomes clearest in figures who openly admit they do not particularly believe any of it. Richard Dawkins now describes himself as a cultural Christian despite remaining entirely unconvinced by Christianity’s central claims. Christianity, in this formulation, becomes less a faith than a preferred historical ambience. The resurrection may be doubtful, but the cathedrals are nice and the alternative religions foreign.

In Australia, Pauline Hanson occupies a similarly revealing position, although arguably a more honest one. Hanson has never especially presented herself as a devout Christian in the theological sense. Christianity appears instead as cultural inheritance, social glue and territorial marker. It functions as a heritage fence around a particular vision of Australia. One gets the impression that she regards Christianity in much the same way Australians regard ANZAC biscuits: traditional, familiar, vaguely sacred and best defended from unnecessary alteration.

The interesting question is whether Christianity can survive this process intact. If Christianity becomes merely civilisational identity, does it remain Christianity at all, or simply western heritage draped in biblical language?

There is also something faintly imported about much of this performance in Australia. American conservative religiosity arrives here with the slightly awkward energy of a franchise opening beside a regional service station. Australia has historically been a fairly secular country whose conservatism tended toward practical concerns rather than theological crusades. The sudden appearance of culture warriors discussing Christian nationalism with podcast intensity can feel less like spiritual awakening than ideological freight arriving through customs.

Still, Christianity remains politically useful. It offers moral vocabulary, historical continuity, aesthetic grandeur and a ready-made distinction between civilisation and whatever stands outside the gates. One can understand the attraction. The difficulty is that Christ himself remains an unusually unstable figure to place at the centre of nationalist politics. He speaks too often about mercy. Too often about wealth. Too often about loving enemies, forgiving debts and caring for people society would prefer remain elsewhere. He is not especially reliable as a border security mascot.

Jesus remains highly useful to modern politics provided he stays symbolic and does not return to discussing the rich, the poor, forgiveness or loving one’s enemies.

Christianity may yet survive being turned into a civilisational mascot. It has survived Rome, empires, kings and televangelists. Still, one imagines Christ would recognise the type: very concerned with defending Christianity, and rather less enthusiastic about following it.

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The views expressed are those of the correspondent. Factual claims draw on publicly available sources.