Faith in the city: Anglican political theology and the strange death of the neo-liberal order

We know, and what is better we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society - Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.

We seem to be witnessing the strange death of the liberal order.  It was only in 1992 that neo-liberalism was boasting of the end of history.  Markets, globalism, democratic capitalism, liberal individualism had triumphed.

Now neo-liberalism appears to be politically and culturally exhausted.  It defenders acclaim its successes.  They point to the global living standards rising, delivering millions from grinding poverty, the result of open markets and free trade.  Arguments which are based on economic determinism, however, are failing.  They fail because we do not live by bread alone.

The Washington Post review of Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed, expresses it this way:

That’s the heart of it, really. Liberalism is loneliness. The state isn’t our sibling; the market won’t be our mate. And the more either the right or left’s solutions attempt to fill in the gaps - “more markets, for you to attempt to buy back what has been destroyed! More regulations, to protect you when you can’t!” - the more obvious it becomes that the entire concept is flawed. The institution of liberalism is caving in on itself, and we each individually feel the crush.

And so, other forces arise to address our loneliness.  Darker forces which only a short time ago seemed banished to the ash heap of history.  The hammer and sickle again fly.  'Blood and soil' are again invoked.  They attract support because the neo-liberalism of centre-Left and centre-Right assumes we are merely homo economicus.  We are not.  We do not live by bread alone.

This is why political theology is particularly essential at this juncture in the Church's mission and witness.  A failure to articulate a vibrant, compelling political theology - what the Creed means for the commonwealth - means that the Church either colludes with a collapsing liberal order or tolerates those darker forces offering alternatives.  (One aspect of this toleration is elements within the Church embracing the anti-Semitism shared by Hard Left and Far Right, as this Living Church article highlights.)

In this context, this tweet - by Yoram Horzany, author of The Virtue of Nationalism - is quite striking:

I find this shocking: More than one Protestant scholar has told me recently that Protestantism doesn’t have the resources to offer America an alternative political theory. One said: “The Catholics and the Jews will have to do it.”

— Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) November 29, 2017

Anglicanism has significantly rich resources when it comes to political theology.  Only a wilful ignorance of our own tradition would lead to this situation and an inability to articulate a vision of the commonwealth at a time when the culture is seeking for a richer, 'thicker', account of our common life - akin to what Andrew Davison has termed "an attractive, sane and wise account of reason, embedded in an attractive, sane and wise account of being human".

It is this which is provided in the rich tradition of Anglican political theology.  It is seen in the Book of Homilies expounding how the duties of spouse, subject, and neighbour were lived out with caritas. It is seen in Richard Hooker's concern for the flourishing and well-being of the commonwealth in The Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity, described by Russell Kirk as his "understanding of the benign character of law, of historical and cultural continuity, and of prudent toleration". It is seen in Edmund Burke, who, as J.C.D. Clark brilliantly illustrated, is a spokesperson for the "sophisticated tradition of Anglican political theology".  (It is worth noting that Burke has significance for the Left as well as the Right - see articles by Adrian Pabst here and here.)

In the 20th century, we might point to the contrasting thought and witness of William Temple and George Grant.  Chris Baker notes Temple's vision of "a deeper political and cultural life", while Ron Dart interprets Grant as articulating an understanding of the commonwealth grounded in "the Laudian magisterial Anglican way".  Amongst contemporary Anglican theologians, Oliver O'Donovan - not least in his The Desire of the Nations - and John Milbank - for example, his Beyond Secular Order - are offering a robust, challenging political theology which decisively exposes the fundamental weaknesses of the 'anti-Christendom' trend of the late 20th century.  In the words of Milbank, "The promotion of Christianity as a modern privatised belief-system has failed. The only option now for Christians is to seek to restore it as a system of finite order and rule directed to the eternal: Christendom".

All of which makes the comments reported by Yoram Horzany - almost certainly not unique to the United States - an indictment of contemporary Anglicanism.  The resources within our tradition of political theology are rich and (to use that word from Clark) sophisticated.  They offer an account of the commonwealth, of rights, duties and obligations, of solidarity, of authority that can speak to an age witnessing fragmentation, disillusion, confusion, and cynicism.

Above all, they enable contemporary Anglican churches to proclaim the Good News for the commonwealth. In the words of Oliver O'Donovan:

The community-building love that the Creator has set in all human hearts, and that makes even Hell a city, will always need redemptive love if it is to realize its own capacities.  Secular community has no ground of its own on whuch it may simply exist apart.  It is either opened up to its fulfillment in God's love, or it is shut down, as its purchase on reality drains away.

(The depiction is of Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, who - after the normal manner of the Holy Roman Emperors - nominated and installed bishops of Rome.  The painting is Euan Uglow, 'Church in the City', c.1955.)