Toby Young Toby Young

Yes, Britain is a Christian country

David Cameron is right — the evidence is overwhelming

The Passion of Jesus is performed on Good Friday to crowds in Trafalgar Square [Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images] 
issue 26 April 2014

I can’t say it was a great surprise to read a letter from a group of well-known authors, academics, comedians and politicians in the Telegraph earlier this week complaining about David Cameron’s description of Britain as a ‘Christian country’. As a general rule, any acknowledgment of Britain’s Christian heritage has members of the liberal intelligentsia reaching for their keyboards and angrily typing out words like ‘sectarian’, ‘alienation’ and ‘division’.

As Harry Cole argued in a blog post for The Spectator, the evidence that Britain is a Christian country is overwhelming. We have an established church, our head of state is also the defender of the faith and 59 per cent of us define ourselves as ‘Christian’. So why does the secular left feel obliged to deny this every time someone points it out?

No doubt it has something to do with a concern for the 41 per cent of Britons who don’t see themselves as Christians.

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