Dear Editor,
There is a well-trodden and modish political trend which imagines that one can separate the religious content of Christianity from what poses as an ethical and cultural framework of values labelled ‘Christian’.
I presume an agnostic ‘cultural Christian’ is a person who does not know if they can believe or trust in the supernatural nature of Jesus Christ, but who feels they can endorse the teachings Jesus embodied in the way He lived his life as a man. This is how the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, is said to identify herself. Socially, ‘cultural Christianity’ is recognised as an acceptable working template for being received as ethically respectable. Hence, Rishi Sunak was respected as having traditional Hindu values.
Politically, if not religiously, everyone has the inclusive right to define how their choice of values is to be respected. I wonder, therefore, if values represent not religious convictions but arbitrary opinions about religious convictions? C.S. Lewis did not equate values with opinions when I think he suggested that we are no more capable of creating a new value than we are capable of creating a new primary colour.
Yours sincerely,
Kevin Bettany, Stoke-on-Trent
