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Politicians now do God, says Theos

by Ed Beavan

POLITICIANS in the UK are increas­ingly “doing God”, new research released by Theos, a public theology think tank, has revealed.

Alistair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor, famously answered on behalf of Tony Blair that “We don’t do God,” when an inter­viewer questioned Mr Blair about his Christian faith. But Theos’s findings suggest that the opposite is true.

Its research, based on analysing speeches made by the three main party-leaders at their annual confer­ences over the last ten years, high­lights a steady increase in religious language, particularly after 9/11.

In 1998 there were nine religious references during the party leaders’ speeches, but by 2006 this had gone up to 32, peaking in 2001 with 53 references. Mr Blair and Gordon Brown made a total of 98 religious ref­er­ences in party-conference speeches over the past decade, compared with 65 by the Tories, and 23 by the Liberal Demo­crats.

Mr Blair made the most allusions to religion in his party conference speeches from 1998 to 2007, while the current Prime Minister tops the list with an average of 14 religious references per speech, compared to 8.3 per speech by David Cameron, and three by the former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell.

The think-tank’s analysis also found that the tone of the religious references was overwhelmingly posi­tive (69 per cent), but the religious rhetoric was much more subtle than that used by politicians in the United States.

For example, in the UK, God is referred to just seven times in the 30 speeches analysed, compared to George W. Bush, who mentioned God in 94 per cent of his presidential speeches in the first six years in the White House.

The study incorporated both direct religious references, with words such as church, Bible, and Islam, in addition to religious rheto­ric such as blessing, prayer, mission, and salvation.

  The director of Theos, Paul Woolley, said that British politicians could not afford to ignore the contribution of faith groups in society today.

“It’s interesting how Tony Blair and Gordon Brown talk about themselves in relation to religion and religious values, and Gordon Brown seems to be more confident talking about God on personal terms, and the fact that he is a product of his father’s sermons.

“Politicians are also recognising that religious groups buck the trend and are still involved in community work, particularly in deprived areas.

“The Church still has a really important role to play in the volun­tary sector, and politicians cannot ignore that.

“But since Jimmy Carter, Presi­dents in the US have talked about God much more, and atheism would be political suicide; while here, Nick Clegg has gone on record that he is an atheist.”

Christian Socialist moves on. Andrew Bradstock, the director of the Christian Socialist Movement, is to leave his post at the end of the year. He has been appointed Professor of Public Theology at the University of Otago in New Zealand.



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