| TWENTY years ago this week, the Berlin Wall was breached. Thousands spilled across the checkpoints where previously so many had died in a desperate bit for freedom. That raw and visceral cry of liberty broke through the barriers of Communist repression, and history was made.
That same year, the American academic Francis Fukuyama declared that history was at an end. His point was that liberal democracy was the highest form of government, and, because of this, history had nowhere else to go.
Since Professor Fukuyama wrote his celebrated essay, world history has remained frustratingly “interesting”. New forms of totalitarianism — often religious in character — have risen up to challenge the freedoms that Professor Fukuyama was keen to celebrate and whose victory he announced prematurely.
All of this is why I had my head in my hands when I read the words of the new Bishop of Peterborough, the Ven. Donald Allister, currently Archdeacon of Chester. “Liberalism is one of Satan’s greatest weapons against the Church,” he wrote a few years back.
To be fair, at the press conference to announce his episcopate he did what all new bishops do and said that he found labels “unhelpful”. But that cannot have been his view when he wrote: “I am very happy to work with Anglo-Catholics in fighting battles against liberalism, but the day must come when we need to fight against the ritualism and sacramentalism which they have introduced into the Church of England.”
Why do people so consistently fail to understand the idea of liberalism? Liberalism is not a wishy-washy style of biblical interpretation, or an indifference to biblical truth — although the Bishop’s advice here is pretty amazing: “If in doubt what a passage means or how it applies we will believe it literally and obey it absolutely.” What about Psalm 137 verse 9?
No, liberalism is a commitment to human freedom and a hatred of authoritarianism. That is why many of us celebrate the Reformation as an emancipation from the abuses of Roman authority. To describe liberalism as satanic is to align oneself with flag-burning ayatollahs who chant against the United States as the “great Satan” and against Israel as the “little Satan”.
Professor Fukuyama celebrated the triumph of liberal democracy far too early. He did not spot the resistance to it from religious belief. This is why the battles within religion are now the front line in the defence of human freedom. What is extraordinary to me is that people whose very way of life is premised upon the liberties inherent in liberal democracy can speak of it as satanic.
The Revd Dr Giles Fraser is Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral and Director of the St Paul’s Institute. |
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