Christian world leaders are becoming extinct

And we won't know what we've lost 'til it's gone, writes George Pitcher

Barely a month seems to pass without some survey telling us that church attendance is in freefall, the irreligious now outnumber the faithful, that there will be a Muslim majority in the UK before all of us currently alive are dead, or that most educated people are atheist.

Those of us with some sense of history don’t want to sound complacent, so we refrain from pointing out that we’ve had it worse, as we came out of the Reformation and through the Enlightenment in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, for instance.

But “it could be worse” is never a satisfactory comfort, far less a rallying call. Far better, perhaps, to point away from the tired old relics of empire towards the southern hemisphere, where the faithful prosper, if in many cases in need of their own reformations. There we can find the cradle of hope.

Behind you!

We’re still distracting attention from the parlous state of religious observance in what we used to call, deeply patronisingly, the Civilised West. The most alarming aspect of which, for me, is the almost total lack of Christian leaders. For once, I don’t mean leaders of the Church, who are notable in their absence (in the reformed traditions at any rate – Pope Leo XIV is a very encouraging prospect).

Not even culturally Christian

Look around, for a moment, for a western world leader who professes the Christian faith on which politics and society were founded. Where are they? We may not reasonably expect them regularly to be on their knees, but it’s hard even to identify any that we might call culturally Christian, self-confessedly steeped in the ethos and heritage of the faith.

We don’t, please, need to dwell on president Donald Trump. Those with a brain will readily acknowledge that he doesn’t have one. Faith, that is. No amount of posing with a bible outside a church as Washington riots, or praying with the Evangelical Right in exchange for votes, can conceal the arrant contempt for softies who speak of loving our neighbours. Name your favourite bible verse, Mr President? Nada.

Truly a foreign country

Enough of him. The American past truly feels a foreign country, where we did things differently. Barack Obama, with his softly spoken public morality, that compass clutched firmly in the palm of his hand. George W Bush, rumoured to have prayed with British PM Tony Blair before the Iraq war (admittedly, that didn’t turn out too well).

Difficult to think of an American president who didn’t check in with their faith. Joe Biden and John F Kennedy, both observant Roman Catholics. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, Southern Baptists. Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower, Presbyterians. Franklin Roosevelt and George Washington, Episcopalians. Even sceptic Abraham Lincoln was a biblical scholar. For all their faults, none was the golden bull we have now.

Christian ethos gone

In the UK, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer is an atheist, a marked change from his predecessors. Rishi Sunak is a Hindu. Liz Truss and Boris Johnson don’t count, in so many ways. Where is the quiet Christian ethos of Theresa May, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher, Harold Macmillan? Gone. Even Blair, secretly Anglican in office, Roman Catholic thereafter. Vain warmongers can be saved too.

President Emmanuel Macron of France is agnostic; his opposite number in Spain, Pedro Sanchez, is an outspoken atheist. Admittedly, German chancellor Friedrich Merz continues the Christian-Democratic tradition of Angela Merkel, but it feels rather like he’s holding the line. Especially when Georgia Meloni in Italy seems to be the kind of Catholic who puts the father in fatherland, rather than in holy father.

It all follows the secular fashion and politicians need to be secular if they are to garner today’s voters. But, then again, Christian leaders have been respected for their conscience, even when their faith is spoken softly and even by those electors who don’t share it.

Nurture of family

Such leaders and voters have recognised that western societies and political systems are built on Christian foundations. Our systems of law; respect for and protection of the individual; blind and impartial justice. Universal health provision and education; literacy and defence of childhood. The nurture of family as the societal nucleus. The primacy of love over hate; welcome of the stranger. They know where all this stuff comes from, even if they decline to worship it.

There is cause for hope. Among friends, there are many who have no faith – who would even like to have it, but can’t find a way to do so – who will also readily say that they’re very glad it’s there, among us. Its social cohesiveness, its pastoral care, its witness to the joy and sorrow of human lives. It may very well be that some of this is making Gen Z more than curious.

And yet, at the time of writing, the UK’s Starmer is talking of joining the US’s Trump in bombing the people of Iran into democracy. Again, how did that go with Iraq? Leaders with no depth. Truly, we don’t don’t know what we’ve lost ‘til it’s gone.

George Pitcher is a visiting fellow at the LSE and an Anglican priest