Bishop Gavin Ashenden on the State of the Nation

Editorial Introduction: In the first of a two-part interview by Randall Hardy, the former Queen’s Chaplain Gavin Ashenden gives his perspective on the spiritual state of Britain.

Part 1: Counting the Cost

RH: Many people/Christians in the West are confused by the rapid changes which are happening in society. What is your understanding of the times in which we live?

GA: We’ve been used to a period when Christianity has profoundly influenced the world we’ve lived in, but its influence has ebbed and flowed, so we’ve had, if you like, almost eddies of influence. To continue with that metaphor and to use tide instead, the tide of Christian influence is in our day running out fast and the extent to which it’s run out has surprised everybody.

It’s almost as if Christian influence has crumbled overnight for some of us, in the last couple of decades, in a way that would have been shocking if we could have foreseen it. So I think the effect it’s had on us is to challenge our assumption that we could take the Christianisation of our culture for granted.

We clearly can’t, and its disintegration in our own lives has been a cultural and spiritual shock, and I think also a theological warning.

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Watch: John Anderson in a wide ranging conversation with the Rt. Rev’d Dr Gavin Ashenden, a former Chaplain to the Queen. They discuss where our democratic freedoms come from, what the contemporary threats to them are, and what we can do to safeguard them.