There is a fairly strong line in denying ourselves comfort for the sake of the gospel and very little that would lead to the conclusion of encouraging Christian morals apart from actual conversion to make life easier or to aid the spread of the gospel or anything like it. Are these cultural matters really being encouraged and applauded by believers for the sake of the gospel or, if we’re really being honest, is it because they will make our life that much easier?

There has been a lot of talk of late of the turning of the religious tide. New Atheism – that once beguiled students up and down the land – seems to be imploding. Secularist Atheism/Agnosticism, that has for so long, been the assumed default of most modern Brits, seems to giving way to a more religious, particularly Christian-leaning, openness. For many Christians, as far as the culture is concerned, the signs seem to be encouraging.

I don’t wish to dampen any enthusiasm on that front. If more people in the public eye, and more intellectual-types, are increasingly finding Christianity to be something more than the mere punchline for a joke, that isn’t an altogether bad thing. If some are even willing to align themselves as at least “culturally Christian” whilst others are willing to go much further and simply assert they are now Christian – something that would have been unheard of just 10 or 15 years ago and would be tantamount to signing your career suicide note (just ask Cliff Richard) – that surely isn’t a bad thing, is it? Certainly, if it curbs some of the excesses of the liberal atheistic cultural hegemony we’ve experienced over the last 30 years, that will be welcome. We have lived now with the hyper-individualism run rampant, the expunging of any mention or expression of religion from public view whilst giving a hall pass on the philosophical assumptions underlying Atheistic Secularism, the undoing of community and the general denigration of anything deemed ‘establishment’ even if it was established for good reason whilst considering any and all progress to be beneficial and the rest. If more and more in our culture are reconsidering these assumptions and questioning the fruit of them, at an absolute minimum, it may begin to make being a Christian in our culture a little easier.

Much as we may insist otherwise, it is hard not to conclude that this really lies behind much of the enthusiasm from Christian quarters. Indeed, the Christian Nationalist types – and those who eschew the label but track with much of the argument of many of it adherents and adjacent affirming voices – often seem to be pushing for their vision out of a sense of life being made easier. Wouldn’t just be easier if the country affirmed our values more broadly and we didn’t have to keep running into all those difficult conversations about what weddings it’s okay to go to and whether we can live with some of the things our schools are saying to our children? Wouldn’t it be great if we got rid of lots of a values that we rub up against that make our life difficult? And there is no denying that such would make life more comfortable. If we can just make everyone see the world like us, everything would be so much better. By which it is often meant, more comfortable for me.

And it is this beguiling idol that so often drives the latest political push.

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