Critics of nationalism have a responsibility to understand what is attracting people to it and point them towards a better path, Lord Biggar has suggested.
The Oxford theology professor called the emergence of Christian nationalism, first in the US and now Britain, a “novel phenomenon” and said it may be “evidence of a kind of spiritual hunger”.
While noting concerns that Christianity could be used “to bless forms of politics that are xenophobic [and] anti-immigrant”, he stressed that he did not “know enough about the nature of the Christianity they’re developing to be able to judge”.
He found helpful the comments of an Anglican vicar on the subject who he said had suggested that even if some nationalists were "misguided", it was nonetheless important to "understand the grievance" behind their views and "redirect them".
Lord Biggar was speaking during a UCL panel discussion on disagreeing well. While describing himself as “a natural British patriot”, he insisted that nations should never be treated as though they are divine.
“Nations are not divine, and nations can become thoroughly corrupt,” he said.
On the question of whether religious leaders should take a public political stand, especially where it appears to speak on behalf of an entire church or denomination, Lord Biggar urged caution, saying: “In my church, there are a wide variety of political views, and so for bishops to stand up and take a particular policy position representing the whole church - they're leaving parts of their congregation behind.
“That said, I think religious leaders may well want to promote particular principles, but [they need] to be careful about making concrete judgements because, whether it’s defence or welfare or whatever, not many religious leaders … are well informed to make good judgements.”
Lord Biggar suggested Christians must exercise humility and remain open to challenge and correction when expressing their individual political convictions.
He suggested, “You get to go to the public forum and say it as you see it [but] just behave. You’re not God. You may have precious things to bring from your traditions - precious moral insights, a precious understanding of the nature of human being.
“That’s great, but you also need to listen because you don't have the whole truth. God is the God of the whole world and He will speak through whom He wills, and it may not be one of your own.”
Lord Biggar called for a genuinely plural public square in which religious voices are free to participate while remaining humble enough to listen.
“We want a properly liberal, plural public space where religious people come to say what they think in their own terms,” he said.
Asked whether religious traditions still possess the moral objectivity to critique political tribes, including those they may naturally sympathise with, Lord Biggar argued that Christianity requires precisely that kind of self-examination.
“The danger is religion can corrupt politics when religious people forget they’re not God and start to behave in an autocratic fashion,” he said, although he warned equally that politics can corrupt religion if faith loses the “critical distance” needed to challenge political movements.
Lord Biggar also reflected on the tension between political realism and religious idealism.
“Religion is about ideals; politics is about what's possible and compromise,” he said, adding that he was critical of religion that refuses to contend with the realities of political life.
“I want to kind of marry an honest grappling with political realities whilst maintaining moral principles,” he said. “You can have religion that is irresponsibly idealistic [and] you can have politics that is irresponsibly immoral.”
Lord Biggar argued that belief in God places humanity in its proper moral position.
“I think one of the great benefits of believing in God is you’re less tempted to mistake yourself for one.
“There’s this distinction between God and myself. What that means is: I know I don’t have the whole truth. I know I’m not morally perfect,” he said.
That distinction between Creator and creature, he argued, makes Christians accountable to a moral order beyond themselves and cultivates humility and a willingness to be “corrected by anybody", rather than certainty.
He rejected the idea, though, that Christians should withdraw from politics altogether.
“I think it’s really important for us to contend for a just and healthy political organisation,” he said.
Elsewhere in the discussion, Lord Biggar argued for limits on tolerance when it comes to attempts on university campuses to silence or intimidate people with different viewpoints. He was especially critical of a recent incident at Oxford University in which a four-part lecture series on gender law and single-sex spaces was disrupted by pro-trans protesters and eventually cancelled.
“My view is that the university should have said: okay, we’ve heard your protest, but you cannot protest in such a fashion that this guy is no longer free to speak and these people are no longer free to hear,” he said.
“So yes, [there should be] tolerance, but when citizens are not being physically tolerant of other people, authorities have to intervene and say ‘enough’.”
The panel brought together different faith leaders in exploring how religious communities should engage in public life without becoming captive to political ideology, and what role truth, tolerance, compromise and moral responsibility have to play in an increasingly polarised society.
There was a broad consensus among speakers that when religion becomes detached from moral values and swaps universal concern with tribalism, it could become a tool for advancing personal ambition or group interests over the common good.
Chairing the discussion, Rev Professor Keith Magee, senior fellow at the UCL Centre for US Politics, noted that from a historical perspective religion and politics have never existed independently of one another. Instead, both have inspired movements for justice and liberation, while also at times being used to justify oppression and reinforce injustice.
Instead of asking whether religion and politics should be separated entirely, he suggested the more pressing question was: “What happens when power meets conscience” and when either religion or politics “forgets its ethical responsibilities”?
“Both religion and politics are profound human enterprises; both are capable of elevating our common life and both are capable of distorting it,” he said.
“The challenge then is not to protect religion from politics or politics from religion. It is to cultivate institutions and people whose moral imagination is large enough to hold conviction without coercion, difference without hostility, and disagreement without dehumanisation.”
Lord Biggar acknowledged that religion has at times contributed to violence throughout history but cautioned against treating it as uniquely responsible.
“Religion sometimes deserves to be in the dock [but] so does non-religion,” he said, pointing to atrocities committed under atheist regimes including those of Stalin and Pol Pot.
In his closing remarks, UCL President and Provost Dr Michael Spence reflected on one idea that surfaced again and again during the discussion: “The deep importance of epistemic humility [and] the deep importance of the capacity to admit that we might be wrong.”
