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Religion and Politics: Churchill and the Theologico-Political Problem
- By BEN R. CRENSHAW
- | December 17, 2021
- Category: Churchill and Religion Explore Understanding Churchill
“Winston S. Churchill and the Theologico-Political Problem” is condensed from a research paper for the Hillsdale College course “Studies in Statesmanship,” conducted by Dr. Larry P. Arnn. The unabridged text is available upon request; please email [email protected].
On 31 March 1949, Winston Churchill spoke at the Mid-Century Conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Halfway through the speech Churchill presented a grandiose vision:
I speak not only to those who enjoy the blessings and consolation of revealed religion but also to those who face the mysteries of human destiny alone. The flame of Christian ethics is still our highest guide. To guard and cherish it is our first interest, both spiritually and materially. The fulfillment of spiritual duty in our daily life is vital to our survival. Only by bringing it into perfect application can we hope to solve for ourselves the problems of this world and not of this world alone.”1
What did Churchill mean by this, and what were his views of the relationship between religion and politics?
The theologico-political problem
To grasp Churchill’s vision of religion and politics requires not only an understanding of Churchill’s private religious beliefs, but also his answer to the theologico-political problem.2 The theologico-political problem refers to the potential conflict between three areas: the life of politics and the city (state or polity), divine revelation and belief in God, and the pursuit of truth or wisdom via the philosophic way of life. By necessity, the city is first concerned with self-preservation and mere existence, but an excellent city will then strive to obtain the good life.3 In order to live together well, both the city’s leaders and citizens should learn and practice the arts of justice and morality.
To prevent divisions that lead to tumult or dissolution, political leaders turn to sacred law and public opinion. These produce a unifying consensus that citizens will voluntarily obey. No city or polity can survive without the organizing, directing, and disciplining force of civil law. Yet in order for law to be revered and respected, it must have a sacred origin, form, and transmission.
Wise statesmen seek to ground civil laws in the gods of the city, religion, or customs and traditions of venerated ancestors. This is only half the picture, however, for these laws still need to be communicated to the mass of people who do not or cannot grasp the essence of the law in its pure form. For this, political leaders employ common opinion that resembles the pure form of the sacred law. Often in history, generally accepted opinion has been identified with civil religions and public creeds. These help shape the beliefs and habits of the people so that they might become productive and healthy citizens.4
Sacred and public law
Sacred law must be conducive to the life of the city. Religious belief, practice, and ritual must not undermine public law, the right of rulers to govern, or public harmony. If the people’s conception of the gods were to change, through the introduction of a foreign religious teaching, this could raise doubts about the truth and goodness of the civil law and weaken the foundations of the polity, and the people’s commitment to it. Therefore, both the lawgiver and statesman must carefully enforce public opinion. They must police outside influences in order to maintain the integrity of the commonwealth.
In the pre-Socratic ancient world, the gods were explicitly and narrowly tied to one’s ancestors, city, and geography.5 This was why the quest for philosophic natural right and the introduction of religious monotheism equally represented threats to the sacred foundations of the ancient polis.
The Socratic quest
When Socrates turned from investigating the heavens to humans and their social relations, he did so by employing two methods. First, he investigated the nature of each being by asking “What is ____?” Second, he began by interrogating generally accepted opinion since he believed that all opinions contained some kernel of truth.6 In this manner, Socrates was said to have been the first man to “call philosophy down from the heavens and set her in the cities of men and bring her also into their homes and compel her to ask questions about life and morality and things good and evil.”7
As a philosopher, Socrates sought truth about the natural and divine beings, including a universal conception of right and justice. If discovered, propagated, and taught to others, Socratic natural right could potentially undermine and topple the sacred laws, ancestral ways, public opinion, and current leadership of the ancient city-states.8 In addition, the end of the philosophic life is contemplation of The Good itself (or the divine), an end that often requires the instrumentalization of morality and justice and that easily conflicts with the life of social activity and industry so vital to the city.
The philosopher engaged in the Socratic quest poses a threat to the city: His discoveries might not only challenge or overturn the political and sacred authority of the city. But philosophizing itself is often abstract and apolitical. The pursuit of philosophy often turns people into bad citizens—citizens who either dogmatically hold to elaborate ideologies that fracture the city and destroy generally accepted opinion, or a philosophy that tempts them to useless ruminations about theoretical speculations that are not conducive to the preservation of the commonwealth.9 The result is an entitled and leisurely class of philosophers who meddle in the affairs of the city. They pollute its beliefs and customs, question its sacred authority, and lure its citizens away from a life of activity. All the while they rely upon the industry and integrity of the city for their sustenance and protection.
Creational monotheism
At the same time, new religious beliefs also threaten the life of the commonwealth. Specifically, monotheistic revelation shattered the ancient conception of localized deities who served a polity or its people.10 If God is not many but one, then God transcends all cities. No particular community or people group can claim Him specifically as their own. The city—its laws, leaders, and customs—are now accountable to a transcendent Being. This might require internal reformation of civil law or the abdication of tradition.
Monotheism introduces a tension between a citizen’s patriotic loyalty and his devotion to the Divine. The beginning of divine knowledge starts with fear and obedience to God. The quest for religious truth will inevitably lead citizens to obey God and not man, even if this means defying the lawgiver or statesmen of the city. Finally, creational monotheism teaches that all people are created in the image of God and are loved by Him. This saps the ancient polis of its claim to superior ethnic stock. It requires that denizens of other towns and foreign lands be treated with a minimal amount of respect and care. (It requires renouncement of bloodlust, wanton violence, slavery, and mass execution).11
Task of the Statesman
The introduction of Socratic philosophy and creational monotheism into the political community threatened to cast down the city’s authority. It also could dissolve the bonds of concord among its citizens. The task of the statesman was to either hold back these forces or to domesticate and incorporate them in modified form, The art of the statesman is politics, which is a coordinating science: Politics seeks to bring together all the parts of the city and every kind of knowledge necessary for a flourishing life and human happiness.12
The statesman must use good philosophy to combat and overcome bad philosophy. Political leaders must wisely discern the types and cycles of regimes. They must comprehend the forces of decay, and strive to forestall anarchy or tyranny.13 The statesman must also discern true from false religion and establish laws upon a generally accepted sacred foundation. A common conception of goodness, righteousness, and justice determines the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. That presents a beautiful picture: without unity and harmony life within the commonwealth is impossible. The inevitable result is degeneration, faction and decay. Eventually an entire civilization may dissolve, either from internal civil war or external conquest. The statesman’s task is formidable. It requires the soul of a great personage to guide the commonwealth to a happy end.
Churchill’s religious evolution
Churchill was almost certainly not aware of the theologico-political problem in its theoretical formulations. In one sense, however, he understood the issue better than any philosopher or prophet. Sir Winston lived the theologico-political problem, in all of its bewildering complexity, throughout his 60 years in British politics.
Churchill was not an orthodox Christian. His parents, Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill, were nominally part of the Church of England. Young Winston attended boarding schools where he experienced both regular religious services and strict moral discipline.14 He disliked High Church ritual and developed a distaste for the Pope and Catholicism.15 However, while at school in Brighton aged 10 to 14, he comfortably adopted a spiritually of “broad-minded tolerance and orthodoxy.”16
After attending the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, Churchill deployed to Bangalore, India. There he explored religion in a more deliberate way, leading first to doubts and then to rejection of orthodox Christianity. Having plenty of free time, he read voraciously, attempting to replace the university education he lacked. A number of books deeply shaped his religious beliefs, especially Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and William Winwood Reade’s The Martyrdom of Man.17 Reade was an atheist and Victorian novelist. In a scathing historicist critique, he tore down the edifice of religion, holding it an undignified shrine to superstition. After reading Reade’s book, Churchill admitted that a “predominantly secular view” had become “established in my mind.”18
“Religion of Healthy-Mindedness”
Churchill was passing through what he later described as a “violent and aggressive anti-religious phase.”19 This did not last, however, and he eventually settled upon what he called “The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness.” Churchill explained that “if you tried your best to live an honourable life and did your duty and were faithful to friends and not unkind to the weak and poor, it did not matter much what you believed or disbelieved. All would come out right.”20
Although not religiously orthodox, Churchill’s deeply moral creed was akin to the ancient virtues extolled by the Greeks and Romans. While Churchill denied the divinity of Christ, he thought that Christ was the greatest moral teacher who had ever lived.21 He believed in a providential deity who was involved in human affairs to some degree. He was not merely a deist or agnostic. Instead, Churchill’s religious beliefs are best encapsulated under the banner of Christian humanism.22
In an ironic turn of fate, Churchill’s “religion of healthy-mindedness”—his strong belief in a providential hand, humanism, and Christian moral principles—prepared him aptly to tackle the theologico-political problem in a way that would have befuddled a committed Anglican or atheist. As a statesman first and foremost, Churchill was concerned for the well-being of Britons, their freedoms and self-government. Instinctively, he recognized the danger posed by abstract and apolitical philosophizing. He quickly identified bad ideas in any form, political, military or social. Churchill was not a philosopher and he had not gone to university, even though he had friends who had. He was not always impressed with their learning. He spoke of the “absurd propositions” of metaphysicians that were “harmless and perfectly useless.”23
Philosophy and the Church
Churchill recognized that a philosophic education could be dangerous because it might stuff a young and impressionable head full of erroneous, utopian, or outright silly ideas that, if acted upon, might do serious harm to society. Churchill valued insights from experience; he was an eminently practical man, focused upon the tangled concerns of everyday life.
As a statesman, Churchill was wary of philosophy. Yet he still extolled the power of reason and the advance of an enlightened philosophy as evidence of the progressive march of civilization. In an 1897 letter to his mother, Churchill praised the “great laws of Nature” and the “bright light of science & reason” that would allow mankind to leave superstition behind and stand upon “the firm legs of reason.”24 According to Churchill, the substance of this “reason” was a commitment to liberalism and humanism informed by Christian morals.
Churchill also innately sensed the theologico-political challenge. Certain traditions, and ways of life would threaten the British polity, its freedoms and constitutionalism. He did believe that the Anglican Church inculcated good morals, virtuous behavior, and a patriotic loyalty and pride among the British people.25 For example, Churchill opposed legislation that would have changed marriage law.26 On Church-State relations more broadly, he envisioned the statesman as playing a supporting role for the established Church, so long as the Church continued in its historic and rightful role. As Churchill himself once admitted, “I could hardly be called a pillar of the Church. I am more in the nature of a buttress, for I support it from the outside.”27
Moral and religious common ground
However, there were times in which government should intervene. Churchill was against the Church of England overseeing religious education in public schools, since every religious sect was vying to have its particular doctrines taught. Instead of siding with one sect or another, Churchill claimed that he was “in favour of secular instructors appointed by Government.” Since the object of government in education is the equal education of the whole people without partiality to any sect, the government must play the role of a neutral arbiter. To resolve this dilemma, Churchill contended that “State Schools are open to all sects but there are certain parts of the Christian worship which are common to all sects…the Bible without comments…might fairly be used.”28
Churchill’s desire to find common moral and religious ground as a unifying point for the English people informed his understanding of the theologico-political problem. He extolled the Church’s religious tolerance and liberty, which had endeared it to the wearied masses searching for comfort and peace.29 However, he readily understood that there must be limits to religious tolerance, both in the Church and in politics. Neither lawlessness nor a supreme religious organization (like the Catholic Church) or individual (like the Pope) could be tolerated. For Churchill, the authority of the Pope and the practices of the Catholic Church would tear apart the finely balanced and historical cooperation between the Church of England and Parliament. Disestablishment would follow and then the people’s morals, freedom, and vitality would all be threatened.30
Other religions
Churchill also believed that other religions should be excluded from English religious tolerance. He had encountered Islam during his tenure with the Army and condemned the religion he believed was “founded and propagated by the sword.”31 Churchill of course was opposed to socialism in all its forms, but he was especially offended by so-called “Christian socialism.” To him this represented an impure mixture between light and darkness.32
Churchill even attacked Nazism and fascism as pseudo-religions, proclaiming that “the Nazi theme of tyranny” is “the domination of a race by the shameful idolatry of a single man, a base man, lifted almost to the stature of a god by his demented and degraded worshippers.” This demonic idolatry would inevitably lead to “the suppression of the individual citizen, man and woman, to be mere chattel in a State machine.”33 These words indicate that Churchill’s religious tolerance was well-defined and purposely circumscribed, having as its core a focus on the moral, patriotic, and civilizational formation of healthy and free citizens.34
Political and religious harmony
Churchill’s approach to religion avoided the Scylla of unlimited toleration, pluralism, and religious free-for-all on the one hand; and the Charybdis of totalitarian policing of thought, speech, and ceremony on the other. Instead, politics and religion worked together in a symbiotic relationship for the betterment of British civilization. Certain religions were not merely useful but vital for forming constitutional citizenship and a good English stock.35 These religions, however, had to share a common moral code. Thus any religious belief and practice that fell outside those boundaries was to be resisted.
When Communism, fascism, and socialism threatened civilization in the 20th century, Britons fought to protect their way of life. Churchill made dozens, if not hundreds, of statements to this effect. His most famous was on the eve of the German air assault in 1940: “Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation.”36 In times of extreme need, British statesmanship preserved the mere life of the English people so that the moral and religious lifeblood of the nation might continue on its quest for the good life.
For civilization, against tyranny
Through over 20 million words communicated throughout his life, Churchill never ceased to teach others and shape public opinion for the sake of British civilization and against the deadly tyrannies of the 20th century. Churchill’s statesmanship was able to achieve a rare synthesis between the quest for philosophic truth, adherence to Christian moral teaching, and advancing a particular political community.
Through it all, Churchill felt sure that Providence was orchestrating everything behind the scenes. In one of his first public speaking engagements, Churchill cast a vision for the British people in full confidence: “We continue to pursue that course marked out for us by an all-wise hand and carry out our mission of bearing peace, civilisation and good government to the uttermost ends of the earth.”37
As for himself, Churchill liked to remark that “over me beat invisible wings,” which miraculously protected him and turned potentially disastrous events into fortunate opportunities.38 Without this providential conviction to guide and restrain him, Churchill’s statesmanship would have foundered upon the shoals of the theologico-political problem.
Endnotes
1 “The 20th Century—Its Promise and Its Realization,” in Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963, 8 vols. (New York: Bowker, 1974), VII: 7807.
2 In the 20th century the theological-political problem is primarily associated with the work of Leo Strauss. My summary draws from the work of both Strauss and his interlocutors and students, but is not meant to be an exposition of Strauss’s philosophy per se. See Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 81-164; Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago, 1952); What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies (Chicago, 1959), 9-94; “Reason and Revelation (1948),” in Heinrich Meier, ed., Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 141-80; “Progress or Return? The Contemporary Crisis in Western Civilization,” in Modern Journal, vol. 1, no. 1 (1981), 17-45; and Svetozar Minkov and Rasoul Namazi, “‘Religion and the Commonweal in the Tradition of Political Philosophy’: An Unpublished Lecture by Leo Strauss,” American Political Thought 10 (2021), 86-120. For excellent summaries of the problem, see Meier’s book, as well as Marc D. Guerra, “Leo Strauss and the Recovery of the Theologico-Political Problem,” in The Political Science Reviewer 36 (2007): 47-80; and Kim Sorensen, “Revelation and Reason in Leo Strauss,” in The Review of Politics 65, no. 3 (2003): 383-408.
3 Aristotle, Politics 1252b27-35.
4 For example, see Alfarabi, “The Attainment of Happiness,” in Muhsin Madhi, ed., The Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 13-50.
5 For the best overview of the functioning of the ancient city-state, see Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Kitchener, Ontario: Batoche Books, 2001).
6 Guerra, “Recovery of the Theologico-Political Problem,” 57-59.
7 Cicero, Tusculan Disputations V.4.10-11 (p. 435), G.P. Goold, ed., The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1927).
8 This is why Strauss claimed that “natural right would act as dynamite for civil society,” for it would claim for itself a greater authority than the sacred laws and conventional ways of the city. See Natural Right and History, 152-53.
9 This is a thematic concern in Cicero’s works. See On Duties (Cornell, 2016), I: 18-19, 28-29; and On the Republic, (Cornell, 2014), I: 29-61.
10 For helpful reflections of the impact of monotheism and the divine Logos upon the ancient world, see Robert R. Reilly, America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2020), 37-65; and Samuel Gregg, Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization (New York: Regnery Gateway, 2019), 34-43.
11 Cicero speaks of the Romans being “divine by race” (On the Republic, II.4: 64).
12 On politics as a coordinating science that includes all the other arts and science, see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1094a28-1094b12.
13 On the downward cycles of regimes, see Book VIII of Plato’s The Republic. Of the statesman, Cicero says he must be a man “who is good, wise, and knowledgeable about the advantage and reputation of the city, a protector and manager, so to speak, of the republic…a guide and helmsman of the city.” He must gain “the source of political prudence…to see the paths and bends of republics so that when you know how each thing inclines, you can hold it back or run to meet it first.” See On the Republic II.51: 79 and II.45: 77.
14 Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1930), 26.
15 Ibid., 27-28. Churchill preferred plain services and disliked ceremonial forms, even though he often had to partake in more ritualistic and official ceremonies. See WSC, “To the Editor, The English Churchman,” in Randolph S. Churchill, ed, The Churchill Documents, vol. 3, Early Years in Politics, 1901-1907 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2007, 99. Cf. Andrew Roberts, “Winston Churchill and Religion: A Comfortable Relationship with the Almighty,” in Finest Hour 163 (2014), 52.
16 WSC, My Early Life, 28.
17 Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (New York: Holt, 1991), 55, 67-68; Roberts, “Winston Churchill and Religion,” 53.
18 WSC, My Early Life, 129; cf. Roberts, “Winston Churchill and Religion,” 53.
19 WSC, My Early Life, 129.
20 Ibid., 128.
21 WSC to his mother before the Battle of Omdurman: “But I can assure you I do not flinch—although I do not accept the Christian or any other form of religious belief” in Randolph S. Churchill, ed., The Churchill Documents, vol. 2, Young Soldier, 1896-1901 (Hillsdale College Press, 2006), 969. Roberts quotes R.W. Thompson as saying that while Churchill “did not believe that Christ was God, he recognized him as the finest character who ever lived.” Roberts, “Winston Churchill and Religion,” 58, citing Thompson, Churchill and Morton (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1976), 190.
22 For helpful reflections on this point, see Paul Addison, “The Political Beliefs of Winston Churchill,” in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 30 (1979): 23-47; and “Destiny, History and Providence: the Religion of Winston Churchill,” in Michael Bentley, ed., Public and Private Doctrine: Essays in British History Presented to Maurice Cowling (Cambridge University Press, 1993), 236-50.
23 WSC, My Early Life, 129.
24 WSC to Lady Randolph, in The Churchill Documents, vol. 2, 725.
25 On why Churchill opposed Disestablishment, see his 1928 comments on the Prayer Book Measure, Complete Speeches V: 4445.
26 In the 1901 and 1903 debates over the Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill, Lord Hugh Cecil convinced Churchill to oppose the bill because it allowed a widower to marry his late wife’s sister in order to take care of his children and family. For Churchill’s speeches and reflections on this, see Complete Speeches I: 187; and WSC, “Personal Contacts” in Thoughts and Adventures: Churchill Reflects on Spies, Cartoons, Flying, and the Future (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2009), 53-54.
27 Roberts, “Winston Churchill and Religion,” 52, citing Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography (London: Plume, 2002), 49.
28 “The Endowed Schools Act Amendment Bill,” in The Churchill Documents, vol. 2, 759.
29 WSC, Election Address, Oldham, 27 June 1899, Complete Speeches I: 37-38. WSC quoted his father Lord Randolph’s approval of the Church’s tolerance: “But I own that my chief reason for supporting the Church of England I find in the fact that when compared with other churches and other creeds it is essentially the Church of religious liberty.”
30 Churchill made many negative comments about the Catholic Church. See WSC to his brother, The Churchill Documents, vol. 2, 858; to his mother, The Churchill Documents, vol. 2, 958; to Ivor Guest, The Churchill Documents, vol. 3, xxvii; and to The English Churchman, The Churchill Documents, vol. 3, 99-100.
31 WSC, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (London: Longmans Green, 1898), 4; cf. Richard M. Langworth, ed., Churchill by Himself (New York: Rosetta, 2016), 463.
32 For example, see Churchill’s speech, “Socialism” on 22 January 1908, in Complete Speeches I: 874-75.
33 WSC, “One Great Family,” in Charles Eade, ed., The War Speeches of Winston S. Churchill, 3 vols. (Norwalk, Conn.: The Easton Press, 1951), II: 374.
34 Churchill was too wise to fall for the modern doctrine of tolerance that is so tolerant of everything that it collapses under its own weight and then turns fanatically intolerant. For a critique, see Strauss, Natural Right and History, 5-6; and Charles R. Kesler, The Crisis of the Two Constitutions: The Rise, Decline, and Recovery of American Greatness (New York: Encounter Books, 2021), 33-46).
35 Christianity was then thought to be beneficial for women and the lower classes. Churchill remarked that “Christianity, it appeared, had also a disciplinary value, especially when presented through the Church of England. It made people want to be respectable, to keep up appearances, and so saved lots of scandals.” WSC, My Early Life, 128-29.
36 WSC, “Their Finest Hour,” 18 June 1940, in Complete Speeches VI: 6238.
37 Bath Daily Chronicle, 27 July 1897, in The Churchill Documents, vol. 2, 774.
38 WSC, The Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), 181; cf. Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny (New York: Viking, 2018), 393, 605, 975.
The author
Ben R. Crenshaw is a Ph.D. student in Politics at the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship at Hillsdale College. He previously completed undergraduate studies at Taylor University and theological studies at Denver Seminary. His primary interest is the intersection of religion and politics in Western Civilization and American political thought.