David Hope the Archbishop of York, was interviewed this morning on the BBC television programme Breakfast with Frost.
The transcript of the interview is here.
A newspaper report in today’s Sunday Times published in advance of the public transmission is here:
Britain can’t be called Christian, says archbishop
I am an orthodox Jew and agree entirely with the recent opinions expressed by Dr David Hope; Britain is becoming less and less Christian, to its great detriment. 100 years ago the Christian Sabbath had much in common with the Jewish Sabbath. Today, living in London as I do, you’d hardly notice that Sunday is a special day. In America, Church and State are separated yet it is a far more Christian country with stronger moral values. Where has British Christianity gone wrong?
Two roots of the change:
(1) the blurring of right and wrong by the 1964-70 government in their legislation
(2) the increasing power of the media, who have the requisite circulation and visibility to ‘normalise’ all sorts of things. Remember that journalists and media types are largely from one portion of society (white educated liberal), and though they may wish to see themselves as representative of Britain as a whole, they could scarcely be less so.