For those concerned about the breakdown of order in society, the churches offer codes of behaviour invested with divine authority as a means of restoring social control. Indeed, the yearning for spiritual compensation for human distress is even more evident in the popularity of diverse forms of 'New Age' religiosity, which offer a more individualistic and fashionable form of escape than the traditional churches. For New Labour, however, considerations of electoral expediency always come first, and its cautious evangelists have chosen to pitch their gospel tent somewhere in the shrinking space between Catholicism and the Church of England. The intrusion of religion into politics is a dangerous development. It is striking that in its decadent phase, Britain appears to be moving towards the sort of theocracy which it condemns in the Islamic world.
Religion offers an illusory solution to the problems of modern society.
The churches promise salvation in another world as a consolation for the sufferings of the real world. But pursuing the chimera of metaphysical wholeness is an evasion of the problems thrown up by the existing order of society. Worse still, politicians' attempts to bolster their waning popularity by parading their religious and moral convictions has the effect of reviving the political influence of the churches. After decades of declining congregations and prestige, representatives of all major religious denominations now enjoy unprecedented mass media attention for their pronouncements on matters of public policy. This is a particular scandal in Britain, long one of the most secular countries in the world.