Reportage

It's been a good year for... reports on the role of Christianity in public life. We have endured a long period in which much of what was coming out either seemed to be divorced from the 'real world' or so heavily rooted in it that it was incapable of understanding what faith was really all about. In the last 12 months there have been a number of challenging contributions which at last seem to be hitting the spot.

The Theos think tank launched themselves with 'Doing God', whose title was inspired by Alistair Cameron's infamous 'we don't do God' statement that defined the Blair era. Nick Spencer does a thorough job of clearing up a lot of the misconceptions that plague our understanding of Christian involvement in the public square (on both sides of the debate). The new sequel 'Neither Private nor Privileged' builds on this foundation by offering a vision of exactly what form this engagement ought to take. The conclusion is ambiguous but important: the church must remain faithful to her vision and calling, regardless of the political climate. Where she can succeed in demonstrating and convincing people that this vision embodies the 'public good', there will be significant opportunities to participate in the mechanisms of society.

Closer to the political sharp end, a committee of Christian MPs recently published 'Faith in the Future'. Their aim was to look at what contribution Christians can make in creating a better future for our children. Being a cross party group they fought shy of detailed policy proposals, but do offer a framework against which policies advanced by any of their parties ought to be judged. The report may have lacked the spice of controversy, but I suspect that it will prove a valuable compass for the longer term.

Avoiding controversy was clearly not a priority for the authors of 'Moral but No Compass', a hard hitting study into the relationship between Government and the church (primarily the Church of England). Their conclusions pull no punches: the Government is accused of under recognising the contribution the church makes, of distorting the figures to make this contribution less visible, of deliberately favouring minority religions over mainstream Christianity, and of creating a culture of institutional atheism which discriminates against Christian proposals in the delivery of public services. Their research is thorough, and left Communities minister Hazel Blears furiously denying while appearing very much in denial on the whole issue.

Between the four there is an emerging sense of an objective, a strategy, some tactics, and plenty of ammunition. Uneasy metaphors for followers of the 'Prince of Peace'. It will be intriguing to see how they are put into practise.