Theo Hobson

I’m not defending Harry and Meghan. But I think they deserve some credit, for they have put the British character under the spotlight as never before in our times. Of course, it’s mainly Meghan who has done this. Through being boldly herself, she has raised the question of who we are. How are we different from the Californian culture she belongs to, which is the dominant form of western culture? In some ways it’s obvious – we have a monarchy for a start. But she has exposed a lot of the underlying stuff that makes us different. And she forces us to ask: can we affirm this stuff? Can we defend it? Do we like who we are? It seems that Meghan was not really aware of marrying into a different culture from her own.

Rowan Williams used his Reith lecture on religious liberty to make a plea to religious believers: don't be afraid of being an awkward misfit. The former Archbishop of Canterbury called on believers to challenge the social consensus – even on contentious issues like gay marriage. His view is that religion is not a private affair, but impinges on public life. It does so, he said this week, in ways that the liberal order will find annoying, even disruptive. Believers appeal to transcendent truths beyond the ‘prevailing social consensus’, according to Williams. As a result, he said, they are rightly wary of an order whose only basis is human law, which is defined by majority opinion.

According to the census, British Christianity is having a disastrous century. In the 2001 census, a clear majority of people in England and Wales – 72 per cent – described themselves as ‘Christian’. In 2011, this figure fell to 59 per cent. And now, it’s another drop: a 13 percentage point drop to 46 per cent.  These figures suggest that a Christian country has imploded within the space of two decades. Will the figure continue to fall at this rate? Will Christianity disappear from this land within 40 years?  Probably not. What the census shows is that ‘cultural Christianity’ has dramatically fallen. For of course this is all that the census can tell us about. It does not delve any further than asking about people’s religious allegiance.

Archbishop Justin Welby has done a good job of relating the Queen’s virtues to her Christian faith. This is no easy task. The writers of the New Testament would have been very surprised by the notion that a monarch could be an exemplary Christian. And any sensible Christian leader is mindful that monarchs should be praised with care, lest religion seem cravenly reverent of tradition and worldly grandeur. She was a model of practical virtue In her life, he said in his official statement, ‘we saw what it means to receive the gift of life we have been given by God and – through patient, humble, selfless service – share it as a gift to others.’ This rightly puts the emphasis on her positive outlook – something most of us struggle to have.

Justin Welby has made a valiant attempt to placate both sides of the Anglican divide. He has insisted that the official conservative teaching on sexuality, agreed at the Lambeth Conference of 1998, is still valid. But he also said that provinces that dissent, and affirm same-sex marriage, should not be disciplined. In effect, he is calling their dissenting view an authentic expression of Anglicanism. At the end of the speech he ducks the question In the crucial passage of his speech that he delivered this week, he asserts that, ‘for the large majority of the Anglican Communion’, to question the traditional teaching is ‘unthinkable, and in many countries would make the church a victim of derision, contempt and even attack.

Is Channel 4 a public service broadcaster that should be saved from privatisation? Today's Queen's Speech, which lays the groundwork for the sale of the channel, is set to reignite that debate once again. But Channel 4's increasingly dire output – and its obsession with shows about sex – shows privatisation might not be such a bad idea. Yes, Channel 4 produces some worthy stuff, but much less than in the past – I can’t recall a really good recent documentary on the channel. Its news is useful enough, especially if you can tolerate the smug air of its main presenters. But these positives are outweighed by a massive negative that enlightened people pretend not to notice.

The Prime Minister told Tory MPs that church leaders had been 'less vociferous in their condemnation on Easter Sunday of Putin than they were on our policy on illegal immigrants'. Lambeth Palace called this 'a disgraceful slur'. So who is right? If the PM’s comment is confined to the archbishop of Canterbury, he appears to be technically correct. Welby’s high-profile sermon did attack the asylum policy in strong terms, and it had no such harsh words for Putin himself (even if he did say Easter should be a 'time for Russian ceasefire, withdrawal and a commitment to talks'). Not only did Welby say that the deal raised 'serious ethical questions'; he went into full prophet mode and declared that it would not 'stand the judgment of God'.

When I was 17 I heard the name Dostovesky, and was enthralled. Just the name felt so glamorously intellectual, so deep. I began to read some of his novels, and my hunch was vindicated. A bit later I delved into his ideas, and my admiration became more nuanced. I partly admired his defiance of the rational humanist arrogance of the West, but I was also wary of his reactionary mystical nationalism, his faith in the anti-liberal Russian soul.  It seems that a lot of religiously minded intellectuals struggle to get past stage one. They are so taken with the flinty glamour of this writer that their critical faculties atrophy. They allow their aesthetic admiration to influence their religious politics.