Kemi Badenoch is wrong: Christianity created the welfare state – UnHerd

The Tory leader ought to be careful about mining scripture for political points. Credit: Getty
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Kemi Badenoch has had a storming week — until, that is, she landed herself in a row over the Bible and what it supposedly says about the welfare state. According to The Times, she thinks welfare is “unchristian” and several clerics, including a former Archbishop of Canterbury, have subsequently expressed “disquiet”.
It all started with an interview with Nick Robinson on his Political Thinking podcast. He picked up on a Biblical reference she’d used when discussing welfare policy with the Conservative Christian Fellowship. The specific verse was 1 Timothy 5:8: “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
At first, the Tory leader tried to laugh it off, saying that “the Conservative Christian Fellowship gets its own specific message.” That didn’t satisfy Robinson, who pressed: “But is it unchristian to expect the state to do what your family or your household or your wider community should do for you?”
Remarkably, she appeared to agree: “In early Christian times there was no state or welfare, so I think you can argue that actually.” Expanding on her theme, she added that “the Christian tradition is about communities and families and charity, not about compulsory taxation in order to pay welfare”.
So what is the Conservative leader trying to say here? There are three possibilities. The first is that she really does think that the welfare state conflicts with Christianity. That’s how it’s being reported in the media.
The second interpretation isn’t quite so contentious. According to this view, all she meant is that where the state is absent, we have to rely on the Christian tradition of self-help and voluntary action. One might add that as our public finances come under increasing strain, we’re going to need more of that bottom-up social responsibility to hold things together.
But the third and likeliest possibility is hinted at by the title of the podcast episode — “Kemi Badenoch: Shooting from the hip”. In other words, she hasn’t fully thought the matter through — which is a dangerous position for a politician to be in when cherry-picking verses from the Bible.
Never mind the hermeneutics: she doesn’t even get the basic historical facts right. For instance, in early Christian times there definitely was a state — namely, the Roman Empire. What’s more, it had a social security system of sorts: the cura annonae, which distributed grain to the urban masses in Rome and Constantinople. As for the radical charity practiced by the early Christians, this went much further than household-based self-reliance. It operated across the whole community, providing for its weakest members, especially widows and orphans. One should also mention the distinctive Christian practice of caring for the sick, in place of the standard practice of leaving them behind when plague struck. Later, this would provide the foundation for the first public hospitals and a model for modern healthcare.
Though the New Testament has a lot to say about the responsibilities of those receiving from the community, it also doesn’t mess about when it comes to the obligation to contribute. For example, in the Book of Acts, there’s the story of Ananias and Sapphira — a couple who dishonestly withhold money from the apostles and who literally drop dead when their lie is exposed.
And thus with endless variations, complications and ironies, we should see the contemporary welfare state not as a purely modern invention, but as being deeply rooted in 2,000 years of Christian history. That’s something for our politicians to consider before mining scripture for out-of-context talking points.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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