We certainly need a recovery of memory: regarding the basis of our national life, a tradition of civil liberties set in train by the Magna Carta, the Reformation's insistence on direct access to the sources of the authority (the Scriptures) for everyone, the Counter-Reformation's missionary zeal, the Christian origins of "natural rights" language, campaigns to abolish the slave trade and slavery, to restrict working hours and to improve working conditions for men, women and children, universal education, the emergence of nursing as a profession, the hospice movement and much else besides. Such a recovery of memory in our schools and other educational institutions, for instance, would not be for the sake of nostalgia or to foster national pride but to provide the basis for an engagement with contemporary issues whether these have to do with fundamental liberties, the inclusion of the marginalised, the care of the sick or concern for the poor, whether in this country or abroad.

Such a recovery of memory will make it possible for people once again to invoke fundamental principles, what Professor Peter Hennessey has called "the timeliness of the timeless". It is not necessary, by the way, for such an owning of the Christian vision to require a special position for a particular Church. It is quite possible to distinguish, as Martin Marty has done in the American context, between civic and ecclesial religion. While the churches would remain concerned, of course, to promote a Christian vision of society, a Christian-inspired civic religious sense would be distinct from each of them, as well as related to and responsive to their view of the role of religion in the public sphere.

Even and, perhaps specially, in this context, the Church's prophetic role will be needed. It will still be necessary to ask for proper discernment before policies are made or legislation passed, churches will remain in the business of forming consciences and in "telling it like it is". There will have to be both a clear foretelling in terms of what is good for society and what would harm it, or people within it, and a foretelling about the consequences of misgovernment, corruption, self-indulgence and the rest. Christian faith is not simply an endorsement of the status quo or even a justification of history. It must also be able to bring a powerful critique to bear on our national life.

Any vision of a Christian society is strongly challenged by what may be called "programmatic secularism". This has its own worldview where there is progress but no purpose, where human dignity, equality and liberty may be affirmed but there is no underlying narrative why they should be. It often has a libertarian focus, which emphasises individual liberty but is weak on upholding vital social institutions. Its permissiveness can endanger not only social institutions, like the family, but also, for example, the human person at the earliest, most vulnerable and latest stages of life. It can be in thrall to the latest scientific possibilities and willing to give its imprimatur to them, regardless sometimes of personal and social consequences.