Religion, Politics and the 2017 General Election

This lecture will look at some of the developments in the use of ‘religion’ in English political discourse over the past couple of years and up to the General Election, though contextualised in the political developments over the past 50 years. It will summarise issues relating to religion and national identity, the true meaning of Christmas, how politicians and far-right groups view Islam, media representations of politicians, the fate of socialist constructions of Christianity to parliamentary politics, and reactions to political uses of the Bible in the aftermath of the Brexit result. There will be some consideration of what the new dominant understandings of religion are in English political discourse and how likely they are to remain.