So, Tim Farron, has liberalism eaten itself?

en speaks to former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron about his life, his faith and his new book, A Better Ambition

en: What made you decide you wanted to write a book?

TF: I didn’t set out intentionally to write it. Travelling back from the party conference, a journey back up to the Lakes should have taken three hours, but took six. I stuck my headphones in and thought I should write what happened around the election. I wasn’t sure if it was an article or a book. But on that train I splurged out 10,000 words on the election. Then more was written when I was on holiday. It was cathartic and I enjoyed doing it.

en: Why a liberal? Why not a socialist?

TF: I didn’t just find a neat way into liberalism. At the time, with regard to politics I probably thought Mrs T was interesting and an avant-garde figure as everybody hated her and I thought that was cool. So, politics wasn’t really connected to the issues. Two years after joining Shelter I joined the Liberals. Just as you should be suspicious of an overly neat testimony of coming to faith, then be equally suspicious of a politician who has a great epiphany and is therefore right about everything he thinks!

There was a desire to stand up for the awkward little guy. I was an awkward kid. I was quite entertained by how unpopular the Tories were and then it dawned on me as to why. In the neat economics of the 1980s it occurred to me that keeping unemployment at a certain level was about keeping inflation down and if people weren’t in work, they weren’t in a union, so those could be removed. It was all part of the strategy. And I was appalled by this. So, after I finished my O levels, I was clear that I wasn’t a Conservative. I’m a liberal in that I believe people should be able to make their own choices and we should defend people who we don’t agree with. Becoming a liberal was a process of wanting to be up for those who weren’t mainstream.

en: In your book you say there’s a crisis in Western liberalism. Relating what Mill was writing about, i.e. wanting freedom away from the state church, is the ‘rainbow coalition’ your new ‘state church’? Is that the new liberalism that you’re fighting against?

TF: It is and it isn’t. The radical individualistic world view has won out in all major parties. There is this view that if you don’t hold to certain opinions on certain key social issues, you are a despicable person. You see it from everybody, from social liberals within the Conservatives through into all the other parties.

But, if you want to be elected, you’ve got to make sure you don’t appear to despise half your country that don’t want to be roped up into this single basket of ideals. Not all the people who disagree with those ideals are Christians, they are maybe just more traditional in their outlook.

en: Has liberalism eaten itself – as your book suggests?

TF: Being tolerant of everything except that stuff which it doesn’t like isn’t liberalism or tolerant. Any old fascist can stand up for the rights of people just like them; it takes a liberal to stand up for the rights of those who you find are a bit awkward. If you’re a liberal and a Christian, you should be fighting for the rights of, for example, Islamic preachers. Not just because it safeguards your freedoms, but because it’s just right.

en: Why do evangelicals get clobbered more than others in Parliament. You had that repeated question on gay sex; David Burrowes (former Conservative MP) faced similar questioning in his own constituency.

TF: Orthodox Christianity holds to the Bible being true. That doesn’t mean that you are comfortable with everything that is in there. But you shouldn’t be. If you were, you should be suspicious because you’re looking at a great and holy God compared to little old me. I think it’s hard to read the Bible any other way than: Jesus came to save us; He came to take our punishment; that punishment is for sin; and sin is what God decides it is – not what we decide it is. It’s simple really. But it’s hard to deal with in the 90 seconds I had on that day when I was wanting to talk about Brexit! [Tim’s book deals with ‘that question’ really well.]

The real challenge now is that not only do you have to permit something to happen, but you have to approve of it, and that isn’t liberal, and it is deeply disturbing.

In every single age, Christianity is counter-cultural for one reason or another. Today its radical individualism we are up against. We should always be expecting to be counter-cultural and not be panicked by it. The worldviews that criticise us and are hostile today will be dead in a century. And Christianity won’t be, which is the great irony. It gets mocked for being out of date by dozens of worldviews that you’re lucky if you can read about in books now. But the worldview that is mocked claims 2 billion to its name.

en: Why don’t others get asked this question about ‘sin’ who would be of a different faith, but still believe what you do about traditional morality?

TF: It’s about a sense of power that people see Christianity/the church has, which is wrong because that power doesn’t exist now at all…

en: …you believe in disestablishing the church don’t you?

TF: …yes, but I can see there is some good. But we shouldn’t make atheism the state religion either, and effectively we have done that. One of the great philosophical issues I want to challenge people about on the liberal end of the spectrum, is this wrong-headed nonsense that secularism is neutral, and that faith is seen as eccentric and off-centre.

en: If you look across the world, not having a faith is the eccentric view.

TF: Indeed. Christianity can’t be inherited or forced upon you. In the past people thought being baptised as a baby made them a Christian, or because they went to a church school or something. So, in fact today, the number of people who actually really accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour may be no different to what it was 50 years ago in the UK.

Certainly, people from LGBT communities see the church as a source of oppression, as the thing that told them how they could live their lives. Which is why the very thought that I might think things about how they live their lives was deemed to be appalling.

en: But then the LGBT groups are allowed to think that how you live your life is appalling.

TF: Yes. There is an inconsistency there. But I don’t get bitter about it. This is part and parcel of being a Christian. You’ll be judged unfairly, gossiped against, and some of this was me just not answering questions very well and being like a rabbit in headlights. I’m no great martyr here. I’m just using what profile I have now to point people to Jesus if I have the chance. I don’t go with a ‘the world’s gone woke’ view. There’s a whole lot more there to have a conversation about. But fundamentally as Christians we believe everyone is made in the image of God and so we should behave well towards people. What we need is greater civility and more listening.

en: But there is a gap between how someone wants to operate in their own life and how that clashes with how others live. People in the Lib Dems are wrestling with ‘what is a woman’. It’s a huge issue when, for example, lesbians are being asked to accept the unchanged male body as being that of a woman…

TF: …which is totally outrageous.

en: …and woman are having their safe spaces threatened by activists. Has Layla Moran read your book and understood what you are saying about liberalism? Is there a hope to help people understand that every liberal needs to stand up for everyone’s rights, including women’s and Tim Farron’s rights?

TF: Women’s spaces and so on. What could go wrong? Lots. There’s always an element within the Lib Dems to ‘out left’ the Labour Party on something – being ‘leftier than thou’. The issues that people are seeing as ‘science’, as if it’s really the way they say it is, are the same people who were critical of the baseless evidenceless teaching of ten years ago. Liberals like to think of ourselves as evidence led. So, I’d say, don’t base what you think on what is fashionable at the moment. It does trouble me greatly. And these things do matter to God.

I do have a feeling that the enemy wants us to get stuck on these issues as Christians and turn it into a wall to the gospel. When I read a book on sexual ethics before I was saved, I was appalled by it. Once I was saved, I realised that God did have a right to say these things to me. Having said that, people do need to be convicted of sin. Being told grace, grace, grace, when you don’t realise you need it – it’s not that straightforward you see.

en: Your party seems to be on the wrong side of things regarding trans issues though. Safeguarding women and children really matters. The liberal ideal of ‘do anything but don’t harm anyone’ – where is that with regard to children? Liberalism has eaten itself.

TF: Yes, it’s gone beyond that, hasn’t it? This new religion has no grace. It’s a modern Pharisaism. If we have a problem with the extreme agenda peddled by some, we are not anti-trans if we ask questions. Most of what we adopted [which has now been altered] in the recent trans policy is fine. But the one tenth of it, is the kind of thing you refer to. The electorate is disturbed [by a radical trans activist agenda]. At best it’s niche, at worst it’s more dangerous than that. In a few years, I think it will be fashionable to rue the day.

I want people to take the gospel seriously. And that is something I’ve been able to do more and more. But I don’t want to walk away from politics either. Maybe this is my hill to die on.

en: How can we pray for you?

TF: That I can be a person who points people to Jesus. And for me to be an effective gracious, patient voice for God in my household.