I'm a Christian who welcomes more Sunday trading, and so should the church

Everyone’s been making a lot of fuss this week about Sunday trading. Since Sunday is the day of rest, and I’m going out, I’m writing about it on Saturday, okay?

The idea that larger shops might open a couple of hours longer on a Sunday routinely upsets the church, especially the Church of England.

Writing in today’s Telegraph, Bryony Gordon has provided a superb critique of this response. She has pointed out that, actually, for most families, they would choose shopping over church anyway. Indeed, if you want to keep Sunday a day of rest, then by all means do so.

She also points out the following: “As a side note, the shop at St Paul’s Cathedral is open from 10.30am to 4pm on a Sunday, though you can buy cufflinks on its website for £199, 24/7, should you be so inclined/rich).”

The silly thing about the current restrictions is that they do not apply across the board, the 6 consecutive hours restriction applies to larger shops only, and by larger, we literally mean size, not revenue or market share. If this were really about saving us from moral catastrophe, it would surely be a restriction to apply across the board so that, unable to materially nourish ourselves in stores large or small, we will flock to the church to nourish the soul instead?

If George Osborne is going to relax these restrictions, he’s doing us a favour. There is absolutely nothing intrinsically Christian about the idea of doing very little on a Sunday.

With the characteristically no-nonsense style that makes her one of my favourite politicians, Anna Soubrey proclaimed: “The only thing to look forward to was sing something simple on the radio. Goodness me, if that didn’t sum up a miserable Sunday.”

For me, as a Christian, Sunday is my holy day and yes, I go to church. I do not, however, see anything particularly virtuous in spending the rest of the day stuck indoors, or, indeed, in making everyone else who doesn’t want to go to church stay indoors.

As for devotion to the lord, that is done both through contemplation and action. A Christian is supposed to live as such every day, not more so at a particular point in the calendar.

The Church of England always whines on about the breakup of families and the pulling apart of society, but honestly, is a couple of hours of extra trading and all the jobs it will create according to its supporters, really going to destroy any sense of community?

The truth is, the church really cannot accept that, in an increasingly secular age, it is competing with shops, attractions and, yes, the home itself, to provide a space for families to be together and to enjoy together.

As the state church, it is in the unenviable position of having far more obligation than, say, its Catholic counterpart, to provide a social commentary and put itself in the position of being an organisation that is available and accessible for all. I defend it to the hilt, therefore, when it is attacked for speaking out, by those who are ignorant of the very real pressure its hierarchy is under to do so and would rather ignore its role as representative of all of us.
However, much as I would welcome its interventions in principle, I share the dismay of its detractors because its message is totally wrong. The prediction of complete moral collapse by relaxing Sunday trading rules a bit, shows how utterly the church has failed to grasp the extent to which it is rejected by people today.

Rather than try to swing affairs in such a way as to restore its past monopoly as the only place that might actually provide some relief to the tedium of staying indoors all day, church leaders should be thinking instead about how we can make rational people, free to make their own choices, actually want to pick the church above a trip to the shops.

When the church tries to provide social commentary, it gets itself in to a right old muddle, because it can’t let go of the idea that the masses aren’t flocking to the pews anymore. I doubt there was ever a golden age of religion, just an age of greater senses of obligation and fewer other choices to church.

If its hierarchy can get over its absurd sense of superiority, and its misguided belief that simply turning up to a place once a week makes for a more moral society, we might start a meaningful debate about how the church can reconnect with people today.
The blunt truth, as decades of declining patterns of church attendance show, is that whatever the restrictions, most people would rather just stay at home than go to a church.

Instead of spouting paternalistic and patronising drivel, the church should welcome this boost to our economy and the jobs it will create. It should accept that a family might go to the supermarket in the afternoon, and church in the morning. It should stop wishing its pews were filled with people who don’t actually want to be there. It should stop claiming an entitlement to our entire day and a right to command our focus, and make more people want to be there.

But rather than focus on spreading the gospel by word and example, its hierarchy behaves like any other political institution, territorially defending its own interest. Little wonder people listen, with agonised weariness, to its whinging indignation, and decide to go elsewhere for a more cheerful Sunday.