Rev Jan Rushton

THERE is a famous saying about three things you never talk about in polite company: politics, religion and money.

All three came in to play at an extraordinary sermon I witnessed during a visit to Hampstead Parish Church on Sunday.

As the congregation settled for a sermon by associate priest Jan Rushton, we all thought we knew what to expect.

Yet much to the surprise of those in the pews, what emerged was a state-of-the-nation address about the cost of living crisis, rising authoritarianism and the Conservative Party leadership contest.

Rev Rushton said: “We live in troubling times. Those without significant salaries have their spending power severely curtailed. Coupled with which there seems to be a worrying rise of people choosing authoritarianism.”

She referenced the continued support for Donald Trump from southern US Christians, and then turned to Britain, citing the influence of Russian money and the European Research Group in the Conservative Party, whose members include Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Suella Braverman, James Cleverley and Lord Frost among others.

“Astonishingly, these comfortably wealthy MPs have managed to persuade those on ordinary wages that supporting deregulation from Europe will give them the best chance of joining those ranks of the comfortably well off. Unfortunately for these dreamers, rampant capitalism does not work like that, it rarely does trickle down.

“Over the last weeks it has seemed to me more and more clear that the singular purpose of our government is to create more wealth for the already wealthy, through that deregulation made possible by Brexit. Indeed, the number of billionaires has reached a record high post-Covid.

“The European Research Group has been fortunate to have found in Boris Johnson a man who is able with bluster and buffoonery to hide their real agenda, which has nothing to do with levelling up, even if a wistful hope of Johnson himself. Once deregulation is accomplished, as the resigning Lord Frost urged the government to get on with, they may sell off to the highest bidder the infrastructure of our land.”

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Rev Rushton quoted a reading from the prophet Isaiah earlier in the service: “If you offer your food to the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, your light shall rise in the darkness.”

Hampstead Parish Church itself provides the resting place of suffragists Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper as well as former Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell.

It was also once the home of Susan Dowell, wife of former vicar Graham, who campaigned for the ordination of women, writing books including Dispossessed Daughters of Eve: Faith and Feminism and held protests in the 1990s inside St Paul’s Cathedral.

Ms Dowell once said: “Whatever Christianity offers, it is not a place of safety, where you remain unchallenged.”

Rev Rushton seemed to agree, saying in her address: “Those ancient prophets spoke powerfully against the governments of their day. Jesus repeatedly railed against the exploitation of the temple authorities.”

Rev Rushton told me afterwards: “With a ‘mini-election’ under way for a new leader of the Conservative Party who will also immediately become our next prime minister, I felt compelled to raise some of these matters – as those prophets of old.”