For generations, religion in the West has been in retreat. Recent claims of a "quiet revival" have been challenged, and in the US and UK regular churchgoing has fallen by more than 20% in a decade. In its place, many maintain the winning approach is to retain the values and even the trappings and traditions of Christianity, but jettison the metaphysical baggage. The renowned atheist Richard Dawkins declared himself a cultural Christian in 2024. Others like Douglas Murray and Jordan Peterson hold similar views. Echoing Tolstoy, who 150 years ago argued for abandoning the supernatural and keeping the ethics. But critics argue this settlement is incoherent. Without God, a cathedral is just a building, a ritual a superstition, and religious ethics a story.

Should we abandon cultural Christianity as an untenable compromise? Must we either eradicate Christianity's influence from our culture, or endorse it, including its supernatural beliefs? Or, in the face of social division, is it essential that we endorse its values, recognise it helped create Western beliefs in equality and justice, while rejecting its metaphysical claims as fantastical?

Orwell Prize-winning journalist David Aaronovitch, Reform UK figurehead Laila Cunningham, and theologian Alister McGrath debate cultural Christianity.