Andrew Bradstock examines Baroness Thatcher's religious beliefs and her clashes with the churches over social issues.
As tributes and denunciations of Margaret Thatcher continue to stream forth, one dimension of her life that's been largely overlooked so far is her religious faith.
On the surface this might not seem surprising: after all, most British Prime Ministers pay lip-service to belief in God and ''Christian values'', with varying degrees of sincerity.
But according to the most reliable accounts, Margaret Thatcher took her Christian beliefs very seriously. These beliefs also provided the moral framework for the economic ideas she so vigorously pursued, which is why they deserve attention.
Baroness Thatcher often publicly acknowledged her religious faith, and even read theology for pleasure. One of her biographers recalls asking her once, without warning, what she was reading, and she cited a book by the then Archbishop of York.
''I'm always trying to read a fundamental book,'' she went on.
''I read quite a lot of theological work.''
Yet, however sincerely she took her own faith, she did not get on with the institutional church leaders of her day. Brought up as a Wesleyan Methodist and drifting later into Anglicanism, she found the ethos of both churches during her premiership much to her distaste.
The feeling was mutual. Her church of origin hardly endeared itself to her when, after her famous recitation of the prayer of St Francis on the steps of No 10, a president of the Methodist Conference dressed up as a monk and strode down Downing Street to ''claim his prayer back''!
The Church of England proved an even sharper thorn in her side, frequently criticising her government's policies. Particularly outspoken was the Bishop of Durham, who highlighted the effect that closing coal mines had on families in his diocese, and once described her social security reforms as ''wicked''.
She disliked the Church's post-Falklands service, which was less ''triumphalist'' than she wanted and mourned the Argentinian as well as British dead.
The nadir in church-government relations came in 1985 with the publication of a report on the situation in British cities commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie.
Entitled Faith in the City, this provoked loud condemnation from government ministers, not least because it affirmed the Church's right to ''question all economic policies'' including those which, ''when put into practice, have contributed to the blighting of whole districts, which do not offer the hope of amelioration, and which perpetuate ... human misery and despair''.
At issue here were sharply divergent opinions, not just about the role of the established Church but what the Bible taught about individual responsibility and attitudes to ''the poor''.
For the bishops, the Church had a right to act as ''the conscience of the nation'' and question the ''morality'' of government policies. As Faith in the City asserted, the Bible's ''prophetic call for justice, with its concern for the rights of the weak and the poor'', means the Church needs to keep alive ''the fundamental Christian conviction that ... there are possibilities for a better ordering of society''.
For Baroness Thatcher the Church's duty did not extend far beyond promoting individual responsibility and ''the life of faith''.
In an address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1988 (known subsequently as the ''sermon on the Mound'') she affirmed that ''Christianity is about spiritual redemption, not social reform'' and that any set of social and economic arrangements not based on individual responsibility ''will do nothing but harm''.
Citing St Paul's assertion that anyone who neglects to provide for their family is ''worse than an infidel'', Baroness Thatcher argued that society has no responsibility to those in need beyond ensuring ''no-one is left without sustenance''. Instead, each individual has a duty to create wealth which, if they so choose, they can use to respond to those in need.
''The very nature of Creation'' provided a legitimacy for ''abundance rather than poverty'', Baroness Thatcher proclaimed, implicitly linking the latter to idleness.
Baroness Thatcher's use of theology to defend ''trickle-down'', and heavy emphasis on individualism over collective compassion, led many in the churches to criticise her. One Scottish clergyman even called her Edinburgh sermon a ''disgraceful travesty of the gospel''. And perhaps it is significant that she chose to clinch her argument, not from Scripture, but from a 19th-century hymn of empire, I Vow To Thee My Country.
It was a reference in this hymn to a spiritual ''country'' whose borders increase ''soul by soul'' that particularly enthused the prime minister.
''Not group by group or party by party,'' as she told the Kirk, ''but soul by soul and each one counts.''
There's something refreshing about theology informing political debate, and as the current government in the UK implements cuts to benefits which will adversely affect many poor families, churches are again calling for more truth-telling about the causes of poverty.
Churches here have a tradition of challenging injustice too, and more engagement with insights that religion can offer would add much to our own public discourse. The Bible has some trenchant things to say about the right use of wealth, the need for rulers to be truthful and just, and our responsibility for each other.
Why not some political debates on those themes?
Prof Andrew Bradstock is director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at the University of Otago's department of theology and religion. He lived in Britain through the Thatcher years.
