A.N. Wilson and the ‘aesthetic’ relationship to religion

My first Spectator article, 21 years ago, was a rebuke to the religious attitude of certain public intellectuals whom I dubbed ‘devout sceptics’. They gave the impression, I said, of being drawn to the depth of religion, unlike shallow atheists, but also of being too intellectually honest to believe in it. To my delight, one of my targets, Clive James, wrote a self-defending letter. I had been noticed by a big beast!

A.N. Wilson was another of my targets. Of him, I said that a foppish antiquarian interest in religion was just a water-muddying distraction; we could do with some intellectuals who get off the fence and set out the case for religion. I met him soon after that article and he was very nice about it. He is a charming and friendly chap. But I won’t let this stop me updating my critique of his approach to religion.

In his enjoyable new memoir, Confessions, he explains that he has always been drawn to Christianity, but distracted by a gadfly agnosticism, a sense that secular open-mindedness is for him unavoidable, a sort of calling.