Religion-based morality will survive in the secular world even if people no longer believe in the resurrection or the story of the Ten Commandments
The supposedly "sensational" findings of an Ipsos Mori poll for the Richard Dawkins Foundation that many self-styled Christians in the Church of England do not believe that Jesus was physically resurrected or was the Son of God; rarely pray; cannot name the four gospels in correct order; and seek moral guidance elsewhere than from religion – will be no surprise to those of us who work within Christianity's mother faith of Judaism. My guess is that the numbers would be even higher for Jewish (lack of) belief.
Jews today are an overwhelmingly secular people, whether in Israel or the Diaspora. It is one of the issues I address in my new book. Traditionally, Jewish thought revolved around the three pillars of God, Torah and the people of Israel. Nowadays they are antisemitism, the Holocaust and the state of Israel.
Aside from the devoutly pious fringe sects of Judaism, hardly any Jew today gives literal credence to a God who came down on Mount Sinai to give Moses the law for his chosen people, Israel; who is the omnipotent, omniscient creator and rules his creation with perfect justice; and who is guiding history, whatever its terrible vicissitudes along the way, towards a messianic age of peace and harmony when all peoples will acknowledge his sovereignty and do his will.
A moment's reflection on the suffering, pain, injustice and sheer arbitrariness of human existence in what Thomas Hardy called "this nonchalant universe" makes it difficult for any thinking person to defend the notion of an all-beneficent or all-powerful creator. And even Jews who claim they believe in God resort to metaphor and woolly thought – a sense of wonder at nature, the "still, small voice" of conscience, the "divinely inspired" genius of Mozart, a universe too intricately intermeshed not to have had a guiding hand behind it – when trying to explain why they believe.
So what makes all those Jews who would define themselves as non-believers or predominantly secular still call themselves Jewish? The answer lies in something additional to faith and summed up as "Jewish values". The 4,000-year-old link that a modern Jew in Tel Aviv, New York or London traces back to the biblical Abraham might be genetically fanciful, but it and the national narrative that evolved from it in all its infinite variety, customs, folk memories, intellectual and artistic efflorescence, tragedies and creative achievements still have the power to retain the loyalty of the overwhelming majority of men and women in the world today who classify themselves as Jewish.
That is the legacy of a tradition that binds together the heirs of Judaism's diffuse culture, in which religion is a major component but not the only one. Adherents can choose where and how they wish to opt in, what on the menu takes their fancy, and those dishes they would rather avoid, including, for many, the chef's religious recommendations.
Rejecting Judaism's beliefs would have been shocking in the past; less so today. Modern Jewish identity is fluid and pick'n'mix. Moral exhortations about justice, loving your neighbour and improving the world were originally religion-based but have become normative secular values among all Jews since emancipation and our entry into wider society. Parochial belief may have declined, but awareness has grown in Judaism of the need to work towards a universally endorsed secular ethic for healing the world. The same is true in Christianity, which is why I think the values of the two religions will survive – even without affirmations of belief from their followers.