Tony Benn 1925-2014: a politician shaped by Christianity
A quarter of a century ago the Labour politician described how Nonconformism shaped him
By Mary Kenny on Friday, 14 March 2014
Veteran Labour politician Tony Benn has died at the age of 88. In 1989 Mary Kenny interviewed Benn for The Catholic Herald, where he spoke about the Christian influence on his beliefs.
THOSE who observe the speeches and writings of Tony Benn — sometime Labour Cabinet Minister, currently the scourge of Neil Kinnock on the Left of the Party — have noticed that in recent times a more religious strain has crept into his utterances. He seldom misses an opportunity, these days, to allude to the moral basis of society, or to the duties and obligations of those in power to follow a righteous path.
No, he told me, it is not a new strain in his thinking: this sense of the religious has always been there. Not in a pious way, you understand, but as part of the ethical traditions of nonConformism.
He descends on both sides from Protestant pastors — his paternal grandfather, Julius Benn, was a Congregationalist Minister in the East End of London. His mother, born Margaret Holmes, is a Scot from the Calvinist and Liberal tradition. Tony Benn says he is very proud of his mother — who is still alive, aged 91. She became, at the age of 75, the first President of the Congregational Federation, and was thus the first lay-woman ever to head a Christian denomination.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/03/14/tony-benn-1925-2014-a-politician-shaped-by-christianity/
