What determines that there is a larger society, rather than merely a collection of competing groups and tribes? What determines the nature of the larger society? Is it possible to have a nation without having a larger society? That is, can one indeed have a nation without a consensus on shared values? To be specific, is multiculturalism a sufficient shared value that will create and sustain a larger culture, or is it a recipe for devolving into a collection of competing groups and tribes?

My favorite Anglican bishop, Michael Nazir-Ali, Pakistani by birth and rearing, moved to Britain due to threats on his life in Pakistan. As an outsider coming into British society, he sees things that those raised as insiders might miss. One of these things is the degree to which British society and the British nation were based on Christianity, and the dissolution of the larger society and nation as Christianity is abandoned for multiculturalism.

Here is his very thoughtful essay that has provoked some predictable response by the usual suspects.