Review by Jonathan Hoffman (Associate, Oxford House)[1]: Melanie Phillips, The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West – And Why Only They Can Save It (Wicked Son, 2025), pp. 320.
I was delighted when my old school friend, and Oxford House Associate, Jonathan Hoffman drew to my attention Melanie Phillips’ latest book, The Builder’s Stone. To Bible readers, the image of a ‘cornerstone’ to faith and life is well-known. New riches are extracted from this image in Phillips’ compelling book and Jonathan’s review of it. Neither you or I will necessarily agree with all that is said in either, but in an age where dialogue – perhaps especially inter-faith dialogue – has become so difficult, here is encouragement to think the effort is not in vain. Indeed, the children and grandchildren of this generation may thank God we did!
And if you haven’t already seen it, do look out for Oxford House’s substantial co-authored report on Iran that appeared just before the recent attacks: https://sallux.eu/Making%20sense%20of%20Iran%20download.pdf
After Covid-19, a second highly contagious virus has attacked the West, or so it seems. Media outlets, Humanities departments of universities, and the Labour Party, have been it appears particularly vulnerable to infection. Some scientists have dubbed this new pandemic ‘IDS’ – ‘Israel Derangement Syndrome’. Its symptoms and consequences form the substance of the British public commentator Melanie Phillips’ meticulously researched new book The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West – And Why Only They Can Save It. For any concerned about the drift and direction of Britain and other Western nations, here is a sophisticated analysis of the virus that is attacking the religious, moral and cultural foundation of Western societies (Chapters 1 to 10) and a thoughtful proposal for an antidote (Chapter 11). The book made me sit up and take note. I hope you will too.
To Phillips, the root of the problem the West faces is what she calls, ‘the erosion of religion’; more specifically, a steady decline in belief in the Bible and a drift away from Judeo-Christian values (which, of course, trace their roots to classical Judaism). The simple fact is, though sceptics, atheists and agnostics may mock and ridicule her claim, Phillips makes a compelling case – and, to a majority of faithful Jews and Christians, she is right. For, despite some evidence of a small increase recently in church attendance in the UK, data supports Phillips’ fundamental presupposition, namely, that the religious substructure of life in Britain and other Western nations has been, and is being eroded. The 2021 UK Census revealed for the first time that less than 50% of Britain’s population self-identifies as Christian. In the same Census, by the way, 287,360 people (or 5% of the population) self-identified as Jewish, a slightly higher number than in the earlier 2011 Census, but in line with population growth.
One result of this ‘erosion of religion’ is, Phillips argues – and she characteristically doesn’t pull her punches – the severing of family relationships. She writes, ‘In the UK between 1996 and 2021, the number of couples choosing to live together without getting married or entering a civil partnership increased by 144 percent.’ With evidence suggesting casual relations and cohabitations break down more often and more easily than marriages, there has been, Phillips claims, a significant rise in fatherlessness. The result? ‘Children forlornly watch from a distance as processions of men march through their mothers’ bedrooms.’ Phillips dedicates her book to her grandchildren, and then quotes pointedly Psalm 118 verse 22, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the chief corner-stone.’
To Phillips, unless the West adopts key components of Jewish survival – in particular, veneration for truth, personal and communal moral responsibility, and a sense of history and continuity – it risks collapsing under the weight of insecurity, lies, lack of relational confidence and mindless shallowness in perception and morality.
But Phillips is also strikingly clear about what she sees as the malevolence of Islamism and the threat it poses to the West. She writes, ‘Antisemitism is deeply rooted in Islamic theology’. She continues,‘The point is that the Islamists aim to destroy the Jews as a way to destroy the West’. Unlike many, Phillips does not hide behind the pretence that radicals are a minority in Islam and the impact of their antisemitism consequently limited. An April 2024 survey by the Henry Jackson Society found 72% of UK Muslims believe ‘Israel is a racist endeavour’. According to the now widely adopted IHRA definition of antisemitism, this position is self-consciously prejudicial to Jews and Judaism.[2] Crucially, for those with higher education qualifications the percentage is 74%, while for those between the ages of 18-24 the percentage rises to 80%. Phillips’ readiness to engage in this highly sensitive and complex issue is to her credit: a majority of authors, politicians and media pundits shy away from it.
Although Phillips’ book addresses difficult themes, it is eminently readable. Segues at the end of each chapter draw the reader on. I was particularly impressed by Chapter 7 on the history of antisemitism, Chapter 8 on Judaism, Israel, the Talmud and the Mishnah, and Chapter 10 on the strength of Israel’s battle to survive (particularly how the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas has served to unite a nation deeply divided of-late over judicial reform).
(1694-1779) (Wikipedia)
Phillips’ The Builder’s Stone is also strong historically. Here are important insights into key differences between classical Greek and Jewish ethics, why the European Enlightenment was proactively hostile to religion, and why the French philosopher [François-Marie Arouet] Voltaire (1694-1779) believed Jews ‘the most detestable people on earth’. Here, too, are insights into the displacing of spiritual identity by socially identifiable tattoos, into the ineptitude of successive UK governments in handling Islamism at a regional and national level, into why erstwhile conservatives are so slow to conserve religious mores, and into the painful internal issue of why some secular Jews are socially anti-Jewish. Tough issues all, but all rightly and responsibly – courageously even – faced by Phillips.
Conscious perhaps that she portrays a hope-less, divided, rudderless West, Phillips devotes the last chapter of her book to remedies. Fired by her belief that the drift to ‘conservative or “populist” parties and politicians across the West’ is in part caused by the ‘millions of people’who are ‘appalled by what has happened’but remain silent, she offers, ‘A Ten-Point Rescue Programme for the West’. Read these for yourself, but here is my summary of them:
1. To establish a ‘coalition of the willing’ bringing together like-minded people from whatever background in large scale events, to express solidarity in concern and aspiration.
2. To urge Jews to address the erosion of faith, confidence and coherence within their own ranks, as a vital contribution to the recovery of Western culture. Leaders have a key role in this, guiding their community/-ties to resist the demonization of Israel and collaborate with Christians (and others) to confront religious persecution and ‘institutionalised slavery’ inside and outside the West.
3. To oppose Identity politics, victim culture and intersectionality. Phillips is clear, anyone who intimidates others on college campuses should be expelled; administrators who fail to act should be sacked; universities that deny incitement or intimidation should face funding cuts.
4. The ‘coalition of the willing’ should demonstrate that core western values derive not from ‘social justice’ or ‘human rights’ but from the Bible. In Phillips’ words, ‘The Bible needs to be made cool’ (again?).
5. To teach and promote the psychological, moral, societal, and spiritual value of ‘faith’. People need to ‘believe’, Phillips argues, and it is good for them and others when they do. Belief in the Bible and biblical values is eminently more plausible and reliable, she claims, than moral relativism, environmentalism, multiculturalism and anti-capitalism.
6. Christianity needs to be ‘re-empowered’ socially, spiritually and intellectually. Central to this, for Phillips, is a thoughtful repudiation of Christian Supercessionism (viz. that Christianity has in God’s plan of salvation replaced Judaism) and anti-Zionist Christian theology (viz. that intentionally or unintentionally perpetuates antisemitic ideas or ideologies).
7. ‘Doing not dogma’. To Phillips, liberal Protestant churches have become preoccupied with death and the afterlife, when their focus should be this world and this life.
(1948-2020) (Wikipedia)
8. ‘Law not Laxity’. Phillips is again very clear, the Church must not be afraid of making distinctions; specifically, in these culturally conflicted times, between truth and falsehood, victim and victimizers, freedom and slavery.
9. To articulate and demonstrate what former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (1948-2020) called a ‘covenantal society’; that is, a society that doesn’t commend a flaccid kind of egalitarian love that feeds off moral relativism and fuels moral indifference (or worse). No, in a ‘covenantal society’ norms and relationships are respected as essential for social coherence and integrity.
10. To repudiate an essentially self-interested ‘victim culture’, in which duty and responsibility give way to greed, self-pity and a pervasive form of indulgent egocentrism. As Phillips puts it, ‘A culture of victimhood creates intellectual and moral paralysis’.Mind and morality are, to Phillips, collaborative agents of cultural renewal.
Perhaps most soberingly of all, Melanie Phillips believes it is (possibly) too late to save the West culturally and religiously. However, her portrayal of – indeed, prognosis for – Western cultures is not without hope. To some, ‘God is back’ among white collar urbanites. To others, the UK’s Supreme Court ruling about the biological definition of a woman bucks the country’s potent woke agenda. The cost of inaction going forward is to Phillips, and others in the cultural silent majority, overwhelming. But, if a backlash has begun, how far might it go? This good, brave book encourages the fainthearted to try. I commend this bold, challenging, clear-eyed book warmly for edification and discussion – and even more its encouragement to be part of the solution.
As in all Oxford House Briefings, every effort is made to attribute images where information is available.
[1] Jonathan Hoffman is an economist with degrees from Oxford (PPE) and LSE. His employers have included the Bank of England, Credit Suisse and the Greater London Authority. He is a former Vice Chair of the Zionist Federation and a former elected member of the Defence Division of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. He is an active campaigner against antisemitism and served as an adviser to Labour Against Antisemitism.
[2] Cf. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) 2016 definition of antisemitism: ‘Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.’ 11 examples are included, these are part of the definition. See further: https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism.