David Torrance: Did Thatcher get raw deal over her Sermon on the Mound?

IN 1558, the Protestant reformer John Knox published The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. By regiment, he meant government, and the monstrous women he had in mind were the Roman Catholic sovereigns of the day, Mary Tudor of England and Mary Stuart of Scotland. Women in authority, argued Knox, were "repugnant to nature".

When, 430 years later, Margaret Thatcher addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which Knox helped to establish, she found the trumpet still blasting. But while the Scotland of Mary, Queen of Scots' reign was torn between Catholic and Protestant factions, in 1988 it was divided along political lines – a minority who supported the Thatcherite revolution and an aggressive majority who did not.

The speech – which quickly became known as the "Sermon on the Mound" (a soubriquet Mrs Thatcher considered tasteless) – was greeted with an almost hysterical reaction. It was an iconic moment in Scottish politics, which consolidated the perception Mrs T was anti-Scottish, arrogant and would hijack even the gospel in order to justify her radical policies.

She seemed almost to anticipate the response. Acknowledging that the Kirk had sprung "from the independence of mind and rigour of thought that have always been such powerful characteristics of the Scottish people", the prime minister added, "as I have occasion to know". That independence of mind had been demonstrated when the Tory party lost more than half its Scottish MPs at the 1987 election. The Scots had rejected Thatcherism as enthusiastically as those in the south embraced it.

The Church of Scotland contrived to fill the perceived democratic deficit with its General Assembly, which was looked upon by some as a surrogate parliament. It was a role the Kirk – with declining membership and relevance – inevitably embraced.

For her part, Mrs Thatcher fully realised the offence she would give, and some observers thought she looked nervous. Yet her attempt to reconcile Conservatism with the Christian gospel was sincere. Born a Methodist, she had evolved – at least in terms of religious observance – into an Anglican. And, as in politics, her religious beliefs had an evangelical bent. "The values of a free society like ours come from religion," she once said. "They do not come from the state."

Articulating those values to the General Assembly was also an attempt to correct the damage done by her infamous assertion that there was "no such thing as society". Thatcher never exactly believed that, and deliberately mentioned "society" several times in her speech, as if to intimate a partial retreat.

Events from a few years before also shaped the "Sermon on the Mound". In December 1985, a Church of England report, "Faith in the City", criticised both the established Anglican Church and the government for failing to tackle inner-city deprivation. It caused a political uproar; the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, defended it as "a Christian critique with political implications".

The same defence could have been made of Mrs Thatcher's critique, although its political implications were arguably ill-judged. With its subtle digs at the workshy and assertion that religious faith ordained the making and keeping of money, parts of the speech jarred even with natural Conservative supporters. "If a man will not work, he shall not eat," she said, quoting St Paul, arguing that "abundance rather than poverty has a legitimacy which derives from the very nature of Creation".

From the moment it became known that the Lord High Commissioner, Sir Iain Tennant, intended to invite her to attend, some ministers whipped themselves up into an indignant fervour. On the day of the speech, five even argued – with Mrs Thatcher looking on – that she should be prevented from speaking and walked out before she had uttered a word, an astonishing display for men who claimed to support free discourse. "There was a form of Christianity in her speech," one of the five sarcastically conceded recently, "but you could also say there was a form of Christianity in apartheid."

But then when it came to criticising Mrs Thatcher, there was a belief that anything, however gratuitous or insulting, was acceptable. There was more than a whiff of Dr Johnson in the reaction. "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs," he quipped. "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

But not everyone who filled the chamber that day was offended by Mrs Thatcher's preaching. The Kirk, then as now, had its conservative elements, and Andrew McLellan – who became moderator in 2000 – remembers watching a row of ageing former moderators clapping enthusiastically as the prime minister made her way to the lectern. Indeed, she was applauded several times during the speech, although this could have been out of politeness.

And rereading the speech 20 years on, it is striking how courteous and balanced some passages are. "The Tenth Commandment recognises that making money and owning things could become selfish activities," Mrs Thatcher said. "But it is not the creation of wealth that is wrong but love of money for its own sake. The spiritual dimension comes in deciding what one does with the wealth."

What Thatcherism did with the wealth is why the ideology caused such controversy. But although the speech's central assertion caused a row, noted the journalist Hugo Young, "it wasn't greeted with incredulity. It was now fashionable to be rich not poor, to consume rather than to 'care'".

After nearly a decade of Thatcherism, neither the Kirk nor the Church of England any longer resembled the Conservative Party at prayer. "Christians will very often genuinely disagree," Mrs Thatcher observed, "though it is a mark of Christian manners that they will do so with courtesy and mutual respect." Ironic, then, that her lucid – and very personal – exposition of Christianity was greeted by many with neither.

David Torrance is writing a book on Thatcherism and Scotland.