Few Are Chosen

I've finally got round to reading the collection of Enoch Powell's essays on Christianity and the Church of England, No Easy Answers. In his opening passage on the Athanasian Creed, he seems to make a connection, albeit a very slight one, between the emergence and bloating of the welfare state with the decline of Christianity in Britain:

Over and over again the Christ of the Gospels asserts that his salvation will not be for all, not even the majority, that 'few are chosen' (Matt. 22.14) ... failure - the possibility, probability, prevalence of failure - is asserted by Christianity as a corollary of its assertion that success consists in a mental state.

... for no generation perhaps has it been so difficult to face this hard saying as our own place and time, with its shibboleth of 'equality of opportunity' and its idolisation of 'fair shares'. In a sugary, romantic, cosy religion, suitable to match the welfare state, there would not only be equality of opportunity to be saved, but an insurance scheme thrown in, to ensure that nobody missed salvation just through being born in the wrong place at the wrong time, or not happening to entertain the necessary belief, or being incapable of doing so. It would be a religion in which every story had a happy ending, here or hereafter.

Sounds remarkably like the doctrine of the present Archbishop of Canterbury.