British society risks being “undermined” if the biblical principles that have underpinned it for so long are eroded, the Bishop of London has said.

Dr Richard Chartres told a symposium on the Bible in the House of Lords yesterday: “Our culture and civilisation were founded on the Bible.

“The economy and politics must have ground beneath them. In Britain that ground has been biblical since our earliest days – and you do not sacrifice that without sacrificing much of what has been built upon that ground.”

He said concepts such at dignity and tolerance at the heart of British society would be “very difficult to sustain without a Christian ground”.

“Although it has become difficult to use the language of the Bible in this country, it will become more and more obvious that these values and these principles will be unsustainable without the Christian ground,” he said.

The bishop also defended the decision of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to use the King James Version at their wedding last month.

“At the royal wedding, the couple chose traditional words and none of the commentators remarked on it,” he said.

“But the following week the church press was full of commentators deploring the use of fusty words...