The British Prime Minister, whose father was a Church of England vicar, stresses the importance of knowing you're doing the right thing.

In her opinion, knowing this gives you energy and confidence to carry out the work that needs to be done.

Another virtue learned during her childhood was a sense of duty.

"Being brought up in a vicarage, of course the advantage is that you do see people from all walks of life. What came out of my upbringing was a sense of service ... my father would be out and about visiting people," she explains.

She allows her faith guide her work. Faith helps her make difficult decisions.

"I'm a practising member of the Church of England and so forth, that lies behind what I do," she says.

May, who admits Brexit keeps her awake at night, has a huge job ahead of her as Britain exits the EU and the post-Brexit version emerges.

She says she likes to look at decisions from a number of sides so she can check any unintended consequences.

" I want to make sure that everything we do ensures Britain is a country that works for everyone," she says.

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May remains a regular churchgoer but she will never be someone who talks a great deal about her religious beliefs. Insofar as she wants people to know about her faith it is through works rather than words.

And the works during her time as Home Secretary add up to a not inconsiderable legacy. Working with the CSJ, she enacted the Human Slavery Act and its ambition to curtail people trafficking.

Against resistance from the Conservative Party's harder line law and order lobby she also oversaw reforms to "stop and search". She felt that aggressive policing of ethnic minorities was wrong as well as counter-productive and she reformed it.

Many Christians may feel that her tough approach to immigration often lacked compassion and the infamous "Go home" vans that May eventually agreed to remove from the roads (after even Ukip had attacked them) were certainly a low point.

Overall, however, there is nothing unChristian about controlling immigration. The greatest danger to race relations and to a nation's openness to economic and humanitarian immigration is a failure to manage borders and for people to develop a sense that their communities and local services are being overwhelmed.

If you really want to apportion blame for anti-immigrant feeling it might be most appropriate to point fingers at the European politicians who designed the EU's freedom of movement regime or the politicians who have never sought consent for the levels of immigration that Britain and other European nations have experienced over recent years. Continue reading

• Tim Montgomerie is a columnist for the Times and Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute.