CARE must be taken to ensure that the “quiet revival” of Christianity in the UK is not “stolen from people” by a form of Christian nationalism, the general secretary of Churches Together in England, the Pentecostalist Bishop Mike Royal, has said.
Bishop Royal, the Apostolic Pastoral Congress’s diocesan bishop for Inner Birmingham, was speaking at a conference at All Souls’, Langham Place, on Saturday, on the theme of “responding to the rebirth”.
He concluded his talk by observing: “The challenge for the Church is make sure that this quiet revival is founded on Christ’s saving grace and a personal revelation of Biblical truth, and is not stolen from people by Christian nationalism that is both nominal and at odds with Christ’s twofold message of loving God and loving your neighbour. The boundary between truth and error is wafer thin. Let’s not allow the enemy to steal from people what God is doing through his Holy Spirit.”
The event was organised by the broadcaster and writer Justin Brierley, whose books include The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God (Tyndale House, 2023), and Glen Scrivener, an evangelist and the director at Speak Life, a proclamation and media ministry. The conference was attended by 700 people in person, and 300 online.
Bishop Royal said that there had been a tendency to the “downplaying of nationalism” and that “there are people who are looking for their identity.” There was a “middle ground where nationhood can be very important”, he said — pointing to the Ghanaian shirt that he was wearing. “There is nothing wrong in holding a cross, waving a flag: it is the intent.”
On Sunday, the BBC website published an article, “Tommy Robinson supporters are turning to Christianity, leaving the Church in a dilemma”.
One man who began going to All Saints’, Little Horton, in Bradford, after attending Mr Robinson’s rallies, said: “I never thought I had to choose before, but now I’m feeling like Christianity could be replaced; so that’s why I feel the Church needs support.” He spoke of the Church as being under “threat”, citing the extreme elements of Islam rather than that religion as a whole.
The Priest-in-Charge of All Saints’, the Revd Derek Jones, told the BBC: “I’m grateful for the opportunity to understand where he’s coming from and what he thinks it means to promote the values that he associates with the Christian faith.”
He continued: “There are times when I question whether some of these movements fully understand the gospel that they are seeming to walk behind, and my gut feeling is it’s more about identity than faith.” It was a “difficult road for the Church to walk”.
The Bishop of Kirkstall, in the diocese of Leeds, the Rt Revd Arun Arora, who had been present, handing out chocolates, where both anti-immigration protests and counter-demonstrators had gathered outside a hotel in West Yorkshire, told the BBC that it was important for the Church to challenge “injustice” and “hatred”. He warned against “a narrow Christian nationalist ideology”.
On Tuesday, the Bishop of Ramsbury, in Salisbury diocese, Dr Andrew Rumsey, suggested that the Church of England had “long been hesitant about declaring love for England, fearing that to do so would be to flirt with extremism or betray ignorance of its flaws. Yet the failure of liberal institutions in general to speak ardently about homeland leaves a vacancy for such natural affections that the far Right is only too happy to fill.”
He told the Church Times: “At a time of resurgent interest in faith and identity, it isn’t sufficient simply to denounce Christian nationalism as ‘hate’, which seems to me both a denial of history and an abdication of care. If we really want — as I do — to arrest the drift towards intolerance, the C of E must embody a more hopeful patriotism, grounded in neighbourhood and unconditional charity.
“Nationalism tends to end up oppressing people, because it doesn’t start at the human scale — even when presenting as populism. Christian society, by contrast, begins with each person finding they belong in Christ, with those who were once strangers now brought near and adopted into God’s family. The local church works out this ideal in every place, growing nations — and thus a world — from radical love of neighbour, with particular concern for the dispossessed — whether they’ve lived here for centuries or have literally just washed ashore.
“Love of land and commitment to racial justice and social inclusion are not mutually exclusive, therefore — far from it. . . The original genius of the English Church was to describe a people who were not yet a people, thereby bringing together rival fiefdoms. If we long for this broader, better country in our own time, we must urgently learn how to proclaim it at scale — and dare to speak its name.”
Among the chants heard at the Unite the Kingdom rally was “Christ is King”. On Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King, the Bishop of Edmonton, in London diocese, Dr Anderson Jeremiah, said in a sermon: “The Church’s glorification of Christ the King must be dissociated from historical and current expressions of oppressive power. . .
“Jesus’ power, unlike Pilate’s, is rooted in generous hospitality and freedom, offering everyone the ‘power to become the children of God’. The core challenge of embodying the subversive Christ the King in our recent conversations on immigration, asylum-seekers, and nationalism is to testify to the truth.
“We must actively resist the language of worldly powers that dehumanises and scapegoats vulnerable people.”
He concluded: “Every nation has the right to debate and establish legal processes for the safe movement of people and the complexities surrounding immigration. The Feast of Christ the King offers a challenge to resist the politicisation and commodification of people in order to prioritise dignity over political expediency.
“Embodying Christ’s kingship means focusing our critique not on the marginalised, but on the failures of the powerful.”
