Rev George Pitcher argues that while you can be ‘a bit of a Christian’ when exploring faith, there’s no such thing as being ‘a bit racist’ when it comes to political movements - and warns Christians about dangerous alliances with extremist groups
One of the annoyances of being an Anglican priest is being told I believe in things that I don’t.
Some smartypants humanist at a drinks party will come up and tell me of incontrovertible evidence that the world wasn’t made in seven days some 6,000 years ago or how Lot’s wife couldn’t have been turned into a pillar of salt, or something, and ergo my faith is null and void.
I think it points to the idea that you can’t be just a bit of a Christian. It’s in the Bible, you see, and you priests swallow it all whole. Actually I think you can be a bit Christian. Plenty of people I meet at church, particularly the young, are engaged by the wonder and mystery of it all and its possibilities, but aren’t yet buying into it all. The gospels are full of this sort passing curiosity. But the drinks-party bores – and disappointingly a lot of other people besides – are only interested in disproving creationism.
I mention all this because I’m interested in those who marched behind Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom banner last weekend. There seems to be an idea developing that you can be a reasonable sort of patriot who supports this movement and turns up with them to wave a flag. In other words, you can be only a bit of a racist, a nice one who’s just a little worried about our white children.
A dear old friend, who is a Baptist minister in south London, this week reposted what he called a “helpful reflection… from a sensible politician”. And it is helpful and the sensible politician is Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South, who in turn had an old school friend on the Unite the Kingdom march.
The school friend said he was there for two reasons. “The government doesn’t listen to us” and “I want to feel proud of my country again.” He held a Union Jack not a Cross of St George. “He wasn’t there for Hopkins, Musk, or any of the professional grifters…He was there to feel part of something bigger.” Lewis went on to argue that “we’ve replaced collective experience with atomisation” and we’ve lost our sense of community and our pride in it.
Lewis concluded: “When democracies fail to provide a humane alternative, the backlash can turn authoritarian. This is how fascism grew in the 1930s, not because everyone became a true believer, but because millions felt abandoned and looked for strength, identity, and meaning wherever they could find it.”
So Lewis’s friend is the acceptable face of Unite the Kingdom, I suppose. But can you support the Tommy Robinson cause just a bit? I’m afraid I don’t think you can. See those final words about how fascism grew back then – and grows now.
David Campanale reported for this site (very bravely, it turned out) from the same march, interviewing Christians carrying images of the cross and slogans such as “Jesus is Lord” and “Turn back to God”. He was told things like “I think a lot of people are looking for something, and what they’re really looking for is Jesus Christ” and (not by a church-goer) “it’s a Crusade cross. It represents the Crusaders who drove the Muslims and Islamists from Europe”. Eventually, Campanale was called “a leftie” and chased away by punch-throwing drunken thugs.
Danny Kruger, the MP who has just defected from the Conservatives to Reform UK, gave an impassioned speech in parliament this summer on how our country needs to renew the ancient Christian covenant on which it was founded. I don’t believe his idea of Christian restoration includes a new Crusade. But, as an articulate and educated voice, he needs to be careful. For many of us, Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom is just the provisional wing of Reform and will remain so unless and until Nigel Farage emphatically and publicly disowns, nay condemns, Robinson’s creed.
Or can we go along with these people just a bit? The answer must be absolutely not. To march with a movement is to join it. That’s not a question of misplaced perception, it’s a decision of conscience. By the same token, Kruger is not just joining Farage, he’s joining his crusading friends. It’s what, should Reform form a government, is called cabinet consensus.
This isn’t a call for us to stay out of politics. But if we march with racists, we’re going to be seen as racists. And, yes, we come to unite a kingdom, but it isn’t Tommy Robinson’s.
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