The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Rev Martyn Snow, in an apparent plea for dialogue and understanding, has conceded that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has some extent when he says that church leaders are “out of touch” with believers over the difficulty of immigration.
Writing for The Times, Bishop Snow said, “Hard because it is for church leaders equivalent to me to listen to, there may be a grain of truth in what he says.”
Farage’s comments look like backed as much as a level by research from the University of Exeter, which has indicated significant support for Reform amongst members of the Church of England.
Bishop Snow wrote that many Christians are in favour of tighter border controls “not out of hatred but out of sincere concern for social cohesion, pressure on public services and the pace of cultural change of their communities”.
The Church, he argues, have to be for such people as much because it is for many who support current immigration policies. By rubbishing the concerns of those that oppose mass immigration, the Church could find yourself driving believers away.
Instead, the Church ought to be an area where persons are free to disagree and where there may be diversity of thought amongst individuals who sincerely wish to search out God’s will.
While calling for the Church to affix within the national conversation on immigration, Bishop Snow also asked people to listen and have interaction with one another with “respect, courtesy and love”.
However, while making such a call, the bishop also denounced what he called “inhumane policies” and “populist fearmongering” in an apparent dig at Farage.
Other Church leaders have been more direct of their criticism of Farage.
The Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Rev Steven Croft, published an open letter to Farage in response to Reform’s plans to deport illegal 600,000 migrants and withdraw from the controversial European Convention on Human Rights.
“I heard no compassion in what you said for many who are in danger from people traffickers; those that fled for his or her lives; those that long for sanctuary and safety; the vulnerable who could be forcibly deported,” Bishop Croft said.
“The British people, as I understand them, want public policies founded on the deeply British and Christian values of compassion and take care of those in need.”
He added, “I disagree profoundly together with your attempts to politicise the questions of migration and asylum by deliberately increasing fear of the stranger in our communities.”
The acting head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, also spoke out against Farage, telling The Mirror that Reform’s plans were “beneath us as a nation”.
Clearly, not everyone agrees with Croft and Cottrell. Church of England priest, Simon Brennan, said in a recent column for The Critic that church leaders often lean on “well-meaning clichés” about compassion, justice and community, while failing to grapple with the harder theological and cultural realities of large-scale migration.
“We really must give you the chance to expect more from our Bishops than for them to easily offer soft-Left platitudes that sound like they were drafted by Peter Mandelson in 1998,” Brennan wrote, adding that there was “a transparent sense that over the previous few years there was a rapid and significant cultural change within the country and at present the Church of England is way behind by way of what is occurring”.
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