CARE should be taken to make sure that the “quiet revival” of Christianity within the UK will not be “stolen from people” by a type of Christian nationalism, the final secretary of Churches Together in England, the Pentecostal 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 be certain that this quiet revival is founded on Christ’s saving grace and a private revelation of Biblical truth, and will not be stolen from people by Christian nationalism that’s each 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 author 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 an inclination to the “downplaying of nationalism” and that “there are people who find themselves searching for their identity.” There was a “middle ground where nationhood will be very essential”, he said — pointing to the Ghanaian shirt that he was wearing. “There is nothing fallacious in holding a cross, waving a flag: it’s 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 decide on before, but now I’m feeling like Christianity could possibly be replaced; in order that’s why I feel the Church needs support.” He spoke of the Church as being under “threat”, citing the acute elements of Islam reasonably than that religion as an entire.
The Priest-in-Charge of All Saints’, the Revd Derek Jones, told the BBC: “I’m grateful for the chance to grasp where he’s coming from and what he thinks it means to advertise the values that he associates with the Christian faith.”
He continued: “There are times once I query whether a few of these movements fully understand the gospel that they’re 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, within the diocese of Leeds, the Rt Revd Arun Arora, who had been present, handing out chocolates, where each anti-immigration protests and counter-demonstrators had gathered outside a hotel in West Yorkshire, told the BBC that it was essential 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 accomplish that could be to flirt with extremism or betray ignorance of its flaws. Yet the failure of liberal institutions usually to talk ardently about homeland leaves a emptiness for such natural affections that the far Right is barely too pleased 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 each a denial of history and an abdication of care. If we actually need — 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 find yourself oppressing people, since it doesn’t start on the human scale — even when presenting as populism. Christian society, in contrast, begins with everyone finding they belong in Christ, with those that 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 or not they’ve lived here for hundreds of years or have just washed ashore.
“Love of land and commitment to racial justice and social inclusion usually are not mutually exclusive, subsequently — removed from it. . . The original genius of the English Church was to explain a individuals who weren’t yet a people, thereby bringing together rival fiefdoms. If we long for this broader, higher country in our own time, we must urgently learn methods to proclaim it at scale — and dare to talk its name.”
Among the chants heard on 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 should 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 turn into the youngsters 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 reality.
“We must actively resist the language of worldly powers that dehumanises and scapegoats vulnerable people.”
He concluded: “Every nation has the correct to debate and establish legal processes for the secure movement of individuals and the complexities surrounding immigration. The Feast of Christ the King offers a challenge to withstand the politicisation and commodification of individuals to be able 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.”
