Thanks to Unherd for publishing my latest piece: click through to read the rest on the Unherd website…
“The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has told the New Humanist that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is misusing Britain’s Christian heritage “to channel anti-Muslim feeling”. He added that he has “some awkward questions” for Tommy Robinson about how his claimed conversion to Christianity in prison squared with “public rhetoric designed to produce hostility and violence”.
“Concerns about cynical manipulation of Christianity for political advantage are warranted, even from those who don’t share Dr Williams’s perspective as an out-and-proud “hairy Lefty”. Yet rather than simply damning this new enthusiasm for Christianity on the hard Right to the largely atheist readers of the New Humanist, might he be better advised to put his concerns to Farage and Robinson directly?
“For example, if Mr Robinson’s jailhouse conversion is sincere, then he will have to engage with the hardest sayings of Jesus Christ about loving one’s enemies, turning the other cheek, and forgiving others if one wishes God to forgive them. And, like other Christians, he will have to grapple with the challenging personal and theological implications of how often he fails to live up to those ideals…”
[…]
Latin America’s liberation-theology Catholics were another progressive Christian tendency that assumed they represented the future. In fact, they were elbowed aside by the prosperity-gospel neo-Pentecostals. Dr Williams may worry that a form of Christianity that is somewhat less polished and considerably more tribal than he is comfortable with will be the one that once again fills the nation’s pews. That may be a prospect he is right to worry about; but without engaging in an adult way with those on the Right newly claiming to be Christian, how can he know?