Journalism

Rowan Williams should Engage with Farage on Christianity

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Thanks to Unherd for publishing my latest piece: click through to read the rest on the Unherd website…

Close-up photograph of Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, shown in half-profile with hands clasped in prayer near his chin. He wears round wire-framed glasses, has a full white beard, and is dressed in purple clerical vestments. His eyes are cast downward

“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…”

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Politicians are Scared of Calling Out Muslim Homophobia

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Three people embracing in a close group hug at an outdoor event, seen from behind, with the Brandenburg Gate visible in the background under a bright sky. A rainbow pride flag is partially visible at the edge of the frame.

My thanks to Unherd for running my short piece on the comments of Sir Chris Bryant MP, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, on the attack on the Christopher Street Day LGBT+ parade in Berlin last weekend. Sir Chris refused to acknowledge that the attacker was an Islamist even after the German Interior Minister publicly stated that to be the case.

Sir Chris was “ordained as a priest in the Church of England before he first left active ministry and later Anglicanism entirely because he couldn’t reconcile his homosexuality with his Church’s treatment of gay relationships. Naming Christian homophobia is considered laudable in his own support base.

“But naming Muslim homophobia? This, in contrast, threatens the unofficial British state settlement around crimes which undercut the narrative that multiculturalism only has benefits and never brings new problems. The most obvious case is of nationwide grooming gangs. But there has been a constant drumbeat of lesser yet still serious incidents, from the reaction to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in 1988 to the Wakefield woman forced to go to the local mosque to plead for her son’s life in 2023 after he damaged a Quran.”

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Christians Help Iraq to Qualify for World Cup

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Thanks to the Church Times for publishing a short news piece from me on the hugely disproportionate number of Christians playing for Iraq’s second ever World Cup-qualifying squad—and also to its first World Cup outing, in 1986. A notably devout Christian, Ammo Baba, scored Iraq’s first ever international goal, against Morocco, in 1957, then coached … Read more

Once Again, America Chooses Ireland Over the UK

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Unherd published a piece of mine on US government interventions on Northern Ireland, and why Ireland’s special relationship with the USA usually trumps the UK’s (read more here). Irish influence in America is not just about raw political calculation, nor entirely about the large number of Americans who proudly bear Irish ancestry. The technocrats miss … Read more