Well done to the Church of England, who have sharply criticised Tommy Robinson’s far-right Christmas-themed event planned for London this coming Saturday.

I was getting a bit frustrated with the CofE for their failure to condemn the event sooner, but I’ll happily put that aside and focus on the fact that they have done so now. In the case of some CofE leaders, they have done so more strongly than I had dared to hope.

The Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church had already condemned Robinson’s plans, along with various other churches and Christian groups.

Some Christians would prefer just to ignore the far right. I understand about denying them the “oxygen of publicity”. The problem is that if they’re already getting publicity for the lies they tell, we need publicise the truth.

Robinson’s and his band of far-right clergy have put out a slick and sophisticated video and social media posts. The video includes a handful of racist and homophobic clergy, mostly from tiny right-wing denominations. They claim that this event is “not political”. They clearly want to give the impression that this is an innocuous Christmas carol event.

Their propaganda seems to be working. I have been saddened and disturbed to read posts in Christian Facebooks groups from people either approving of Robinson’s rally or urging people not to condemn it. Some of these are not from out-and-out racists; some are even from people who might be considered theologically progressive.

The far right event is called “Putting Christ Back Into Christmas” and involves carols and worship in Whitehall on Saturday. It is organised by “Unite the Kingdom” (UTK), whose aim is to divide the kingdom. This is the group who organised the racist rally in London in September, which included violent assaults on people of colour and peaceful counter-protesters.

For resisting the far-right’s narrative, and for reaching out to people who are taken in by UTK’s claims about the nature of the event, there are some helpful resources out there:

• The Centre for the Study of the Bible and Violence have collated a range of resources – from artworks to writings to discussion materials.
  
• The Joint Public Issues Team – who represent the Baptist Union, Methodist Church and United Reformed Church – have links to various resources on their website.
  
• Jon Kuhrt has written a helpful article contrasting the organisers’ claims about the event with Robinson’s description of it to his own supporters.
  
• There will be some alternative acts of worship on the day, not all of which can be publicised in advance. Please let me know if you are interested in details (although I don’t know about all of them!).
  
• There is a counter-demonstration for people of all faiths and none at Downing Street from 1pm on Saturday.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The above image of the Bus Stop Nativity is produced by Andrew Gadd, who is kindly allowing it to be reproduced for free.