The Peace of Christ or the Peace of Rome?

Posted on by symonhill

I was honoured to be asked to write about active nonviolence for Shibboleth, an excellent new Christian magazine that I heartily recommend (not just my own article!). This is my article, which appeared in Issue 2.

Jesus was executed by one of the most violent empires in history.

It is staggering just how rarely this is mentioned in churches. For centuries, we have been told that Jesus was killed by “the Jews”. Antisemitism has combined with attempts to depoliticise Jesus’ message by shifting the blame away from imperial authorities.

We cannot, however, get away from the fact that Jesus was condemned to death by Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judea. The gospels present the Jewish leaders as complicit in Jesus’ death, but these were the Jewish leaders who collaborated with Roman rule and owed their position to not upsetting the Romans. They were not representative of Jews generally.

Supporters of Roman rule championed the “Pax Romana” or Peace of Rome. For them, “peace” was a euphemism for order, control or an absence of conflict. There is no conflict when all resistance is crushed. The Romans claimed to bring “peace and security” to conquered lands. “When they say ‘peace and security’, then sudden destruction will come upon them,” wrote Paul in one of his earliest letters (1 Thessalonians 5,3).

Jesus proclaimed a very different sort of peace. I suggest that to understand Jesus’ teachings, we need to recognise that he was speaking to people for whom violence was a daily reality. They included civilians abused by Roman soldiers, slaves beaten by their “owners”, women mistreated by men.

Yet many Christian discussions of the ethics of violence start from the wrong place. They focus on war between nation-states and the decisions of governments.

Of course, national wars appear in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), which contains varied attitudes to violence. Those passages that justify massacres do not in any sense point to the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Many other parts of the Hebrew Bible include prophetic condemnations of violence and oppression. At certain points, Israelite forces are reminded to rely only on God’s strength – Gideon is told to reduce the size of his army so his victory is attributed not to military power but to God’s power (Judges 7,2).

Wars between nation-states today generally involve people being ordered to fight by their governments, based on the bizarre premise that we all have more in common with our rulers than with people like us who happen to have been born on the other side of a line on a map.

But the Christ who breaks down barriers exposes the reality of violence. And it is with Jesus’ teachings that a Christian ethic must surely begin.

When Jesus’ spoke about turning the other cheek, he was speaking to people who were used to being hit.

“If anyone strikes you on the right cheek…” says Jesus (Matthew 5,39). To be hit on the right cheek (with the right hand) implies a backhanded slap. This was the way in which people disciplined supposed inferiors. Masters backhanded slaves, men backhanded their wives, employers backhanded workers.

The submissive response to being hit is not to turn the other cheek but to cower, cringe or step backwards. These are all very understandable reactions. To respond with violence is also understandable, though probably futile when the aggressor has far more power. But calmly turning the other cheek is a gesture of nonviolent defiance, potentially confusing the aggressor and tipping the balance of power, at least for a moment.

Of course it does not work in every situation. The same can be said of Jesus’ teaching to go “another mile” – which would cause trouble for Roman soldiers who were permitted to require civilians to carry their packs for only one mile (Matthew 5,41). These methods of nonviolent defiance are suggestions. Different contexts need different suggestions, with similar principles.

Jesus’ protest in the Temple is sometimes presented as inconsistent with turning the other cheek. I suggest instead that Jesus’ teachings and actions are entirely consistent. The Temple protest was disruptive but not violent (violence involves hurting people, not damaging tables). It involved the same principles of nonviolent resistance that Jesus championed in the Sermon on the Mount.

Active nonviolence is not about judging those who are driven to resist violence with violence. I cannot condemn someone who picks up a gun in a horrendous situation that I have never faced and cannot imagine. This is different to encouraging such things.

Active nonviolence is about seeking to live by a different power. This is the power of the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed, which turns notions of kingship on their head. The Kingdom is both now and not yet, a future reality that is glimpsed in the here and now in every moment that testifies to the love of God, from small moments of kindness to global campaigns against injustice.

Given its centrality in the New Testament, it is very surprising that we don’t talk more in churches about loving our enemies. Loving enemies does not mean having no enemies (how can you love your enemies if you haven’t got any?!). Nor is it a concept that can just be explained away, as with Augustine of Hippo’s tortuous argument that it is possible to love someone while killing them. Arms dealers and militarist politicians are my enemies, but I cannot kill or demonise them, nor fail to recognise my own sin and complicity in violence, if I love them in the upside-down power of the Kingdom of God.

The New Testament makes clear that living by this power – or trying to – is not about avoiding conflict. As Martin Luther King pointed out, a commitment to peace involves conflict with those who wage war. When Jesus said that he had “not come to bring peace but a sword”, he spoke about divisions within families and communities, so in that context he meant “peace” in the narrow sense of an absence of conflict (Matthew 10,34-36). The gospel involves conflict with forces of violence and injustice.

The New Testament does not teach us either to kill our enemies or to pretend that we have no enemies. Serving the Kingdom of God involves engaging in conflict with love – something that it is not possible in our own strength, but only by the subversive, transformative power of God that we see in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. This is a power that forces of violence and domination will not tolerate. That is why, as the Quaker peace campaigner Helen Steven used to put it, following Jesus “leads straight into trouble”.

The Christ who saves us calls us to live differently

Posted on by symonhill

Last month (on 6th April 2025) I preached at Sherbourne Community Church in Coventry. I was very pleased to be asked to do so. Below is the text of my sermon (I am sorry not to have posted it sooner; I was delayed by health problems and other issues).

To be clear: this is the text I wrote beforehand but in practice I deviated from the wording at times and added in a couple of extra comments. But the substance is much the same.

The sermon followed two Bible readings:

John 12, 1-8

Philippians 3, 3-14

Some parts of the gospels are really weird. Some of us have got so used to reading the gospels that we can forget how odd parts of them would sound if we hadn’t read them before. And we have a great example with the passage from John 12 that we heard earlier.

Here we have Mary pouring a load of expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet. This story appears in various forms in other gospels too, although there are significant variations – about who the woman is who does this, and about how she does it. But the idea of a woman physically pouring oil on Jesus seems to have been widely recognised in one form or another.

And what a strange thing it is to do. And in John’s version of the story, Judas pops up says that it would be better to have sold the ointment and given the money to the poor. And if you’re like me, you might find yourself thinking, Didn’t Judas have a point?

Okay, John tells us that Judas had an ulterior motive, that he really wanted to embezzle the money. But if he had been going to give it to the poor, would that not have been a better use for this ointment than chucking it all over Jesus? If we believe Judas – and we might not, of course – then the ointment could have been sold for 300 denarii. That would have been the best part of a year’s wages for someone on a low income in that society.  Are there not better things that could have been done with it?

Jesus responds to Judas’ comment by reminding his disciples that they can continue to support the poor. Compassion for the poor out is not simply a one-off act for unusual moments like this. “You always have the poor with you,” he says.

Outrageously, there are still Christians who misuse this line to argue that Christians should not try to end poverty. This is ridiculous. Jesus was reminding his disciples of the situation they were in and would continue to be in for the foreseeable future. He was not opposing attempts to end poverty. Poverty is not something created by God. It is created by humans. Indeed, nowadays we know the world has enough to feed all the people in it, if we organised things differently. We – humans – created poverty and we – humans – can end it.

Jesus’ comment – like all his comments – was made in a specific context. Jesus thanks Mary for her faith in him. And the writer of the gospel uses it to make a point about Jesus: the ointment is to anoint him for his burial. Because Jesus would soon die, executed in unimaginable pain by the forces of the Roman Empire.

For much of John’s Gospel, Jesus seems to be very focused on his upcoming death. I find it hard to imagine how this would have affected his day-to-day thoughts. And here we have a connection with the second reading – the reading from Philippians that we heard.

Paul wrote the Letter to the Philippians while he was in prison, while he awaited to find out whether he would be executed. I find that Paul’s letters tend to make a lot more sense when we realise that he wrote them to particular people at particular times. He didn’t know that people would be reading them 2,000 years later!

Paul’s mental anguish seems clear in his letter to the Philippian Christians. He wrestles with thoughts about whether he will live or die, about his desire to be with Jesus clashing with his hope of living longer and continuing to serve Christ’s people on Earth. At times he seems to fear for the communities he has founded that he may be leaving behind. Here, perhaps, we encounter Paul at his most vulnerable. Philippians contrasts with the finely crafted theological nuance of Paul’s letter to the Romans, with the passionate anger of his letter to the Galatians, with his frustrated attempts to resolve conflicts in his letters to the Corinthians. In Philippians, Paul seems very aware that he might be at the end of his life.

This sheds light on the words that we heard earlier. We hear Paul listing things he could boast about, particularly when it comes to religion. He has always been an observant and religious Jew, he says. He was blameless under the law. He persecuted Christians. All the things his critics boast about, he could boast about too!

But then he tells us that none of this matters. “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ,” he tells us.

Paul’s religious observances would not save him. His zeal and law-keeping would not save him. His persecution of people with different beliefs would not save him. He can be saved only through the grace of God, by the love of God that Jesus reveals.  

But 2,000 years later, we can still make the mistake of relying on religious observances. Of course, it is good to go to church, to pray, to come together as Christ’s people to worship and talk and share Communion. It can be helpful to observe Lent and be disciplined in prayer. These are good and helpful things to do. We can honour God through them. But they will not save us. We do not have eternal life and salvation because of these things. We do not have them because of any our actions but because of God’s action through Jesus.

As Paul puts it the Philippian Christians, he does not have a righteousness of his own but only the righteousness that comes from God.

Some years ago, I helped a friend sell off his possessions at a car boot sale. We had a successful morning and as we were packing up, we found that one of the few items that we had left was a kite. We were approached by a couple with a small child, who was very upset. He had hoped to buy a kite he had seen on a nearby stall, but when he went back to it, the kite had been sold. Now he noticed that we had a kite. But he didn’t have the money to pay for it. Perhaps we were feeling generous because our sales had gone well, but we gave the child the kite. His tears turned to smiles, and his parents were very grateful.

“We’ve made a small child very happy,” I said to my friend afterwards. He replied, “Yes. If there’s a God, chalk that up!”.

Now my friend is an atheist, though perhaps he was having a moment of doubt. But he gave the kite to the child because he thought it was a good and compassionate thing to do, to make someone happy, not because he was trying to get into heaven. If I had given the kite to the child out of a desire for heaven, would that not make me more selfish than my atheist friend? I hope and think that God approved of our gift to the child, but I did not do it in an attempt to earn points with God or to buy my way to salvation.

In theory, as Christians, and particularly as Protestant Christians, we believe that salvation comes through the grace of God in Jesus, not through what we do. But do we really dare to believe this? That God’s love is so big, so wide, so mind-bendingly transformative, that God’s grace in Jesus can save us from our sins and bring us eternal life?

This is so hard to believe! A lot of people, including a lot of Christians, talk as if eternal life will come to us because of our actions. Some Christians talk as if they think they will be saved by believing exactly the right things about Jesus, about the Bible, about theology. But that’s just another way of trusting in our actions rather than in God. We are saved by Christ, not by Christianity. Some people seem to think that LGBT+ people are excluded from God’s salvation, as if we are saved by heterosexuality.

If I thought any of these things to be true, I would be very worried about my own chances of being saved. I am bisexual. Some of my beliefs might, for all I know, be completely mistaken. And if I am to be judged on my actions, I honestly am far from sure that my good deeds would outweigh my bad ones. But Paul reminds us repeatedly that there is no salvation in such things but only in turning to God’s love and forgiveness.

If we believe in salvation by God’s grace then does that mean that how we live doesn’t matter? Does this mean we can carry on day-to-day, conforming to the world around us and simply waiting for God’s salvation when we die?

No, I don’t think it does. Because putting our trust in Jesus means that we have a different starting point, a different focus, from the dominant values of this world. And that means that we will live differently, or at least that we will seek to live differently, while being prepared to turn to God and ask for forgiveness even if we repeatedly fail.

This takes us back to the text of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. I hope you’ll bear with me if I tell you a personal story.

Twelve years ago, I was at a protest outside the London arms fair. The DSEI arms fair, which takes place every two years in east London, involves arms companies doing deals with representatives of governments from around the world, including some of the world’s most vicious and aggressive regimes. In 2013, I joined with other Christians in blocking an entrance to the arms fair by kneeling in prayer. When we refused to move, we were arrested and, at the police station I was the first of the group to be processed. As I was checked in, I asked if I could have a Bible to read in my cell. A policeman reached to a shelf behind the desk and gave me the Bible that they kept there.

I was in the cell by the time my friend Chris was processed. He also asked for a Bible. “You want a Bible too!” said a surprised police officer. “The last bloke asked for a Bible.” They managed to find another Bible for Chris, but by the time the third person was processed, the station was running out of Bibles. When the third person, James, was processed, they told him they would try to find a Bible, but he was already in the cell by the time they did so. One of the officers went to James’ cell and told him that he’d only managed to find a New Testament. “That’s okay,” said James. “I hope you’re not going to keep me here long enough to read both testaments”.

As I sat in my cell with my Bible. I decided to read Philippians. This was because I knew that Paul had written it in prison. Perhaps this was a bit arrogant on my part. It would be ridiculous to compare my own situation to Paul’s. He was in prison indefinitely awaiting a likely death sentence. I had just been locked up for a few hours. Nonetheless, the calming and encouraging words that Paul wrote in prison had a positive effect on me.

But they might not have done. Reading Paul’s words about how we are saved by Jesus alone, I could have concluded that the actions I had taken at the arms fair were not worthwhile. Resisting the arms trade couldn’t earn me points with God, couldn’t get me into heaven. Shouldn’t I just sit quietly at home, live the same as everyone around me, and wait for eternal life to come because of my faith in Jesus?

No, I couldn’t. Of course, not all of us are called to do things that lead us to be arrested. Following Jesus and his call on our lives takes many different forms for many different people. Some who respond most faithfully to Jesus live quiet lives of compassion that can easily go unnoticed – but they are not unnoticed by God.

As Paul writes in Philippians, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection”. I pray that God will give me more ability to trust in Jesus, to really trust in him, which at times I find so hard. To trust Jesus rather than in my own efforts or in the dominant attitudes of the world.

It seems to me that the more we trust in Jesus, the more we have to live differently. The more we trust in Jesus, the less trust we will place in the idols that dominate this world – the idols of money and markets and military might – systems that humans have created but which we find ourselves bowing down and serving. If we trust in the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaims then we cannot trust in the powers of this world. Psalm 146 reminds us, “Put not your trust in the powerful, mere mortals in whom there is no help”.  

Following Jesus is not about a list of rules. It is about a different starting-point, rooted in the love that Jesus reveals. This leads us back to that passage from John’s Gospel. Should Mary have sold the ointment and given the money to the poor? Perhaps that would have been just as good an option – or even a better option – than pouring it over Jesus. But in that moment, she acted on her faith in Jesus by anointing him in preparation for his death. And Jesus thanks her, Jesus praises her, for the actions that come from her faith.

We are called to live with our focus on God, not to be saved but in response to being saved by Jesus. We are not saved by our actions, our religious observances or our correct opinions, but only by the love of God that we encounter in Jesus. That love enables us, as Paul writes in Romans 12, to refuse to conform to the world around us and instead to allow ourselves to be transformed by God’s love. This is the love revealed in Jesus, a love that can transform us, a love that can transform the world.

Backlash continues over police raid on Quaker Meeting House

Posted on by symonhill

Churches Together in England (CTE) have become the latest organisation to criticise the police raid on Westminster Quaker Meeting House.

CTE are a bit late to the party, given that a full two weeks passed between the raid on 27th March and the CTE statement on 10th April. Nonetheless, given that CTE includes Christians with such a range of views, and that as a body it’s not exactly known for progressive positions, the statement is very welcome.

CTE have asked for a meeting with the Metropolitan Police and called for “an appropriate review by the police and its accountability structures”. While police “accountability structures” are weak to the point of barely existing, it would be interesting to see what comes out of a meeting between CTE, the Quakers and the Metropolitan Police.

If you’re not yet aware of this incident: at least 20 police broke down the door of Westminster Quaker Meeting House on the evening of 27th March. They swarmed through the building and arrested six young women attending a welcome talk by the nonviolent protest group Youth Demand.

Police also entered the other rooms in the building, including a room being used by a life drawing class and – staggeringly – a room hosting a private counselling session.

Youth Demand is not a Quaker group. However, they share with many Quakers a commitment to nonviolent direct action, in this case over climate change and war in Gaza.

Quaker Meetings were frequently broken up by the authorities in the seventeenth century. Now as then a place of worship has been attacked by violent representatives of the state seeking to stop peaceful people from acting on their conscience.

There has been coverage of the Meeting House raid in many places, including on the front page of the Sunday Times on 30th March. Personally I have written about it for the Morning Star and for Premier Christianity.

Other critics of the police raid on the Meeting House include Christian Aid, the Green Party, several MPs and members of the House of Lords and even Jacob Rees-Mogg.

The much shorter list of people who have refused to condemn or even question the raid includes Yvette Cooper, the Labour Home Secretary.

Police raid Quaker place of worship hosting campaign group’s welcome talk

Posted on by symonhill

On Thursday 27th March, at least 20 police officers broke down the door of a place of worship in central London and arrested young people who belong to a peaceful protest group.

New anti-protest laws have in recent years allowed the police to become ever more heavy-handed and anti-democratic in their approach to protest. Raids on people who are planning direct action – and not even doing it – have become more common.

Nonetheless, the police attack on Westminster Quaker Meeting House (pictured right) is particularly alarming for several reasons.

Firstly, the event was described by Youth Demand as a “welcome talk“ that was “publicly advertised”, to discuss protests against the genocide in Gaza. In other words, this event was open to anyone. That includes people with no experience of taking part in, or even talking about, civil disobedience or direct action. Anybody who went along out of interest may very likely be frightened of attending any political meeting again. This is police intimidation.

Secondly, it seems you can now be raided for having conversations about actions that you might take. Given that this was a welcome meeting, it is disingenuous for the police to imply that everyone there was in the middle of some sort of high-level planning of mass disruption. The police comment given to the media focused on what “Youth Demand have stated” their intentions to be. This is very different to everyone present being intent on taking part in such things. Given that the police raided other Youth Demand members’ homes in London and Exeter, it seems that they were attempting not only to arrest certain members of Youth Demand but also to intimidate all the others.

Thirdly, the police have raided a place of worship. Apologists for the police have been quick to jump on social media and point out that the people arrested were not Quakers (or at least, probably not Quakers). This is irrelevant. Quakers have a strong theology of not separating the “sacred” and the “secular”, so they do not believe their buildings to be more sacred than other places. This is also irrelevant, however. Religious groups expect their buildings to be places of safety and welcome; those who visit them should be able to expect this (speaking personally, Westminster Quaker Meeting House was a great place of welcome and community to me after I nervously moved to London 20 years ago). Westminster Quaker Meeting House is also the home of two Quaker wardens, who have now experienced the violation of their home by the police.

The police are clearly abandoning the sort of sensitivity and caution that might once have made them reluctant to break into a place of worship. A statement from Quakers in Britain described the incident as “an aggressive violation of our place of worship”.

Of course, this whole incident cannot be understood without the context of the genocide in Gaza, which is enabled by Keir Starmer’s government. Like the Tory government before them, they are happy to arm Israeli troops killing civilians in Gaza and Saudi troops killing civilians in Yemen – and many other vicious regimes around the world. The young people arrested in Westminster Quaker Meeting House were not planning violence. They were seeking to resist violence.

This police raid seems fairly clearly to be an attempt to deter people from taking part in Youth Demand’s upcoming protests. For this reason if for no other, let’s make sure we support them! Tessa, a member of Youth Demand speaking outside Bromley Police Station yesterday insisted that “this blatant act of intimidation by the Met Police” would not stop them.

Among other things, it is vital that religious groups condemn the police’s behaviour and their violation of free speech, freedom of assembly and religious liberty. This time it was a Quaker Meeting House. Next time it could be a church, mosque, temple or synagogue.

After Starmer’s disabilty benefit cuts, I would rather saw off my own arm than vote Labour again

Posted on by symonhill

There was a time when governments might have been more subtle about cutting support for disabled people in order to spend more money on weapons. Keir Starmer’s government are not even trying to frame it differently. They’re celebrating their increase in “defence” spending at the same time as they’re boasting about making disability-related benefits even harder to claim.

This bizarre decision reveals a class-based clash over what terms such as “security” and “defence” refer to.

For some people, these terms are simply about preparations for war. Indeed, even some opponents of increased military spending have fallen for the euphemism and talk about “defence” expenditure. But if you’re queueing at a food bank, unable to access mental health support or facing discrimination when applying for jobs, then security means much more than not facing a Russian invasion.

As your livelihood is snatched away, are you meant to rejoice that at least you’re being harmed by Keir Starmer rather than Vladimir Putin? As you shiver in the cold because you can no longer afford heating bills, should you celebrate at the thought you’re being impoverished and frozen by rich people in London instead of rich people in Moscow?

The expenditure on weapons seems to be based on the unquestioned assumptions that violence makes us safe and that spending more on violence makes it more effective. In reality, the combined military spending of NATO governments has been much higher than Russia’s for years. This failed to deter Putin’s vile invasion of Ukraine. I have yet to hear a journalist ask Keir Starmer why he thinks that throwing even more money at the military will somehow deter Putin when that has failed to work up until now.

Meanwhile, US troops whose Commander-in-Chief is Donald Trump are stationed at various bases around the UK. There is almost no media discussion of the presence of the troops of a dangerously erratic far-right regime in Britain.

Sadly, many of the opponents of benefit cuts seem unwilling to criticise military spending levels.

Thankfully, however lots of them have clearly framed the cuts as a political choice and presented meaningful taxation of the super-rich as an alternative. This is a message that can really hit home and that we need to keep repeating: the government is choosing to cut support for some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people in the UK rather than take even slightly more from the millionaires. They are taking millions from people with nothing, and nothing from people with millions.

Ministers are benefitting from misunderstandings that they seem happy not to correct. Anyone with an even basic knowledge of disability benefits knows that Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is not an out-of-work benefit. It is to help with the extra costs of being disabled. Many recipients of it are already in work. For some, cutting this benefit will make it harder for them to work. For example, it can help with costs of transport or assistance that may for some disabled people be more expensive but which enable them to get to work. The number of disabled people in work will not go up if PIP is cut. In reality, it will almost certainly go down.

Yet someone casually glancing at the media would easily get the impression that PIP is given only to disabled people who don’t work. I can hardly blame people for thinking this, given the way it is often presented. But I can blame the ministers and right-wing journalists who know very well that this assumption is factually untrue, yet seem happy to benefit from it all the same.

Even if a minister somehow misguidedly believes in the benefit cuts that they are proposing, nothing can excuse their willingness to benefit from the lies, half-truths and uncorrected misconceptions that are being used to encourage support for their cuts. There has been a spate of stories in newspapers such as the Daily Mail demonising disabled people. Such stories are only going to get worse and more numerous in the coming days and weeks. Ministers are able to gain support for their agenda at the cost of encouraging prejudice and hatred of a large group of people.

Anyone who thinks that PIP is too easy to obtain has almost certainly never gone through the process of applying for it, or supporting someone who has. Having supported friends to apply for PIP, I find myself thinking that anyone who manages to complete the contorted and degrading application process in the midst of mental ill-health should be given a medal and celebrated as a hero, let alone getting a benefit.

While the government may have decided that they will cope without the support of people who receive PIP, they may have overlooked the reality that a significant percentage of the population know somebody who receives PIP (or other disability-related benefits). They thus know that these lies are not true. And the message “tax the rich instead of cutting things for the poor” is a straightforward proposal that is simple as well as realistic. Thus I am not convinced that austerity and attacks on disabled people will work as well for this government as they did for the Cameron-Clegg cabinet 15 years ago.

Groups such as Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) have done great things in the last 15 years in challenging austerity. I’m now planning to contact them and similar campaigns to find out what I can do to join the resistance to Starmer’s evil policy.

It is a long time since I voted Labour. While I tend to vote Green, I have tended to hold out the possibility that I could vote Labour in certain circumstances in the future. But now we have a Labour government with a domestic economic policy worse than anything that I can remember even Tony Blair doing. They are demonising and impoverishing disabled people, including people with mental health problems, while increasing military spending and letting the rich off the hook.

I will never vote Labour again. I would rather saw off my own arm. Although I dare say that Starmer’s new friends in the Daily Mail would accuse me of only sawing it off in order to gain benefits – and then they would deny them to me anyway.

Why Christians should back free speech – and not believe J.D. Vance

Posted on by symonhill

I wrote the following article for Premier Christianity, who published it on their website on Thursday 13th March 2024. As I was writing for a Christian audience I focused on the faith that I share with them, although (as I hope all my writing makes clear), I believe passionately in working alongside people of many faiths and none.

Two and a half years after I was put in the back of a police van, my hands cuffed behind my back, Thames Valley Police have admitted that I was unlawfully arrested. 

I am acutely aware that most people who are wrongly arrested receive little or no publicity and are not in a position to take legal action against the police. 

I was able to take legal action only because of Liberty, whose excellent lawyers advised and represented me. I was helped, practically and emotionally, by a wide range of friends, comrades and strangers. They included fellow Christians, along with people of other faiths and of none.  

My arrest took place in September 2022, shortly after I left church in Oxford. I found myself amid crowds of people trying to negotiate their way around town as roads were closed for a ceremony declaring Charles Windsor to be king. 

I remained silent as the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire read out expressions of grief for Elizabeth Windsor. But then he declared Charles to be our king, stating that we owe him “obedience”. I had just been in church, celebrating King Jesus. Unlike earthly kings, Jesus calls us to choose to follow him. He does not demand our obedience based on accidents of birth. 

I find it hard to stomach the description of Charles Windsor as our “rightful liege lord”. To me, it seems to be demeaning to God’s image to expect one sinful human being to bow down to another.  

I called out: “Who elected him?” 

A couple of people told me to shut up. I said that a head of state was being imposed on us without our consent. 

I might well have left it there. But three security guards came over and told me to be quiet. When I asserted my right to speak, they began to push me backwards. 

The police intervened – not to arrest the security guards for assaulting me, but to arrest me. I was led away and handcuffed. 

I will forever be grateful for two complete strangers who followed us down the road, asking the police why they were arresting me. They said that while they didn’t agree with my opinion, they thought Britain was a “free country.” 

Several other people were arrested around the same time, for similarly minor acts of dissent. A woman in Edinburgh who prefers to remain anonymous was arrested while peacefully holding a republican placard. 

Three months later, I was charged with breaking the Public Order Act 1986 through behaviour likely to cause “harassment, alarm or distress.” I had not harassed, threatened or insulted anybody. Two weeks later, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charges, saying there was little prospect of conviction. 

After my arrest, I was taken aback by the level of media interest. I received hundreds of supportive messages, dozens of abusive ones and a few death threats. I have also heard from many other people who had been wrongly arrested.  

Anti-protest legislation introduced by the Conservative government – which Labour has failed to repeal – has been used against non-violent anti-war and climate campaigners. But it is not only legislation that is the problem, but the culture within the police force.  

I have lost count of the number of times I have attended protests at which Black and Asian people are the first to be questioned or arrested. Police ignorance about free expression has been highlighted by clumsy attempts to enforce buffer zones where abortions take place. While it is reasonable to prevent intimidation or aggression, this should not be confused with quiet and respectful praying.   

Unfortunately, those who talk loudest about free speech seem to be uninformed about whose free speech is being denied. JD Vance recently undermined his own argument about Britain’s lack of free speech with an outrageous untruth about people in Scotland being prevented from praying in their homes. 

Meanwhile, various celebrities claim that they are being “cancelled” when voluntary organisations such as Students’ Unions decide not to invite them to speak. 

But it is not the rich and powerful whose free speech is threatened. Free speech is at risk in the UK because police are arresting people for nonviolent protest and expressing their opinion. Unlike Vance and the supposedly “cancelled” celebrities, most have limited power to do much about it. 

As Christians we believe that all people have value and worth, and that Christ died for us all. The voice and dignity of one person is as valuable as those of any other. Called to love our neighbours – whatever their faith or lack of it – we cannot call for our rights to be respected without recognising the rights of others.  

This is why I urge all Christians to uphold freedom of expression and principles of equality. This means urging Keir Starmer’s government to repeal the anti-protest laws that Tory ministers put in place. It also means calling for a major overhaul of policing. 

In calling for our rights to freedom of speech, we are asserting the value, dignity and equality of every human being, made in the very image of God.  

Royalists failed to silence me – but free speech remains in danger

Posted on by symonhill

I wrote the following article for the Morning Star, who published it in today’s issue (11th March 2025).

Two and a half years after throwing me in the back of a police van for opposing the monarchy, Thames Valley Police have admitted that I was wrongfully arrested.

I am pleased and relieved of course. But I am also acutely aware that most people who are unlawfully arrested receive little or no publicity and are not in a position to take legal action against the police.

I was able to do so only because of Liberty, whose excellent lawyers advised and represented me. I was helped, practically and emotionally, by a wide range of friends, comrades and strangers.

But this is not about me. It never was.

It is about the rights of all people to speak out, to express themselves, to challenge the powerful, to refuse to bow down, to assert the dignity and equality of all humans.

Leaving church in September 2022, I found myself amid crowds of people trying to negotiate their way around town despite roads being closed for a ceremony declaring Charles Windsor to be king.

I remained silent as the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire read out expressions of grief for Elizabeth Windsor.

But then he declared Charles to be our king and “rightful liege lord.” I called out “Who elected him?”

A couple of people told me to shut up. I said that a head of state was being imposed without our consent.

I might well have left it there. But three security guards came over and told me to be quiet. With no sense of irony, they stood menacingly right in front of me and said they were asking me “nicely” not to express my views.

When I asserted my right to speak, they began to push me backwards. I briefly feared that I would be knocked over.

The police intervened — not to arrest the security guards for assaulting me, but to arrest me for expressing my views. I was forcibly led away and handcuffed.

I will forever be grateful for two people — complete strangers to me — who followed us down the road. They repeatedly asked the police why I was being arrested. They said they didn’t agree with me but they thought Britain was a “free country.”

The police contradicted themselves several times about which law I had been arrested under.

I was called back for a police interview and told that one of the security guards had alleged that I had assaulted him. This was a reversal of the truth.

Three months after my arrest, I was charged with breaking the Public Order Act 1986 through behaviour likely to cause “harassment, alarm or distress.”

Two weeks later, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charges, saying there was little prospect of conviction.

On the same day that I was arrested, a 22-year-old woman in Edinburgh — who has preferred to remain anonymous — was arrested while peacefully holding an anti-monarchy placard. Shortly afterwards, Paul Powlesland was threatened with arrest in London if he wrote “not my king” on a piece of paper.

When it came to the coronation, Graham Smith and other staff at Republic were arrested as they arrived to set up for a lawful demonstration. The police used powers that had been rushed into law less than a week earlier.

After my arrest, I was taken aback by the level of media interest. I received hundreds of supportive messages, dozens of abusive messages and a few death threats. Andrew Schraeder, a Conservative councillor in Basildon, tweeted that I should be sent to the Tower of London.

I also heard from many other people who had been wrongly arrested, or otherwise mistreated by the police, who had received far less publicity than me.

Several anti-monarchists were arrested at the royal wedding in 2011. We all know how anti-protest legislation has been used against nonviolent anti-war and climate campaigners. And I have lost count of the number of protests I have attended in which black and Asian people have been the first to be questioned or arrested.

Certain cases of appalling police behaviour at least make the news, such as the vile police assault on a vigil mourning Sarah Everard in 2021. At other times, police behaviour receives little attention. A homeless woman in Oxford told me of how she had been beaten up in the back of a police van. She did not, of course, have the resources to take legal action.

Yet it is rightwingers — including some on the extreme right — who misleadingly present themselves as defenders of free speech.

This claim reached the heights of absurdity when JD Vance criticised Britain for a lack of free speech, with an outrageous lie about people in Scotland being prevented from praying in their homes.

Similar claims about the suppression of free speech are made by Nigel Farage — a far-right multimillionaire who receives excessive media coverage in inverse proportion to the coherence of his arguments.

Far-right types on social media claim to be upholding “free speech” when they want an excuse to peddle racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and other doctrines that demonise their fellow human beings.

Meanwhile, various celebrities claim that they are being “cancelled” when voluntary organisations such as students’ unions decide not to invite them to speak.

Vance, Farage and their gang do not of course mention the arrests of peaceful people resisting war, monarchy or climate change. The excessive prison sentences for Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action campaigners receive no criticism from them.

It is not the rich and powerful whose free speech is threatened. Free speech is under threat in Britain because police are arresting and charging people for nonviolent protest and the expression of opinions. Unlike Vance and Farage, most people have limited power to do much about it.

But as every socialist and trade unionist knows, we all have more power when we act together. Now is a vital time for the left to seize the narrative and take back the cause of free speech from the hatemongers.

In demanding our rights to freedom of speech, we assert the reality that we have equal value to the kings, presidents, generals and billionaires who are so keen to be heard while expecting the rest of us to shut up. Let’s make sure they know that shutting up is the last thing we will be doing.

Police admit arresting me unlawfully

Posted on by symonhill

Two years after Thames Valley Police arrested me for objecting to monarchy, they have admitted that my arrest was unlawful.

I owe many, many thanks to the friends, comrades and strangers who have encouraged and supported me through the bizarrely confusing process of taking legal action against the police. In particular, I am grateful to Katy Watts and her colleagues at Liberty, who have done such an excellent job of advising and representing me. I could not afford to take legal action on my own. I have been able to do this only because of the support of Liberty.

However, I am very conscious that most people who are wrongly arrested are not able to take legal action or even to gain publicity for what has happened.

This is not just about me. It never has been. It is about the rights of all people to dissent, to express their views, to refuse to bow down, to assert the dignity and equality of all human beings.

With the vague anti-protest laws as they are, anybody could face arrest for expressing an opinion in a public space. The law must be changed and the police must be held to account.

If you want to know more about my case, there are more details in various media reports, such as this one from the Independent. I gave slightly longer interviews to the Big Issue and Byline Times.

Churches condemn aid cuts – and then undermine their own argument

Posted on by symonhill

I am pleased to see that the leaders of four of Britain’s biggest Christian denominations have condemned the Starmer government’s cuts to international aid.

But I am really sad to see that they have undermined their own argument with their comments about the increase in military spending that the aid cuts are going to fund. Not only have they failed to challenge the military spending increase, they have also bought into misleading militaristic myths that equate “defence” with preparations for war.

The leaders of the Church of Scotland, Methodist Church, Baptist Union of Great Britain (of which I am part) and the United Reformed Church have produced a statement that rightly condemns the aid cuts and points out some of the horrifying consequences that can be expected to follow. However, they declared:

“While there is a case to be made for increasing defence spending to support Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression, that shouldn’t come at the cost of vital humanitarian and development programmes, which play a crucial role in promoting human security around the world.“

While not quite expressing support for the military spending increase, the church leaders have explicitly stated their acceptance of an argument for doing so.

While politicians are tripping over each other in their enthusiasm for increasing military spending, few if any of them have made any attempt to explain how this will defend us. NATO’s massive military budget did not deter Putin’s vile invasion of Ukraine. Given that the combined military budget of NATO countries is much higher than Russia’s, it’s entirely unclear how increasing it further is expected to deter Putin now.

The wording of the churches’ statement implicitly accepts the notion that military spending is about deterring Russian aggression. In reality, much of the UK’s military budget is spent on supporting military aggression, such as through the provision of military training to Saudi Arabia and Israel, whose forces are killing civilians in Yemen & Palestine.

Meanwhile, the UK military is closely linked with the US military, with US troops stationed at various bases in the UK. Those troops are now Trump’s troops: they have a Commander-in-Chief who is a far-right despot. The UK government’s “independent” nuclear weapons system is in reality depending on US technology to operate. Morally, I cannot see how funding a military that is linked to Trump’s forces is any better than funding a military linked to Putin.

Most of all, I am dismayed that the church leaders undermined their criticism of aid cuts by going along with the use of “defence” as a euphemism for war and preparations for war. Five years ago, the Covid pandemic came as a deadly reminder that weapons cannot make us safe from many of the threats that humanity faces. Spending on defence should mean spending on things that keep us safe in a variety of ways and protect us from all sorts of threats: poverty, pandemics and climate change, as well as war. The aid budget is an aspect of defence.

I am pleased that church leaders pointed out the role that humanitarian programmes play in human security. However, military expenditure and aid expenditure symbolise two very different views on what security really means. These church leaders are right to condemn cuts to the aid budget, but on the wider issue of building a safer world, they are sadly sitting on the fence.

Taking sides and loving enemies

Posted on by symonhill

This morning (Sunday 16th February 2025) I preached at Sherbourne Community Church in Coventry. I was very pleased to be asked to do so. Below is the text of my sermon.

To be clear: this is the text I wrote beforehand but in practice I deviated from the wording at times and added in a couple of extra comments. But the substance is the same.

The sermon followed two Bible readings, and focused particularly on the first one:

Luke 6, 17-26

1st Corinthians 15, 12-20

“Blessed are you who are poor… woe to you who are rich”. These are striking words from Jesus in the passage we’ve just heard. I’m sure many of us have heard this passage before. Some of you, however, may be more familiar with a similar passage in Matthew Chapter 5, at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus blesses “the poor in spirit”. Luke’s version is sometimes known as the Sermon on the Plain. In Luke, we get blessings for the poor, the hungry, the suffering, the persecuted – followed by woes for their opposites.

But what does Jesus mean by poor and rich? Are you rich or are you poor? I am going to resist the temptation to ask for a show of hands. Now I don’t know anything about the financial circumstances of anyone here. I don’t want to make assumptions. I suspect that many of us would not necessarily describe ourselves as rich or poor. Some of us might say that we are not poor compared to many people in certain other parts of the world. It may be that many of us would say we’re not poor compared to many other people here in Britain. I suspect that most of us are not millionaires or billionaires either. We are not the people who run the world. So it can be difficult to fit ourselves into these categories.

But we cannot get away from the fact that we live in a deeply divided and unequal world. According to Oxfam, the richest four individuals in the UK own as much as the poorest 20 million people in the UK. That’s nearly a third of the population, owning as much as four people. You don’t need me to tell you that internationally, the inequality is even greater.

I suspect it’s likely that most of Jesus’ original listeners would have recognised themselves as poor, perhaps as hungry. It is widely noted by historians that this was a society in which many people were struggling to make ends meet. Roman rule hadn’t made things any easier.

Jesus lived in the Roman Empire, in which the emperor’s wealth and power were seen as an indication of his divine status. And in many other cultures also, it has been assumed that the rich and powerful are blessed by God. Despite Jesus’ teaching, Christians are not immune from this attitude. Following Donald Trump’s election victory, there were Christians in the US saying that Trump had survived the recent assassination attempt because God had chosen him to lead America. Some of them are giving thanks for the role played by Elon Musk, the richest person in the world. Meanwhile, Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, says that God has blessed the rule of Vladimir Putin.

To declare that God has blessed the rich and powerful is the opposite of what we see Jesus teaching here!

You’re not alone if you find yourself struggling with this passage, or finding it uncomfortable. Jesus is proclaiming good news, while appearing to side with some people against others.

So let’s have a look at precisely what he says.

Firstly, what does Jesus mean by “blessed”?

The Greek word translated “blessed” – Μακάριοι – is sometimes translated as “happy” or “fortunate”. At least one translation uses the word “congratulations”: “Congratulations to you who are poor!… Congratulations to you who are hungry!”.

But how would that have sounded to someone who had just turned up to hear Jesus? If you’re poor or hungry or weeping, do you want to hear someone congratulating you for it? It sounds absurd. It’s bordering on being insulting. But I don’t think Jesus is saying that it’s a good thing to be poor, or hungry, or suffering, or persecuted. Jesus’ comments make sense when we realise he’s talking about something that is going to change. “Blessed are you who are hungry, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” You are blessed because things are going to change! This is good news!

Well, it’s good news for the poor and hungry people who turned up to hear Jesus. But what about the woes? Is Jesus proclaiming bad news to the rich?

A woe is not a curse. Jesus did not curse the rich. “Woe” is a warning or an exclamation of alarm. It’s like saying “Oh, no!” or “How terrible!”. I came across a commentator from the US who suggested translating it as “Yikes”: “Yikes for the rich!”.

Jesus is saying “Congratulations to the poor… But how horrible thing are for the rich!”. On some level, it makes no sense at all. Who congratulates people who are suffering and commiserates with the successful? Again, I don’t think that Jesus is saying that poverty, hunger and suffering are good things. Rather, he is lifting the lid on the reality of the world. It is the poor who will succeed in the end, while the apparently successful will discover the poverty of their notion of success.

Jesus is siding with the poor, the hungry, the suffering and the persecuted. He doesn’t say “Blessed are you who weep, as long as you believe in all the same things as me”. He doesn’t say “Blessed are you who are poor, as long as you have tried to help yourselves and are not feckless”.

Jesus is on the side of people who are suffering because they are suffering.  He says that those who are poor and suffering are blessed – because things are going to change.

Reading Jesus’ words in the gospels, we find that Jesus talked about wealth and poverty more than about any other topic. Throughout Christian history some people have found this uncomfortable. We all face the danger of picking out the interpretation that we like the most, or that challenge us the least. People who are comfortable with the status quo have found reasons to downplay Jesus’ comments and predictions about wealth and poverty.

Some argue that when Jesus talked about such things, he was referring to spiritual poverty and spiritual riches. Now of course Jesus frequently used metaphors. And many of his teachings are relevant to spiritual poverty and spiritual riches. But Jesus contrasted spiritual riches with earthly riches: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,” says Jesus in Matthew 6. “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Given that Jesus spoke about wealth and poverty more than about any other topic, I find it hard to believe that all his comments on the subject were intended metaphorically. Surely the hungry people who turned up to hear Jesus in first-century Palestine would have taken him to mean material hunger.

Others argue that when Jesus tells his audience that “you will be filled” and “you will laugh”, he is simply talking about what will happen to them beyond the grave. It’s a promise of pie in the sky when you die. But the gospel is good news in this world as well as in the next. In the second reading earlier, we heard Paul’s passionate words to the Corinthians, insisting that the dead are raised because Christ was raised. If Jesus was not raised, he says, then our faith is futile! The resurrection is a world-transforming reality. It changes our lives. The Roman Empire thought they could execute a troublemaking Jewish peasant. But God sides with the poor and oppressed, not with empire and oppression. So the troublemaking Jewish peasant rose from the dead and the powers of this world are put on notice that their days are numbered. Sin and death may look strong, but the resurrection reveals that love and life will ultimately triumph.

The change that comes with resurrection cannot simply be put off until we die! Resurrection means that the dead are raised and that the living can live differently – whether individually or collectively. It also allows us to look at the effects of our actions beyond the time of our own lives. Jesus’ resurrection makes the world’s transformation possible.

We could get very hung up on definitions, worrying about whether we as individuals are poor or rich, or how we fit into Jesus’ categories in this passage. But I don’t think that’s the best use of our energy. Jesus is not calling us to go hungry or make ourselves suffer for the sake of it, but to take the side of those who are.

If we take sides with somebody, does that mean we will have to take sides against somebody? Well, yes – but Jesus shows us a different way of doing so. If we read on beyond the passage we heard today, we will find that immediately after announcing the blessings and woes, Jesus says we should love our enemies! It is love of enemies that makes it possible for us to take sides while recognising that the Gospel is good news for all people.

I would like to share a personal experience with you. Just over 12 years ago, I stood and watched a man staring into space. His wife was nearby, crying. His children were nearby, also crying. But the man didn’t go to help them or comfort them. He just stood there, staring into space.

It wasn’t because he didn’t care about his wife and his children. It was because he was in a state of severe shock. His house had just been bulldozed down.

I was in the West Bank, in Palestine. Many Palestinians build houses without official permits, because it is almost impossible for them to gain a permit from the Israeli authorities. The house may be left standing for years. But at some apparently arbitrary moment, the authorities will turn up with a bulldozer, the residents will be given half an hour to remove all their possessions, and the house will be destroyed.

I stood there, alongside this family, the other journalists who were with me, the family’s neighbours and an Israeli human activist, an Orthodox Jew, who travelled to the sites of such demolitions to show solidarity with Palestinians who had lost their homes.

Many positions can be taken on who is to blame for the conflicts and atrocities in Israel and Palestine. But as I stood there, it struck me that not by any political argument, not by any distortion of religion or any analysis of history, could those two small children be held responsible for what had befallen them.

In all the discussions I had heard around Israel and Palestine, there had been a lot of talk of sides. On the Israeli side, on the Palestinian side, on this or that side. On that day, I realised whose side I was on – or whose side I wanted to be on. I wanted to be on the side of children who had nowhere to sleep tonight. I wanted to be on their side, not because of their nationality, not because of their religion, not because of how they fitted into this or that argument about the situation, but because of their needs. I wanted to be on the side of the victims and not the perpetrators of injustice.

Of course, distinguishing victims and perpetrators may not always be so easy. Political situations and international conflicts are complex and morally confusing, to say the least. But if we take Jesus’ words seriously, we must not use this complexity as an excuse to avoid getting involved. As Desmond Tutu said, if an elephant is standing on a mouse’s tail, and you say you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

I wanted to side with those children whose house had been destroyed – but I am not called to hate, or dehumanise, or harm, or kill, those who destroyed it or those who ordered them to do so. I am not better than them. Later in Luke’s Gospel we read of Zacchaeus, a wealthy and corrupt man who encountered Jesus. Zacchaeus gave away half his wealth to the poor and repaid four times over the people he had defrauded. Zacchaeus recognised that Jesus’ message was good news for him too – and his repentance brought him joy.

So when will the hungry be filled and when will the people who are weeping laugh? While the Kingdom of God can only reach it fulfilment with the return of Jesus, the New Testament makes clear that the Kingdom of God is constantly breaking into our world. When people are fed, when love appears, when injustice is challenged and kindness triumphs over cruelty, the Kingdom of God is breaking in. And while we differ from each other in some of our political views and understandings, I suggest that all Christians are called to take sides with people who are poor, people who are marginalised, people who are oppressed. Even when a cause seems hopeless, the reality of the resurrection gives us hope. It can be hard to believe it in the darkest times, but as Martin Luther King put it, the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice.

I know that many of you are already doing amazing things to show solidarity with people who are suffering, to alleviate suffering and to tackle the causes of suffering. We can be successful in such things only by trusting in the power of God, revealed in the resurrection of Christ, and not in any power of our own. As Christians we believe in life after death, and in life before death. And that is good news.