Tag Archives: church

Make sure no-one’s fooled by the far-right’s Christmas event

Posted on by symonhill

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.

The Church of England has not even reached the starting-point

Posted on by symonhill

The General Synod of the Church of England have raised their weapons, taken aim and shot themselves in their collective feet.

They voted yesterday to improve the Church’s safeguarding procedures, handing parts of the process over to an independent body.

This in itself is a good thing. It’s an improvement on the current situation, and there’s no doubt that many grassroots Anglicans are working hard to prioritise safeguarding (even if others are not).

But what they have voted for is less than what we were led to expect.

Faced with two options for improving safeguarding, the Synod voted for the weaker option (“Model 3”). The proposal to fully hand over safeguarding to an independent body (“Model 4”) was not passed.

Some who voted for the partial measure had understandable reasons for doing so. As the Church Times reports, there were fears that full independence would take too long to implement, leading some to suggest that partial independence would be a better option as it would get things changing more quickly.

This seems to me to miss the point that the Church of England must act far more quickly than it has usually done in the past. Moving at their usual speed should not be an option, whatever the details of new systems and procedures.

At least as important as the new procedures themselves is the message that was sent, however inadvertently, to victims, survivors and the public in general. Most survivors who were involved in the issue were calling clearly for fully independent safeguarding to be introduced.

To choose the weaker of two alternative systems is not only – as the journalist and anti-abuse campaigner Andrew Graystone put it – a “punch in the gut” for victims of survivors of church-based sexual abuse. As Joanne Grenfell, Bishop of Stepney and lead bishop for safeguarding, said after the vote, “The Church has missed a huge opportunity to send a message to victims and survivors that we hear their concerns about trust and confidence.”

This is another step in turning large chunks of the British population away from churches.

The abuse crises are not affecting the Church of England only. Those of us in other churches have no right to complacency. This is not only because of our own safeguarding failings but because much of the public no longer distinguish between one Christian denomination and another. Far fewer people know about the distinctions between churches than was once the case (and why should we expect them to?).

Today, the General Synod have reaffirmed in many people’s minds the impression that Christian churches are not on the side of victims.

This is utterly contrary to the teachings of Jesus, who sided with the poor, the marginalised and other victims of injustice and kept his harshest words for the rich and powerful and religious leaders.

He said we should love our enemies. He did not say that the perpetrators of injustice should not be our enemies.

There is an alternative for churches in the UK now. Radical changes to safeguarding systems should be only a starting-point.

Beyond this, we could address the cultural and structural problems that lead to abuse. As Jonathan Gibbs, the Bishop of Rochester, pointed out in yesterday’s debate, the recent abuse crises in the Church of England were due to less to poor procedures and more to a culture whose workings are “so supple and so powerful that at times we don’t even realise it is happening”.

We could ask God to guide us in the painful and challenging work of changing the culture of our churches, overhauling our power structures, centring the voices of victims and affirming our solidarity with the people with the least power. We could signify our repentance by voluntarily giving up our privileges, such as opt-outs for faith schools and bishops in the House of Lords. We could show our willingness to stand in solidarity with people of all faiths and none as we recognise our own failings and stand against abuse, injustice and sin.

The Church of England’s General Synod have indicated now that they have not even reached the starting-point.