23 December 2025

This autumn, far-right protests and rallies, focused on immigration and the housing of migrants in local hotels, have been  weaponising Christianity. ‘Christ is King!’ is chanted. National flags are brandished. Crosses waved in the air.

This political group is attempting to associate Christianity with nationalism. In other words, to belong to the nation is to acknowledge your Christian heritage and to value it over against other religions and people.

There’s no acknowledgement that a percentage of migrants who make such a scary  journey to get to Britain are themselves Christians and some of them are fleeing from their own homes because as Christians they are being persecuted!

There are two dangers. Firstly, the demonisation of migrants is an attempt to divide the nation and to create a ‘them and us’ scenario. Parallels with Nazi Germany are not hard to discern. Our nation is not so impoverished to resort to these unscrupulous strategies.

Secondly, although the Church has been weakened and diminished and we may find it attractive to hear the call, ‘Christ is King!’ and see the cross held high as if in victory, we will not be encouraged by such dissimulation. The cross is supremely a symbol of the love which suffers and dies for the whole world!

‘I when I am lifted up will draw all people to me.’ said Jesus before the crucifixion. It is through self-sacrifice that a universal love is born. ‘No-one comes to the Father but by me.’ is not a means to justify Christianity’s exclusivism for the way to the Father is through the cross and our dying to self.