“Tommy Robinson’s Christmas Carol Service” sounds like a cutaway gag from Shooting Stars. 15 years ago it probably would have been just that. … … Christianity may have been co-opted by a number of these movements, but actually very few of them seem to understand it. There is much noise from Robinson and his supporters about saving Christianity as a foundational stone of Western culture. The problem is that they routinely make remarkably basic mistakes about what it is. They don’t seem to know what Christianity actually entails. This is not just in the failure to obey the command to “love thy neighbour” but also from a theological or doctrinal point of view. Neil Oliver, the TV presenter with a history of conspiracy theory promotion, posted on X what he clearly thought was a profound and new thought, challenging the pairing of the Old with the New Testament in the Bible. Oliver mused that, despite the New constantly quoting the Old and indeed presenting itself as a fulfilment of its prophecies, he thought the two an ill-matched pair. Elsewhere, US podcaster Joe Rogan has suggested that Christ could come back as AI because Mary was a Virgin and you can’t have sex with a computer. I suspect some of his listeners might be proof that one can at least try.

What is absolutely fascinating to the Church historian is watching a new generation of grifting, online personalities make all the same mistakes that their equivalents in past ages made. Oliver’s was rejected as heresy by Tertullian in the year 208. Rogan’s brain farts on the nature of the Virgin Birth sound like a sort of steampunk Apollinarianism, a heresy about the mind of Christ rejected by the Council of Constantinople in 381. Early Christianity was filled with different theories about the nature of Jesus – decisions on these were made by a series of councils and gatherings. Almost all Christians have viewed these as settled questions. Not so the faith’s new enthusiasts on the hard right. This ignorance of basic doctrine comes from the fact that they’re often doing this for grift or without actually attending church or have only ever experienced Christianity as an online fringe culture, they fall into the same doctrinal traps that people did thousands of years ago. There is nothing new under the Sun (or Son..) and all that.

So, these warriors for Christ seem to have neither the dignity of order nor the security of orthodoxy. Where, then, does this trend come from? Well, it is in part a response to the Americanisation of the more extreme parts of British politics. Having imported a number of tropes and tactics wholesale from the United States, they now have the incongruous task of tacking on a tradition – the Christian Right – which is alien to British politics, to existing aspects of their movement. Historically, whether Oswald Moseley or the skinheads, the British extreme right has often been very hostile to Christianity. This is perhaps reflected by the fact that these current advocates for a Christianised politics on the British right are not using the traditional methods or organisations. Ironically, their tactics mirror most closely those used by radical Islam. Lengthy, rambling filmed sermons conflating grievances and anger with a doctrinally dubious expression of a global faith is a tactic long used by extremist imams to recruit disenchanted young men. It is perhaps unsurprising then, that the Christian theology on display is dubious.

Yet this movement does pose a problem for the actual national Church. The C of E has made recent attempts to “combat” the pseudo-Christian narrative which Robinson is trying to propagate. What this actually entails is a “rapid response resource pack” and an online page of “brand guidelines and logos”. As far as resistance to nascent fascism is concerned this is less Maximilian Kolbe and more David Brent.

It has a patronisation problem too. Much of the Church’s online output is delivered in a tone reminiscent of Come Outside, the 90s educational series where Pippin the Dog and Auntie Mabel would learn about the production of soap or the breeding of geese. All very nice in its own way but completely inadequate for the missional task it needs to perform on the Wild West of the internet. In the pronouncements of its Bishops, it appears out of touch and hectoring, simply parroting the playbook of a governing class who despise it anyway. 

There will be the argument that the Church is showing “another way”, but the precise problem is that it isn’t. For as long as it’s led by people who look, sound and believe that they may as well be running an NHS or multi academy trust or a medium sized district council, it simply isn’t going to appeal to those who are howling into the void of post modernity.

If the faith seems to be just another political tool, but for the opposite side, then it will simply only add to the problem rather than help soothe it. Only a coherent communitarian vision of the Church rooted in the particularities of the places it serves will suffice to combat hate. One can see why the bishops don’t want to do this; it would involve focussing on the work done by parishes on the ground, the very parishes which they routinely undermine and deep down would rather defund in favour of vast religious hubs. The response really ought to be two fold – a cold, hard deconstruction of the theologically dubious claims by scholars who actually do know what they’re talking about (and few bishops now do) followed by a more joyous attitude, a positive affirmation of why specific places – the streets and byways that the hard right claims to love more than the people who care for them – do matter in the Christian faith.

Read it all in The New Statesman