Tommy Robinson vs. the Church of England

Around 1,000 people attended Tommy Robinson’s carol concert to “put the Christ back into Christmas” on Saturday. The Church of England has not reacted meekly, with several bishops expressing their concern at the Unite the Kingdom religious event. There’s “something especially offensive about appropriating this great Christian festival of light triumphing over darkness as a prop in a dim culture war”, said the Bishop of Manchester, writing in The Independent.

‘No one beyond redemption’

When Robinson “finally arrived on stage”, it was to chants of his name from an attendee “wearing a Union Jack hat” and “carrying a can of San Miguel in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other”, said Luke O’Reilly in The New Statesman. Others in attendance included a man “wearing a nun’s wimple and veil” over his tracksuit and another carrying “a large wooden cross with ‘Jesus Saves’ carved into it”.

Robinson “has been many things over the years“, and now the former “football hooligan is “a born-again Christian”. With British Christianity “stirring” again, “like a human bellwether, Robinson is blowing with the wind”. And yet Christians do “believe that anyone – no matter how badly behaved – can be saved”. After all, “the Bible is full of unsavoury characters”. Most famously, Paul was a merciless persecutor of Christians before he became one himself, and he, “like Robinson started preaching immediately” after his conversion.

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It’s a “key tenet of the Christian faith that no one is beyond redemption”, said vicar and comedian Ravi Holy in The Guardian. “I don’t want to cast anyone into outer darkness, especially as a reformed prodigal myself.” But Jesus said that “true repentance should bear fruit”, and “the new Tommy doesn’t seem radically different from the old one”.

Spreading fear

“The far right are now parking their tanks on the front lawn of the Church of England,” said the Bishop of Kirkstall, who also features in an official C of E social media video, released the day before Robinson’s carol service, emphasising that “Christmas belongs to all of us”.

This “resistance” by “leading lights in the Anglican church” shows “immense courage”, said Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The i Paper. Robinson’s “motley patriots” were “once rightly marginalised” but now they seem to “dominate our country”. The Church is “breaking that sordid consensus”. The willingness of “the heart of the establishment” to take a stand “could be a turning point”.

The “whole point of coming to church” is to “sit alongside people you may not like, who hold very different, even (to you) repulsive, political views”, said vicar Giles Fraser on UnHerd. At Christmas, churches “resound with angels singing, ‘Fear not’. In contrast, Robinson spreads fear.” And “that is not the Christian message”. Robinson is welcome to come to church but he would “have to sit alongside people of different colours and languages, and immigrants”.