What do Christians make of the crosses at the Tommy Robinson march?

[noblegiraffe]

I'm an atheist so my reaction is 'co-opting the imagery of the Crusades because these people hate Muslims'. But it's not my religion and not my imagery.

What do Christians think about the huge amount of wooden crosses being available for protesters on the Tommy Robinson march to pick up and march with?

The Christians in Palestine include families with living direct traditions from the apostolic founders of the faith. They are down to about 2% or less (from 29% under British mandate Palestine) and need our support.

Therefore we can not assume that the people on Tommy Robinson's marches are not Christian. That they weren't in Church this morning? That they don't know how to recite the Lord's prayer. Because humans are after all fallible?

Also I am a practising Roman Catholic and aware of the catechism. My gut feeling is that Matthew 7:3-5 comes into play somewhat here but at this time of night I can't express my thought process clearly.

Reform and Restore banging on about about restricting kosher and halal says something about them. they are playing with surface level symbols. Just let kosher and halal be.

Sorry but this is an animal welfare issue. I am disgusted that we ever allowed this cruel method of slaughter to be allowed in this country and I would like to see it banned. Greece has banned it. This country should as well. That might influence voting decisions for some people, just like the decision to allow polygamists to claim child benefit for the children of multiple wives despite bigamy being supposedly illegal in this country (unless it happens to be part of your religion) might also influence voting decisions. If mainstream political parties don’t want voting decisions to be made on these sorts of issues maybe they should reconsider their own stance on issues that matter a lot to many people.

You mean those convicted . ..

Also the country is mostly white so of course they will make up a greater number.

But you will ignore all the undocumented and grooming gangs because "white people".

Ethiopia was in a very difficult place 40 years ago iirc. Beautiful country from what I've seen.

I’m an atheist. I don’t think you have to be a Christian to object to the co-opting of religious symbols to support repellent ideologies.

I think it shows how low Christianity has got in the UK that its symbols are used like this. The marchers say they're standing up for traditional British values but there's no way my grandparents (three Anglicans and one Presbyterian) would have gone parading down the street holding crosses unless, perhaps, it was Good Friday. If the project to erase Christianity from British cultural memory wasn't so advanced everyone would see this as straight out MAGAism and nothing to do with Christianity.

No idea about the crosses but I thought in general there has been an uptick in church goers ?

@Araminta1003 I respectfully disagree that it's about classism. Katie Hopkins and Lawrence Fox have attended these marches (not sure if they attended the latest one, but I've seen pictures of them at Tommy Robinson marches before) and they're both very middle class or even very posh. The thing that unites the crowd is their racism and Islamophobia.

Meanwhile, at the anti fascist/Nakba march, there was a genuinely eclectic mix of humanity, including many unions, comprised of genuinely working class people. I attended that one, and I would say I'm working class - I'm certainly poor, as a renter with health issues; but I know refugees are not remotely the cause of my problems. Capitalism in its practiced form, is a big cause of many of our problems - Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, do not remotely care about the rights and lives of the people on the far right march, or people who voted their way. They're the elites, the millionaire/billionaire class who are pointing at refugees to distract people from them and the things they're doing.

How to get people to stop falling for the nonsense is the challenge.

No, it turns out that data was faulty and church attendance and people identifying as Christian is generally declining.

https://www.christiantoday.com/news/bible-society-withdraws-quiet-revival-report-as-it-admits-data-was-faulty

Oh that's a shame !

Posting my response to a previous thread as it seems apposite here.

Personally I'm disgusted that Tommy Robinson and his ilk would want anything to do with a religion that was invented in the Middle East and spread to our sunny Isles by foreign incomers. Mind you it's also time to get rid of the veneration of a bloody Turkish Saint as well. - another immigrant. Why do I want to see fucking Turkish 'St George ' flags defacing our noble British lampposts and marches.
That's the trouble with Tommy Robinson (and Reform) - far too accepting of foreign influence over our culture.
Anything other than Paganism and changing our Saint to Boudica is just lightweight bollocks.
Actually no - can't have a Saint at all - more of that Middle Eastern Religion bollocks

THIS COUNTRY NEEDS REAL CHANGE.

Christians are exorted to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with our God, to look after the widows, prisoners, the stranger in your land. To love your neighbour. When asked who your neighbour is, Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan ( look it up if you're not sure of it). Looking out for the marginalised is part of the actions of being a Christian. However, you don't become a Christian through your actions. It's by Grace alone, through faith alone, through Christ alone. I would welcome the UTK marchers into our church for them to hear the gospel ( possibly for the first time). We are all sinners. However, I don't want people thinking that as a Christian, those marchers are speaking for me. Appropriating the cross which is a symbol of Christ's death and resurrection is distasteful. Christ welcomed the marginalised. He protested against performative religion and instead asked people to really understand the change of heart required by God. People need to stop fearing immigrants and remember who the real causes of the problems are - tax evaders, corrupt politicians, those causing division.

I guess vegetarians and vegans must drive you nuts then!

If it were an animal welfare issue, battery farming, veal rearing, hunting, etc. would also be of longstanding and evidenced interest to these campaigners. It is discrimination dressed up asbanimal welfare.

This is a great point of view! It had not crossed my mind, but it is perfectly logic.

I am really no longer worried about Tommy Robinson. He has proved who he is. He may be in the path to change, we shall see.
But I am concerned about the number of people turning up and the number of Reform voters rising.
I live in UK and, from my personal experience, there is not much racism at all. Yeah, I have come across some "Robinsons" like persons. But funny enough, they seemed more concerned about the decline in UK living, rather than race or nationality per se, though the way they went about it was not welcoming. I think labelling large groups of people as far right thugs and racists will only lead to the rise of a MAGA phenomenon. I am more pro listening and addressing what they say. Not Robinson, not Farage. Those can get lost.

Listening to the protestors and voters, what is bothering them.

We can't judge but we do need to discern and to ask the Spirit for guidance.

The RC Catechism is not gospel but, like the Church, human; collaborative, and evolving. For our times, this is the paragraph on Muslims:
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/catechism/cat_view.cfm?recnum=3072

See also Lumen Gentium 16: https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

Both of these are up for charitable, Spirit-led, and theologically informed interpretation. Your catechists/sworn religious may vary somewhat.

A few posters have said church attendance should be up after the march. What makes them so sure they're not already going to church? Because they may well be.

The article says that attendance at Anglican and Catholic churches has continued to decline, not church attendance overall (which may be happening, I don't know). That's an important point because if growth in, say, American-style showbizzy mega churches is offsetting this decline the result will be an increasing group of people who will be easily influenced by MAGA stuff like this. Now, I'm a practicing Christian and want others to be Christians too but there gets a point when you have nothing truly in common but the name.

^I agree with this completely.

The most devout group of Christians that I have ever met was were the ones working tirelessly to support asylum seekers from predominantly Muslim backgrounds.

I'm an atheist, but you could see that these people were driven by a deep care and compassion for their fellow human beings. They were not trying to convert anyone - quite the contrary, they actually worked very hard to support and facilitate the asylum seekers in the practice of their own faithS. They were respectful of different cultures, supportive and interested. Driven by their faith with no other agenda than to show love and care to vulnerable people who were in need.

I'm pretty sure that those people would be horrified to see what TR and his cronies are doing in the name of Christianity. It certainly doesn't align with their interpretation of their faith.

Jesus Christ would have welcomed asylum seekers to his table. I think this irony would be lost on the average Tommy Robinson supporter.

Yes, that would honestly be a better choice. When Saul famously encountered Christ on the road to Damascus and was blinded, he was taken to the house of a Christian who educated him for about 3 years in the ways of Christ, he didn't go out a few days later. By the time Paul began his ministry he was very well informed and humbled, and it was many years after that first encounter.

^Yes indeed. And possibly the ‘Good Samaritan’ would have been an asylum seeker. Samaritans were equally despised during Jesus’s ministry.

Yes, Jesus Christ would have welcomed asylum seekers, but he would have also welcomed haters and addicts and prostitutes. And most importantly, he would not have judged but listened and led by example.

You cannot label these people who have been failed by the system and demonise them.
And the biggest irony in all of this - is some of them clamouring to have the human rights act removed, when it is increasingly their human rights which are being threatened by “right think” etc. (see the facial recognition ID cards, trying to control them online etc). I first thought they were all exaggerating, but I no longer believe this to necessarily be the case (from a legal perspective, that is).

None of this is simple.
I think if Christian churches have to step up to fulfil the role of leading by example, where the politicians have clearly failed so many of these people, then so be it. I think they can.
And let it be known that the Imams also stepped up and it is their work through kindness who brought a lot of the terrorist inclined Muslim haters out too.