Rising Christian nationalism: a threat to us all

[IwantToRetire]

Article by Humanist UK, so doesn't really reflect on the impact on women although does mention abortion rights.

But I do think that our politics are far more influenced by the US, not for any deep reasons, but so much of our TV is now americanised.

And some of the fundamentalist UD christian groups have very regressive attitude towards women.

https://humanists.uk/2025/09/17/rising-christian-nationalism-a-threat-to-us-all/

Although probably getting that judgemental doesn't reflect particularly well on me.

::sigh::

The legal definition ‘of time immemorial’ in English law is anything dating before the accession of King Richard the First. Other jurisdictions don’t use a specific legal date but have a similar principle - anything existing before about a thousand years ago is indeed a British custom, or right, or claim.

We are a historically Christian country because we have been a Christian country since before the Normans invaded. And English common law would back me up.

If you want to argue that women were far more respected before Christianity, you need to explain how so many accounts have men converted by their wife or mother. If paganism was so great for women, why were the women usually converting first?

I might also point out that your argument also makes anyone of Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking or Norman descent ‘born of a land far away from ours’. Certainly the Normans. If you think they bore any resemblance to our indigenous origins and way of life, then the ghosts of my Welsh ancestors would like a word…

(Mind you, they’d like a word with the Anglo-Saxons, as well. Bloody Anglo-Saxons, coming over here, stealing our land…).

Somehow it does seem whatever the suposed purpose of any group or campaign, there will always be voilent men who see it as an opportunity to be legally violent. And in this instance monetise it.

https://www.channel4.com/news/inside-the-lucrative-industry-of-online-auditors-targeting-migrant-hotels-in-the-uk

I am with you on the explicit politics.

However, I will say that my experience of US evangelist churches is that many of them are also involved in work taking care of the vulnerable - food banks, soup kitchens, Habitat for Humanity, and work with refugees and newcomers, women in crises, etc.

Their sense of these things needing to be done is separate from the idea that the state should be the body doing them, which I think many people in the UK don't quite understand.

One of the main reasons so many people have historically been attracted to Christianity, and particularly the poor, is because so many pagan religions were incredibly harsh. Slavery, torture, witchcraft of the nasty kind, the idea that people had to accept their fate which often meant their place in the social hierarchy, and intense tribalism, were pretty ubiquitous.

The whole idea of gentle natury paganism is largely modern romantic myth. It's more, nature red in tooth and claw, the strongest are at the top.

I think Christianity goes both ways on this, as it does with a lot of things. Chesterton claimed this was one of its strengths.

On the one hand it's clearly universalist in the sense that any person is eligible, regardless of origin, sex, race, class, criminal history, wealth, intelligence, or any other category you can think of. And the ideal Christian city is universal, of all nationalities. (This is one reason Catholicism, like Judaism and Freemasonry, have been distrusted by many national authorities.)

On the other hand there is an intense localist element. Parishes are traditionally oriented around the physical place you happen to be, with significant local control - how much will depend on the denomination of course but certainly local control by bishops even in the most centralised versions. Physical space and the natural political organisation of the human community is the real basis for life in community. Universalism is a great ideal but we can't actually live like that.

Catholics have systematised or intellectualised this relationship in the idea of subsidiarity. It's wrong for higher up parts of the hierarchy to interfere inappropriately in more local communities. (What counts as inappropriate is the question then but the principle I think stands.)

Christian nationalism is not just a mistake about those things though, I think it involves wedding religion to a national political agenda that's actually alien to Christianity. You can see it in a big way in Russia now.

Legal definitions aside.

Christianity was still born in the middle east. You can't possibly tell me that it wasn't.

Our islands were populated for thousands of years before Christianity came here. To me it's matter of timescales.

Middle Eastern Tin merchants wondering about the place leaving bits of old dinnerware about the place...

I dont think there is anything negative about people wanting to go to church more or an increased interest in religion itself. Its healthier than sitting alone on a computer. It might well be that people are reacting against the trend to spend less time interacting in person. That's a good impulse, and if it grows into a wider trend of people spending more time in pubs, community spaces, real.worldnthird spaces that is a good thing. Like cottage core being an online trend but also about wanting to get back to nature etc.

Yes there is a dark side to some of the way its talked about online. I think its similar to the gym-bro/ultra aesthetic targeted towards men or the cottage core stuff. Some right wing content creators are using interest in those trends/people's natural desire to become more physically healthy, get back to nature, more spiritual, more communal to push their own messages. That's how advertising works. But there isn't anything unhealthy in the activities themselves or the motivation behind it. I just think you have to seperate the two. Most people have apolitical motivations behind these interests.
I would be more concerned about people getting really interested in the idea of religion/Christianity due to feeling isolated/craving spiritual meaning/craving purpose etc but never going to church or talking in person to long-standing Christians or even just reading the Bible (and therefore not getting the things they wanted in the first place). They are quite vulnerable to dodgy online gurus.

Your timescales make everyone a foreigner. We’ve been here about 12,000 years. We know very little about most of it.

Christianity came from following Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew born in Judea and raised in Nazareth. It was a development of a religion that had already been going for one or two thousand years before that. Of course it started in the Middle East. The Middle East was the one of the areas that didn’t get covered in massive glaciers - most European things start around the Mediterranean because that area had a longer time when plants could grow.

I know a lot about Christianity. I also know how much we know about the paganism of the British Isles before Christianity, with its waves of invasion from the neighbouring continent. Very little. Much less than we know about a religion that has been part of this country for at least 1,400 years and quite possibly longer.

Have you read Ronald Hutton’s books?

All religion is a threat.

I'm not seeing much evidence of "Christian nationalism" in notable denominations, including the major UK evangelical movements. "We're a Christian country"-type remarks from Reform types largely seem to have very little to do with actual Christian practice, e.g. regular church attendance.

Humanists UK have always been anti-religious alarmists, who frequently come across as more interested in bashing Christianity than actually presenting the merits of their alternative. And there is a concerted move amongst extremists on both left and right to import American issues into the UK. If Humanists UK want to make Christian nationalism a big topic of debate in this country, that's a goal they share with the Reform hardcore, not a point of opposition to them.

Same, Scotland in the 80s. And we still take the kids out guising.

You have proven my point.

Everyone is a foreigner.

The mistake people made when they complained about "US culture" infecting Britain in the guise of halloween etc was thinking that Britain was a monoculture. We have always been extremely diverse regionally, language wise etc. Even "Christian culture" is extremely diverse. So what looks like an import is actually something already done in other parts of the UK.

I think it's a similar mistake people make when they complain about"multiculturalism". We have always been.multicultural. That's not the problem. The (possible) problem is the slow erasure of local practices and customs. Or the homogeneity of stories/rhymes caused by TV etc. But that's not something that's driven by immigration. It's more the way modern technologies are smooshing everything together into greater and greater local, regional, national and international homogeneity. I can really sympathise with people who say they feel like they are losing their country. I just don't think we are losing it to immigrants.
How many versions of the magpie rhyme do you know?

Yes, the old traditions lived on in Scotland and Ireland - Wales? I don't know.

Halloween derives from the Celtic festival of Samhain. It is the turning of the year, the celebration of the harvest [hence the importance of apples and nuts in traditional Halloween celebrations], the preparation for the quiet dark time of winter, and remembrance of and closeness to people we have lost through death.

That's what the traditional Halloween festivities were about in Ireland up to recently - fun and games and dressing up and going from house to house asking 'Any apples or nuts?' and then apple bobbing and eating nuts and barm brack and having a laugh about who got the 'favours', the coin or the ring or the piece of cloth or the pea, and some light-hearted 'divination' by putting hazel nuts next to the fire and seeing which one 'popped' first.
Later on there were ghost stories for the older children and the grown-ups, but that was a separate part of the Halloween celebration, it was mostly fun for the little ones.

Halloween has nothing to do with zombies, severed heads, bats, pumpkins, spiders, witches, or Wicca for that matter, cobwebs, Dracula, skeletons and all that imported stuff that increases the sale of tasteless, non-biodegradable plastic tat a hundredfold at this time of year.🙄

If the Church of England had supported Parishes better and therefor remained closer to the general population there would be fewer recruits to these more extreme sects.
We have had some dim Bishops and Archbishops. Including the nonsensical Rowan Williams who openly suggested that some of Sharia Law was a good thing for UK.
A Bishop of York not sure about the Trinity. Justin Welby the recently retired Archbishop of Canterbury who tried to make a name for himself in Politics and failed to control various abusive clergy.

I have just watched that Channel 4 piece. I have heard of AY Audits I think, but never watched him.

First things first, citizen journalism is UNDOUBTEDLY a fantastic thing, IMHO, not least when it is hours of unedited footage. It is entirely reasonable for citizen jourmists to seek to monetize their content to cover their costs and money to live on if they're doing it full time. If they get rich due to popularity and the way tiktok and youtube are monetized that's not their fault.

It seems to me ENTIRELY reasonable for a journalist covering a protest to share with his audience the messages that the protestors are pushing. Not least because if people are putting out despicable messages it is good if the police and wider society is aware so we can fight back.

"Auditing" is not just about entering places, it can be done in public. 3 or 4 years of "Auditing" is precisely why, as of now, the police are much less likely to illegally infringe on people's rights of free expression including filming in public. Auditors spent years gettting illegally arrested and suing the police, and winning payouts for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment and assault. The police have finally started to get an insight into the law of the land that they are required to follow, the public have been educated on their rights, and we are freer as a result of people I regard as somewhat heroic.

5.50 - he got arrested... it would be very interesting to know the end result of that... he might be one of the more idiotic auditors, I don't know, but the good ones very rarely get arrested unless by a police officer who has made a mistake and exceeded his powers.

6.30 - I think the guy is wrong. The best auditors strike a balance. The real idiot auditors who just wind up the police unnecessarily tend not to be the most popular or long lasting (not least if they're like one guy whose name I forget now who had a habit of taking it far too far when winding up police, whilst selling drugs on the side. End result : unsurprisingly involved a prison sentence). Obviously if nothing happens the content is boring. The best auditors might gently provoke, but are not wind-up merchants. They make videos where great policing is highlighted (and celebrated by their viewers), as well as of bad cops.

There is definitely an issue with the fact that citizen journalists are often aligned to one side of an issue to a greater or lesser extent. I wish more really did do nothing more than document / and ask neutral questions. But I also think that all media is highly biased and politicized - some outfits so captured they say men can have vaginas - so I can hardly have a go at a citizen jourlist for taking a "no mass immigration" position.

Obviously if "auditors" are suspected of breaking and entry or harassment they should be investigate and (potentially) prosecuted.

Obviously I don't support filming and harassing ethnic minority kids leaving a campsite... but that seems to be an entirely separate issue - not citizen journalist or auditors, rather local people who are anti-immigration seeking to film in public (as is their right) people who they perceived to be immigrants.

9.25 - a bloke talking about auditors "setting a narrative". Sorry, but people have a right to film what they see and a right to comment on what they see. If the reality of what is happening on the streets is making people more anti-immigrant or more racist then we need to consider how to change what is happening on the streets. Censoring people (as the MSM has done for 20 plus years in terms of trying to shame, insult and silence people who are anti-immigrant) has utterly failed, because people perceive the truth to be what their eyes tell them, not what a politician or BBC journalist tells them. Trying to hide the truth will not work long term, all it will do is ensure that the explosion of anger that happens when people see what has been hidden from them will be much larger than if they'd been told the truth from day 1.

10.00 I feel sorry for her... but on the other hand if you put yourself forward for a position of power you can expect the public to challenge you when you are in public.

11.00 I am sure that policeman is right... a lot is probably misleading. But loads isn't. Unfortunately for the MSM and the police the sorts of people who watch an hour and a half of unedited footage from a protest are almost all going to trust what they have seen more than they trust the MSM or the police's account of what happened. This is just fact. I think a lot of this whole video is basically a Channel 4 hitjob on people who have big audience who trust them.

11.20 Get lost C4 - obviously incitement to violence is wrong, but so is the way the MSM have lied for years that everyone who would like a bit less immigration is a white ethno-nationalist, fascist or literal nazi, whilst women can have penises. If the likes of C4 hadn;t been so stupid and hateful themselves there would be much less of a market for alternative sources.

Sorry about how long that post was.

A long time ago I started noticing that when I saw a news story about something I knew a lot about I very often perceived the reporting to be appalling. This made me think "hang on, what if they're as appalling with regards the issues I don't know about". I think that C4 piece was a perfect example, and I think that people like me who watch auditors and citizen journalists

I'd like the see them do a follow-up piece where they scrutinize the work of the "lesbian cartel" (mkr audits and mybrakesdontwork - a lesbian couple from, I believe, Manchester) in particular their work documenting the provacation and violence of antifa / trantifa / pro-palestine hard left protestors.

No country on this earth is historically Christian then. Jesus wasn't born before the Druids etc And no country is historically Muslim or Buddhist.

I would describe myself as 'culturally Christian'.

To me it means that I don't have christian beliefs but I was sent to a C of E school, was sent to sunday school, know quite a few hymns and biblical quotations, can more or less recite the lords prayer, celebrate christmas and easter, appreciate a nice bit of church architecture and the nine lessons and carols on christmas eve, know how to behave at a church wedding, baptism or funeral, enjoy a church fete ... Basically that I'm not a christian but I recognise that christianity runs very deep in the culture in which I grew up.

Nothing to do with moral authority.

That's what the word originally meant. It's not how it is used now.
The thing is, if you aren't sending your own children to Sunday school when you go to church etc they will have a different experience you did and might be less "culturally Christian" than you (at least by the examples you gave). Which is fine. But a lot of people link "culturally Christian" to ideas of a culture that needs to be protected. Usually from immigrants of another culture/religion. It just doesn't make.much sense for people who themselves aren't actively involved in going to church, sending their kids to Sunday School etc to worry about the fact the country is becoming less Christian in terms of culture and then blame immigration for that. It's just natural change (that might reverse on its own accord). The only way to stop it is to force parents to send their kids to Sunday school/go to church regularly. And we don't do that.

It's not you I'm criticising!

Exactly

Are you a bot? Surely no real person can be this daft.

Sorry, but does it really matter what culturally christian means?

If it doesn't have anything to do with the idea that we have a culture that has a fair bit to do with christianity and that culture needs protecting from (amongst other things) immigrants from different cultures and with different religions, then that changes little or nothing. We still need a word for the idea that we have a culture that has a fair bit to do with christianity and that culture needs protecting from (amongst other things) immigrants from different cultures and with different religions.

Secondly, it is perfectly reasonable to say "I am not a christian but I like the culture that is based on a long hsitory of christianity, especially in comparison to the cultures I see in Syria and Saudi and Afghanistan and Iran. I am not going to go to church, but I am going to support minimimizing the immigration we get from places with very different cultures."

I'm not happy at the way the dinosaurs dominated the UK 200 million years ago. They never had the right to take over from the archosaurs.