This year’s Christmas in the UK was marked by a controversy after right-wing leader Tommy Robinson (pictured) made headlines organising a carol service to “put Christ back into Christmas”.
Robinson is the pseudonym for Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a man who has led a series of far-right movements beginning with the English Defence League (EDL), without linking them to Christianity, who now has a newfound (at least publicly) interest in Christ. Robinson left the EDL after its reputation was shattered in 2011, after supporters were convicted of plotting to bomb mosques.
But his leading the well-publicised “put Christ back into Christmas” event has put Christian leaders in a quandary. One local lay minister, Peter Adams, has had a long-term view of Yaxley-Lennon, having been a local pastor in Luton, where Yaxley-Lennon began his activism before becoming a national figure.
In a blog essay, “If the far right have parked their tanks on our front lawn, we need to get out and start the conversation!” he explores how pastors should react. Adams is riffing off the reaction of Arun Arora, a former PR for the church of England, who is now Bishop of Kirkstall ansd who was quoted in The Observer “We are in a place now where in the next three to five years there will be a battle for those who want to pursue a kind of UK Maga [Make America Great Again] agenda as to what Christianity is. If the far right are now parking their tanks on the front lawn of the Church of England, how is the church to respond?”
Adams writes, “To understand more of what was in his mind, it seemed very obvious to attend the event in Whitehall on Saturday – one-time fellow citizen of Luton, Stephen Yaxley Lennon (SYL), has been an important focus of my work for over 16 years. I observed the angry protest by him and about 200 others on 10th March 2009 against a small Luton group of members of the extreme Muslim group al-Muhajiroun led by the infamous Anjem Choudary during a homecoming parade of a British army regiment through the town centre. As a civic and community conflict mediator based at the town centre parish church, St Marys, and working across the Luton community, I sought to understand the nature of the emerging street protest movement that became the EDL. Responding to that movement and its legacy has become central to my work.”
After going to the “Christ back into Christmas” activity, Adams writes, “The event, or carol service as they termed it, was a mix of Christmas carols and songs, Bible reading, testimony of turning to faith and miracles, and short sermons, and included an appeal to respond to the message of salvation. It was a format not unfamiliar to many from a Pentecostal or non-denominational church. It lasted about an hour and 45 minutes. You can watch it on the live feed here. Only after the final blessing did SYL appear (at 2.18.39 on the recording above) to a great applause. Both his manner and message were very restrained in comparison with his normal style.
“I wasn’t the only Christian attending in order to watch, listen and understand carefully before speaking further about it. One of these was Nick Spencer, Senior Fellow of Theos, who, together with the event’s compere and singer Minister Rikki Doolan, contributed to the report on the event on the BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme (Here, beginning at about 31.48 with Nick from 38.27). Nick was clear, “… the focus was pretty singular on Jesus …” There was none of the focus on Islam or immigration or ‘wokery’ one has come to expect in SYL’s normal material. Nick has reflected further in a Theos blog piece.”
So this veteran long-term Yaxley-Lennon critic or watcher saw very little to be concerned about at the actual carols event. He recounts two people who know Yaxley-Lennon well, who are convinced his conversion to Christ is genuine.
But as a person who has sought to preserve good relations between the Muslim and Christian communities in working-class Luton, Adams is troubled by Yaxley-Lennon’s continued aggression towards Muslims. “It seems so far that there is no encouragement in the Christian circle he occupies to seek social justice as an outworking of personal holiness, as many of us would expect. It seems that passion for Christ is an acceptable motivation towards rather than restraint from aggression to Muslims. It seems that a good Christian is a good nationalist. In this situation, we are confronted with a forceful and possibly violent form of Christian Nationalism.”
He recalls efforts spent in seeking peace in Luton: “The sentiment expressed in this statement has proved to be an anchor for our work in seeking to hold our community together over the past 16 years. The journey of understanding the concerns of both EDL and their sympathisers, as well as our Muslim community, and of reaching out to both with the same love of Christ, has continued for us as the church in Luton to this day. It is a journey that has I know has concerned all who have faced groups like the EDL in their hometowns and cities. And being very honest, it is a challenge we all too easily fail to do well.
“It is significant that Nick Spencer, in his piece on the BBC, noted that the crowd had many more working-class people in it than most church events he’d been to. Along with that, it was predominantly white. Did the “Putting the Christ back in Christmas” carol service cause them to feel more at home, that a part of the church was taking them seriously at last? That possibility should concern us. ”
Adams is firmly on the side of those who have worked for a racially inclusive intercultural Church of England. Yet he reflects, “I have concluded there is work to do if the ‘Put the Christ back in Christmas’ event is a cry from the heart of those who no longer feel they have a place in church. If Christian Nationalism is the motivation of SYL … and all those who contributed, and at the heart of the Unite the Kingdom movement, how do we respond as church?”
Adams longs for Tommy Robininson, aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, to be part of a church that also welcomes refugees and new immigrants. He concludes, reflecting on attending the carols event, “let’s venture outside, with a cup of tea and a warm mince pie in hand, offer them to those in the ‘far right tanks parked on our front lawn,’ and get talking. There will be many among us who feel incredibly vulnerable that we are doing that, and we need to reassure them of our commitment to them. But the nation we love needs us to do it.”
Image: Tommy Robinson / Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. Image Credit: Shayan Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn / Wikimedia