The Church, The Far Right, and The Claim to Christianity

In 2015 the United Kingdom Independence Party published a Christian Manifesto in preparation for the general elections, with the title Valuing our Christian Heritage. In 2014, the far-right organisation Britain First invaded mosques across the UK with army-issued Bibles. The intruders called it a Christian crusade. More recently they have released a film of themselves invading so-called migrant hotels to hassle the residents there. In recent years in the UK the public resistance offered to far-right rhetoric from official church sources has been rather wan. Likewise, there is a dearth of resources offering constructive ways for the church to respond to hate crime or racial tension in their area. This book seeks to step into this gap. This volume brings together perspectives from theologians, church practitioners, and leading voices to respond to Hannah Strmmen, Ulrich Schmiedel's 2020 volume 'The Claim to Christianity', to reflect on how the church has responded to the rise in far right thinking in UK society, and to ask how it could respond better. With a foreword by David Gushee