Category Archives: Politics and sociology

I wrote back in December about the distrust, by Christians of all people, of the present working class movement towards Christianity. The veritable Who’s Who of Christian opponents to this groundswell, as it was manifested in Tommy Robinson’s Christmas carol concert in Whitehall, is typical of this distrust. I think I showed in my piece on the latter that there is no evidence whatsoever of cynical racist motivation, though of course pockets of almost any kind of corruption will be seen somewhere in any mass-movement.

My last-but-one post was prompted by my reading of a book on C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series. I’m just completing the inevitable follow-up exercise of re-visiting the series itself, for the first time since I read them to our kids forty years ago. I should add that my parents unaccountably failed to introduce me to the books when I was a kid, so this is only my second time through.

Back on the Charismatic theology wagon, a podcast I did with John Collins of Leaving the Message is now out on YouTube, and seems to have mainly positive feedback so far. It’s here. I’m actually recording a follow-up in January, so we’ll see what that’s all about when we get there.

The Church Times’s downbeat report of the evangelistic carol service in Whitehall last Saturday, to which I’ve addressed the last two posts, quotes “the C of E’s co-lead bishop for racial justice, suffragan Bishop of Kirkstall Arun Arora”: Referring to Mr Robinson by his real name, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Bishop Arora said that he was “delighted” that he had “recently come to faith in prison”, but suggested that “having embraced and accepted God’s welcome he can’t now restrict it from others who may be equally lost.

And so on my return from a family gathering last Saturday, I flicked through the YouTube footage of the Whitehall Carol Concert, as organised by Tommy Robinson, real name unknown to all but himself since his conversion in prison (see Revelation 2:17).

In a comment on my most recent post reader Steve links to a reply to an open letter apparently signed by the entire religious Establishment of Britain, condemning “Christian nationalism” in the form of the spontaneous expressions of Christian faith at the Tommy Robinson rally a couple of months ago. Since my blog mentions the forthcoming mass carol concert in London, also organised by Robinson’s people, it’s worthy of further comment.