silverguide.site –

Thank you for your editorial on the religious right (The Guardian view on Britain’s religious right: using and abusing faith in the pursuit of power, 5 April). The truth is that Christian nationalism has as little to do with the true values of Christianity as national socialism has to do with the values of socialism. It is a perversion of the faith … almost an oxymoron in its combination of opposites.

I serve in a church in the heart of Smethwick in the West Midlands, where our congregation reflects the area, being made up of those born and bred in the area, the families of the Windrush generation and new immigrants and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia.

We thrive as a broad church. More than that, we are truly blessed by our close relationships with local mosques and gurdwaras, and the wider faith and non-faith community.

Speaking to my imam friends, they will say that Islamism is a clear misappropriation of Islamic virtues for political ends that has little or no traction in mainstream mosques.

Therefore, more often than not, those who have been radicalised do not attend and the mainstream Islamic leadership has little sway over them. I suspect that Christian nationalists (maybe we should start referring to them as “Christianists”) are equally rarely to be found in church on a Sunday morning and may equally be beyond our immediate reach.

That does not give us an excuse not to raise our voices in what you correctly describe as becoming a political battleground, but for peace to reign, our efforts must be aimed at depoliticising faith rather than countering one politics with another. That means making the real story of faith heard above the strident voices of Pete Hegseth, Zia Yusuf, et al.
Rev Prof Nick Ross
Birmingham

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