on men in black

 

This month, here in England, has seen large groups of men, dressed in black with their faces covered by balaclavas, taking a leaf out of America’s playbook and Irish paramilitarism, creating disruption and intimidation in the name of Christian Nationalism.

I happily live among neighbours of all faiths and none, but, as someone charged with publicly teaching the Christian faith, if you want to identify as Christian, I want to ask questions as to what you understand by that. More, as a Clerk in Holy Orders in the Established Church, if you want to call this a Christian nation, I want to ask questions as to your participation in the life of your local Church of England parish church.

While these men have covered their faces to prevent themselves from being identified, I think it is clear that they aren’t taking their place in our congregations. Their justification is this: that the church has ‘gone woke’ as the result of the ‘feminisation’ of the church. And sadly, while these men are not present in our congregations, there are plenty of people who /are/ present in our congregations who believe they have a fair point.

The meaning of ‘woke’ is having one’s eyes open to injustice, in particular to systemic injustices. The prophets of the Old Testament present themselves as having had their eyes opened to injustices within their nation, and having been charged by God and sent to call a population sleepwalking in indifference to repent, or, return to God’s heart for the oppressed.

Jesus himself addressed crowds with the intention of separating those with eyes to see and ears to hear from those who have turned a blind eye for so long that they are no longer able to see as God sees.

It is hard to think of a library of works more woke than the Bible, or a worldview more woke than the Jewish and Christian faiths. Certainly, both faiths have (perhaps often—hence the prophets) failed to live up to this calling; but to dismiss the Church for having ‘gone woke’ is to demonstrate religious illiteracy and historical ignorance.

As for the ‘feminisation’ of the church, the Church has always been personified as female. From before the church was called the church, Jesus referred to that community as his Mother; while the letters sent to the earliest churches describe the church as the Bride of Christ.

Those letters also describe the church as the Body of Christ—of Jesus, who was male—but this is not an image of masculinity. The ‘body’ image in the New Testament is an image of union. On my wedding day, I vowed to my wife, ‘All that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you, within the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’ My body remains my body, and her body remains her body; but when people see her, even without my being present, they are meant, in a sense, to see me too. Jesus retains his physical resurrection body in the heavenly realm; but when we, within the Church, see one another—individuals whose culture or ethnic background or gender or sexuality might disturb us—we are called to see Jesus.

The Church has always been conceived as female. What should be equally troubling to Christian Nationalists, at least here in Britain, is that our nation is also personified as female, Britannia, ruling the waves, a mythical woman who draws on (or draws into herself) several historical queens, including Boudicca, Elizabeth I, and Victoria.

The claim that the Church has ‘been feminised’ says more about insecure masculinity than it does about the Church or about a long and unbroken chain of saints, male and female.

Be a Christian, by all means. (It will require, among other things, that you do not turn away your Christian brothers who have fled here in small boats from regimes where Christians are imprisoned without trial or executed by the state simply for confessing ‘Jesus is Lord!’) And love your country. (Pay your taxes, which is the only truly patriotic act, contributing to the welfare of society as a whole.) But don’t think you are doing either of these by embracing Christian Nationalism.