BOOK OF THE MONTH: The church, the far right and the claim to Christianity | Edited by Helen Paynter and Maria Power
/MARCH BOOK OF THE MONTH
REVIEWER: Martyn Whittock
BOOK: The church, the far right and the claim to Christianity
Edited by Helen Paynter & Maria Power
(SCM, 2024), 192pp, paperback
The book’s back cover explains that it ‘examines the church’s response to the rise of far-right thinking in UK society and explores how it can respond more effectively’. However, as the foreword indicates, the volume (to which 15 writers, from a range of faith backgrounds and experiences, have contributed) is largely a response to an earlier work: The Claim to Christianity by Strømmen and Schmiedel, (SCM, 2020). While those who have not read this earlier work can get an outline of its arguments from the various chapters in the current book, one is left feeling as if one is overhearing a group conversation on a topic, regarding which the less informed ‘observer’ (this reviewer at least) feels rather marginal to the ‘conversation’.
We are told that the far-right’s claim to ‘Christian authenticity’ is based on its references to selectively chosen scripture and history but we never get a really accessible, or comprehensive, insight into this. If we want to grapple with the issue then, surely, we need to know more about what this far-right narrative consists of and (crucially) more on how it shades into ‘more-acceptable’ aspects of faith and UK history. Similarly, the book explores the Islamophobia of the far right, but little of the complexities and issues within modern multi-culturalism that might be argued to have also fed into its narrative. The complex role of immigration, the place of the media (mainstream and online), social anxieties, the legacy of austerity and attendant working-class disempowerment are not fully engaged with or explored.
The book will, no doubt, stimulate discussion among academics in this field. However – while the introduction offers useful definitions, and the conclusion suggests possible church strategies – general readers and church leaders will be left wanting a lot more accessible information on this pressing topic; its roots and faith-claims, its interactions with wider UK society, social complexities which may seem to lend legitimacy to far-right interpretations, the international dimension and the role of social media.
Reviewer: Martyn Whittock is a historian, columnist, commentator, and Licensed Lay Minister in the Church of England. He is the author, or co-author, of fifty-seven books, on a wide range of historical and theological themes. His recent political studies include Trump and the Puritans (2020) and The Secret History of Soviet Russia’s Police State (2020).