Supporting churches to respond to the co-option of Christmas by the Far Right
Local churches across the UK will already have well-developed plans for celebrating Christmas – both in our church buildings and with our wider communities. Each of us will have had a lifetime of sharing the message at the heart of Christmas, ‘good news of great joy… for all’.
But this year, we have seen a ‘turning up of the volume’ of Far Right politics and the co-option of Christian language and symbols – including Christmas – for a nationalist agenda, overtly hostile to asylum-seekers and Muslims, and more covertly threatening to many more of us in our churches and neighbourhoods.
This includes an event planned for central London on 13th December, led by ‘Tommy Robinson’ and ‘Unite the Kingdom’, with the explicit aim of ‘putting Christ back into Christmas’, but associated closely with aggressive patriotism, xenophobia and Islamophobia. We’ll be all too aware that within our church communities, and our wider neighbourhoods, there will be some people who find these events threatening or scary, some who will want to fiercely reject them, others who will be drawn to them for a variety of reasons, and still many others who will feel confused and bewildered by the mixed messages that they find themselves having to make sense of.
We offer here a ‘rapid response’ resource for local churches wanting to navigate these complexities and discern faithful ways forward: to celebrate Christmas with a clear message of love for all our neighbours and (in small but significant ways) resisting agendas of division and hostility, while recognising that even within our own church communities there will very likely be a wide diversity of experiences, hopes and fears, and political views.
We include here a call to focus particularly on Sunday 14th December (which some Christian traditions call ‘Gaudete Sunday’) with services, events and wider communications that embody the themes of welcome, hospitality and joy – for all!
About this resource
This resource has been compiled by Revd Dr Al Barrett, Hodge Hill Church (hodgehillvicar@hotmail.co.uk), in collaboration with Larger Us, the Centre for the Study of Bible & Violence, the Joint Public Issues Team (Baptist Union, Methodist Church & United Reformed Church), and a number other Christian leaders and organisations across the UK.
Please note: as this is a ‘rapid response’ resource, with multiple contributors collaborating across different denominations and organisations, it does not claim to be comprehensive, ‘authorised’, or a single, unified position. All views expressed here are those of the contributors, who offer different and complementary perspectives on these complex issues.
#JoyForAll
December 2025
Additional downloadable resources
‘Good news great joy for all’: Created by Oasis Church Waterloo, this is free to use (you might want to add your own local logo to it).
‘Bus Stop Nativity’ by Andrew Gadd: Permission granted for free use. High resolution PDF versions here, with various straplines including ‘Christ has always been in Christmas’.
