Something interesting happened on Christmas Day. King Charles III gave his annual address, and it was, on its surface, utterly traditional: pilgrimage, remembrance, the stable at Bethlehem; prayers for peace. The expected things from the expected man in the expected setting. But then, showing a daring that we didn’t usually see from his mother, things took a turn.
He spoke of World War II veterans, their sacrifice, the values “which have shaped our country and the Commonwealth.” He spoke of journeying together, of relying on “the companionship and kindness of others.” So far, so Christmas. Nor did he mince his words when he spoke of “Jesus, the saviour of the world” But then, the segue. “We hear of division, both at home and abroad,” he said. “It seems to me that we need to cherish the values of compassion and reconciliation; the way our Lord lived and died.” When you consider the context, this was no cliche.
Civilisationalism: the nativist vibe shift
In my latest Times column I wrote that a certain kind of politics has been rising in the Western world - and on that uses the cross as a weapon. It started Russia - a cynical Putin ploy to position the Kremlin as the guardian of European Christian values vs woke Western liberalism. But this cultural dividing line has since been draw by others: leaders who suddenly discover Christianity then move immediately to use it not as a faith but a flag: a marker of who belongs and (more to the point) who doesn’t. In Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and beyond nationalism and even racial-based politics have been giving way to what you might call civilisationalism - declaring (in effect) that the very survival of Western civilisation is at stake due to the woke left and Islam (crucially, not just jihadism). So this creed preaches that a battle is underway and that it’s time to defend civilisation.
No self-respecting nativist has not, by now, converted to Christianity. One of them is Tommy Robinson who had people carrying crosses on his march in London. He recently held a carol-service-cum-demonstration in Westminster, complete with breakaway ‘vicars,’ one of whom told crowds that he was a converted witch. His marches, he says, will now defend “our Christian heritage”.
Tommy Robinson’s ‘masculine Christianity’
Robinson is joining the nativist vibe-shift, more welcoming of non-whites to his movement. He had black singers at his carol service and now defines himself against the ‘ethnonats.’ And - of course - the cross! In an interview, he spoke about his own conversion to Christianity.
“I do believe that there is a Christian revival happening. There is a masculine form of Christianity that’s going to rise - and it’s going to be detached from the church. I love black churches. I used to watch some some pastors in America and think: I’d follow him. . The first thing I asked my pastor when I’m in prison; I said: “when Jesus said ‘turn the other cheek’, what did he mean? And he said: ‘he meant, hit me like a man’. And I went: yeah, I’ll follow you.”
No church supports this interpretation of Christianity, but Robinson actually did find enough maverick preachers to appear in clerical dress and dish out the basic Christian nationalist fare. It’s still (very) fringe in Britain, but it used to be non-existent. When the centre is imploding, we need to keep an eye on the extremes.
As a Catholic, I’m all in favour of there being a space for faith in public debate, and important questions of identity that deserve more than cliches. And we have, on the throne, a man who saw this crisis coming - and has his own, robust and (to many) controversial definition.
Charles’s Britain: a ‘community of communities’
The King did not engage these political questions directly: that is not his style, nor would it be appropriate. But he offered an alternative vision. Faith, he said, is not about tribal identity. It is about how we live together. “As I meet people of different faiths,” he said in his message, “I find it enormously encouraging to hear how much we have in common; a shared longing for peace and a deep respect for all life.” Many faiths, one (British) culture: that of decency, pluralism, a shared moral vocabulary. A civilisation that does not require a single creed. A culture that draws its strength from incorporating all kinds of traditions. A fabric that is held together by respect and restraint, not race-baiting, sectarianism or exclusion.
So the King is describing Britain’s quiet achievement: the almost accidental creation of the word’s most successful multi-faith democracy. It’s now 31 years since he said he wanted to be “defender of faith” rather than defender of “the” faith. It seemed eccentric at the time. It seems prophetic now. He’s talking about a country where Christian ethics supply the moral grammar of public life without collapsing into confessional rule or ethnic identity.
His coronation last year showcased what the country has become. A Hindu prime minister read scripture, as his Indian wife looked on. A Buddhist home secretary oversaw security. The Muslim Mayor of London was there, as was the First Minister of Scotland, also Muslim. The Chief Rabbi stayed as the King’s guest so he would not have to drive on the Sabbath. This was not staged diversity. It was simply how the democratic cards had fallen at that moment in time: snapshot of modern Britain, a scene imaginable in any other nation in the world
The King is not espousing diversity as a theory, but as a lived reality: one that has emerged before anyone theorised. We have learned, perhaps more than any other country in Europe, to rub along together well. Give each other space; respect each other’s faith. If Mo Salah is off form when playing for Liverpool, football commentators observe - matter-of-factly - that it’s ramadan and he’s fasting. The same Mo Salah posts pictures of his Muslim family celebrating Christmas (so far, viewed 83 million times). This is the British way.
The King sees this country; loves it and represents it. But not because he’s a wishy-washy multiculturalist. He has made clear that his respect and reverence for other religious traditions is not in spite of his Christianity but because of it. Our values explain why we’ve made a decent fist of living together when Britain shows far more signs of the old empire. As Charles said soon after his coronation:
I have always thought of Britain as a ‘community of communities.’ That has led me to understand that the Sovereign has an additional duty – less formally recognized but to be no less diligently discharged. It is the duty to protect the diversity of our country, including by protecting the space for Faith itself and its practise through the religions, cultures, traditions and beliefs to which our hearts and minds direct us as individuals. This diversity is not just enshrined in the laws of our country, it is enjoined by my own faith. As a member of the Church of England, my Christian beliefs have love at their very heart. By my most profound convictions, therefore – as well as by my position as Sovereign – I hold myself bound to respect those who follow other spiritual paths, as well as those who seek to live their lives in accordance with secular ideals.
There are two very different visions of what faith means in public life. One sees Christianity as a tribal identity for those who feel (or can be persuaded) that their culture is under threat. It declares Islam a creed of conquest, says a battle already under way and and there is an urgent need to fight.
The other version looks at British Islam as it is lived by the overwhelming majority of British Muslims; sees the Abrahamic religions as forces for decency, cohabiation, forgiveness and restraint. If you look at the actual Muslim world we see the prime minister of Iraq, a Muslim, at Midnight Mass in solidarity with Iraq’s Christians. We see an Emirati airlines A380 taking off with a sledge in tow. I was served coffee this morning by a woman wearing a veil and (still, on Boxing Day) comic reindeer antlers. Muslim countries are increasingly promoting an inter-faith agenda because they, too, are fighting sectarians. It’s a common fight.
The Christian nature of respect for other faiths
The King’s message (honed over decades) goes a step further than usual kumbaya. inter-faith tolerance, he says, is a fundamental part of Christianity. Actual priests and vicars (as opposed to the Speakers Corner nutters that Robinson rounded up) will tell the story of the Samaritans. Jews and Samaritans had centuries of mutual contempt: religious schism, ethnic hostility, the works. They worshipped differently, lived separately, avoided contact. When a lawyer asked Jesus “who is my neighbour?”, he could have given a safe answer. Instead he told a story where the hero is Samaritan - the heretic, the enemy - who stops to help.
The point was explosive then and remains so now: your tribe is not your virtue. The man who shares your faith and passes by has failed. The man whose faith you disdain but who shows mercy: he is the one who understood. Real social cohesion transcends tribal boundaries. Charles has worked to promote such cohesion all his adult life, knowing he’d face mockery and obloquy for doing so. But he is willing to enter the fray, to play the philosopher-king. When it comes to deciding who we are as a country, he has not just the right but the duty to offer his thoughts. And they’re strikingly similar to another head of a church who featured in his Christmas message video.
Enter Pope Leo
Leo XIV has been making similar arguments. His first trip as Pope was to the Muslim world: Turkey (where be visited to the Mosque) and Lebanon, where he spoke about “mosaics of coexistence” within countries. This is his version of Charles’ ‘community of communities’. He led a significant ecumenical and inter-faith gathering at Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square, sharing readings from the Gospel and the Quran. Muftis, bishops, imams and popes have plenty support in the Bible and Quran for this cohabitation message. Like the King, the pope now can see - as the Islamic world has seen - attempts to conscript faith into political battles. These need to be resisted clearly and early.
For some time, the Catholic Church has been dealing with Christian nationalism and other attempts to enlist its catechism for political purposes. Under Francis and Leo, the Vatican has been quick to point out the Bible cannot be distorted in this way. Catholic teaching is quite unequivocal: you can’t go after Jews, Muslims or anyone else in Jesus’ name. It’s all in the catechism 839-45: “The Church and non-Christians”.
What’s interesting is that both the King and Pope are proactively making the case. It would be simpler, in these heated times, to retreat into cliche or avoid the controversial stuff. Several politicians find it more tempting to jump on what they see as a ‘cultural politics’ bandwagon. Some MPs who have had a long career of never mentioning faith will, not, now, shut up about it. Charles instead spoke of stillness: quoting T.S. Eliot on finding peace “at the still point of the turning world.”
“As our world seems to spin ever faster, our journeying may pause, to quieten our minds: in TS Eliot’s words ‘At the still point of the turning world’ – and allow our souls to renew. In this, with the great diversity of our communities, we can find the strength to ensure that right triumphs over wrong.”
The King is shrewd enough to know that “diversity” is, nowadays, a charged word. Its very mention triggers certain people - but it’s also a word that describes his country. It describes America, Australia and pretty much every country in Europe. Demographic change brings challenges, some very serious. But it undeniably brings strengths. And Britain has shown itself able to handle this demographic change better than pretty much anyone. It’s those strengths that the King was saluting in his message. As he put it yesterday:-
“That prayer for peace and reconciliation - for ‘doing to others as we would have them do to us’ which rang out over the fields near Bethlehem more than two thousand years ago - still reverberates from there. And around the world today. It is a prayer for our times.”
All this enrages the civilisationalists. “Not my king,” says Tommy Robinson. But that’s the thing about a constitutional monarch: he doesn’t need everyone to like him. He doesn’t need to dabble in sectarian politics to send a message. He just needs to embody something true about his country, in defiance of political fashions - and taking on the new sectarianism.
His message was the most-watched show on TV on Christmas day: quite an accolade. There’s a interest in what he has to say. There are big questions ahead of us next year: questions of national identity, the nature of faith - and whether diversity is our strength or our undoing. Politicians panic when such issues are raised but we do seem to have - in Charles and Leo - two men who have thought deeply about this for decades and are very much ready for the conversation.
I don’t doubt Fraser Nelson’s sincerity, or that of King Charles. The Christian vision they appeal to – forgiveness, restraint, tolerance – is a noble one, of course. These virtues are foundational to our way of life. The error lies in assuming that, with a bit of prodding and nudging, they will be universally shared. But the fact is that these values are not shared by everyone – indeed, many among us are openly hostile to them.
Western civilisation, and the human flourishing it affords, cannot be sustained by goodwill and exhausted clichés about diversity and inclusion. They survive because of boundaries, norms, and enforcement. Sentimental appeals to harmony from Buckingham Palace or a country house in Oxfordshire are inadequate to the task and do little more than advertise the ruling class’s naivety about the threats open societies face from their enemies.
Our betters need to confront reality – or I’m afraid somebody else will do it on our behalf, and they won’t be polite about it.
This is an excellent article. The final paragraphs ring true. Yes, we do face big questions of national identity, the nature of faith, and whether diversity is our strength or our undoing. And I agree that Charles and Leo have thought deeply about this for decades and are very much ready for the conversation.
But several phrases in it jar with me, and if the underlying thesis of the King's message and this article is that all religions can live together amicably I stand with those who say, "No, you are wrong about that".
Nelson says: 'above all there is this: the important question about whether we are, still, a Christian country and, if so, what that means.' This is important because many Islamists will answer, 'Not if I have anything to do with it'. "Islam" is the verbal noun of the Arabic verb aslama, meaning “to submit/surrender" and it is part of the belief system of many Islamists that all the world shall be conquered and subjected, by violence if necessary, and that apostasy is punishable by death. Christians in the past have also advocated violent conversion and the murder of heretics but the modern Christian religion as taught by established churches has moved far away from that. The two religions now seem to me to be inimical because Christianity and Islam do not have, in the King's words, "a shared longing for peace and a deep respect for all life.”
The King spoke of journeying together, of relying on “the companionship and kindness of others.” I don't feel able to rely on that. I can't rely on compassion and kindness from Pakistani child rapists or the police and politicians who are protecting them. Nor can I rely on compassion and kindness from individual Islamists like Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane, Youssef Zaghba, Naveed Akram, etc. I know that there are compassionate, kind Muslims. But the holy texts of this religion, and some of its preachers, promote violence against anyone who rejects it, and they have been used to promote ethnic violence too.
Some words and phrases in the article are particularly jarring. Nelson would, I think, characterise me as a "nativist" (his word) because I am a white Anglo-Saxon who thinks his country has a history and traditions of which one can be proud and I want to hear the sound of church bells not a muezzin broadcasting the Adhan from loudspeakers. I think he would say that I am part of the clash-of-civilizations crowd and our message is not subtle: 'We are under threat', 'Our culture is being erased'. I think he would say I am 'spoiling for a fight' when the truth is that I really don't want to fight but I do want to defend what is rightfully mine: my security and the traditions and values of the British civilisation to which I belong. Nelson seems dismissive of the 'civilisational erasure narrative’ whereas the statistics support it and Savile Town, Small Heath, and Sparkbrook are harbingers of it. Nelson says 'We have learned, perhaps more than any other country in Europe, to rub along together well. Give each other space; respect each other’s faith.' This is nonsense. A long-established company of which I was the Chair runs an important Christmas Festival in one of our cathedral cities and now it is no longer an open and relaxed event, it is organised and managed with security against terrorist attack as the principal and overriding concern.
The King's Christmas message was beautiful and sincere and Nelson’s article is a fine tribute to it. But I no longer want beauty and sincerity from those whose duty it is to lead and administer the United Kingdom. I want strong defence against threats. I don't think we are getting that from the King, our political class, or our administrators. I think they are, almost all of them, suffering from normalcy bias by which I mean that they think that if we just carry on as we are things will be in the future as they were in the past and our country will survive and be happy. I think they are wrong about that. I think the King, or more likely his successor, is going to get a nasty shock if we do carry on as we are because when the white Anglo Saxon British become a minority in this country I don't think the monarchy will survive.
The foregoing leads me to agree with Nelson's observation that Christianity is now being deployed ‘not as a faith but as a flag: a marker of who belongs and, more to the point, who doesn’t’. I think it is remarkable that the predominant colour being raised is not that of the Union, but that of St. George. The red cross of St. George is the flag of a nation and also a religion. It is rallying those who who may appreciate the soothing words of the King's Christmas message but fear their King will not defend them because he does not even recognise the threat they fear.