I missed Christian Concern’s response to the riots in the summer, perhaps it is for the best. I came across it on Facebook the other day. For background, Christian Concern started life as Christian Concern For Our Nation and was a project working out of the Lawyers Christian Fellowship. They have become increasingly involved in campaigning on ethical issues and were prominent during the COVID pandemic where I thinm it is fair to say that they took a ceptical view of lockdowns.
Their response to the riots starts of reasonably enough. They lament the violence and encourage prayer. However, they then move from there to argue that we are a nation under judgement and see the riots as a result of this. From there, they move to argue that the major problem is high levels of immigration, something they say that they have been warning about for some time.
The argument that the riots are evidence that God is judging our nation is similar to arguments made in some quarters during the pandemic that COVID was evidence of God’s judgement. Indeed, there has been a long history of linking various ills within society along with natural disasters to God’s specific judgement. Notice that I an distinguishing here specific judgement on a nation from the general sense in which this fallen world is under the curse of judgement so that suffering and trouble are present everywhere and will be until Christ’s return. Plagues, famine and disaster are not new and nor are riots and unrest, even at times regarded as “golden eras” in British history. I wonder too whether or not those who pronounce national judgement whenever there is suffering would be so quick to pronounce God’s judgement on individuals when they suffer illness or trouble?
There is a major theological problem here. What we see is the conflation of Britain (in this case) and other countries such as the US with the nation of Israel pre Christ. Old Testament prophecies such as the one quoted from Amos are used without though tto their intended application to God’s people. We must remember that the immediate application of Old Testament prophecy was to God’s covenant people and so, oday it challenges the church but also only as applied through Christ. This is important because without that understanding we end up with the twin dangers of prosperity Gospel thinking and Theonomism or Christian reconstructionism.
My advice during COVID remains the same. We should not presume to speak specific judgement concerning a situation where God has not spoken. We must depend on special revelation for this.
After calling for national repentance, Christian Concern them move to state that warnings have not been heeded. What are those warnings. Given the immediate context, one would presume that they were concerning sin and idolatry. After , all, if we are under judgement, then the warnings have surely been about that judgement and its causes. Yet, the article identifies the specific warning as being immigration and the need to reduced it.
You heard me right. We have been in sin as a nation, we haven’t heeded warnigns and Christian Concern choose immigration as the specific warning we should have heeded. This is why it is perhaps good that I did not see ths horrendous article at the time. I have friends, brothers and sisters in Christ as well as non-Christian friends who are either first generation immigrants or second and third generation. I have had the privilege of serving Windrush generation immigrants from the Caribbean and heard first hand the appalling treatment they received, even from within he church. I know that my friends experienced high levels of anxiety during the recent riots, they were deeply concerned for their safety and that of their families. So I am angry to see that at the time that friends who had already suffered much are in effect labelled as the cause of current suffering.
The setting together of calls for repentance alongside warnings about immigration create a juxtaposition that will be heard in some quarters as suggesting that immigration is the sin, is the idolatry. I hope that this was unintentional but a bit of editorial wisdom should have spotted the danger.
Given that Christian Cocnern’s focus was meant to be around ethical issues, I am left baffled as to how they could be in a position relating to their remit to be taking a position on immigration control.
Christian Concern need urgently to remove this article but they also need to review and understand how it has happened There has been some serious wrong thinking that has led up to it.
Faithroots 