Showing posts with label BNP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BNP. Show all posts

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

If you could see him with my eyes...

Many of us were disturbed by the bizarre way the BNP tried to twist Christian imagery in their recent election campaign to leverage decent people into Fascist ideology. It comes as no surprise that exactly the same thing was done in Germany in the 1930’s. Susannah Heschel logs the process at the highest levels in her study The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany. Jesus the Jew was rebranded by Eisenach Institute theologians, bizarrely, as an icon of Aryan racial “purity,” reflecting the Nationalist, Racist fantasies of the age.

But what knocked me off my seat was a Christian Century review of the book by Holocaust Studies Centre director Henry Knight, contending that we still have unfinished business with the Holocaust, and giving profound food for thought in these memorable words:
Jesus is Christianity's burning bush. His presence beckons to his followers in each generation, calling them to stand before him fully present and attentive to the rule and realm of God brought near in each encounter with the neighbor.

Like the summoning bush of Moses, Jesus' searing presence calls forth without being consumed by the transcending nature of the call. He declares with that presence, "Here I am. Where are you?" He remains who he is, Jesus of Nazareth, even as he manifests to subsequent generations the fullness of the One who calls us out of ourselves into full and responsible engagement with every other...

The confessional task of letting Jesus be who and what he is remains a critical and a persisting concern. Jesus can never not be a Galilean Jew. But the temptation to leave him behind in pursuit of an ideologically configured Christ beckons to each generation that sets out to find him. The Aryan Jesus reminds us of what is at stake.
(h/t Paul Walton)

Tuesday, 9 June 2009

BNP MEP’s: bring on the clowns?

What about the BNP’s success in the Euro Elections? It’s a wakeup call for all “Hampstead Liberals” (pictured here on the BNP website). Christianity’s inherent Catholicity, an item in the Creed, flies in the face of the whole BNP deal. Their ideology contradicts a fundamental moral law — God hath made of one blood all nations upon earth. The Christian vision of heaven, all nations, kindreds and languages gathered together, is a good description of BNP hell — the last kind of place the BNP would want to wake up and find themselves.

In these terms perhaps the European Parliament could be one of the next most hellish experiences a BNP Man, like this young BNP organiser pictured to the Right, can have, this side of the grave. Our new model BNP MEP’s may just order in a crate of Watney’s Red Barrel and sit it out, or the interactions could be educatonal. We shall see.

They have much to learn. Take a statement of Nick Griffin’s:
From Northern Ireland to Bosnia to Rwanda, sooner or later the majority of multiracial, multicultural societies fall apart in bloodshed. There may be a few, like Singapore, where with an extremely authoritarian state it works for a while, but the lesson of history is that it tends not to.
One longs to shout out the obvious reply: “Nick, there is a nation of 300 million, the largest economy in the world, a global superpower that attributes its success to immigrants building a multiracial multicultural society. E Pluribus Unum. They think it works for them, and they haven’t done badly on it.”

But there’d be little point. BNP fascism only works on a gut level. Will Cuppy observed years ago, “Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood, and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.”

The excellent Channel 4/YouGov BNP Voting intentions analysis shows that, quoting Marx on Religion, BNP ideology is “the sighing of the oppressed creature” if not exactly the heart of a heartless world. People, mostly old style Labour voters, feel frustrated, disenfranchised, anxious and fearful. Fascist ideology, today as in the thirties, taps into anger and offers some kind of emotional release.

The disconnection of the Labour party from its own roots under Blair, Sun style pop Xenophobia, and disillusionment with parliamentarians, produced this result. Politicians must listen, not only pragmatically, but in a way that reconnects with this country’s historic Christian value base, or things can only get worse.

Finally, and this is cause for profound anxiety not complacency, we need to remember the BNP vote actually went down at this election. The BNP got in because Elections go on the proportion of votes cast. The Labour vote collapsed, and unprecedented numbers of voters stayed at home. The answer, as well perhaps as superficial solutions like Internet voting, is for our politicians to understand why, and address big issues about themselves, their values and their working practice. People look to their leaders to cast a vision, to enact compassion, to model Stability expressed in Christian values and so inspire trust and hope. If they’re not getting these things from the present lot, they will look elsewhere, even to clowns like the BNP.
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Saturday, 22 November 2008

BNP members list - clerical error

In the week a BNP membership list leaks onto the internet with the names of three ministers on it, (none of them Church of England, one allegedly in error) thoughts inevitably turn to Father Ted, and the day an unfortunate accident with a lampshade and some dirt on the window made everyone think he was a racist and revealed a few BNP sympathies, even on Craggy Island:
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