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“Christianity’s core is a revolutionary stand for the weak against power, not accommodating the powerful.”
– Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi activist Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The mash-up of “Christian” and “nationalist” is fuelling unprecedented levels of hate in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries.
Could Canada be next, or is a simple amendment to a pending bill a step towards inoculating us against this scourge?
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Tommy Robinson, founder of the far-right English Defence League, predicted hundreds of thousands of people would gather in central London last Saturday for a “put Christ back into Christmas” carol-singing rally. Almost no one disputed his prediction.
In September, an estimated 110,000 people gathered in London for Robinson’s “United the Kingdom” rally, arguably the largest white-nationalist protest ever held in the city.
The event featured video appearances by Elon Musk and Eric Zemmour, a far-right French politician. Together, all the presenters — along with Robinson himself — raged against legal and illegal migration and preached the perverted gospel of “replacement theory,” in which newcomers from other countries suffocate and replace white British citizens.
The event this past weekend marked the latest stage in Robinson’s evolution as not only a political activist, but also a religious leader. Previous rallies have certainly featured references to Christianity and its role in British society — but more recently, Robinson has completely wrapped himself in distorted Christian doctrine.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, claims he had a religious epiphany while recently in prison. Now, Robinson says, his mission is to not only protect Britain from outsiders, but also to defend Christianity. Thus, at the event last weekend, Robinson fully weaponized Christmas itself with the tired and empirically unproven allegation the high Christian holiday will be supplanted with secularism and the rise of other religions, principally Islam.
Tommy Robinson (centre) speaks during a Christmas carol service in Whitehall, London, Saturday Dec. 13, 2025, (Jonathan Brady / The Associated Press)
Ultimately, Robinson’s latest rally drew only 1,000 people. Nevertheless, his now-overt attempts to mash up far-right populist hate and Christianity is drawing condemnation. In a recent open letter contesting Robinson’s growing Christian focus, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams warned the appropriation of Christ and Christian images to promote hateful purposes needs to be called out and stopped.
“Jesus calls us to love both our neighbours and our enemies and to welcome the stranger,” Williams wrote in his letter. “Any co-opting or corrupting of the Christian faith to exclude others is unacceptable.”
What’s happening in Britain is hardly new; American evangelicals have been blending far-right political rhetoric with so-called Christian values for a very long time. However, the sheer number of Robinson-adjacent political and religious activists seems to be growing on a global basis.
Williams’ words were still echoing through my addled brain when I read about a debate in Canada over Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act. The proposed legislation would create new Criminal Code offences for intimidating or obstructing people from entering buildings used for religious worship or social, cultural, educational or recreational activities.
The new bill would also refine hate-speech laws. The Criminal Code currently includes an exemption for statements made “on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.” Bill C-9 initially included the same exemption until the Bloc Quebecois, supported by the Liberal government, introduced an amendment to remove the exemption. The outrage has been fairly predictable.
Various Christian publications have accused the Liberal government of “criminalizing biblical passages” and “banning religious speech” of all kinds. Conservative MP Larry Brock said the amendment was “a direct attack on freedom of religion.”
Andrew Bennett from Cardus, a Christian think tank, told The Globe and Mail the amendment would put government in the unwanted position of being “the ultimate arbiter of religious speech, deciding on whether it is acceptable to express it. Religious teaching and worship, whether public or private, must remain beyond the reach of government.”
I won’t jump down the rabbit hole of debating what various religious texts say or don’t say about some of the pressing issues of our time.
I will say that for way too long, protection for religious speech of any kind has provided cover for nefarious characters (such as Tommy Robinson) to incite hatred against various groups.
Although I do agree the C-9 amendment means the Supreme Court will ultimately have to weigh in on legitimate versus illegitimate religious speech, I just can’t abide a world where religion is used to protect obvious acts of unfettered hatred.
Removing the exemption for religious beliefs does not, as some have charged, compromise free speech, criminalize religious speech, or prevent anyone from directly quoting content from the Bible or Qur’an or other religious text.
It does, however, pose a threat to anyone who seeks to make hateful statements or threats based on some sort of twisted interpretation of those texts.
For a general statement of principle about the true nature of Christianity, I will return to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose quote opens this edition of Not for Attribution.
Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian and bold Nazi dissident. He publicly challenged the Nazi regime for its genocide against Jews and other persecuted minorities. He was hanged in April 1945 as one of the last acts of the collapsing Nazi regime. He was only 39 when he was executed.
Throughout all his writings, Bonhoeffer was resolute that true Christianity has no affinity for hate, oppression or violence.
“God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.”
Regardless of how you celebrate the holidays, I wish for all of you an unlimited serving of unfathomable love.
See you in 2026.
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