The British National Party and racist Neo-Paganism: is there common ground? 6

I began this series of posts with the assumption that the British National Party could be partly evaluated by looking at some of its similarities with some racists Asatru and Odinist groups. And it is in the area of culture and the value the groups have for their culture that the similarities can be seen. This is an important issue because many groups, both left and right, are giving extreme value to the concept of culture. Picture by Stephen Larson

When a group begins to connect culture to genetics, or to see divine revelation in culture, at least for Christians, great problems arise. God has given his written word and the living Word, Jesus Christ that we might know who God is. The first Commandment demands that nothing else may be put either above or even beside God. That includes a glorified culture.

As I have pointed out in earlier posts both the racist Asatru groups and the British National Party connect white culture genetically to their groups. The Asatru therefore connects heathenism to themselves believing it is the rightful religion of the Northern white people. But what about the BNP? Is Christianity the genetically correct religion for them?

There is a web site for what is called the Christian Council of Britain. This was supposedly not connected to the BNP however a blogger did some research and found that both web sites have the same web master. Also the only political party espoused by the CCB is the BNP. Beyond that the CCB web site has been up for a year and has not had its informational pages completed. However there is enough information to help the reader understand what religious concepts are important to the CCB as well as the BNP.

When first encountering several faith statements and ancient creeds one thinks, ah a truly Christian site. Yet there are problems and once again they are connected to the concept of culture and culture as the essence of the people. They write, “For nearly two thousand years, the faith has moulded our national psyche and spirit, defining our values toward life itself; our families, neighbours, animals, the natural environment and the wider society.

While the statements about membership are clear as far as what a Christian is, yet the information states, “Members of the Council can be either Christians who accept and acknowledge the Trinity, or simply people who may not be believing Christians but who still value and wish to uphold the Christian heritage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

So a Christian council may have unbelievers as long as they value the Christian heritage of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Here heritage plays an important part and is linked only to that heritage that belongs to Britain.

The council is there to defend the morality of Britain and here and there they list problems that most conservative, orthodox and evangelical Christians would be concerned with, for instance abortion and homosexuality. But it is their inclusion of race and state, (blood and soil) that puts them outside the boundaries of Christianity.

Their constitution states as one of their principles:

"The Gift of Race and Nation. The Christian Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland resolved that it recognises that all men are of one blood (or proto-race) in Adam through to Noah; and that from that one proto-race divergent races have historically devolved - Russian doll-like - (Genesis 11: 1-9) so that we are now different, though related, races and nations of men, all of whom God has made (Psalms 86: 9); which are each to bring their own distinctive glory into the kingdom of God (Revelation 21: 26). The Christian Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland therefore resolved to recognise the godly importance of race and nation as groups based on this historical and providential process of objective descent: giving rise to different organically-formed communities; sharing and passing-on common genetically inherited (physical, intellectual and character) features together with cultures, mores, relationships, loyalties, memories, and identities in common; and ultimately - by the will of God - national homelands (Genesis 10:5, 20,31,32) where an ongoing connection between land and people has developed and can be encouraged and preserved (Acts 17: 26). The Christian Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland recognises these facts and privileges, especially with regard to the historic British people whose land this is. The Christian Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland therefore resolved especially to welcome the British as such a People, and as individuals, into membership.(Bold mine)

Before going further I should state that none of the Bible verses in this statement have anything to do with what the statement actually says. And further this statement is not much different than some produced by the German Christians, those who were for Nazism, in the time of Hitler. For instance this is the words of the Rengsdorf Theses written by a conference of German Christians.

“There is not a ‘universal Christianity.’ Christianity as such is an unreal abstraction. For a German [read a white British citizen here] there can be only a Christianity rooted in the German Nationality.”

Karl Barth had an answer for all of the statements in these theses. For this one he wrote:

“The genuine particularity and concreteness of ‘Christianity’ on the ground of German nationality is not to be derived from what we know about this ground, but it is to be accepted as that form in which one commandment and the one comfort of the Word is revealed to us upon this ground according to its own wisdom and will.

Whoever preaches today ‘a Christianity rooted in German nationality’ binds God’s Word to an arbitrarily conceived Weltanschauung [World View], thereby invalidating it, and places himself outside the evangelical Church.”

In other words, insisting that the good news of Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection share its importance with our own ethnic group or nationality puts us outside the evangelical Church. So no matter any of the issues promoted by the BNP or the CCB their religion is not centered in the Lordship of Jesus Christ and instead in blood and soil.