Church of England bishops have been advised to stop using the term “Christian nationalism”, amid warnings it risks oversimplifying complex political terms.
The advice comes in a report, Promoting Unity in our Nation, which will be discussed by the General Synod on 11 July.
In a January address to the College of Bishops, Canon Luke Bretherton, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford, said the term had “no theological significance whatsoever” and would “misinform and mis-form the faithful”.
He argues that much of the academic literature on the subject lacks “analytical depth and academic adequacy” and is heavily shaped by the North American context.
He also says it reduces complex political phenomena to a single issue, while paying too little attention to class, political economy and material conditions.
The report also highlights his concern that the term assumes, rather than proves, that Christian involvement in public policy is inherently illegitimate, and that a strict separation of Church and State is always desirable.
Drawing on his experience in the United States, he says the phrase has become “a mode of labelling and stigmatisation”, adding that it has “been rapidly adopted as a badge of honour by those it was intended to condemn”.
He warns bishops: “If the aim is to tell a reassuring moralistic story in which we secure ourselves as virtuous and those we find disturbing as wholly malign - thereby reproducing the same friend-enemy logics found in outlets such as GB News or the Morning Star, and amplifying the anger and catastrophising sense of crisis on which they thrive - then the continued use of the term 'Christian nationalism' may serve that purpose well.
“If, however, the aim is to bear faithful witness to Jesus Christ, and, as part of that witness, to re-weave social trust, reconcile those set against one another, and love enemies as Christ commands, then the use of this term actively undermines that vocation.”
He concludes by urging the Church to look instead at the deeper drivers of authoritarian politics and the conditions that make such ideas attractive, asking: “Who is advocating for authoritarian anti-politics - whether implicitly or explicitly - and why? And who benefits economically from the consequences of anti-democratic measures? Equally pressing is the question of which parts of the church are drawn toward authoritarian solutions to real and pressing problems, and what theological, social, and material conditions make such solutions appear attractive. And thence what can be done to address them constructively?”