Tonight, Thursday January 9, at 6pm CET, I talk with Rev Dr Helen Paynter, co-editor of ‘The Church, the far-right and the claim to Christianity’, about the how the political far-right use Christian-sounding themes often disguising values contrary to Christianity.
Helen’s focus is Britain, but there is an obvious parallel to Europe as a whole, and indeed globally. She will explain that the far right of British politics is found in a wide variety of forms, ranging from now-banned organisations such as the neo-Nazi group National Action, to elements within mainstream politics.
In the book reporting on a special consultation on the topic, Helen explains that far-right actors operating within the current political system are promoting an illiberal democracy rather than the overthrow of democracy itself. In many ways, this mainstreaming of far-right discourse makes it even more threatening, because it carries a veneer of respectability, making it more electable, and more plausible to the Church.
This is a very important topical theme for us in Europe today.
Join us here: https://youtu.be/drcUU-IblTs
(You can also access the interview later via this same link).
Till next week,
