Between Opposition and Dialogue: Anti-Racist and Anti-Fascist Practice Informed by Baptist Tradition

This article responds to the recommendation in Helen Paynter and Maria Power’s edited book on The Church, The Far Right and the Claim to Christianity (SCM Press, 2024). In the face of a far-right appropriation of Christian symbols and concepts, this invites those in ‘dissenting’ Christian traditions to identify ‘creative’ ways to ‘embody and articulate’ dissenting values in ‘fresh ways’. Informed by wider Baptist heritage, autobiographical reflections from practice, and particularly referring to the UK and Germany, the author argues for what he sees as the socio-political implications of a Christian anti-racist and anti-fascist practice, before setting out some tentative recommendations for individual and corporate Christian practice that seek to differentiate between the inclusive good news of Christianity and the Far Right’s ‘claims to Christianity’, while opposing the political parties, organisations, and initiatives of the Far Right, and maintaining the possibility of robust individual dialogue with those who have lent their support to such.