“The Jews” did not kill Jesus

Jesus was executed by the authorities of the Roman Empire.

This is one of the few features of Jesus’ life on which nearly all historians agree. There are many historians and biblical scholars who spend a lot of time arguing about which of the sayings and actions attributed to Jesus are likely to be historically accurate, about which of the incidents recorded in the gospels took place as historical events.

Scholars are on a spectrum from those who take the gospels as broadly accurate accounts of Jesus’ life to those who doubt all but a few details .

Virtually all of them, however, accept that Jesus was crucified. Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution (not a Jewish one) used against political troublemakers and rebellious slaves. It is almost inconcievable that Jesus’ followers, living in a tyrannical and violent regime, would have invented a story that would immediately label them as followers of someone that regime had executed as a threat.

For much of Christian history, however, Christians have put the blame on Jews – often on “the Jews” as a whole, as if every one of them bore responsibility for the killing of Jesus. This is particularly absurd given that Jesus was a Jew.

This claim has not only served as a justificiation for persecuting Jews. It has also helped to sidestep the intensely political nature of the death of Jesus. He was executed by an imperial power who objected to him promoting the Kingdom of God rather than the Empire of Rome (when you read the words “kingdom” and “empire” in an English Bible, they are translating the same Greek word, basileia).

The gospels, to varying degrees, show the Jewish leaders of the time colluding with the Roman authorities to execute Jesus. Matthew’s Gospel and John’s Gospel seem particularly keen to hold them responsible. There are various possible reasons for this, much debated by historians. All the gospels make clear, however, that in the end Jesus was executed on the orders of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.

If the Jewish leaders encouraged Pilate to execute Jesus, this would not make all Jews responsible. But even here we need to be careful. Who were these Jewish leaders? They were the Roman-approved leaders: in practice, Rome would only allow a Jewish High Priest who did not resist Roman rule. It is unsurprising that when Jews rebelled against Roman rule in 70 CE (about 40 years after Jesus’ crucifixion), the Jewish rebels killed the High Priest and his colleagues. They were collaborators with the empire. They were not representative of the Jewish people.

I have been shocked in the run-up to Easter this year to see how persistent is the belief that “the Jews” killed Jesus. Perhaps I have become too used to academic New Testament scholarship (where Roman responsibliity is accepted) or to left-wing Christian groups (where the political nature of Jesus’ execution is emphasised).

I recently heard a street preacher in Birmingham declare that Jesus had been killed by “his own people, that’s the Jews”. I was shocked to see a reflection in the Church Times last week by Charles Moseley, in which he repeated the tired old claim that Pilate did not want to execute Jesus but gave into Jewish public opinion. Moseley did not not try to argue this point, or acknowledge that it has now been discredited. He simply asserted it as he might have done if writing 30 years ago.

Sadly, it seems that antisemitism is alive and well in many Christian circles at Easter. Ironically, those of us who campaign against the horrendous assaults of Israeli forces against people in Gaza are accused of antisemitism by political right-wingers and apologists for aggression. Yet Jesus was born in an empire, in a place where imperial soldiers controlled the population and religious leaders colluded with oppression. It is not dissimilar to the situation faced by many Palestinians today. This point is made repeatedly by Palestinian Christians, even when western Christians do not seem to have ears to hear it.

It is not resistance to empire and war that is antisemitic – to make such a claim is to conflate Jews in general with the current Israeli government and its forces. It is attempts to ignore the inherently political nature of Jesus’ death that lead to the blame being put on “the Jews”. Throughout Christian history – and still today – antisemitism has served the interests of those who want us to forget that Jesus challenged the political and social order. Following Jesus means continuing to challenge injustice and empire today.

The first Palm Sunday was a riot

At LGBT+ events that have turned into commercialised parties, it is not uncommon to see critical placards declaring that “Stonewall was a riot”, or “Pride is a protest”. I was delighted to see that the Queer Theology podcast in the USA now sells T-shirts that declare “The first Palm Sunday was a riot”.

Palm Sunday – which is today – celebrates Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey at the head of what was clearly a controversial protest. The occupying Roman authorities and their collaborators were surely threatened by crowds cheering the “Son of David” – a title associated with people claiming to be kings of Israel. Passover was approaching, a time when the authorities grew nervous of rebellion and Roman troops stood armed by the Temple, ready to react.

This reality is too much for many churches today, who have turned the event into a fluffy story about donkeys, palm leaves and the importance of Jesus.

But that importance, I suggest, can be really understood only its social and historical context. In marching through a city in a parody of an imperial procession, Jesus’ followers were claiming that it was Jesus, not the Roman Emperor, who was their real king.

This is significant: if we seek to serve the Kingdom of God, we will not be serving the kingdoms and powers of this world. Sadly, it’s a message that many churches are keen to avoid.

Admittedly, it requires a broad use of the term “riot” to ascribe that word to Palm Sunday – because this was a nonviolent protest, but no less disruptive and illegal for that.

Once we see that Jesus’ march into Jerusalem was a planned protest, certain confusing details in the gospels make a lot more sense. For years I was rather baffled by a part of the story, before the march begins, in which Jesus asks some of his disciples to go and fetch a colt that they would find tied to a door. If anyone asked them why they were taking the colt, they were to say, “The Lord needs it”. According to the gospels, when they said this, the people let them take the colt (Mark 11,1-6; also Matthew 21,1-3 and Luke 19, 29-34).

Why would they do such a thing? Surely the phrase wouldn’t make sense to people unless they were following Jesus. If that were the case, why not just talk more straightforwardly?

It all made a lot more sense when I realised that the collection of the colt was a pre-arranged event. The pyhrase “the Lord needs it” seems to have served as a sort of password, letting the people with the colt know that the people collecting the animal had indeed come from Jesus. An illegal protest cannnot be organised too openly.

Ched Myers, in his excellent book Binding the Strong Man, points to a number of similar instances in the text that probably arise from this sort of underground planning.

Later in the story, when Jesus is preparing for the Passover that will be his last meal before his arrest, he tells two of his disciples that they should follow “a man carrying a jar of water”. They are to follow him to a house, and they are to say a particular sentence to the people in the house, who will then show them to the right room (Mark 14,12-16).

But water-carrying was generally done by women. Myers suggests that a man carrying water would stand out, so that the disciples would know who to follow. Indeed, the idea of a man carrying water was sufficiently odd that Matthew, in his editing of Mark’s account, changed the description to “a certain man” (Matthew 26,18).

Historians and biblical scholars spend a lot of time and energy debating which of the stories in the New Testament are more or less likely to be historically accurate. The events of Palm Sunday (if not every detail of every story) tend to score highly. Early Christians were unlikely to have invented a story that made clear that Jesus was a threat to the vicious rulers of the Roman Empire under which they still lived.

Jesus led a dangerous and unlawful protest against the authorities – a reality that many churches have spent centuries trying to ignore.

Confessions of an extremist

I am an extremist. I object to the killing of Israeli children and to the killing of Palestinian children. That, it seems, is enough to make me an “extremist” in the eyes of Rishi Sunak’s government.

Communities Secretary Michael Gove is planning to change the definition of “extremism”. So far, he has not published a list of groups that he wishes to define as “extremist”. Commentators have suggested that the new definition is likely to cover people campaigning against the Israeli attacks on Gaza, as well as several groups concerned with tackling climate change.

Meanwhile, the UK government continues to sell weapons to the aggressors of Saudi Arabia and Israel, to maintain enough nuclear warheads to wipe out much of the world, to further reduce the right to strike and the right to peaceful protest, and to preside over a massively underfunded NHS and declining welfare state as more and more people in the UK are pushed into poverty and ill health.

None of these policies, however, are to be labelled “extremist”.

The biggest problem with Gove’s plan is that it is absurd to have a simple definition of the word “extremist” at all. It is surely obvious that different beliefs are extreme in different situations. Therefore, what consitutes extremism depends on the context.

150 years ago, you would have been an extremist if you called for women to be given the vote. Now you would be considered an extremist if you said that women should not have the vote. Even 30 years ago, you would have been an extremist if you said that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry with legal recoginition. This “extremist” position is now law in the UK, and many other countries.

Surely we should be debating not whether a particular idea is extreme or extremist, but whether it is right.

As Martin Luther King wrote in 1963:

“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”

The UK government’s current definition of extremism includes opposition to democracy and “British values” – as if everyone in Britain has the same values. This allows ministers to formally place the views of certain of their opponents beyond the limits of acceptable beliefs. It is similar to the way McCarthyites labelled left-wing views as “unamerican”.

Now Michael Gove and his colleagues plan to go even further. According to today’s Observer:

“Organisations and individuals that breach a new official definition of extremism will be excluded from meetings or any engagement with ministers, senior civil servants, government advisory boards and funding. Councils will be expected to follow the government’s lead, cutting any financial ties or support to individuals or groups that have been categorised as extremist.”

This policy represents a massive assault on free expression and freedom of association. Ministers would be able, almost on a whim, to ban groups that they oppose from any engagement with official bodies. This is the sort of policy we might expect from Putin’s Russia. And it follows the introduction in recent years of the biggest restrictions on the right to peaceful protest in the UK since the Second World War.

The proposed criteria for labelling a group as “extremist” are so vague that a government could potentially place almost any organisation or individual who they did not like on the list. The Observer reports that a group could be defined as “extremist” if their behaviour includes attempts to “overturn, exploit or undermine the UK’s system of liberal democracy to confer advantages or disadvantages on specific groups”.

This is laughable. The Conservative Party has been conferrring advantages on a specific group – the very wealthy – for centuries. But people like me who want more democracy – such as by abolishing the monarchy – can be said to be opposed to the “UK’s system of liberal democracy” and thus regarded as “extremists”.

Of course some of the beliefs labelled “extremist” are views I deplore: such as racism, fascism, fundamentalism and other far-right ideologies. But we should tackle these because they are wrong, harmful and evil, regardless of whether the government regards them as extremist.

Someone who defends ISIS (for example) would rightly be denounced by the vast majority of people. However, ministers would label them as “extremists” even while those same ministers support the equally vile, immoral and murderous regime of Saudi Arabia. Indeed, British ministers are authorising the sale of arms to the Saudi regime, which are used in attacks on civilians in Yemen.

Similarly, supporting the muder of civilians by Hamas is “extremist”, whereas supporting the equally vile murder of civilians by the Israeli “Defence” Force is effectively UK government policy.

So by official definitions, it is not support for violence that makes you an “extremist”, but only support for violence carried out people who UK ministers oppose – rather than the many tryants and aggressors who they support.

Let’s not argue about who should be defined as an “extremist” – the state should not be maintaining a list. Let’s not deny we are extremists – I’m happy to be an extremist for peace, active nonviolence, human dignity and real democracy.

The Levellers, Chartists, Suffragettes and early Gay Pride marchers were regarded as extremist. Many of their views are now accepted by large majorities of people. Let’s be inspired by them to resist this latest attack on our rights and freedoms.

Tory Minister heckled in Coventry over arms sales to Israel

Security Minister Tom Tugendhat was heckled about arms sales to Israel and Saudi Arabia when he visited the famously anti-Tory city of Coventry yesterday.

Local mother and Christian campaigner Angela Ditchfield was forcibly removed from the building after accusing the UK government of “starving children in the UK and in Palestine”.

Tugendhat responded to the woman in front of him by telling her that she should not be protesting on International Women’s Day. He then spoke about Hamas’ rape and murder of Israeli women, implying that Angela Ditchfield supports Hamas. She does not.

She wished him, “Happy International Women’s Day” before challenging him about women burying their own children in Gaza. He did not respond.

Tugendhat was there to speak about community cohesion – a bizarre subject from a government that is continuously stirring up division. Tugendhat’s Tories have worked relentlessly over their 14 years in government to dismantle the public services and welfare state that are so vital for keeping society together.

As Security Minister, Tugendhat shares responsibility for the UK government’s militaristic policies as well as their repeated attempts to use issues of security to suppress rights to peaceful protest.

Last November, Tugendhat claimed untruthfully that anti-war campaigners were planning to protest near the Cenotaph on Armistice Day. Along with similar comments from other ministers, he stirred up an atmosphere that saw far-right activists turn up to “protect the Cenotaph” and fight with police. In reality, the anti-war march started in a different part of central London several hours later. So much for community cohesion.

Breaking: Tory Security Minister @TomTugendhat has been heckled by people in #Coventry over arms sales to #Israel. Christian peace campaigner @MaxiGrandMum was dragged out after accusing the UK government of "starving children in the UK and in #Palestine". #CeasefireNOW pic.twitter.com/gQYAIAH0fd

— Symon Hill (@SymonHill) March 8, 2024

Shortly before she stood up to challenge the minister, Angela sent me a message about her reasons for doing so. Her own words express her pain and sadness over the impact of the government’s policies.

This is what Angela said:

This week, we have gathered to hear the minister talk about how to build community cohesion and resilience – a very important topic.

We’ve seen senior Conservative and Labour politicians agree about many policies recently. Can we celebrate that unity?

Ministers have agreed to keep selling weapons to a regime ripping apart every aspect of social fabric in Palestine.

The UK continues to sell weapons to Israel as it bombs churches, mosques, hospitals, schools, universities and whole neighbourhoods full of homes. And now starving people going to an aid truck.

Both parties have agreed to leave poor children hungry in the UK, and cut funding to those feeding starving children in Gaza. 

If we want cohesion and security, we must reinstate funding to the UN in Palestine, and also feed children here.

Tom’s statement celebrates food banks and warm spaces run by churches – as though it’s ok that old people cannot afford to heat their homes and eat, due to government refusal to invest in house insulation and renewable energy.

Still, at least our elderly are not being bombed or seeing their grandchildren massacred.

The government must stop selling weapons to Israel and push for an immediate ceasefire. 

And not just a ceasefire.

If we want security and community, we must call for an end to apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

We must call for a release of the hostages and political prisoners on both sides.

There is a stitch-up of UK democracy between the two main parties. Most of us live in places where our vote doesn’t count, and the MPs supposed to represent us have been told to ignore us if we don’t like genocide or extinction.

Community cohesion has to include talking about refugees and other migrants as human beings, with respect and compassion.

It has to include not demonising anyone who cares about a genocide in Palestine, or about the potential extinction of the human race.

It has to include not stirring up hate against Muslims.

And if we want security for the UK, we need to stop trying to bomb the rest of the world into submission – we must stop bombing Yemen.

We must stop supporting the apartheid regime that is Israel, and call for peace and justice for all in the Holy Land.

Cheer Rochdale, not Galloway

I’m giving three cheers for the people of Rochdale for having voted for a left-wing candidate standing on an anti-war ticket. I’m offering no cheers for George Galloway, who is sadly the candidate in question.

In the last few weeks, the people of Rochdale might be wondering what they have done to deserve the choice of candidates with which they were faced. The Labour candidate was disowned by his own party for antisemitic comments. This was shortly after the Green candidate had been disowned by his own party for Islamophobic comments.

Other options included two former Labour MPs standing for different parties: Galloway was standing for the Workers’ Party of Britain (the latest version of the George Galloway Party). The far-right Reform Party (the current incarnation of the Nigel Farage Party) was represented by former Labour MP Simon Danzcuk, who previously had to leave Parliament after sending sexually explicit messages to a 17-year-old girl.

The Conservative candidate was, of course, standing on a platform of supporting the most incompetent government in living memory.

It would be entirely understandable if the people of Rochdale had opted for the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate on the grounds that he seemed a more serious option than most of his opponents.

By electing a candidate who stood primarily on a platform of opposing the war in Gaza, people in Rochdale have shown the strength of anti-war feeling among large parts of the British population, and disproved the common claim that people vote only on narrow domestic issues.

The fact that a local independent candidate came second has clearly taken the London-based media by surprise, given their tendency to overlook local and regional differences and see everything from the perspective of Westminster.

Between them, the three “main” parties scored only 26.7%. It is impossible to know what would have happened if the Labour candidate had retained the party’s support and fought an effective campaign. It is possible that Labour may have won. But looking at the size of Galloway’s victory last night, I find it hard to believe that a Labour candidate would have beaten him if that candidate had not departed from Keir Starmer’s position on Gaza.

One lesson to take away from Rochdale is that independent candidates and alternative parties are on the march.

This is encouraging. I just wish it was someone other than George Galloway who had benefited from it.

In 2020, Galloway described me as a “hero”, for taking nonviolent direct action against the arms trade. In 2022, he mocked me and then blocked me on Twitter after I encouraged him to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as opposing NATO.

The problem with Galloway is not simply that he is a supporter of homophoba and transphobia, and increasingly anti-immigration. It is also that he is not really anti-war.

I share Galloway’s opposition to the murderous Israeli attacks on Gaza and to the nuclear-armed expansionist alliance that is NATO. Unike Galloway, I also oppose other warmongers, including Vladimir Putin and Hamas.

When Ukraine was invaded, I was working as Campaigns Manager of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), Britain’s leading pacifist organisation. We condemned Putin’s invasion and kept in touch with our comrades in the Russian Movement of Conscientious Objectors, as well as other Russian peace activists and the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement. We also criticised the UK and US governments’ cynical use of the invasion to expand NATO power, and their resistance to peace talks.

Despite this, we received abusive messages from angry militarists accusing us of being Putin apologists. Meanwhile, actual Putin apologists were sending us angry messages accusing us of supporting NATO. People who think that war solves problems often seem unable to understand that anyone might oppose all militarism and not support any armed forces on any side.

While this is the PPU’s usual approach, we were pleased that the Stop the War Coalition also clearly and repeatedly condemned Putin’s invasion as well as NATO. While we would expect Galloway to disagree with the PPU, he also seems to have fallen out with the Stop the War Coalition.

Galloway has not issued a word of condemnation for Putin’s aggression. Shortly after Galloway’s election in Rochdale this morning, his deputy party leader Chris Williamson refused in an interview to condemn the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians on 7th October.

Galloway and Williamson are not anti-war. They are pro-war – it’s just they’re on a different side to the one that the British establishment expect us all to support.

I think the people of Rochdale were right to vote for an apparently anti-war MP. Hopefully they will replace him with an actual anti-war MP at the next election.

Sunak says democracy is under threat – but it’s people like him who are threatening it

Rishi Sunak thinks that democracy is under threat in the UK. I agree with him. The difference is that I think it’s under threat from people such as Rishi Sunak and he seems to think it’s under threat from people like me. 

In the last few years, successive UK governments have eroded fundamental civil liberties and human rights, imposing greater restrictions on peaceful protest than have been seen in Britain since the Second World War.

The police have been allowed to exceed even these powers with virtually no consequences. My personal experience of this reality came with my unlawful arrest by Thames Valley Police when I objected to the proclamation of Charles Windsor as king in September 2022. Many others have faced far worse consequences. 

But now, Sunak and his allies in the right-wing media want to restrict the right to protest even further. They are justifying this assault on democracy by claiming that they are doing it to protect democracy. 

Sunak claims that there is a “growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule”.

I find it difficult to believe that such a claim could be taken seriously by many people at all, let alone that there is a “consensus” about it. Sunak’s assertion makes about as much sense as Suella Braverman’s fantasy statement that “the Islamists, the extremists and the anti-Semites are in charge now” (I’m pretty sure the Tories are still in charge, though of course some of them are indeed extremists and anti-Semites).

According to Sunak, the threat of mob rule comes from left-wing protests. In recent days, a number of ministers have attacked the overwhelmingly peaceful anti-war marches that have been regularly taking place against the Israeli forces’ murderous assaults on the people of Gaza. Home Secretary James Cleverley says that protests should stop because protesters have “made their point“. He has not suggested that Israeli forces could stop killing children because they have made their point. I would much rather not be spending time protesting against the slaughter of innocent people. The need to do so will end only when the slaughter ends. 

Parts of the media are whipping up talk of the fear and threats faced by MPs. I strongly oppose death threats to anyone. Having received quite a few of them myself over the years, I sympathise with MPs who receive a lot more and who genuinely fear for their safety. But banning protests will not make them any safer.

Six MPs have been killed in the UK in the last century – a much lower number than in some countries, but still outrageous.

The first four were killed by Irish Republicans. Of the most recent two, David Amess was killed by an Islamic fundamentalist and Jo Cox by a far-right white supremacist. Both these murders were horrific and any humane person rightly condemns them. Neither Cox nor Amess would have been saved by restricting rights to protest.

Some papers have focused on the very small number of protests that have taken place outside MPs’ homes. I agree that protesting at people’s homes is generally wrong – especially if there are children there, as they may be frightened and are not to blame for their parents’ actions. The reality is that demonstrations at politicians’ homes are relatively rare and usually small-scale.

I suspect that most of the commentators calling for a crackdown on protests know this. But talking them up diverts attention from the reality of peaceful and diverse groups of people who are marching every week against violence. 

We already have laws to deal with the vile instances of antisemitism that have increased since October. Such outrages are in no way representative of the anti-war marches that have brought together Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists and many others to oppose the Israeli government’s military aggression. The vast majority of them also oppose Hamas’ aggression. 

The only major violent demonstration in central London in recent months was not an anti-war protest but was in effect a pro-war protest. Far-right activists fought with the police near the Cenotaph, which they claimed they had come to “protect” from people protesting against the war in Gaza on Armstice Day. Their fury had effectively been whipped up by the likes of Sunak, Braverman and Tom Tugendhat, who all must have known that in reality the anti-war march was going nowhere near the Cenotaph.

Democracy is not simply about walking into a polling station every five years and then shutting up until you’re allowed to vote again. Sunak apparently sees no irony in talking of democracy despite having been elected as Prime Minister only by the Conservative Party, and appointed to the post by a monarch elected by nobody at all. Under First-Past-the-Post, a winning party never receives more than half the votes, but is declared to have been elected democratically. 

Nonetheless, we are lucky to have more elements of democracy in the UK than can be found in much of the world. The democracy we have – however limited – is something to celebrate.

We have it not because the rich and powerful generously handed it down to us. The only reason we have any democracy at all is that our ancestors went out onto the streets and campaigned for it. Chartists, Levellers, women’s suffrage campaigners and others struggled and in some cases died for the elements of democracy that we now enjoy. It is not Sunak and the Daily Mail, but people marching against war in Gaza, who stand in the tradition of such people. 

In a country in which the super-rich have vastly disproportionate power, wealthy individuals such as Rishi Sunak are the last people likely to support taking democracy further. We can expect no help from them in working towards real democracy, in which we would have democratic control of local communities and democratic control of workplaces. 

Sunak’s government sells arms to Israel and Saudi Arabia and suppresses peaceful protest. Anti-war demonstrators are exercising their rights to resist war with active nonviolence. One side in this argument is anti-violence and pro-democracy. And Sunak is on the other side. 

Calls for conscription follow years of rising militarism in the UK

I wrote the following article for the Morning Star, who published it in today’s issue.

The last week has seen a flood of headlines about a possible war with Russia — and the chances of military conscription in Britain.

Twenty years ago, calls to “bring back national service” seemed to be confined to right-wing pub bores and retired colonels writing angry letters to the Telegraph. So what has changed?

Well, relations between the British and Russian governments have got worse. But that cannot explain it. In the last two decades, British governments have subserviently followed the US in sending troops to fight in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria without calls to introduce conscription.

Nor would war with Russia necessarily involve lots of troops. Indeed, given that it would be a war between nuclear-armed powers, the whole thing might be over in a matter of days — or hours.

No, what has changed is the place of militarism in everyday life in Britain.

In 2003, Tony Blair sent troops to help the US to invade Iraq without the support of the majority of the British population. In 2006, British troop numbers in Afghanistan were increased — and support for their presence declined. In September 2006, British public support for keeping British troops in Afghanistan reached a low of 31 per cent in a BBC/ICM poll.

That same year, the then chief of the general staff (head of the army), Richard Dannatt, wrote to a defence minister about the “single biggest danger” facing British troops.

What was this danger? The Taliban? The Afghan population? The unpredictability of Blair’s US allies?

It was none of these. Dannatt wrote, “Losing popular support at home is the single biggest danger to our chances of success in our current operations.”

So according to the head of the army, the biggest threat to the British army was the British people. So much for the idea that the armed forces protect the British public.

Dannatt and his allies launched what amounted to a public campaign to drive up support for armed force. In October 2006, Dannatt gave an interview to the Daily Mail arguing that the “military covenant” between the armed forces and the public had broken down.

The term “military covenant” was soon commonplace, with militarist commentators demanding that the public should “honour” it. Some maintained that the military covenant dated back 200 years.

In reality, the first recorded use of the term “military covenant” was in an army document published in the year 2000. Even Dannatt later admitted that the concept was “the brainchild of a handful of officers.”

Dannatt broke the longstanding convention that British military leaders should not comment publicly on government policy. There followed a “militarisation offensive” — to use the term employed by Paul Dixon of Birkbeck College, University of London.

The following years saw the introduction of Armed Forces Day and local councils signing the “armed forces covenant.” The Cameron-Clegg government stepped things up with multimillion pound funding for new military cadet units even as other youth services faced swingeing cuts. Arms company BAE Systems began running science and technology roadshows in schools with the RAF.

The Peace Pledge Union describes this situation as “everyday militarism”.

This is the context in which the current Chief of the General Staff, Patrick Sanders, said on 24th January that the UK government should “mobilise the nation” for a possible war with Russia.

Sanders suggested a “citizens’ army.” Despite the headlines, he did not explicitly call for conscription. He seems to have some idea of civilian volunteers ready to leap into action if war breaks out with Russia. It is difficult not to think of Dad’s Army. Whether they would have time to leap into action before much of the world is obliterated with nuclear weapons is not a question that Sanders raised.

Assorted politicians, commentators, armchair generals and actual generals have piled into the debate. It reached its most absurd moment when Boris Johnson declared his willingness to be conscripted. He is 59 and way over any likely conscription age. Johnson’s offer is therefore as unlikely to be fulfilled as most of his other promises.

Conscription in Britain still seems unlikely in the immediate future. Nonetheless, I think we should be worried — for three reasons.

Firstly, ministers and generals are openly talking up war with Russia with ever-increasing enthusiasm. Imagine the head of the Russian army urging Vladimir Putin to “mobilise the nation” for war with Britain. Sanders’s words do not sound too different.

There is relatively little ideological difference between Putin and most Nato governments. As before the first world war, we have capitalist governments ramping up military tension, with both sides claiming to be acting defensively and demanding their populations follow them.

Secondly, we have given up any pretence that military leaders cannot comment on policy. Their influence is on public display and is at odds with democracy. Such influence has contributed to a situation in which the British government has the fourth-highest military expenditure in the world.

Thirdly, the last week has made clear where everyday militarism leads. Armed Forces Day, “military covenants,” multiple increases in cadet forces — it has all been leading in this direction.

A society in which generals make policy speeches on TV, politicians consider a “citizens’ army” and we are told to be ready to go and fight other working-class people because their government has a quarrel with ours. And at the same time, new draconian anti-protest laws make it all harder to resist. It is a militarist’s dream.

Many of us would be conscientious objectors if conscription were introduced. Let’s not wait until then. Let’s conscientiously object to plans for war and to wars already going on. Let’s conscientiously object to military spending and arms sales.

Let’s conscientiously object to everyday militarism, and to the dangerous lie that British troops fight for the British people. And let’s stand in solidarity with conscientious objectors in Russia, Ukraine, Israel and everywhere else.

We don’t need a “citizens’ army.” We need citizens’ resistance to war and militarism — in Britain, in Russia and around the world.

The pope’s right: of course sex is a gift from God

“Thou shalt have rumpy-pumpy” declared the front page of the Daily Star last week, along with a picture of Pope Francis. They returned to the theme on the front page yesterday.

Their story concerned the pope’s comments that sex is a gift from God (does anyone who is not a tabloid journalist actually refer to sex as “rumpy-pumpy”?). This really should not be news. Many church leaders have been saying for years – and in some cases centuries – that sex is a sacred gift.

Admittedly, the pope has made the comments in the context of a controversy over a book written by a Roman Catholic cardinal, which makes it a bit more newsworthy. However, I doubt the Daily Star is especially interested in internal Catholic squabbles. What really makes it newsworthy is the reality that mamy readers will find it surprising, because so many people expect Christians to be negative about sex.

As a Christian, I think we’ve only got oursevles to blame for this perception. The Christians who tend to speak loudest in public and media debates are those who want to condemn same-sex relationships and sex outside marriage. If pushed, the tend to say that sex is a gift from God if rightly used, but such additional comments are rarely much heard. Those Christians who disagree with them have rarely done a good job of speaking up as clearly as we should do.

The Bible is positive about sex. Of course there are a few more negative attitudes in certain parts of it – it’s a vast collection of books – but I maintain that the Bible is on the whole sex-positive (I recommend the Song of Songs, an erotic poem found in the middle of the Bible). There’s not space here to go into debates about particular biblical passages (though I readily do so elsewhere!), but I suggest that sex-negative interpretations of scripture are influenced by centuries of negative attitudes that did not really begin until some time after the Bible was written.

Chrisitanity in western Europe really became negative about sex from around the fourth century onwards. Augustine of Hippo developed the doctrine of Original Sin, arguing that sin is passsed on by sex and that babies are born guilty. This doctrine was rejected by some (but sadly not all) Protestants from the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century.

It’s notable that Augustine was writing shortly after the Roman Empire had effectively stifled Christianity by domesticating it and turning it into the imperial religion. Wheras Christian theologians had previously challenged violence and imperial rule, they began instead to defend them. Augustine himself played a major role in developing Just War Theory, which replaced early Christian nonviolence.

As Christianity moved from challenging empire to upholding it, the focus of discussions about sin moved from violence, oppression and poverty to concern for individuals’ sexual behaviours. For Christians, being negative about sex has often gone along with being positive about power, wealth and war.

So for left-wing and inclusive Christians today, positivity about sex shold naturally go along with seeking to demonstrate the solidarity with the marginalised that is displayed in the New Testament.

I am not of course saying that we should support all sex! Christians should be at the forefront of condemning sexual abuse, sexual violence, violations of consent and sex entered into for selfish reasons or with disrespect for others. These things are sinful. They are sinful not because they involve sex, but because they involve the intrusion of sins such as violence and inequality into what should be loving and Godly activity.

So let’s get out there and start championing the good things about sex. Just as long as we don’t have to call it “rumpy-pumpy”.

A knightood for Bates would undermine what the sub-postmasters have fought for

I wrote this article for the ‘i’ paper, who published it online on 11th January, with a shorter version in the print edition the next day.

The statistics are shocking enough – more than 700 innocent sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted in the Horizon IT scandal – but it is the personal horror stories that really hit home. Seema Misra in Ashford, sentenced to prison while pregnant, who gave birth wearing an electronic tag. Sathyan Shiju in London, who tried to take his own life after being accused of stealing £20,000. Christopher Head in Newcastle, unable to secure another job after being sacked and told to pay £88,000 that he did not have.

It would be an insult to suggest that any amount of money could adequately compensate these people.

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak seems to be practising government by TV drama, talking seriously about compensation only since the ITV broadcast of Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which depicted former sub-postmaster Alan Bates decades-long fight to expose the Horizon system scandal.

Now there are calls to give Alan Bates a knighthood. He and the others who challenged these outrageous convictions should certainly be celebrated, but the calls for an honour will do nothing to stop something like this from happening again. It just papers over the cracks.

There is a long tradition of using titles and honours to buy people off, or as an easy way to superficially endorse a popular person or cause. The reverse is also true. Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells has returned her CBE. She is no longer a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

It has been reported that Vennells earned over £400,000 in her final year at the head of the Post Office. This is not true. She was paid over £400,000, whether she earned it is a different question. It is perhaps easier to return a CBE than to pay back an unimaginably large salary. It is also much easier for the Government to give Mr Bates a knighthood than to address the root causes of the problem.

It would also seem that Alan Bates, too, believes this. Speaking about turning down an OBE, he told Good Morning Britain last week: “It would have been a slap in the face to the rest of the group because Paula Vennells, the CEO for many years of Post Office, received a CBE for her services to Post Office. Well, what service has she actually done?”

Worryingly, the highest honour that some people can imagine is to kneel before an hereditary head of state and be tapped with a weapon. It is a ceremony that upholds and entrenches inequality. The irony is that inequality was one of the causes of the Post Office scandal in the first place.

True, the initial cause was a faulty computer system. When one or two sub-postmasters were convicted, senior managers may have assumed they were indeed guilty. But when the number of convictions rose to the hundreds, why did the people in charge not ask questions. Did they really think it likely that 700 sub-postmasters were all simultaneously corrupt?

Part of the answer has been revealed by whistleblowers and Freedom of Information requests. In a document from 2008, Post Office investigators used a racial slur to describe suspects. An Indian sub-postmaster has also revealed that a member of Post Office staff had said that “all the Indians” were defrauding the Post Office. Such comments go beyond unconscious bias. They represent out-and-out up-front racism.

The failure of senior people at the Post Office to question the convictions starkly demonstrates another problem rooted in inequality: the tendency of senior people not to trust their workers or to listen to more junior people. In a hierarchical business, what chance did workers on the ground have of influencing policy?

Until we have democratic, egalitarian workplaces based around mutual respect and co-operation, injustices such as the Horizon scandal will continue. Instead of focusing on knighthoods and CBEs, the best way to honour the victims of the Post Office scandal is to change the way we work.

Justin Welby conflates submission to the state with the service of God

The Archbishop of Canterbury has used his New Year’s Day message to promote militarism and armed force even while Palestinian Christians continue to criticise his position on Gaza and Israel.

Justin Welby’s message comes only days after two Christian pacifists were arrested for pouring fake blood on the gates of Downing Street in protest at the UK government’s complicity in genocide in Gaza.

There are times when I gladly defend Justin Welby. I think he does a better job than many Archbishops of Canterbury have done – though I admit that’s a low bar. He has spoken out about poverty and the rights of refugees. Sadly, when it comes to armed force and monarchy, he is fully in tune with the values of the establishment.

Welby began his New Year message by talking about Charles Windsor’s coronation last year. He said that “our” military were at “the centre of the celebrations”.

This of course is true – monarchy has always been closely tied to militarism. However, Welby claims that the armed forces had such a major role because:

“… they, like many, many others in the country, embodied the theme of the coronation: service”.

Membership of the armed forces is often spoken of in terms of “military service”. The question that Welby did not address was who or what the armed forces are serving.

In a tweet yesterday, Welby went so far as to apparently equate military service with the sacrificial life of Jesus. He wrote:

“Going to @RAFBrizeNorton to film my New Year Message, I met servicemen and women there who embody the spirit of service, following the example of Jesus, who came ‘not to be served, but to serve’ (Matthew 20,28).”

This equation of two very different lifestyles is both outrageous and dangerous. Jesus embodied nonviolent resistance – even in the face of the brutal Roman Empire, which he mocked, challenged and resisted but did not take up arms against.

Whatever view you take of the ethics of violence, it is surely obvious that not everyone who is dedicated to “service” is serving the same person or the same thing. But early in his New Year message, Welby said:

“They [armed forces personnel] promised to be faithful, and to observe and obey all orders.. .Forces personnel are living out that oath every day.”

This is surely different to Jesus’ example of serving God and his neighbours. Members of the armed forces are obliged to obey orders given in the monarch’s name by their officers and NCOs.

However well-intentioned individual armed forces personnel may be (and I don’t doubt that many of them are), they are required to serve the state, not God or humanity. They must obey orders without reference to their own conscience or faith. Recent years have seen a string of British armed forces personnel imprisoned for refusing orders that go against their conscience. Examples include Michael Lyons, Joe Glenton and Malcolm Kendall-Smith.

I don’t for a moment claim to be a better Christian than those Christians who join the armed forces. I frequently fail to follow Jesus’ teachings, to love my neighbour as myself and to seek God’s guidance. I cannot begin to understand how seeking to follow Jesus is any way compatible with joining an organisation – any organisation – whose members are required to obey orders without question, for no authority should trump our loyalty to the Kingdom of God.

The rest of Welby’s four-and-a-half-minute message is little more than a puff piece for the UK armed forces. The archbishop rightly champions their work providing humanitarian relief, but fails to point out that this is not their central purpose or to ask why this cannot be done by a civilian force. In an outrageously misleading moment, Welby claimed that British troops are:

“…supporting civilians in the midst of conflict, in places like the Middle East”.

Welby must surely know that UK armed forces provide military training and support to the forces of countries such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, which are engaged in the systematic killing of civilians (in Palestine and in Yemen respectively).

Far from supporting civilians in the Middle East, the UK government’s troops are complicit in the killing of civilians in the Middle East.

Thankfully, Welby spoke about “the human cost of war”. He added:

“Jesus Christ tells us to stand with those suffering because of war, and to seek to make peace. And we trust in God, who promises peace with justice.”

I agree with Welby on that one. That’s precisely why I cannot share his enthusiasm for an organisation that does not make peace but perpetuates and justifies war.

The archbishop seems to be conflating service of God with service of the state and the monarch.

Welby’s words are likely to cause further dismay for Palestinian Christians, who have been highly critical of the failure of the leaders of many western churches – including the Church of England – to call for an immediate ceasefire and to condemn genocide in Gaza. Many church leaders have rightly condemned Hamas’ vile attack on Israeli civilians on 7 October, but have waffled or made excuses instead of condemning Israeli forces’ equally vile killing of Palestinian civilians.

Munther Isaac, a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem, challenged church leaders internationally in his Christmas sermon, accusing them of providing “theological cover” for genocide and thus “compromising the credibility of our gospel message”. He insists that “Jesus is under the rubble in Gaza”.

Three days before Welby’s New Year message was broadcast, two British Christians were arrested in Downing Street. Virginia Moffatt and Chris Cole poured fake blood over the gates in protest against the UK government’s military and political support for Israeli forces. They were arrested.

I have been honoured to campaign alongside Virginia and Chris in the past. As it happens, they are both Catholics. They frequently act alongside other Christian pacifists from different traditions, as well as with many other war resisters of various faiths and none. If Jesus is under the rubble in Gaza, then Virginia and Chris were acting in solidarity with him.

The archbishop’s New Year message and the nonviolent action at the gates of Downing Street provide two very different examples of British Christian responses to war. I know which one of them reminds me more of Jesus and the prophets.