This is a guest post on Harry’s Place.
BNP ‘reverend’ Robert West is running for a seat in the European elections in June 2009. The BNP itself often claims to represent British Christianity. So how would Christians react, for example, if Jacqui Smith or Hazel Blears were to say that ‘Christianity despises the planet, and that is why we are facing the ecological crisis of today’, to claim that Christianity ‘had turned the natural, organic religions of Europe based on the symbolism of the tree, a living and growing symbol of perpetual life with the dead symbol of the cross’, and to conclude that ‘Christianity is dead’?
Well, that is exactly what Lee Barnes of the BNP wrote in an article last summer. Lee Barnes is the BNP legal expert, key blogger, and prominent party member. Barnes revealed his racist interpretation of Odinism:
“In Odinism the God Odin is crucified like Christ to a tree. Unlike Christ whose redemption is found only after his death, Odin SURVIVES his torment on the tree and gains the wisdom of the Runes and thereby unlocks the secrets of the universe …The roots represent our descent from the Gods and our connection to the Earth, the trunk represents our shared European racial heritage, the main branches of the tree our nations and tribes…
For Barnes, both Christianity and, er, liberalism represent a ‘death age’ which must be replaced by a ‘new religion’:
The death age of christianity and liberalism has led to the age that William Blake regarded as Ulro – the lowest stage of human life possible where mans innate value has been replaced by his utility value. Just as Christianity grafted itself upon the hewn oaks of our heathen past, the new religion that is starting to sprout upon the stumps left behind by christianity and its pimp sister liberalism is a return to an organic and natural religion.”
The same article on the Lancaster UAF blog also quotes from BNP founder John Tyndall:
“What passes for Christianity in this country today can only be described as superstitious sociology; a bland doctrine of welfare-mongering with guilt, humility and self-abasement as its cardinal principles. We can only have contempt for a Church which, in the name of Christianity, facilitates the Islamic occupation of whole neighbourhoods, condones homosexuality, promotes multi-racialism and will forgive everything.
Our race is our religion, and the nation is our church”.
Watch this video to see how the British Far Right came to use Christianity in its propaganda and rhetoric:
The BNP’s version of Christianity is incredibly warped and racist, characterised by alliances with Christian identity movements rather than any mainstream Christian groups. The BNP itself is still a Nazi organisation. Its political philosophy is based off fascist interpretations of paradise. Its dealings with Christianity are shallow and superficial, lacking any constructive engagement with religious texts and instead attempting to use Christianity as a cultural identity marker to connect with white Britons in order to exclude minorities. According to the BNP’s founder, “our religion is our race.” The BNP’s “Christianity” should be recognised for what it is and rejected by all.
Seismic Shock 
Hitler referenced the gospels in Mein Kampf and he called down the Lord’s blessing upon the German national struggle. At the same time, in his diaries and in private he utterly rejected the christian religion and thought that it was a kind of jewish bolshevism.
Christ said that there were many people who would do things in His name but who know Him not and that they would find themselves cut out of the Lord’s kingdom on the last day because they had called Him ‘Lord, Lord’ but did not do the things that He told them to do. Christ said that those who love Me will keep my commandments… I don’t think that the fascists who hate people who are different than them are keeping the Lord’s commandment to love your neighbour (or even to love your enemies).
Although in reality, we could ask the same questions about ourselves at times. Do we call ourselves christians and not do the things that our Lord tells us to do?
In any event, if we or the BNP or anyone else are really christians, we will do the things that Jesus did and what He commanded us to do, and if we don’t, we’re not really His followers.
God Bless,