What does "Putting Christ back into Christmas" mean?

This isn't a political question - or, at least, it shouldn't be.

However, it has recently become one, especially in the way that certain people seem to be asking it to make political points.

Various people have seemed determined to claim there is a "war on Christmas" in order to justify their own cultural attacks on those they claim to be responsible for it. One of these individuals is Tommy Robinson / Stephen Yaxley-Lennon who has pledged to put "Christ back into Christmas" and this afternoon held a "carol service" outside Downing Street.

So concerned is it by these developments that the Church of England has issued a "Christmas is for all" message in response. The video, produced by the Church's communication team, is surprisingly good. Unlike the response to Nick Griffin and the BNP a few years ago, it doesn't consist of smug bishops patronisingly telling people who not to vote for. Instead it gets the tone exactly right, dismisses the idea that "Christmas is being cancelled or its joy under threat" and demonstrates why Christmas is "good news", "a story of hope", and "belongs to us all". It says "everyone is invited" to "find Christmas". 

However good this is - and it's not often I praise the CofE communications team - the inescapable truth is that it has produced this in direct response to Tommy Robinson. That act alone demonstrates the influence that he has, or is at least perceived to have. Perhaps more importantly, it underlines the degree to which the Church believes the narrative he and others are spinning is taking hold and must be resisted. 

I don't want this piece to become overly-theological but if we are address the question then it is important to understand what "putting Christ back into Christmas" means. 

I naturally have some sympathy with people of faith who would use the phrase in the context of advocating for a more "Christ-centred" in which Jesus' love for the world is practically demonstrated. Such people would like the centre of Christmas to be the values and way of Jesus, remembering the Christmas story as of a child born into poverty under political oppression with the focus on refugees, shepherds, and outsiders rather than elites. These Christians would want to use Christmas to emphasise compassion over consumerism and human dignity over profit. For them, "putting Christ into Christmas" means remembering the incarnation as solidarity with the marginalized, standing with the poor and excluded or challenging injustice. It means putting Jesus’ way of love, justice, humility, and solidarity back into how we live—especially during a season that easily forgets them. For such people, Christmas is a call to social responsibility, not nostalgia.

There are other people of faith, who I may not agree with to the same degree, who dislike the secularisation of Christmas. They have no interest in the irreligious cultural aspects of Christmas. For them, "putting Christ back into Christmas" means a renewed focus on the religious elements, which is a perfectly valid position to hold. These people may have some things in common with the other group I referred to, especially in regards making space and time for contemplation and reclaiming spiritual depth. Their focus may be slightly different, but they would have little interest in policing culture because for them the secular is merely a distraction. They won't care if some people refer to Christmas markets as "festive markets" or whether a supermarket sells a "winter tree" because, frankly, they find little relevance in them. They are more concerned with the Jesus they worship than they are about what name is used for secular events and commercial items. 

It would be strange for those who genuinely want to focus on Christ at Christmas to be so consumed with a desire for culture-war rhetoric. After all, why should they care about what words are used to name events that have nothing to do with the religious festival that means so much to them? I take the view that Christ is always to be found in Christmas if people know where to look. 

What should we make of Tommy Robinson's new-found interest in Christianity? What is telling is that he is not merely suggesting that people attend their local Church of England, Methodist Church, URC or local Roman Catholic congregation at Christmas. He has not worked with churches to promote his message. Instead he has focused on identity politics. Like some senior figures in Reform, who have encouraged the Christmas culture-war rhetoric in a cynical and politically calculated move to capture a well-defined voting bloc, Robinson is looking to instrumentalise Christianity as a way of dividing communities. The fact that he led his supporters on a march around Chinatown immediately after his "carol service" makes this self-evident. 

"Putting Christ back into Christmas" isn't arguing about names. It's not about demanding religious dominance. It isn't using Jesus to justify aggression and protect privilege. It isn't about demanding that a pluralistic society does things our way. It isn’t an expression of spiritual colonialism that demands public conformity, frames Christianity as a boundary of Britishness, or recruits Christ into a culture-war narrative of grievance and exclusion. Neither is it about shaming others, reacting to social change by invoking nostalgia, advancing partisan agendas or infusing culture-war talking points with religious language. It certainly isn't about expressing political resentments or wrapping up nationalism in Christian culture. When rhetoric prioritizes rightness, outrage, and victory over humility, mercy, and love, it signals allegiance to something other than Christ. 

I have no problem with people of faith looking for ways of expressing the nature and teachings of Jesus at Christmas. I don't think it is necessary to be a Biblical scholar to appreciate that many of Jesus' reported words focused on empathy for strangers and loving neighbours. I can see a good argument to be made for "putting Christ into Christmas" but it isn't the kind of argument the culture warriors are promoting.

If Jesus called out the Pharisees, I can only image what he would make of these culture warriors. Personally speaking, I would go so far as to say that any expression of Christianity that diminishes humanity, is unwelcoming, is discriminatory or promotes division is not authentic. What Robinson is championing is not Christianity, and the Church of England recognises this.

The question I would like to ask is what can churches do to challenge the co-option of Christian language by culture-war movements in ways that are sustained, credible, and theologically grounded, rather than reactive and episodic. The Church of England is right to respond to Tommy Robinson’s campaign to “put Christ into Christmas,” but in all honesty has arrived late to the conversation, after Christian symbols and language have already been repeatedly instrumentalised in the service of exclusionary politics.

What is at stake when religion is co-opted for political purposes is the gradual hollowing-out of Christian language itself. When “Christ” becomes a cultural marker of identity rather than the name of a crucified and risen Lord whose life stands in judgment on injustice, the Church’s silence functions as tacit permission. Occasional statements of disapproval, however necessary, cannot substitute for sustained theological clarity, pastoral formation, and public witness.

If churches are to challenge such movements going forward, they must do more than rebut slogans. They must consistently articulate what Christ actually signifies—incarnation without privilege, love without boundary, truth without coercion—and model that vision in worship, teaching, and public engagement. Otherwise, the vacuum will continue to be filled by those for whom “Christianity” serves not as a way of life, but as a badge of belonging in an imagined cultural battle.

As I pointed out at the beginning of this piece, the question I am asking shouldn't be a political question but it has become one. Therefore, the response should also - to a degree - be political. It cannot be left only to churches to challenge the rhetoric of the political right.

Political parties looking to resist this destructive, divisive rhetoric need not engage in theological intervention - that can, and should, be left to churches. But what we can do is be clear about the nature of belonging and actively resist attempts to frame Christianity as a marker of national identity. British liberalism has long rejected the idea that citizenship is conditional upon culture, heritage, or belief. In that sense, campaigns that deploy Christian language to define who belongs are not expressions of faith but challenges to democracy itself—and should be named as such, calmly and consistently.

Secondly, progressive political parties should affirm freedom of religion without endorsing religious dominance. What liberalism rejects is not religious expression, but its coercive or exclusionary use and the weaponisation of belief. 

Most importantly, it is incumbent on all parties opposed to the "culture war" politics of Robinson and Reform to translate moral concerns into civic language, making connections explicit to help deflate the claim that liberal politics is morally hollow or hostile to faith. Entering the culture war won't work and only results in having discussions on others' terms, but successfully articulating a vision of Britain in which faith is free, plural, and personal, and in which neither Christianity nor any other tradition is conscripted into the service of cultural exclusion, would do far more to challenge the politics of division than any short video.