I’ve always been interested in politics, and believe that Christians are called to pray for our nation, and to be involved in the wider life of the country.  We need to bring God’s Word to bear on political manifestos and government policies as well as on private actions.  We should certainly always vote.  However, I’ve always been very careful never to be directly party-political in public.  There are Christians who are members of all our major political parties, and no one party can claim to be completely following God’s agenda of righteousness and justice for our society.  You’ll never hear me telling you which party to vote for at an election.

But there are just very rare occasions when something needs to be said, and this is one of them. 

Many of us (including me) are concerned about the place of Christianity in our culture – the attempts to exclude the Christian voice from our public life, and to stop Christians from allowing their faith to influence the way they do their jobs and act in public.  We need to pray, and to stand up for the Gospel of Jesus Christ wherever we can.  But we would be fools of the highest order if we allowed this concern to be hijacked by extremists like the far-right British National Party (BNP).

In recent times, the BNP has (in the words of Nick Griffin its leader) quite deliberately attempted to position itself as ‘the only party which genuinely supports Britain's Christian heritage’.  It has used the controversial Mohammed cartoons in its literature.  It has also helped to establish the so-called ‘Christian Council of Britain’.  The Church of England, with other members of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, has been quick to say that it has absolutely no link whatsoever with this Council, whose published theological statements are explicitly racist (using the bad theology that underpinned apartheid in South Africa to justify the separation of races, and the repatriation of non-white people from these islands). 

Recently, our General Synod passed a resolution banning clergy from being members of the BNP.  And quite rightly so.  Christ stood firmly against racism, and the beauty of the gospel is that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, but all are one in Christ, whatever our skin colour or racial origin.

Now, however, the BNP is to use an advert – featuring a bible verse and a picture of Jesus on the Cross – in the run up to the European Elections in June.  The advert quotes part of a verse from John’s Gospel (John 15:20) in which Jesus says: ‘If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you’.  This is linked to the recent Church of England ban (and other perceived persecution of the BNP).

The advert then asks: ‘What would Jesus do?’ – and answers that question by encouraging a vote for the BNP.

Nick Griffin said: ‘Jesus was viewed as a revolutionary figure, hated and hounded to death, not by 'evil men' but by the corrupt hypocrites who ran the church.  Has nothing changed in two thousand years?’

The goal of this dangerous mis-use of Scripture seems to be to appeal to those in the population who identify with Christianity, but feel panicked both by ‘liberal secularism’ and the growth of Islam. 

Churches in the UK have rushed to condemn the advert.  A spokesman for the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu and for the Church of England refused to comment, saying the BNP was mounting a ‘publicity stunt’ designed to give the party the 'oxygen of publicity’.

The Baptist Union and United Reformed Church said they wanted to remind people of the true Christian message of love for all people.

Christine Elliott, Secretary for External Relations for The Methodist Church, said: ‘When Jesus was asked about what was the most important rule of life he said, 'Love God with all of your being and love your neighbour as yourself.  It’s ironic that the BNP is using the world’s most famous Jew to promote its racist message.  [Christianity has…] a history of promoting racial justice and inclusion and rejecting messages of hate and fear.’

The Ten Commandments call us not to take the name of the Lord in vain.  We normally limit this to using ‘God’ or ‘Jesus’ as a swear word, but arguably this is a far more important breach of that commandment: taking Christ’s words and twisting them to say the opposite of what they actually mean – justifying sin by using the name of God.

Jesus was completely opposed to bigotry and racism.  He is recorded in the Gospels as challenging those who didn’t welcome foreigners – not as working for their exclusion.

What would Jesus do?  Well, he certainly wouldn’t ever vote BNP.