Resurrection
I sensed something different about Easter this year. I haven’t crunched any data or carried out a survey; rather, I’m flying by the seat of my pants, superglued to my broomstick.
While Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar, for me it usually passes in a haze of chocolate, roast lamb lunches (my roast spuds are the best), sunshine and showers, gardening, decluttering and staying home to avoid the traffic and the crowds. In recent years, Easter has been sandwiched between the anniversary of Dad’s passing (mid-March) and Mum’s (early May). Christ might be risen, but Mum and Dad remain resolutely somnolent.
The last time I took Mum to an Easter service it was memorable, albeit for the wrong reasons. Raised Presbyterian, at some stage she gravitated to the High Church – think Catholicism without the Pope. When she and Dad moved to Milton Keynes, I found them a suitable place of worship with an old-school vicar. Said vicar popped over one afternoon to give Dad the last rites and, during tea afterwards, laid into Arthur Scargill (Sis admitted she lived in Barnsley) as any good Christian should. A few years’ later at what turned out to be Mum’s final Easter service, the liberal Bishop ‘honoured’ the local church with his presence and presided jointly with our vicar. Maybe I was looking for trouble, because I spotted it within 90 seconds. Body language and tone of voice intimated that our Vic and the Bish were not best buds. It might have had something to do with the Bish openly supporting (not during the Easter service I hasten to add) same-sex marriages, including for the clergy. While Vic and Bish maintained an outward professional and dignified demeanour throughout the service, I picked up on several subtle signs of an Easter of discontent.
Did I still think our Vic was wonderful? I did. I do. Because while I have no problem at all with same-sex relationships, co-habitation and civil partnerships, I believe that same-sex marriages are against the teachings of the Bible. More importantly for me, Cameron bulldozed through the legislation when it hadn’t been in his manifesto, just as Starmer does now, with bells on.
Back to Easter 2025, maybe I was hoping for ‘something’ after what seems like one of the most unchristian periods in recent times. I did indeed notice more religious commentary across various media than I can remember. And I read somewhere that Church attendances are increasing. Could this be the flap of a butterfly wing presaging a period of quiet reflection, re-evaluation and renewed appreciation of our traditional British values, including a backlash (another one) against a Prime Minister who undermines our Christian homeland and indigenous population to curry favour with others? Many noted that Starmer marked Ramadan but not Mothering Sunday. Shortly afterwards, his insincere Easter message choked on his gratitude for the contribution Christians had made to this country. Journalist, campaigner and Reform candidate Darren Grimes tweeted in response, “Christians didn’t ‘contribute’ to Britain like some recent arrival to these shores—they built it. Brick by brick, church by church, law by law. We’re not just a Christian country—we’re a country because of Christianity.” Rayner also disgraced herself (again) when she cackled, “May you have a joyful day with loved ones and in your communities”, making it sound as if Christians in Britain live in religious ghettos. Christianity, you dreadful woman, underpins and permeates through space and time this nation we call home and the countrymen we embrace as family. And to think she once called others ‘scum’!
Even the King, leader of the Church of England and defender of the faith, bent over backwards to shoehorn Islam, and Judaism, into his Easter message. This was as welcome to Christians (even though Christianity sprang from Judaism) as Starmer is at a cattle market, a Darby and Joan club, a private school, a bar mitzvah, ladies’ toilets … anywhere really. On the other hand, in the King’s favour, he didn’t shirk from being seen with Prince Andrew at Easter Sunday service. This drew howls of derision from the anti-Royalists, who were soooooooooo quick to criticise Randy Andy for ‘pretending’ to be a Christian, and to condemn Charlie for tacitly supporting his brother’s misdeeds. As I replied to one egregious idiot on Twitter (who calls himself a fact-based environmentalist yet has an aversion to the facts and must be a member of something like Wild Unwashed Swimmers, or WUS) Andy hasn't been found guilty of anything criminal in a court of law, which means he’s innocent until proven guilty. Further, he's part of the Royal family, and families support each other. Above all else, Christianity is about forgiveness and redemption.
Whoops – have to have a short break from irreverent blogging (even though it’s about Easter) out of respect for Pappa Pope whose death has just been announced. Right on cue, I have a Gerontius* earworm. Maybe meeting Vance did for him (the Pope, not Gerontius). Sis just messaged me that you’re supposed to rise again on Easter Sunday not die on Easter Monday. So much for a period of respect.
Having mentioned Vance once, I might as well add fuel to the fire and lob the idea that him being a high-profile outspoken Catholic has elevated Christianity in our collective consciousness. His views on immigration, especially his unashamed hierarchy of love, is logical and pragmatic. Others interpret the Bible differently and propound that love should be universal and equal – that you should love an illegal immigrant as much as you love your kids – which might be a ‘morally superior’ approach, but try explaining that to the Rotherham girls. Vance has also underpinned his support for free speech with his Catholicism. I therefore believe (I have no evidence, just a hunch) that many Brits who are fearful of uncontrolled illegal immigration and the loss of free speech might, inspired by Vance, be looking to Christianity for assuagement of their fears and solutions to their problems.
In effect, it wouldn’t surprise me if people are returning to Christianity because they can’t turn anywhere else: we can no longer rely on local councillors or MPs to have our best interests at heart; the police and courts harass the feisty but vulnerable while appeasing the fierce and vicious; our soldiers are hauled through the courts for obeying orders and neutralising the enemy. There are dreadful wars and conflicts all over the world, not just in Ukraine and Israel / Gaza, with no solutions in sight. Who else can we turn to but God? What else can we do but pray?
Even the recent good news – the Supreme Court ruling that a man is always a man and never a woman – is tinged with regret that this was ever denied. The Supreme Court doesn’t always get it right. Do you remember their ruling against Boris’s prorogation of Parliament for Brexit? Back then, many remoaners, rejoiners and rent-a-mobs pumped their fists in the air and declared out-and-out victory because the Supreme Court has to have the supreme last word, and the rest of us have no right to question it. Well, not only did Brexit get done despite the Supreme Court, but the mobs are again on the wrong side of history and failing to get on the right side by rejecting this latest last word of the Supreme Court.
One of these wrong ’uns is Jolyon Maugham, founder of the Good Law Project. Per its website, the GLP “exists to hold power to account”. How’s that going, then. Someone helpfully posted on Twitter that of the 82 cases the GLP has taken on to date, for which they were funded to the tune of over £24m, they’ve had some success in only seven, i.e. 8.5%, which equates to almost £3.5m per ‘success’. (I would compare the GLP ‘success’ rate with that of the Free Speech Union, but that would be rubbing salt into their festering wound, which is so unchristian.)
Others from the disappointed trans lobby have taken to the streets to deface statues of – not Winnie or Maggie or Hilary Cass – but suffragettes and Nelson Mandela. Bonkers, I know. And their placards are riddled with threats to kill feminists like JK Rowling. So the wrong side of history and not on the side of the angels either. Let me be clear – I have the utmost sympathy and support for the genuinely gender dysphoric, but their plight has been hijacked by perverts who pretend to identify as women because they get a sick kick out of it, either directly or by enabling them to access female safe spaces. No longer. The perverts’ apologists (some medics, politicians, academics, and the be-kind bores) are just as perverted. God so loves the dysphoric, but t’others will suffer His wrath unless they genuinely repent, an anathematic act for the likes of Starmer.
As well as whispering in the Supreme Court’s ear, God is visible on Twitter. He doesn’t actually tweet, that I know of, but He surely has something to do with the following hierarchy I cobbled together:
Nigel Farage 2.2m
Keir Starmer 1.9m
Tommy Robinson 1.2m
Darren Grimes 447,400
Jo Maugham 410,300
Feargal Sharkey 221,400
Ed Davey 129,300
Peter Tatchell 103,000
India Willoughby 76,300.
Before you ask, I have no idea how many followers I have because I don’t tweet to be followed or even to spread my word. I visit Twitter to learn what everyone else is saying, and to kick ass when I really can’t help myself.
To sum up, God is currently more visible than he’s been for a while owing to the confluence of: Easter; the anniversaries of the passing of Mum and Dad; Starmer becoming increasingly brazen in his attempt to downplay Christianity and promote Islam; the Royal Family being visibly Christian (which is not the same as saintly); Vance wearing his religion on his sleeve; the death of the Pope; the dearth of peace and leadership everywhere; the Supreme Court seeing sense (it’s a miracle!); and Twitter insights.
I’ve delayed posting this blog in case the enchantment of Easter dissipated with the return of diary commitments. If anything, my thoughts above have been fortified by a period of divine weather that has accentuated the beauty of an English spring; this week was St George’s Day and, as with Easter, there seems to be a renewed enthusiasm for this symbolic day. The indisputable proof that God is watching over us is Jeremy Clarkson's piece in the Sunday Times. He wrote what those of us on the side of the angels and the right side of history have known all along, that the water industry is better off not in state hands: “if Angela Rayner was running it,” he waxed lyrical, “… There would be actual turds coming out of your taps”, as well as out of her mouth.
God really does move in mysterious ways.
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