Last month (December 2025) much was made in the media about Tommy Robinson’s call for people to return to church. He set up a Unite the UK Carol Service, which attracted a thousand people – not the 100 thousand who joined the Unite the Kingdom rally in November, but most churches would be staggered to gather one thousand people. His reason seems to have been that the church was weak and failing, yet mosques were strong and growing, therefore the “indigenous” Anglo-Saxon population should return to church to bolster the numbers and show the “immigrant” population that the “indigenous” population was alive and well. That’s not the whole explanation – it would appear that Tommy Robinson has had a genuine conversion to the living Christ – but it was certainly part of the explanation voiced by the media.
The church and church leaders struggled to know how to respond to this call to people to go to church, – a call that had as much to do with competing against Islam as it did to promote the church. Church leaders were understandably concerned that the church was being hijacked by an anti-immigrant agenda. Yet it didn’t seem right to say to people “no we don’t want you to come” or “we don’t want your kind in here” which would be a whole new kind of prejudice.
As church leaders and church members, our response to Tommy Robinson’s call must be one of welcome and delight when new people come in through our doors, into our church meetings. Some will come in with wrong motives. Some will undoubtedly know very little of the gospel message. Our job is to declare the gospel of Jesus – to let them know that He calls everyone to repentance, and offers forgiveness and salvation to all who do. This Jesus says He will build His church of every nation, tribe and tongue. This Jesus was at one time himself a displaced immigrant in Egypt when on the earth in human flesh. This Jesus says all must submit to His Lordship – either voluntarily in this life or under compulsion in the next.
If men and women start coming through the churches’ doors as a result of Tommy Robinson’s call then rejoice, and grasp the opportunity to tell people about Jesus eagerly with both hands. We’re not in competition with Islam. Jesus is the Lord and the only way to God. There’s no competition. Jesus won all victories on the cross once for all.