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How ‘Cultural Christianity’ Weaponizes Faith for Politics

How ‘Cultural Christianity’ Weaponizes Faith for Politics

Last updated on: September 22, 2026 at 7:28 pm by Duncan Edward Pile

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How ‘Cultural Christianity’ Weaponizes Faith for Politics 2026-09-22T19:28:43+01:00 Duncan Edward Pile

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The Rise of Cultural Christianity

‘Cultural Christianity’ is a warped expression of the Christian faith that is less about following Jesus and more about dressing national culture in religious robes to give that culture added legitimacy. Typically, this happens when that culture has become extreme and wants to add religious authority to its arsenal.

I live in the UK, and this movement is swiftly gathering momentum. They call on the name of Christ while acting in ways Jesus never would, targeting people of colour and people who follow faiths other than Christianity. I hear blatant calls for a white, homogeneous society and hatred of both Jews and Muslims, stirred up by the far-right’s so-called ‘patriotic’ message.

Leaders of the far-right understand that if they can harness working-class people’s sense of nationalism and pepper it with religious terminology, their movement can gather a head of steam. The prominent racist, Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, organised a public carol service called “Unite the Kingdom” in December 2025. It was billed as an event to “put Christ back into Christmas,” but hatred hid beneath the religious-seeming:

In emails leading up to the event, Yaxley-Lennon described the service as a “beacon of hope amid the chaos of mass migration and cultural erosion”. By cultural erosion, he means that white, British culture is the only legitimate expression of Britishness. Similarly, he stated the event was meant to be the Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan’s, “ultimate dread.”
The December carol service was heavily curated to appear respectable, but it was directly tied to the divisive rhetoric of the wider “Unite the Kingdom” rallies Yaxley-Lennon also organised. At those rallies, speakers demanded that Muslims be removed from all positions of authority in Britain, and Muslim attire was mimicked and mocked on stage. Yaxley-Lennon also openly advocated for “remigration” (mass deportation) of Muslims.

Respected Christian denominations and leaders, including the Church of England, heavily criticised the event, accusing Yaxley-Lennon of co-opting Christian symbols such as the cross of Christ, and perverting the Christmas message to promote a divisive agenda and Christian nationalism.

The use of religious symbology and terms does not make Yaxley-Lennon’s circus a genuine expression of Christianity. The Hebrew scriptures are clear that immigrants should be treated as native-born citizens, and Jesus himself was always inclusive, reaching out to and including the Samaritans, who were the political and religious enemies of the Jews. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus implicitly criticises the two Jewish men who ignored a man lying injured in the road, and praises the Samaritan for helping him. He was about bringing down barriers rather than erecting them, and the Gospel message does the same. Galatians 3:28:

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

These far-right groups and the political forces they are aligned with present a message of hatred, mistrust, and division based on skin colour, ethnicity, and religion, which, as far as I am concerned, is anti-Christ.

The Heart of Darkness

As bad as things are here in the UK, we are miles behind the true home of this perverted version of Christianity – the United States. The rhetoric of division is rife in US Evangelicalism, embedded in the thinking and teaching of church leaders and congregants. The connection between this form of religion and politics is much more established than it is here, with ‘pastors’ like Douglas Wilson having direct influence over the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hesgeth, for example.

Wilson wants the US government to scrap the 19th Amendment (which would remove women’s right to vote) and to reintroduce sodomy laws that would legalize the execution of homosexuals, among other reprehensible views. Far from being a single bad apple, he is one of many like-minded ‘pastors’ who fight for Christian Nationalism.

Charlie Kirk was a classic example of a cultural Christian, citing the name of Jesus and associating Christ with some truly un-Christlike views:

That the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a “huge mistake”.
That high-achieving black women, including Michelle Obama and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, “had to go steal a white person’s slot to be taken somewhat seriously”
That a hidden elite is deliberately replacing white populations in Western countries with non-white immigrants to achieve political control. This is a far-right conspiracy theory called the “Great Replacement” theory

When this sort of agenda is labeled Christian, even when it contradicts the life, teaching, and death of Jesus, its followers are “cultural Christians”, rather than followers of Christ.

The bottom line is that MAGA Christianity, Christian nationalism, and cultural Christianity (the lowercase ‘c’ is deliberate) do great harm to the cause of the Gospel and smear the name of Jesus. To counter this devastating trajectory, Christians who follow Christ need to speak out against false expressions of Christianity, build inclusive communities that reflect the love of Jesus, and invite everyone in. Otherwise, the world will watch on and believe the Christless Christianity they witness in the MAGA movement and other similar groups is the real deal, and reject it, missing the opportunity to discover the love of Jesus for themselves.

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