Over the weekend I was invited to speak at REND Bristol, and I left with my sense of hope restored. The conversations, the generosity of thought, and the honesty in the room stayed with me long after the event ended. By Sunday—Christ the King in the liturgical calendar—I found myself making connections I hadn’t expected.
The Church proclaims “Christ is King,” yet that same phrase has been appropriated by far-right groups who weaponise it in service of nationalism. It was a jarring contrast to hold in mind as I listened to the readings and the sermon. The Jesus described in the Gospels bears no resemblance to the figure being used as an emblem of racial and cultural dominance.
A key moment of reframing for me came from Canon David Hermitt. He reminded us that Christ was made in our image—not in the narrow, domesticated image that has dominated Western art and theology, but in the multiplicity of human experience. He pressed us to consider questions that should be basic, yet often go unexamined: Where were the scriptures written? Who wrote them? What did Jesus actually look like?
I was embarrassed by how quickly I realised I could not answer those questions with precision. Then I remembered why: most of us were formed by versions of Christ that had already been filtered, translated and reinterpreted—sometimes intentionally, sometimes uncritically—by those with cultural, political and theological power. Translation from Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic has never been a neutral act. Nor have the editorial decisions to include, exclude, or modify verses, as shown by the differences between modern translations and the King James Version.
But some facts are clear. Christianity in the UK is growing because of migration from Africa and the diaspora. African Pentecostal, Catholic and Orthodox communities are revitalising congregations that would otherwise be shrinking. The oldest extant biblical manuscripts are held in Ethiopia—one of the few African nations never colonised. Even that simple fact disrupts the Western assumption that Christianity is intrinsically European.
And then there’s the question of Christ’s appearance. Texts describing his hair as “woolly” have been quietly softened or reinterpreted across centuries. It is hardly implausible that Jesus, a first-century Middle Eastern Jew, had textured hair. What is implausible is the idea that the pale, straight-haired, blue-eyed images that dominate Western iconography emerged organically rather than through deliberate cultural revision.
As Advent begins, we are invited to look again at what we think we know.
The story of the Holy Family is, at its core, a story of displacement. Mary and Joseph travelled because they had to. They fled because they feared for their child’s safety. They sought refuge where they could find it. The Nativity narrative is not a pastoral tableau; it is a migration story.
So for Christians, perhaps the most honest questions this season are these:
- When we say there is “no room at the inn,” whose exclusion are we defending?
- And when we imagine offering shelter, do we mean it? Not symbolically, but materially and politically?
Advent is supposed to be a season of expectation. But expectation without interrogation simply reproduces whatever story we have inherited—however distorted it may be. Now is a good time to decide which version of the story we want to live by.
Enriched Science 