The unfolding flag wars have made for intriguing viewing for those of us not easily triggered. Reactions have split almost entirely down party lines: either full-throated support for “Operation Raise the Colours” or outright hostility. Kemi Badenoch has “welcomed” the flags and, perhaps predictably, Nigel Farage has said that “Union flags and the Cross of St George should and will fly across the country.” Equally obviously, Guardian commentator John Harris has written that he finds that the “rapid spread of these banners is unsettling.” Birmingham, Tower Hamlets and Brighton and Hove councils have fallen over themselves to assert that they will take the flags down.
One of the most intriguing stories has been that of a flag painted on the side of St John the Baptist church in Lincoln. The church’s vicar, the Reverend Rachel Heskins is perhaps a Guardian reader, for she is quoted as saying, like Harris, that she finds the flags “unsettling.” Even more fascinating is Rev Heskins’ comment that the graffiti “doesn’t represent us and what goes on inside the church.” That gives me pause.
The graffiti in question is of the flag of St George — England’s patron saint, recognised on April 23 in the Church of England’s own liturgical calendar. The Common Worship lectionary provides dedicated prayers and readings for his feast day. How have we got ourselves into a situation where a vicar can reject our patron saint’s flag as having nothing to do with the church she administers, rather than seizing the chance to reclaim it as a pastoral or evangelical response?
We have a fuller interview with the Reverend Heskins which helps us to understand her thinking. She tells the Manchester Evening News that the flag played into her feeling that “we are crossing a line from patriotism to nationalism in some instances.” She is content for people to wave the flag for “the women’s football in the summer and the Euros” and then adds the curious:
But I think if I was to ask the people who vandalised the church hall what it was they were most proud about being English, what was it they were most proud about to be English, I would be very interested to hear their response.
I’d hope that any of us, in asking a fellow human being a direct question, would be interested in hearing their response. But I am not quite convinced that Reverend Haskins hasn’t already made up her mind as to what the retort might be. After a peculiarly secular list of reasons to be cheerful about being English (Shakespeare, some scientists — unmistakably Christian cultural artefacts and figures like King James Bible, Milton, Bunyan and Blake are noticeable by their absence), she enigmatically offers,
But I suspect that’s not the reason we’ve suddenly had these St George’s Crosses appear on our high streets, roundabouts, and church walls. I think it’s something else.
She then concludes that the flagging is “divisive.” People are entitled to put up flags on their own property (ta for the permission, Rev!) but not on “on public property and churches, in public spaces, without consultation and without having a conversation.” I wonder if this is the kind of “conversation” the Reverend has already modelled? One entered into with the answer supplied in advance, and her interlocutors’ motives presumed rather than heard.
It may appear as if I am being harsh on the Reverend and underestimating the shock and dismay of waking up and finding that one’s Grade II listed building has been spray painted. It may be that I am mischievous in wondering what the Reverend’s reaction to graffiti would have been if you’d asked her about “street art” before the current flagging craze. Would she perhaps agree with the Student Christian Movement, who assert that street art’s power lies in its unavoidable presence in public spaces, forcing engagement with provocative, often political messages that challenge viewers beyond the curated comfort of galleries?
The Student Christian Movement positions “street artists” not as divisive but as bringing communities and artists together. Would they say the same of the flaggers? Or would they dismiss them as, to use the Reverend Haskins’ word, “vandals” and see their artistic outputs as something to “scrub off.”
There’s something in seeing a Church of England vicar reduced to uttering the language of the man on the Clapham Omnibus that reminds me deliciously of Dad’s Army’s Reverend Timothy Farthing, the vicar of St Aldhelm’s Church in Walmington-on-Sea, and his even more excitable lackey, Maurice Yeatman the Verger. Perhaps the sighting of the St George Cross was accompanied by a cry of, “Your Reverence, there has been a shocking act done against our wall!”
I also wonder, must a vicar follow the example of such pernicious personalities as the mysteriously well-known Naurinder Kaur — who described the flaggers as (ahem) “Thick AF” — or the MP Nadia Whittome, who posted about the “demonisation” of migrants while dismissing protesters as “violent mobs”? People of faith might better take example from He they (and I) believe to be very God.
I would be genuinely interested to witness a dialogue between clergy of the Church of England and a group of flaggers
When addressing throngs made up of sinners, Jesus uses terms like “multitudes” or “crowd”, but never derogatory terms like “mob.” Jesus does not use “vandals” or similar expressions to describe criminals. His language toward wrongdoers, including those who might be considered criminals (e.g., thieves, adulteresses), focuses on compassion, spiritual regeneration, or calls to repentance rather than pejorative labels.
I would be genuinely interested to witness a dialogue between clergy of the Church of England and a group of flaggers as to their shared and conflicting understandings of the meaning of the St George’s flag. Traditionally, St George was the subject of Mummers plays, those charming folk dramas often staged around Easter or Christmas by working people in villages, featuring the heroic saint battling a nemesis, symbolizing good defeating evil. It is not beyond the bounds of the possible that the instinctive and compulsive flagging we have seen is itself a plea to see someone tackle the firedrake of what they perceive to be our present chaos — seemingly uncontrolled borders, reports of children being sexually assaulted by migrants, other cultures celebrated as their own is labelled “divisive.”
It is not as if Anglican churches have fought shy of flaunting political garlands. Progress flags are often displayed during Pride month, presumably to the chagrin of some in the congregations and occasionally ripped down by locals. The Progress flag is by no means uncontroversial even within the LGBTQ+ community, and even the combination of those letters is hotly contested. As a member of the Anglican community who is also a gay man with a gender critical outlook, I do not feel welcomed or included when confronted with a flag that represents a homophobic ideology. How many LGB Christians have felt that these flags appear on and within Churches “without consultation and without having a conversation” with us?
I am not naïve enough to think that no bad actors are involved in flagging activities. A video widely circulated on social media showed some flaggers racially abusing a woman in a headscarf, which has led to an arrest. But surely to tar all flaggers with the same brush as this person makes the same error as suggesting that all migrants are sex abusers after one is charged?
I know from social media posts by my own church friends that anxiety over the flags is not only Reverend Haskins’ preserve. My provocation to them would be that they meet the challenge of the flaggers with the same hand of inclusivity they offer migrants and sexual minorities. Why not invite flaggers into church to chat about St George? Read through a Mummers play with them? Get to understand the feeling of incipient chaos that may be driving the flagging phenomenon? Perhaps no flaggers would come — but at least the church would have risen above tribal goading, and the invitation itself would have been an act of faith.
