In Hoc Signo Vinces

After I saw the essay I linked yesterday om "Crusadesmaxxing", I went looking for the conventional wisdom and quickly found it:

In an open letter, bishops, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and leaders from the Methodist, Baptist, Evangelical, Salvation Army and Catholic traditions said they were “deeply concerned about the co-opting of Christian symbols, particularly the cross, during Saturday’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally.”

The signatories acknowledged frustrations among protesters and affirmed free speech but stressed that aspects of the march carried “racist, anti-Muslim and far right elements".

. . . The letter concluded with a call for unity: “As Christian leaders we are proud of our country and commit ourselves to work with others building a more United Kingdom where the values of love, humility and compassion shine through in every community; and we do so unapologetically in the name of Jesus Christ.”

It's odd that "Christian leaders" seem to be so unfamiliar with Christian history. Did Cromwell, who did so much to establish the principle of Parliamentary supremacy, co-opt Christian values when he made his war cry "God and our Strength"? Did Winston Churchill co-opt Christian values when he hosted an Anglican church service that FDR attended on board the HMS Prince of Wales during the August, 1941 Atlantic Conference? Certinly it was his goal to ingratiate himself with Roosevelt and get him into the war by, among other things, stressing their joint Anglican background.

It's a commonplace that people fall back on religious faith in times of crisis, as well as to call on God to defeat their enemies, and Scripture in fact encourages this: Psalm 17:8–9:

Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings from the wicked who despoil me, my deadly enemies who surround me.

Psalm 43:1:

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people; from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me!

Psalm 46:2:

God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress.

Psalm 71:1:

In you, LORD, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame.

Psalm 119:114:

You are my refuge and shield; in your word I hope.

I think it's appropriate to put this in a UK context: it's been a tacit but never fully articulated policy by successive UK governments deliberately to import South Asian migrants, frequently Muslim, in response to perceived "labor shortages" since the postwar period. It's very slowly become known that these largely Muslim migrants felt entitled to rape the daughters of working-class native Brits on a systematic basis, and beyond that, it was a tacit but never fully articulated policy by successive UK governments to enable this on one hand and cover it up on the other.

Now, faced with a new and even more severe migration crisis, successive UK governments have chosen not to take any effective action to limit additional waves of largely young, male Muslim migrants, and indeed now to distribute them around the countryside in a way that makes rape of native Brit women even more convenient.

The Brits are a remarkably docile people. Their army during World War I was cavalierly sacrificed, but there were never mutinies comparable to the French army in 1917:

More than one million French soldiers (306,000 in 1914, 334,000 in 1915, 287,000 in 1916, 121,000 in early 1917), out of a population of twenty million males of all ages, had been killed in fighting by early 1917. The losses had weakened the French will to attack.

. . . In April 1917, General Robert Nivelle promised a war-winning decisive victory.

. . . The Nivelle Offensive failed to achieve its strategic objectives, and by 25 April, most of the fighting had ended. On 3 May, the French 2nd Division refused to follow orders to attack, and the mutiny soon spread throughout the army.

. . . By 28 May, mutinies broke out in the 9th Division, 158th Division, 5th Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. By the end of May, more units of the 5th, 6th, 13th, 35th, 43rd, 62nd, 77th and 170th Divisions had mutinied, and revolts occurred in 21 divisions in May. A record 27,000 French soldiers deserted in 1917; the offensive was suspended on 9 May.

The Brits also tolerated severe rationing during World War II:

A typical person’s weekly ration allowed them 1 egg, 2 ounces each of tea and butter, an ounce of cheese, eight ounces of sugar, four ounces of bacon and four ounces of margarine.

But with the end of the war, the rationing simply continued:

Bread was not rationed until after the war ended, but the "National Loaf" of wholemeal bread replaced the white variety. It was found to be mushy, grey and easy to blame for digestion problems. There were four permitted loaves and slicing and wrapping were not permitted. 

What I'm beginnibng to see is a certain level of nervousness by the elites -- Rowan Williams, for example -- that the lower classes are becoming restive, and they're starting to rally around battle flags. In light of what the Brits have tolerated for centuries, often apparently reassuring themselves that bad as they've had it, the workers have had it worse, so we're OK, it will be something of a surprise if the worm actually turns one day. Maybe it's a good sign that a few people are starting to worry.

But it's going to take historic levels of dissatisfaction in the home country -- unlike anything we've seen since 1642 -- for anything to change. But if people are starting to call on tbe Almighty, this could be a sign.