Category: Inclusion

Holocaust Memorial Day

Holocaust Memorial Day calls us into a sacred kind of remembering, not distant or abstract, but close to the heart, where names, faces, and stories matter. We remember the six million Jewish lives stolen, alongside Roma, disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, political dissidents, and so many others whose humanity was denied. We don’t remember to wallow in despair, we remember because love demands truth, and because forgetting is the first step towards repeating.

Scripture doesn’t offer easy comfort here, but it does offer presence. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit,” the psalmist writes, and we cling to that promise for every life shattered by hatred. The cry of Micah still confronts us with holy clarity: God requires us “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Remembrance, then, is not passive, it’s a call to live differently.

We hold the tension between grief and hope. We name the darkness honestly, because anything less would betray the truth, yet we also dare to believe with John’s gospel that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” That light flickers in every act of resistance to hatred, every stand against prejudice, every choice to protect the dignity of another.

Today, we remember with reverence, we lament with sincerity, and we commit ourselves again to compassion, justice, and courageous love, trusting that God’s memory is deeper than ours, and that no life, no story, no tear is ever forgotten.

The Kingdom That Sings

Psalm 47 reads like a burst of fresh air, the kind that catches you by surprise and leaves you smiling before you’ve worked out why. It opens with this bold invitation to the whole world; every nation, every people, to clap their hands and shout with joy because the Lord most high is awesome, the great king over all the earth. There’s no sense of exclusivity here. It’s a psalm flung wide open, gathering everyone in.

As you sit with it, you can feel the music running through the lines. God is lifted up with shouts of joy and the sound of trumpets, and the whole psalm seems to sway with that confidence. At its heart is a quiet, steady reassurance that the world isn’t drifting without purpose. God reigns. Even in seasons when life feels uncertain, the psalmist calls us back to trust, almost like someone placing a gentle hand on your shoulder and saying, Look up.

One of the most moving threads in the psalm is its vision of unity. The nobles of the nations assemble … for the kingship belongs to God. It imagines former strangers standing together, not because they’ve all agreed on everything, but because they’re held by something greater than themselves. In a world like ours, so often split by fear and noise, that picture feels both ancient and startlingly hopeful.

When you approach Psalm 47 as more than a song, it becomes a reminder of your place in a wider, joyful story. It tells you that even when your own praises feel quiet, you’re still part of a kingdom that sings on your behalf. It invites you to breathe, to trust, and to let your heart rise with the music that’s already playing.

Chill About “Happy Holidays”

People don’t say “Happy Holidays” because they’re ashamed of Christmas. They say it because several holidays occur around the same time – Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year, and others. Using an inclusive greeting simply recognises the reality of multiple celebrations happening at once. Yet somehow, this has been framed as a cultural threat.

In truth, the areas often criticised for saying “Happy Holidays” tend to be more economically productive, globally connected, and culturally diverse. People there interact daily with neighbours, colleagues, and strangers who don’t look, worship, or live exactly as they do. Exposure to different traditions isn’t threatening, it’s normal. Acknowledging others’ celebrations doesn’t diminish your own.

Graphics or narratives that suggest otherwise aren’t educational. They are carefully packaged branding, a form of grievance marketing designed to create division rather than understanding. When such messaging forms the bulk of someone’s information diet, it shapes their perception of the world in a narrow and fearful way.

Loving Christmas and recognising why “Happy Holidays” exists aren’t contradictory. They can coexist comfortably, reflecting both personal tradition and social awareness. Inclusivity doesn’t erase identity; it affirms that in a shared world, multiple stories and celebrations can exist side by side.

So this season, there’s no need to choose between joy and acknowledgment. You can celebrate what you love while respecting others’ traditions. In doing so, the message is clear: kindness, curiosity, and understanding matter more than cultural grievance. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Keeping Christmas Truly Open

A carol service is an unconditional celebration of the love of God at Christmas; it’s a moment when music, scripture, and the soft glow of hope gather us into something far bigger than ourselves. I should know, because I’ve been organising them for years, although not in retirement. Those occasions always felt like an embrace. People arrived carrying the weight of the year, and somehow the familiar melodies, the gentle readings, and the story of a child born into vulnerability softened us all. There was no agenda except love, no priority except welcome, and no message except the astonishing truth that light still breaks into the world.

That’s why carol services must never be used for political purposes. They aren’t a platform to stir culture wars, promote nationalism, or draw battle lines between “us” and “them”. The moment you do that, the music stops being a gift and becomes a tool, and something holy is lost. Christmas speaks of peace on earth, goodwill to all, and that means everyone: neighbour, stranger, sceptic, seeker, and the person who disagrees with us completely.

A carol service is at its best when it gathers people without judgement, reminding us that divine love isn’t territorial, possessive, or partisan. It’s generous, surprising, and endlessly welcoming – and we honour it most when we let it stay that way.

Human Rights Day

Human rights aren’t abstract principles tucked away in treaties, they’re the everyday promise that every person is worthy of dignity, safety, and the chance to flourish. When we talk about rights, we’re really talking about people: children who deserve to learn without fear, women who deserve to walk home without being threatened, migrants who deserve compassion rather than suspicion, and communities who deserve to live without violence, exclusion, or silence. At its heart, human rights declare that no one is less than anyone else, and that simple truth still has the power to shake the world.

Yet we know how fragile that truth can be. In a world that often feels loud with anger and shrill with division, it’s easy to slip into cynicism, to shrug and say this is just how things are. But Human Rights Day nudges us to lift our heads, to notice the places where injustice still stalks the edges of our lives, and to realise that change begins not only with parliaments or courts, but with the way we choose to see one another. Every act of kindness, every moment of listening, every time we insist that someone’s story matters, we honour the promise made in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It isn’t naïve to believe in this promise. It’s brave. It’s necessary. And it’s deeply hopeful. Because whenever we stand up for someone else’s dignity, we strengthen our own. Whenever we refuse to look away, we help build a world that’s gentler, fairer, and more human. On this day, and every day, we can choose that world, and it starts with how we treat the person right in front of us.

Christmas Love not Nationalism

Christmas should be one of the gentlest moments in our shared cultural life, a season of light breaking into darkness, of compassion stretching itself wide enough to hold everyone. Yet in recent years, it’s been unsettling to watch Christian nationalists try to hijack it. They frame Christmas as a symbol of cultural supremacy, a line in the sand, a test of loyalty to a particular version of identity. It turns something soft into something sharp, something generous into something guarded, and it jars with the spirit of the season.

Because at its heart, Christmas has never been about drawing boundaries. It’s about hospitality, humility, and a love that refuses to stay small or confined. It tells a story of welcome that begins on the margins, in obscurity, in vulnerability. When people attempt to pull Christmas into a narrative of exclusion or cultural fear, they aren’t defending it, they’re distorting it. They miss the quiet courage of the story, the way it invites us to see strangers as neighbours and neighbours as cherished parts of a shared human family.

The good news is that Christmas still holds its shape. It keeps nudging us toward kindness, solidarity, and the courage to imagine a broader, softer way of being together. And no matter how loudly others try to claim it as a weapon in a culture war, it keeps slipping through their fingers, returning again to warmth, generosity, and the beautifully simple call to make room for one another.

Lifting the two-child benefit cap

Lifting the two-child benefit cap is often painted as indulgent and unfair, yet it carries clear social and economic advantages that ripple far beyond individual families. It recognises that children aren’t responsible for the circumstances they’re born into, and that society’s strength is measured by how we treat its most vulnerable.

Removing the cap helps prevent families from slipping into deep poverty; it gives parents room to breathe, make wiser choices, and build a more stable home. When families aren’t constantly fighting scarcity, children thrive: better nutrition, better school attendance, and a calmer emotional climate. Those outcomes echo into adulthood, breaking patterns of hardship rather than entrenching them.

Economically, it’s a long-term investment. Child poverty costs the UK billions every year in lost potential, higher health needs, and greater strain on public services. Supporting families early reduces those pressures. And it restores a principle that many feel had been eroded: benefits should meet actual need, not punish family size.

Whose Flag Is It?

The Raise the Colours campaign in the UK (Summer 2025) was presented as a simple celebration of English identity, yet the evidence surrounding its organisation, its supporters, and the reactions of affected communities pointed to something more troubling.

Far-right groups, including Britain First, donated flags and promoted the movement, creating an atmosphere in which a patriotic gesture was easily co-opted into a display of dominance. Councils and community groups warned that the campaign risked intimidating already marginalised communities, especially where its supporters had been linked to anti-migrant activism and street intimidation.

Reports from Birmingham and other towns described residents feeling unsettled as groups of men arrived to plant flags, sometimes accompanied by harassment or racist language. Anti-racist organisations called the movement a coordinated attempt to unsettle asylum seekers, migrants, and Muslims, noting that it often appeared alongside anti-migrant protests. This sense of threat wasn’t imagined: attacks on mosques involved English and British flags, folded into a wider narrative of Christian-nationalist hostility rather than civic pride.

Surveys showed the depth of mistrust. Around half of ethnic minority adults in the UK said the St George’s flag had become a racist symbol, with even higher numbers among British Muslims. When a symbol was experienced this way by the very people it claimed to represent, its widespread and unsolicited display felt less like celebration, and more like a warning.

Taken together, these reports, perceptions, and patterns made it clear that Raise the Colours wasn’t simply about patriotism; for many, it carried the weight of exclusion, pressure, and fear.

International Men’s Day

International Men’s Day, celebrated each year on 19 November, offers a gentle pause in the calendar, inviting us to look with honesty, compassion, and gratitude at the diverse experiences of men and boys. It isn’t about elevating men above anyone else, nor is it a counterpoint to the vital work of International Women’s Day; instead, it’s a moment to acknowledge the responsibilities, pressures, joys, and vulnerabilities that shape men’s lives, and to encourage healthier, kinder ways of being in the world.

Too often, men are expected to be unshakeable: strong without faltering, providers without rest, problem-solvers who mustn’t admit fear, sadness, or loneliness. These expectations may look admirable on the surface, but they quietly restrict the full range of human expression. International Men’s Day encourages men to speak with honesty, to seek help when they need it, and to recognise that strength and tenderness aren’t opposites, but threads woven together into a fuller, freer life.

The day also calls attention to the relationships that help men flourish: friendships that allow vulnerability, families shaped by love rather than duty, workplaces where asking for support isn’t seen as weakness, and communities where men help to lift others up. It celebrates positive role models, those who show that empathy, fairness, and courage can coexist; those who challenge harmful stereotypes; those who raise boys with gentleness and integrity.

At its heart, International Men’s Day is an invitation towards wholeness. It’s a reminder that every man, whatever his story, is at his best when he’s allowed to be fully human: strong and soft, steady and questioning, responsible and deeply loved.

Whitewashing History

Whitewashing history always begins with a quiet stroke of omission, a gentle brushing-over of the uncomfortable, until the smoothed surface looks almost natural. Yet beneath that surface is the truth: history isn’t tidy, and the stories we inherit are often shaped as much by what’s left out as by what’s included. When nations tell their own story, there’s a temptation to look back with soft light and forgiving eyes, to protect a sense of pride or continuity. But when the past is edited to soothe rather than illuminate, we lose something essential: the ability to recognise the full humanity of those who came before us, and to understand how the present was shaped by their lives, their suffering, and their resilience.

One clear example of history being white-washed is the way many British schoolbooks for decades described the British Empire as a mostly benevolent force that “brought civilization”, while quietly downplaying or ignoring the brutality of colonial rule, the famines exacerbated by imperial policies, the suppression of independence movements, and the economic extraction that enriched Britain at the expense of colonized peoples. This softening of the truth didn’t just distort the past, it also shaped how generations understood power, identity, and responsibility, drifting away from the full, hard reality of what empire actually meant for those who lived under it.

Whitewashing doesn’t always come from malice; often it’s a product of the stories people were themselves told, passed down like heirlooms with cracks unnoticed or unspoken. But good intentions don’t undo the harm. When harmful truths are obscured, the voices of those who suffered are pushed further into the margins. Their experiences become footnotes, or disappear altogether. Without confronting those realities, we risk repeating patterns of inequality and injustice, because we never fully saw them in the first place.

Telling the whole truth doesn’t diminish a nation; it deepens it. It invites humility, maturity, and a more expansive understanding of who “we” are. When we face history honestly, with all its light and shadow, we gain the chance to grow into something better, something truer. And perhaps the most hopeful part of all is that it’s never too late to tell the fuller story, and to listen to the voices that were once left out.