I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and that also meant I grew up with a particular vocabulary.
We talked about putting Jesus on the throne and making Him King. We sang about taking back what the devil had stolen, often alongside prayers for Britain to turn back to God. In services and conferences we were taught about taking the UK for Jesus. Winning the nation for Christ, advancing the kingdom, taking territory, pulling down strongholds, an army rising up, and fighting the enemy were ideas that came up a lot.
I still understand that language and I still believe in everything we were trying to say with it. I remain thoroughly Pentecostal and also evangelical, committed to the authority of Scripture, the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, conversion, revival, prayer, spiritual warfare, and the proclamation of the gospel. And I believe, without apology, in the uniqueness and exclusivity of Jesus Christ. He isn’t one way among many. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Something Is Happening to Our Language
But over recent years I’ve noticed some of the language I grew up with turning up in political speeches and rallies, and in the clips that circulate afterwards on social media. Much of that vocabulary now carries political and cultural meanings that weren’t in view when most of us first learned it. They’re still good words. But context matters even more than it used to.
“Take back Britain” can mean something quite different depending on who says it. “Make this a Christian country” might describe a longing for revival – or a programme for political power. “Advance the kingdom” once meant preaching Christ, serving the poor, and seeing broken lives healed and transformed. Now it can sometimes sound like acquiring cultural and political control. And “put Jesus on the throne”, previously meant as a declaration of worship and heart allegiance, can become tangled up with the idea that Christians need to capture the institutions of society (I say this as someone who has taught for many years on the importance of Christians making a difference across all streams of society and culture).
There are reasons it’s happening now. People are anxious about what kind of country Britain is becoming, and populist politics has learned to use heritage and faith to draw lines between ‘us’ and ‘them’. And when one’s congregation is shrinking or seeming influence diminishing, perhaps the offer of political power as a route back to cultural prominence can be very tempting.
I Still Want Jesus at the Centre
I’m still very happy to say I want Jesus at the centre. But the words have to mean something.
Putting Jesus at the centre means more than attaching His name to the things I already wanted. He gets to challenge me – my politics, my nationalism, my economics and ambitions, the way I think about power and treat the stranger, and how I regard people who disagree with me, including the ones whose ideas I’d honestly rather see defeated. When He becomes the centre, everything else in my worldview has to move.
Praying for Britain
I long to see millions of people in this country come to faith in Jesus. I pray regularly for nationwide revival and for the Holy Spirit to move in power.
But wanting everyone to follow Jesus freely is a different thing from using power to make everyone live like Christians.
The gospel is an invitation to repentance, faith, and discipleship. You can’t legislate conversion or coerce worship. God’s word to Zerubbabel still stands: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6).
So when I hear talk of “making Britain Christian again”, I want to know what’s meant. If it means gathering enough cultural or political power to impose Christianity on people who don’t believe it, then we’re talking about something else entirely. If it’s a prayer for whole communities and cities to be changed by the power of the gospel, I’m in. Telling those two apart is where the spiritual gift of discernment is absolutely vital.
Spiritual Warfare
Having grown up Pentecostal, I’ve never found the language of spiritual warfare embarrassing. It’s biblical. There are spiritual powers and principalities, and there is real evil and a real enemy.
But the New Testament places a vital qualification around all of it. Paul writes, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). The moment our spiritual warfare produces a flesh-and-blood enemy, something has gone badly wrong. Treating culture-war opponents or political rivals as demonic forces to be crushed means picking up the very weapons Paul says we don’t fight with (see 2 Corinthians 10:4).
I’ve spent years in dialogue and debate as a Christian apologist, and the atheist isn’t my enemy. Neither is the Muslim, the secularist, the person on the political left or right, or anyone whose morality or lifestyle I strongly disagree with.
I may believe someone is deeply mistaken or seek to dismantle their ideas. I may preach something entirely contrary to what they believe or how they live. Evangelism itself assumes real disagreement – if I believe Jesus is the only way to the Father, then I inevitably believe some other claims about God aren’t true. But disagreement, even about ultimate truth, never gives me permission to dehumanise another person. Tolerance has always assumed people with real convictions – otherwise there’d be nothing to tolerate. And the gospel then goes a step further and asks me to love the person I’m trying to persuade.
What Kingdom Advance Looks Like
If Christians gain political influence, or more of us hold powerful positions, has the kingdom advanced? Possibly. But being close to power doesn’t, by itself, show that the kingdom of God is spreading.
The only reliable way I know to understand the kingdom is to look at the King. And our King washes His disciples’ feet, touches lepers, welcomes outsiders, confronts hypocrisy, and cares for the poor. He tells us to love our enemies, and then does exactly that with His own. In the wilderness He was shown all the kingdoms of the world and refused to take them on the terms offered (see Matthew 4:8-10). Standing before Pilate, He said plainly, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). And He conquered by laying down His life on a cross.
In Defence of Nuance
Nuance is sometimes treated as a sign that someone has lost their nerve, when often it’s exactly what deep conviction requires. I’d say letting a political ideology rewrite your theology is a far bigger compromise.
Because I believe Jesus is the only way, I need to be careful that the Jesus I proclaim really is Jesus. And if He is King, I have to keep distinguishing His kingdom from every earthly one, which is why I’d rather persuade people than gain the power to coerce them.
I believe the Church should have a voice in public life. And Christians can and should press to uphold the Judaeo-Christian values and laws that protect the vulnerable and honour human dignity. But using the state to enforce religious conformity or a national identity is a betrayal of the cross.
So I want the Church’s voice to sound unmistakably like Jesus, whichever political faction happens to be courting it. But we need to be honest that, in Britain right now, the most aggressive hijacking of Christian language is coming from populist nationalism.
Reclaiming Our Words
Christian words and imagery are being borrowed, and the name of Jesus is being attached to causes that deserve careful scrutiny. But I’m not ready to hand over the language I grew up with. I don’t want to stop talking about the kingdom because someone else has politicised the word, and I’ll keep praying for Britain to come to Christ even if someone confuses evangelism with nationalism.
But at a time when Christian language can so easily be absorbed into nationalism or the pursuit of power, we have to be clear about what we mean by it, and sometimes spell out what we don’t. Ours is a kingdom whose King turned down the kingdoms of the world, and ours is a warfare that is not against flesh and blood.
For me, none of this requires becoming any less Pentecostal or evangelical, or less sure of the gospel. I think it just means using Christian words in a way Jesus would recognise.