Looking Beyond Brexit: Bringing the Country Back Together

By Graham Tomlin

The referendum may have rent the country asunder like no other issue in recent memory, but there are significant resonances with events in the past. Almost 500 years ago, in a sixteenth-century version of Article 50, Britain made a break from Europe, declaring the King – rather than the Pope – Supreme Head of the English Church.

The split did not end the story. In the turmoil that followed, ‘fake news’ spread, families were divided and blood was shed.

However, an attempt was made to find a peaceable solution. In this brief but powerful book, Graham Tomlin draws on that history to remind us of the age-old political and spiritual task of harmonizing past and future, identity and openness, the local and the universal. The events of the last three years have shown how polarization can affect even those who are naturally generous and accommodating; the challenge of rising above division, of loving our neighbours – and even our enemies – has never been greater for us all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SPCK
• Release date: Nov 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780281084289

Graham Tomlin

Graham Tomlin (PhD, Exeter University) is principal of St. Mellitus College, London. He taught on Martin Luther and the Reformation in the theology faculty of the University of Oxford for eight years. He is the author, among many other publications, of The Power of the Cross: Theology and the Death of Christ in Paul, Luther and Pascal, The Provocative Church, Luther and His World and the Archbishop of Canterbury?s Lent Book for 2014: Looking Through the Cross.

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Looking Beyond Brexit

Graham Tomlin is Bishop of Kensington.

First published in Great Britain in 2019

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

36 Causton Street

London SW1P 4ST

www.spck.org.uk

Copyright © Graham Tomlin 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 (inclusive language version, 2001 edition) by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, a division of Hodder Headline Ltd. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of International Bible Society.

UK trademark number 1448790.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 281 08427 2

eBook ISBN 978 0 281 08428 9

Typeset by The Book Guild Ltd, Leicester, UK

First printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press

Subsequently digitally reprinted in Great Britain

eBook by The Book Guild Ltd, Leicester, UK

To all my friends who voted

either Leave or Remain

Contents

‘Britain goes it alone’

A British solution

Brexit and learning from the Reformation

The local and the universal

How to love your neighbour

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

‘Britain goes it alone’

It’s a headline that could have been written nearly 500 years ago. For this is not the first time Britain has proposed breaking away from a big pan-European project, seeking to build a new