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“Fashion,” the clothes designer, Bruce Oldfied once said, is, “more usually, a gentle progression of revisited ideas.” He was referring to the fact that styles come and go, and over time, in nuanced ways, simply repeat themselves. The same cyclical understanding can be applied to our political culture, and specifically, the recent intrusion of claims of racism. Both of our major political parties are currently embroiled in controversies over Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. But the problems go much wider, and recently there have been calls for a new national anti-racism campaign akin to the former Anti-Nazi League, and its musical arm, Rock Against Racism. The revival has the support of political figures and musicians including the 1980’s ska music impresario, Jerry Dammers. The Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism were important working-class social movements of the late 1970s. Both were established to counter racial violence and extremism. Sadly, racially motivated violence has not gone away, and reports of race hate crimes increased after the EU referendum. This time around, the call from the campaigners is for a cultural movement to oppose, “all forms of racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.” Discrimination and hostility on the grounds of ethnicity defies two central and defining themes in the Judaeo-Christian tradition: creation and the incarnation. The Abrahamic faiths believe that essential to being made in the likeness of God is that human beings are also created equally. And Christians assert that the incarnation, God’s manifestation in Jesus, implicates all people in God’s plan of salvation. These defining doctrines are embedded in our history. They motivated some of the most powerful social justice movements, from the Diggers and Levellers to Universal Suffrage. Yet, I know, as a descendant of Africans enslaved by Christians in the West Indies, that the church has not always lived up to these biblical beliefs. It took enslaved Christians in the Caribbean to show that unless these views about God are radically pursued, they remain but a fleeting illusion. But, this is not just a story about the church. It’s for all of us. This repeat run does not need to follow the fashions of the past; it affords the opportunity for people of all backgrounds, including people of faith and no faith, to break the cycle."