Driving the A1 from north to south today, the road told a story. Each bridge became a chapter. St George’s crosses and Union Flags hung across the railings, straining in the wind. The further I drove, the more the story repeated itself: bridge after bridge, flag after flag. Not the cheerful colours of a fête. Not the joy of a football summer. These flags were different. They were heavy with meaning, carrying a tale of protest, frustration, and fear.
That story must be heard with compassion. The people who hang these flags are not villains. They are people like you and me, young and old, parents and grandparents, drawn from across the social spectrum. Many feel ignored. They read of hotels filled with asylum seekers while their own families can’t get housing. They wait in overstretched hospitals. They read of crimes committed by a minority of those who have been welcomed to our shores, and they fear what that might mean for the safety of their own families. They watch their communities change faster than they can keep up with. To hang a flag across a bridge is to cry out that they still belong here. That cry is real. It deserves to be heard.
But the story cannot stop there. Because flags are never just fabric. History has written darker chapters before. In the 1970s the National Front marched under the St George’s Cross. Later the BNP and the EDL claimed it as their own. The Union Flag too was weaponised in Northern Ireland, flown over estates and painted on kerbstones, a message of territory: you belong here, and you do not. As the Independent said, flags can carry an air of menace. The Guardian warns this is a dangerous moment as far-right voices grow bolder. The Washington Post has reported that flags like these now front anti-immigration protests across the country, not as signs of unity but as marks of exclusion.
History tells us where such stories can end. In Nazi Germany, the swastika flew from every building. Churches were told to salute it. Many complied, even creating a movement known as the German Christians. They claimed Hitler was chosen by God, they put the swastika alongside the Cross, and they twisted the Gospel into a nationalist creed that justified exclusion and hatred.
But not all Christians bowed. A movement arose called the Confessing Church. In 1934 they met in Barmen and issued a declaration that still rings true today: Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear. In other words: the Cross cannot be claimed by any ideology, any flag, any nationalist project. The Cross is not a prop for politics. It is not a tool for exclusion. Whenever people try to lay the Cross upon the flag, as though the sacrifice of Christ could be wrapped inside national colours and made to serve one people alone, they are committing idolatry. As Christians, we must resist this. The Cross judges every nation; it does not belong to any one of them.
Go further back. In the Roman Empire, every legion marched under the eagle. It was more than decoration; it was a sacred symbol of Caesar’s power and of Rome’s claim to ultimate loyalty. Citizens and soldiers were required to offer incense before it, to confess that Caesar was Lord. For Christians, this was a line they could not cross. Their Lord was Jesus Christ, not Caesar. Their banner was a Cross, not an eagle.
And many paid with their lives for that refusal. The early martyrs were not executed for private piety, but because they would not let the empire’s symbols and demands take the place of their allegiance to Christ. They knew what we must never forget: that to let a political or national emblem claim divine authority is idolatry.
In Britain today there are those who talk of Christian Britain. They try to lay the Cross upon the Union Flag or the flag of St George, as though the sacrifice of Christ could be wrapped inside national colours and made to serve one people alone. They claim Christianity as a justification for suspicion of the outsider, as though faith were a tribal possession. But the Cross belongs to Christ alone. It is the sign of his sacrifice for all people, not the badge of one nation. To let it be co-opted for nationalist ends is to betray the Gospel itself.
And that is where our story must lead. Because the same temptation faces us on the bridges of the A1 from north to south today. Nationalists talk of Christian Britain, trying to lay the Cross upon the flag to make it serve their politics. They claim it as proof that suspicion of the outsider is holy, that exclusion is virtuous. But the Cross is not theirs to wield. It is not a tribal emblem. It is not a border post. It is not a licence for fear.
The Cross belongs to Christ. And Christ says: When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself (John 12:32). Not some. Not only those who look like us. All. Paul says: There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). The Cross is God’s way of tearing down the walls of hostility, not raising them higher.
As I drove beneath those bridges on the A1 from north to south today, I knew the flags were telling one story: a story of fear, loss, and division. But the Cross tells another: a story of welcome, hope, and love. One story builds walls. The other tears them down. One story passes with the wind. The other stands forever.
And here is the challenge: under which banner will we stand? The flags on the bridges will one day fall, their cloth frayed and forgotten. But the Cross on the hill endures, a sign not of one nation but of a kingdom without borders. The flags divide neighbour from neighbour. The Cross gathers enemies and makes them family. The flags boast of strength. The Cross reveals the power of sacrifice.
Christians cannot serve both. To stand under the Cross is to refuse every counterfeit banner, however loudly it waves. To stand under the Cross is to resist the fear that drives people apart. To stand under the Cross is to love our nation not by narrowing it, but by serving it with justice, with compassion, with truth.
The banners of men will rise and fall. But the banner of Christ endures. And the call is simple, and costly: choose your banner, and live beneath it. As for me, I will not bow to any other flag; I choose to stand beneath the banner of the Cross.
Musings of a City Priest 
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