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Rarely can the British people have felt so insecure and divided in our sense of who we are and where we belong. Whatever side of the Brexit debate we’re on, this is a situation that goes to the root of our identities and the stories we tell about our place in the world. Like many people in our postcolonial times, I lack a clear sense of identity and belonging. I grew up at the intersection of many different cultures and stories, and I look askance at the identity politics which rage in our fragmented societies. I was born to Presbyterian parents in what was then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. In my early thirties, I converted to Roman Catholicism so that I have a complex religious identity. After a lifetime in Africa I came to live in Bristol with my English husband and four young children in 1988. I resonate deeply with Seamus Heaney’s words. When asked about his experience of living and teaching in America, he said: “I was both home and away. I was an insider of sorts and at the same time situated at an angle to the place.” Perhaps that’s an eloquent description of Britain’s relationship to Europe in these troubled times. Yet whatever happens politically in the next year, we British will remain Europeans. We are part of Europe’s complex and turbulent history, including its wars and empires and power struggles. In a post-Brexit world, I suspect one of our greatest challenges will be to sustain the fragile peace that has prevailed since the Second World War, in a continent whose soil is drenched in the bloodshed of the past. We must not forget that the quest for unity in Europe was forged in the smouldering ashes of World War II. War is of course the most extreme expression of identity politics – of that collective desire to assert a national, ethnic or religious identity and to defend or extend its ideological frontiers. Many of Europe’s wars and acts of imperial violence and conquest have been fought in the name of Christianity. I believe that, whatever Christians in this country might think about Brexit, we have a fundamental duty to uphold the inclusive, hospitable and peace-making message of the Gospel, and to resist all attempts to appropriate our Christian faith in the service of a narrow, exclusive and hostile nationalism. In the Letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul addresses the question of religious identities in the early Church. He calls the followers of Christ to be mature about these issues, and to remember that ultimately, their citizenship is in heaven. As we navigate the challenges and uncertainties of the next few months, divisions are likely to deepen and many conflicting points of view will clamour for attention. Nevertheless, Saint Paul’s words serve as a reminder to me that the values, identities and visions we aspire to live by should not be reducible to the politics of the nation state.