If Christianity dies, who benefits?

[سيف الله]

Salaam

This comment piece caught my eye

If Christianity dies, who benefits?

By Peter Hitchens

From time to time I suggest that this country will, sooner or later become a Muslim nation, having given up Christianity and so left a space waiting to be filled, which secularism simply cannot do. This suggestion is generally met with incredulity at best, and derision at worst. I don’t say this is an immediate prospect, but I do think it is a long-term one.

Well, those who think the idea absurd might do well to study the latest analysis of the 2011 census.

It suggests that a minority of British people will describe themselves as Christians within the next decade. (There are now just over 33 million British Christians, and only a third of these attend church apart from weddings, baptisms and funerals) ‘Describing themselves as’ is of course a good deal less significant than attending church, bringing their children up as Christians or anything of that sort. Meanwhile the general decline in Christianity has been masked by the recent arrival of 1.2 million Christians from Poland, Nigeria and other countries. My guess is that those who stay will be secularised by this country, rather than that they will re-Christianise it.

So what, then of the Muslim population? This has risen by 75 per cent , also boosted by migrants - 600,000 in this case. Won’t they be secularised? I’m not so sure. Muslims tend to stick to the pattern of the faith – the fasts and festivals, the traditions and dietary rules, in a way which Christians don’t. they also seem to me to have much stronger family connections. And, thanks to multiculturalism , they are often concentrated in certain areas, which tends to strengthen adhesion and loyalty. They are also a lot younger than Christians. The average age of a British Muslim is 25. A quarter of Christians are over 65. Younger people, of course, have more children than older people.

Meanwhile 32 per cent of under 25s say they have no religion at all.

Keith Porteous Wood, the executive director of the National Secular Society, was quoted as saying the long–term reduction of Christianity, particularly among young people, was now ‘unstoppable’.

‘In another 20 years there are going to be more active Muslims than there are churchgoers’, he said. ‘The time has now come that institutional Christianity is no longer justified. ‘The number has dropped below critical mass for which there is no longer any justification for the established Church, for example.’

I think he is right about the numbers. I really don’t understand why he should worry about the ‘established church’, an enfeebled and vestigial thing which has almost no real influence on national life and thought (and when it does, isn’t particularly Christian).

It has always amused me in a bitter sort of way that militant secularists seem pleased by the decline of Christianity. I doubt very much that they will like it if I turn out to be right, and the removal of Christianity as the national religion simply creates a space into which Islam can move. Can they really be sure that this will not happen here? We are, as I often say, due for a religious revival as material growth fails and fizzles. Why shouldn’t it benefit Islam, simple, confident, youthful and unembarrassed?

hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk

 

[M.I.A.]

when a child grows it learns a language.

its perception of the world develops.

and the majority become other than psychopaths.. depending on upbringing.


so i guess if you call a thing by a different name it is still what it was.


..and most people do know how the world works, they work within it.




anyway thats my optimistic viewpoint.. does not happen often.


whats meant for you cant escape you and similarly whats not for you...you cant have.


the words are different i cant remember exactly.

 

[glo]

Peter Hitchens is a conservative Christian and brother of the late outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens.

I wonder if his article is trying to coax people to support Christianity by suggesting that if we are not a Christian nation we will become a Muslim one. (Although I have to say that I find his article carefully worded and not obviously anti-Muslim. What do others think?)

Interestingly, before the 2011 census there was a heavy drive by the secular groups, encouraging people to put 'no religion' if they were religious by name only and not practising that religion.
That caused the numbers of 'religious people' (in particular Christians) to drop quite dramatically. I don't think that means the Christians have suddenly dropped in numbers, but that this has been a trend over the last decades which has only just become apparent in the census.

I know that the C of E count their service attendees, but I don't know if other denominations do. The C of E has recently announced that after some decades of decline, the number of active members is now settling down.

How do masjids estimate the numbers of active Muslims in their communities, does anybody know (other than the census figures)? I imagine it's quite difficult to gauge - especially with many women and children praying at home.

 

[sister herb]

In my country amount of muslims is about 1% of population. But that is just official estimate - many people haven´t registered to any islamic community, so the real number might be double or triple or more.

For this 1% here too some are people whose panic that soon Finnish culture has gone in cause of those "danger, strange cultural effects of other religion".

:nervous:

 

[IbnAbdulHakim]

this isnt ridiculous at all.

it wont surprise me if islam became the majority here in London before long

 

[Eric H]

Greetings and peace be with you Junon; I just trust that Christianity will continue to grow in the UK, a lot of our problems are because we are moving away from God in the UK.

At church today we had people pray a short prayer in their native tongue, we heard thirty seven languages prayed. I knew we were a diverse congregation, and it is lovely to see all these people pray in their own language in a packed church. We celebrate the Feast of Pentecost when the apostles talked to everyone around, each person who heard the message heard it in their own language.

In the spirit of praying for a continued and deeper faith

Eric

 

[Hulk]

I wonder, if there are so many people around who believe in God then why is it that popular culture doesn't reflect that?

 

[glo]

I wonder, if there are so many people around who believe in God then why is it that popular culture doesn't reflect that?

Do you mean in the UK or generally?

Personally, I think that in Western societies the thinking has very much veered towards individualism and individual choice. That means people don't like being told what to do and how to do it anymore.
People may still believe in God (of some kind), but don't want to bother with the responsibilities and duties that come with being a member of a faith community.
People think that they can follow their faith on their own in their own home. Without hassle.
These are just my personal thoughts, so I could be wrong.

I think the vast majority of people believe in some deity or some greater life force. Not many are down-and-out atheists.

I am not sure what you mean by 'popular culture'. I think much of our society - even if it is very secular - is still based on Christianity and it would take a good few generations to change that. After all, our entire justice system and laws, our sense of fairness and rights/wrongs are based on essentially Christian values (many of whom are not that different to Islamic ones). It would take a fair while to undo all that.

On the whole I have to say that I appreciate a secular society, where people can be who they want to be and believe what they want to believe.
I rather see the church half full with people who really want to be there and worship God whole-heartedly and to see the church packed with people who feel that they have to be there despite not believing a word of it.
In that sense secularism is a blessing.

 

[Hulk]

Do you mean in the UK or generally?

Personally, I think that in Western societies the thinking has very much veered towards individualism and individual choice. That means people don't like being told what to do and how to do it anymore.
People may still believe in God (of some kind), but don't want to bother with the responsibilities and duties that come with being a member of a faith community.
People think that they can follow their faith on their own in their own home. Without hassle.
These are just my personal thoughts, so I could be wrong.


I think the vast majority of people believe in some deity or some greater life force. Not many are down-and-out atheists.


I am not sure what you mean by 'popular culture'. I think much of our society - even if it is very secular - is still based on Christianity and it would take a good few generations to change that. After all, our entire justice system and laws, our sense of fairness and rights/wrongs are based on essentially Christian values (many of whom are not that different to Islamic ones). It would take a fair while to undo all that.


On the whole I have to say that I appreciate a secular society, where people can be who they want to be and believe what they want to believe.
I rather see the church half full with people who really want to be there and worship God whole-heartedly and to see the church packed with people who feel that they have to be there despite not believing a word of it.
In that sense secularism is a blessing.

I don't mean the UK specifically. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. By pop culture i mean whatever that is on tv/radio/cinemas/websites/etc. So I guess what you're saying is that people believe, but they do not want to submit. Or by responsibility do you mean outwardly taking part in religious activities? When you take a look at today's popular films/music/books/websites, do you see influence of Christianity or Secularism? It to me is clearly secularism. And the law, legalising gay marriage, strip clubs, pornography, is this influenced by Christianity? I don't think so. Secularism is the idea that nothing is sacred, that belief in God is inconsequential to daily life. What matters is the here and the now. This is what is being reflected in pop culture.

 

[glo]

Secularism is the idea that nothing is sacred, that belief in God is inconsequential to daily life. What matters is the here and the now. This is what is being reflected in pop culture.

I see what you mean. I was thinking about culture (as in who we are as a society) rather than popular culture.

 

[Independent]

When you take a look at today's popular films/music/books/websites, do you see influence of Christianity or Secularism? It to me is clearly secularism.

I think there are two parts to this - the technology and the content. The technology would have changed society anyway, no matter whether we were already secularised or not. Just 100 years ago in the UK, most people never went more than a few miles from where they were born. Information was spread very slowly by newspapers and books - no tv, no web, no email, no texting, no mobiles. For that reason social change was much slower in the past.

This technology and especially the web means total access both to lots of good things, and also lots of bad things. It's actually coincidence that a more permissive attitude to sex has come at the same as a hugely increased access to pornography on the internet. We were still feeling our way round new social standards when we were immediately hit by the digital revolution - arguably a bigger event than the industrial revolution. No wonder we're confused.

 

[Ahmad H]

I am not sure what you mean by 'popular culture'. I think much of our society - even if it is very secular - is still based on Christianity and it would take a good few generations to change that. After all, our entire justice system and laws, our sense of fairness and rights/wrongs are based on essentially Christian values (many of whom are not that different to Islamic ones). It would take a fair while to undo all that.

My thoughts exactly. Christianity is very embedded in many Western nations' culture and history. It is still very much apart of their identity.

 

[truthseeker63]

Non Christians.

 

[Woodrow]

Peter Hitchens is a conservative Christian and brother of the late outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens.

I wonder if his article is trying to coax people to support Christianity by suggesting that if we are not a Christian nation we will become a Muslim one. (Although I have to say that I find his article carefully worded and not obviously anti-Muslim. What do others think?)

Interestingly, before the 2011 census there was a heavy drive by the secular groups, encouraging people to put 'no religion' if they were religious by name only and not practising that religion.
That caused the numbers of 'religious people' (in particular Christians) to drop quite dramatically. I don't think that means the Christians have suddenly dropped in numbers, but that this has been a trend over the last decades which has only just become apparent in the census.

I know that the C of E count their service attendees, but I don't know if other denominations do. The C of E has recently announced that after some decades of decline, the number of active members is now settling down.

How do masjids estimate the numbers of active Muslims in their communities, does anybody know (other than the census figures)? I imagine it's quite difficult to gauge - especially with many women and children praying at home.

It is probably impossible to get an accurate estimate here in the USA. About the best that can be reached is a range that there is a strong probability contains within it the actual number. Here it is a very broad range with a low estimate of 2 million and a high of 20 Million. What makes it difficult is about the only way the numbers can be obtained is through self reporting and estimating the number of males attending each Mosque and figuring that would give the number of Muslim families.

The numbers of self reporting is probably over the actual number as there are several Non-Islamic religions here in which the Members call them self Muslim. The other number obtained by the Number of Mosques about 2000 in the USA would indicate about 2,000,000 Muslims at the most. But that number seems to be extremely low. So as best as we can tell there are between 2 and 20 million Muslims in the USA.

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Long overdue update, its not looking good for the Christianity in the UK.

Repeated from 2011 - Britain Is No Longer a Christian Country - Official

I first published this article in 2011. I suppose I should republish it every time a court or tribunal rules against a Christian position. When will people grasp that the revolution has happened, and the other side have won. No need for guillotines and gulag.

I just thought I should expand on the amazing developments in the courts in the last year, culminating in the recent case of Mr and Mrs Johns (pictured below), the foster parents banned from fostering because they were not prepared actively to endorse the sexual revolution.

The effect of this case (and once again I'm uninterested in discussing the issue of homosexuality which has been the pretext for this development, and will not respond to posts on that subject, which I regard as exhausted and diversionary) is revolutionary in two ways. First, the Law of England is no longer based upon Christianity but upon the new secular dogma of 'Equality and Diversity', whose origins lie in the thinking of the 1960s revolutionary left.

That is to say the national dogma is suspicious of national sovereignty and the things which accompany it - patriotism, immigration control, national loyalty, national institutions. It actively defines many of these ideas as 'racist' , that is a sort of thought-crime ( a defamatory smear made much easier by those, some of whom post here, who think that a man's ethnic origin, rather than his culture, defines him).

The same dogma is militantly in favour of sexual liberation - the liberation of adults from the marriage bond, the consequent liberation of children from parental authority - which is more or less unlawful anyway.

Once again those who oppose this development are not reasoned with, but defined as thought-criminals and classified as suffering from various isms and phobias which rule them out of mainstream discourse.

And of course the Christian religion itself is allowed to continue to exist as an eccentric choice, but has no special claim on the law and must compete for status and attention against any other belief, including the fantasy of man-made global warming.

This latter is a work in progress, which is why one of the law's most important activities is to ram home the message to individual Christians that they have lost the status they formerly held (much as its prosecutions of people such as Tony Martin ram home the message that the law no longer takes the view of crime that it used to hold, and is much more concerned with asserting its monopoly of force than with apprehending, let alone punishing, wrongdoers) .

A former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has experienced bluntness verging on rudeness when he has protested against the new judicial attitude.

All revolutions do this. One of their most important features is the public personal degradation of figures formerly held in high regard. This lets people know that things really have changed (Charles I knew he was doomed when his military guards started blowing tobacco smoke in his face). The ejection of the Bishops from the House of Lords, which will take place within ten years by my guess

(***PH notes August 2019 : I would now put this a little further off. The European constitutional crisis has paralysed almost all other processes in our society. But plainly the House of Lords in its present form cannot be sustained much longer) , will be accompanied by a great deal of cruel jeering and bad manners, you see if it isn't.

The second crucial feature of this is that it involves a totalitarian imposition. The Derby case arose not because of anything the couple had said, but because they would not promise, in a hypothetical conversation with a child, to endorse, positively, a certain type of behaviour.

Now, I'm told (I would be glad of any more details) that in a 1985 case, a sports team successfully challenged a local authority which tried to compel it to make a denunciation of the apartheid system before it would be allowed to use its facilities. What you think of apartheid has nothing to do with this. The principle is 'Can you be compelled by a government body to hold or at least express an opinion?'

A judge is reported to have said that telling people what to say was pretty much a Nazi attitude,and foreign to the laws of England. This no longer seems to be the case.

The couple said that their Christian beliefs caused them to hold a different view. The Judges, if I have correctly understood their ruling, said the couple's views did not necessarily flow from their Christianity, and thus didn't qualify for the protection granted to 'minorities' by Equality Law.

One wonders what the position would have been had they been a Muslim couple, but this has yet to arise.

But this is a technicality alongside the heart of their judgement, which ran thus. First, they said that it was not yet “well understood” that British society was largely secular and that the law has no place for Christianity.

“Although historically this country is part of the Christian West, and although it has an established church which is Christian, there have been enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the last century,” they said.

It was a “paradox” that society has become simultaneously both increasingly secular and increasingly diverse in religious affiliation, they said.

'We sit as secular judges serving a multicultural community of many faiths.
We are sworn (we quote the judicial oath) to 'do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will’.”

Actually, it ought to be well-understood, following the striking and rather militant judgement by Lord Justice Laws last year in the case of the 'relationship counsellor' Gary McFarlane. He said legal protection for views held on religious grounds was 'deeply unprincipled'.

'This must be so, since in the eye of everyone save the believer, religious faith is necessarily subjective,' he said.

'Law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary.'

Plainly, the message has not wholly sunk in. Interestingly, in his summing up before sentencing last November at the end of the trial of a Muslim fanatic who stabbed the Labour MP Stephen Timms, Mr Justice Cooke said of Mr Timms 'I understand that he brings to bear his own faith, which upholds very different values to those which appear to have driven this defendant.

'Those values are those upon which the common law of this country was founded and include respect and love for one’s neighbour, for the foreigner in the land, and for those who consider themselves enemies, all as part of one’s love of God. These values were the basis of our system of law and justice and I trust that they will remain so as well as motivating those, like Mr Timms, who hold public office.'

I fear his trust is misplaced. It is true that the English legal tradition was until recently consciously and specifically Christian. Here's a description of the building of the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand (whose architect, G.E. Street, was also the designer of several fine churches) 'Over the highest point of the upper arch is a figure of Jesus; to the left and right at a lower level are figures of Solomon and Alfred the Great; that of Moses is at the northern front of the building.'

The Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, has above its main portal the words "Defend the Children of the poor, and punish the wrong-doer'. This is a quotation from the 72nd Psalm (Verse 4, Miles Coverdale version). Its Great Hall is adorned with the words 'Moses gave unto the people the laws of God'.

Likewise, the Houses of Parliament (where laws are made) are founded upon the original St Stephen's Chapel. They contain a consecrated and functioning chapel to this day. The Central Lobby is decorated with murals depicting the four Christian patron saints of the nations of the United Kingdom, George, Andrew, Patrick and David. The quarter chimes of Big Ben are based upon Handel's aria (from the Book of Job)

'I know that My Redeemer Liveth' . And the Monarchy itself is legally based upon a wholly Christian Coronation service. St Edward's Crown itself is surmounted with a Christian cross and the anointed and crowned monarch is presented with a copy of the Bible.


When will people learn that we live in a post-revolutionary society? In the Blair years the last traces of Christian conservatism were removed from law and government, and in the Cameron-May years nobody tried to restore them.

So Dr David Mackereth really shouldn’t have been surprised to have been sacked as a claim assessor for refusing to bow down to the Trans lobby, by saying he would refuse to call a six-foot bearded man ‘Madam’.

This defiance was described by a tribunal as ‘lack of belief’ in transgenderism. And so it is. These ‘isms’ are our new highly-intolerant religion. We must all now either get our minds right, or retreat into private life and internal exile. The Tories aren’t going to save us.

https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/

 

[Eric H]

Greetings and peace be with you junon,

Keith Porteous Wood, the executive director of the National Secular Society, was quoted as saying the long–term reduction of Christianity, particularly among young people, was now ‘unstoppable’.

Secularism seems to be a cause of marriage breakdown and a lack of community spirit. I say this because of the anything goes culture in the sexual revolution today. If you can't make a relationship work, move onto another one, children just seem to be a by - product of today's culture. When a child reaches the age of fifteen, about half of them are not living with both their biological parents.

Secularism has little to be proud of by encouraging people to enjoy the temptations in life. There will come a time when people are at rock bottom and they will search for something more.

Peace and blessings,
Eric

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Greetings and peace be with you junon,

Secularism seems to be a cause of marriage breakdown and a lack of community spirit. I say this because of the anything goes culture in the sexual revolution today. If you can't make a relationship work, move onto another one, children just seem to be a by - product of today's culture. When a child reaches the age of fifteen, about half of them are not living with both their biological parents.

Secularism has little to be proud of by encouraging people to enjoy the temptations in life. There will come a time when people are at rock bottom and they will search for something more.

Peace and blessings,
Eric

I agree. I think we have to ask why Christians in general having been so shockingly ineffective at defending their, faith, heritage and cultural norms. Its not entirely your fault there are a lot of forces at play (some of which are quite sinister), still its quite shocking witnessing its rapid collapse.

My shocking idea for Songs Of Praise? Try some Christianity!

I doubt anyone was surprised when the BBC’s Songs Of Praise featured a same-sex wedding last week. Like lesbian kisses, same-sex weddings are now more or less compulsory in all radio and TV programmes, and I fully expect to encounter one, or both together, in the early morning Shipping Forecast any day now. After failing to shock anyone, and perhaps disappointed at the lack of fuss, staff at Songs Of Praise said, in words that sound a bit petulant to me, that they were ‘not afraid of controversy’. Aren’t they, though? I’ll come to that in a moment.

These events are all about turning things upside down. They are always aimed at anything which has until now been traditional or conservative. This is why such huge efforts were made to get women to sign up as firefighters or to go to sea in warships, but I have never heard of a similar scheme to persuade women to work on other mainly male tasks, such as crewing council dustcarts, or keeping the sewers running.

So poor old Songs Of Praise, once a tiny refuge for the Christian elderly amid all the swearing and violence of modern TV, was long ago measured up by the Commissars for a new role. It’s years since it adopted a ‘magazine format’ (fewer hymns, less religion). In the end, it will no doubt be replaced by another panel show, in which Christianity will be just one of many religions, occasionally mentioned as an odd thing that other people do and generally mixed up with child abuse.

But if it’s really ‘not afraid of controversy’, may I suggest that it commissions some special editions with the following themes:

• A doctor – perhaps the American Dr Anthony Levatino, who used to perform abortions but now doesn’t (and has eloquently explained his decision before a Committee of the US Congress) – describes the procedure and opens a discussion on whether it can be justified.
• The programme visits an area of one of Britain’s poorer big cities, which has been affected by large-scale migration, and asks the locals how it has changed their lives.
• It gives a platform to a supporter of traditional lifelong marriage (as prescribed by the Christian church) to explain why such marriages benefit children and society as a whole.

Not afraid of controversy, eh? I think we may have to wait a long time before any of these ever come to our screens. I am used to the dreary Left-wing consensus, and long ago stopped being surprised by it. But I am still annoyed by its continuing pretence that it is brave, original and radical, when in fact it is now the safe, boring conventional wisdom.

https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.c...or-songs-of-praise-try-some-christianity.html

One aspect we need to look into is the cultural revolution that changed Britian during the 1960s.

Blurb

Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens talks to Krishnan Guru-Murthy about his political transition from Bolshevism to conservatism, his fiery writing and what he would do to change the world, if given the chance.

 

[Eric H]

Greetings and peace be with you Junon;

I agree. I think we have to ask why Christians in general having been so shockingly ineffective at defending their, faith, heritage and cultural norms.

All faith groups have a massive uphill struggle, the temptations of this world and secularism are too tempting. I believe the legal system in the UK is making it hard to have faith values. Christian bakers being taken to court because they do not want to put LGBT logos on a cake. Christian adoption agencies being given a hard time because they do not endorse gay couples adopting, etc.

I believe that our society suffers and we will pay dearly in the long run for the pressures secularism places on society. Mental health problems are escalating at an alarming rate, marriages are breaking down. We are turning to a burdened NHS that cannot cope with society's problems. I believe communities will have to suffer more before they hit rock bottom and turn back to God.

I went to a Churches Together Meeting this morning and came away feeling encouraged. The churches in our town are doing so much to help troubled people - mostly secular. We run a food bank, we have opened four houses for homeless people, good neighbours scheme, we help people in poverty, street pastors go out at night to help troubled people in our town, recovery courses for addicts, and more. If the churches in our town closed their doors, our community would suffer.

In the spirit of never giving up hope in God,
Eric

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

More on the destruction of the Christianity in the UK.

HUMAN DIGNITY REDEFINED

In revolutionary countries you expect to find desecration: churches turned into lavatories or reformatories, their sanctuaries wrecked and defiled, their bells pulled down and melted, and their crosses tumbled to the ground by commissars, as the Young Pioneers jeer.

Yet not all revolutions are so unsubtle. Those who intend to succeed move more carefully, smiling as they destroy. It is not true that nobody learns anything from history. Jacobin radicals—for all modern revolutions are really heirs of Robespierre and Fouché—have learned from their failures. Why annoy people into opposing you? Why risk turning nuisances into martyrs?

In modern Britain, officially a Christian kingdom whose symbol of authority is the Crown of St. Edward surmounted by a cross, Christian law and morals have been ruthlessly dethroned. But those who did it did it with a kiss rather than with a sword. They brought desecration but called it redecoration or modernization. And by the time the truck had carted the broken pieces to the landfill, it was too late to protest.

Wander through official London and you will see a Christian city. Though now surrounded by many towers of Mammon, the great dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the many towers and spires around it still give a Christian character to London’s skyline. What is more, the main buildings in which the civil and criminal law are resolved and meted out are specifically Christian. The Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand resemble a medieval monastery. A stone figure of Christ stands above its highest arch. Lower down are sculptures of Solomon and the early Christian king and lawgiver Alfred the Great.

The Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, has above its main portal the words “Defend the Children of the poor, and punish the wrong-doer.” This is a quotation from Psalm 72 (verse 4, Miles Coverdale version). Its dignified Great Hall is adorned with the words “Moses gave unto the people the laws of God.” The Houses of Parliament (where laws are made) are founded upon the original St. Stephen's Chapel, which is why Parliament’s benches face each other, as in the choir of a church. They contain a consecrated and functioning chapel to this day. Sessions still begin with prayers, though they are now less sonorous and musical than they once were. The Central Lobby is decorated with murals depicting the four Christian patron saints of the nations of the United Kingdom: George, Andrew, Patrick, and David. The quarter chimes of Big Ben are based upon Handel's aria (from the Book of Job) “I know that My Redeemer Liveth.” And the monarchy itself is legally based upon a wholly Christian coronation service. The anointed and crowned monarch is presented with a copy of the Bible.

But all this counts for nothing, as a Christian doctor, David Mackereth, is the latest to discover. A judge has endorsed his removal as a benefits assessor for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) because he would not bow down in the House of Transgender. In July, while training for a DWP job, Mackereth told a supervisor that he would not “call any six-foot-tall bearded man madam.” He said he would refuse to refer to claimants who were born male as “she,” or those born female as “he.” Shortly afterward, Mackereth was dismissed.

He took his case to an employment tribunal (a specialized court dealing in employment rights), arguing that he had been discriminated against for his Christian beliefs. This month, he lost his case. The employment tribunal declared that Mackereth's view was offensive and discriminated against transgender people. It ruled that objections to transgender rights “are incompatible with human dignity.”

The judge said Mackereth could not permit his belief that “God created male and female” to influence his work. He concluded that Mackereth’s views were opinions rather than serious beliefs. Mackereth intends to appeal, but I don’t hold out too much hope for him. A whole string of foster parents, nurses, and wedding registrars have already found that Christian beliefs have no more status in the courts than any other opinions.

I realized that Christianity had been formally dethroned back in 2011, when a Christian couple in the city of Derby, Eunice and Owen Johns, were barred from acting as foster parents by the authorities, and the courts upheld this. Mr. and Mrs. Johns were not treated this way because they had said or done anything, but because they refused to promise to tell any children in their care that they approved of homosexuality. Their exclusion from doing something they loved and seem to have been good at was not because of any positive action, but because they would not say they loved Big Brother and the whole revolution in thought which our new order now demands.

The judges, if I have rightly understood their ruling, said the couple's views did not necessarily flow from their Christianity, and thus didn't qualify for the protection granted to “minorities” by Equality Law. But this was a technicality alongside the heart of the judgment: The court said that British society was largely secular and that the law has no place for Christianity.

Although historically this country is part of the Christian West, and although it has an established church which is Christian, there have been enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the last century…We sit as secular judges serving a multicultural community of many faiths. We are sworn (we quote the judicial oath) to “do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.”

A little while before there had been a similarly striking and rather militant judgment by Lord Justice Laws in the case of relationship counselor Gary McFarlane. He said “Law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot …be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary.”

Equality and diversity, the official aims of the modern British state, have relegated Christianity to being just one of many religions, no more and no less to be respected than any other, and maybe weaker than some—because who is afraid of the Archbishop of Canterbury?

The Crown and Cross remain on the badges of police officers and on the coats of arms displayed in courts and prisons, Parliament and government, military bases and nuclear submarines. But they do not really mean anything. The revolutionaries just thought it better to leave them there, because people tend to care more about appearance than about reality.

Soren Kierkegaard is alleged to have said, “A passionate tumultuous age will overthrow everything, pull everything down; but a revolutionary age which is, at the same time, reflective and passionless, leaves everything standing but cunningly empties it of significance.” It is a fitting motto for the British Revolution, which has emptied every symbol of its former nature so that nothing is any longer what it claims to be.

It is close to success. When the next coronation comes (may it not be soon!), the world will see just how much the old constitution has been hollowed out since 1953. But until then, we will have to get used to a British state which counts itself as secular while retaining a few Christian symbols as a sort of nostalgic costume jewelry. This modern and enlightened new regime, the very reign of reason, couldn’t care less about the Resurrection, and doesn’t believe in it. Yet it thinks the law should take the side of a six-foot bearded man who wants to be called “Madam” against someone who thinks this is silly.

And all this happens under a government which refers to itself as “Conservative.” Expect no action from them. If you are surprised, in such a country, that a “Conservative” government is no such thing, then you have much to learn about modern England.

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/10/human-dignity-redefined

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

More comment, American perspective.

When the personal should be political

The Christian church is now almost entirely bereft of leadership:

Calling it “pronoun hospitality,” Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear revealed on an “Ask Me Anything” episode of his podcast that he prefers to call transgender people by their preferred pronouns.

Greear said that while there is room for disagreement and Christians should disagree charitably, he sees it as a hospitable courtesy to refer to transgender people by their chosen pronouns, despite knowing that their sex does not match their descriptors.

Actually, I have no problem with this at all on the personal level. It is simply polite to address people as they prefer to be addressed, especially when they are crazy. But to take this position as a leader is simply wrong and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the leader's duty to put himself and his personal preferences last, after the interests of the organization and his members.

Christianity has been betrayed by the Cult of Nice. And while niceties are an important aspect of civilization and correct etiquette is generally preferable to its absence, manners do not trump math, science, history, or DNA when it comes to speaking the truth about reality. The personal is not the political, which is why sometimes the latter should trump the former.

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2019/11/when-personal-should-be-political.html