Bilderberg.org

[TonyGosling]

Charles: Defender of faith or faiths?
The Sunday Times
Focus: Is it time to take God out of the state?

Faith groups are increasingly demanding new rights or complaining of being
wronged. Some say the time has come for Britain to create a clear divide between state and religion. Are they right? Bryan Appleyard investigates
Religion, long dormant as a force in British politics and society, is back.
After 9/11 and 7/7, rows over niqabs, hijabs, Christian crosses, faith schools and dress codes have exposed deep rifts in our attitudes to the spiritual.
Almost daily stories of conflict and anger call into question the eccentric,
muddled British way of balancing faith and the state. Last week we saw a Muslim teacher taking a Church of England school to an employment tribunal over her right to wear the veil, the education department calling on academics to spy on potential extremists among their students and
faith schools lining up to resist taking in government quotas of non-believers.
It was, in spiritually torn Britain, a pretty average week.
"Religion and politics is the issue of the next 50 years," says the historian
Michael Burleigh, author of the newly published Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al-Qaeda. "The closest parallel with the situation in Britain now would be the conflicts between Anglicans and Puritans over religious `enthusiasm' in the 17th century." Can a state, with both an established church and a tradition of evenhandedness, sustain itself against the growing demands of fundamentalist religion?
Or would Britain be better able to weather the tensions of religious diversity if — like France and America — it created a clear divide between government and church and became a formally secular state? One view is that our established church, the Church of England, underpins Britain's character as a tolerant but essentially Christian nation and that we should use it and its benign character and traditions as a bulwark against home-
grown terrorism and the intensifying "clash of civilisations".
On the other hand, religion may be precisely the problem. The CofE may be benign but its establishment encourages other, more extreme, religious groups to demand the same privileges, rights and favours of the state. The only equitable answer, say the secularists, is to turn the way of France and America and cleanse public life of all contact with faith and superstition.
Few think we can do nothing. As several new books make clear, from the street to the university, a furious debate about religion is involving us all. Professor Richard Dawkins [a man with no soul if ever I saw one - ed.], champion of Darwinism, has been spurred by the rise of religious fundamentalists to write The God Delusion, an "attack on God in all his forms". Dawkins wants to take religion not just out of the state but society — and his book has become a bestseller.
"If this book works as I intend," he writes in his preface, "religious readers
who open it will be atheists when they put it down."
Politicians are manoeuvring desperately to use and confront these social
convulsions. John Reid, the home secretary, was howled down last month when he said Muslim parents should watch for signs of extremism in their children. Jack Straw started a fire that still burns when he suggested the veil was, potentially, antisocial.
But this is about much more than mere politics. There was real blood spilled on 7/7 [probably by MI6 and Mossad - ed.], and real bitterness is involved in the arguments over faith schools and the veil in particular.
Deep sensitivities have been inflamed. Britain is in the midst of a religious
controversy unlike any seen for 300 years.
So is it time for Britain, as a state, to turn secular? [as Rupert Murdock the owner of The Times clearly wants - ed.]
FEW can doubt that what we have now is an eccentric muddle. We have a head of state who is also head of the established church. Both houses of parliament begin every day with Christian prayers and the House of Lords is the only legislature in the world where Christian bishops — 26 of them — have full voting rights.
And yet we are widely regarded as one of the least religious countries in the world with fewer than 8% of us going to church. Less than half of us are even aware that Easter is about the death of Christ.
Even the official church is regarded by many as virtually an agnostic
organisation. It is seen as simply a handy, traditional way of marking the rites of life's passage.
As such, it tends to be more tolerated when it is not overtly religious.


Response to EA on Charles
22 October 2006
http://www.thegoodnews.co.uk/regionnewsstory.asp?id=1384&region=reg0

In light of a call that Prince Charles should become the Defender of the
Christian Faith at
his coronation, and a feature by the Sunday Times asking whether it time to take "God out of the state", the religious thinktank Ekklesia is urging a radical change in the way that the debate about religion and politics is framed.
Specifically Ekklesia has said that the present situation where churches seek government support in areas like education, and government uses faith groups to prop up its own social agenda, is unhealthy for all concerned.
In a discussion paper for both religious and secular opinion formers, Ekklesia argues that the demise of Christendom in the West creates a positive new opportunity for faith groups to welcome genuine pluralism in public institutions – and for demonstrating radical alternatives in an "often acquisitive, violent, confused and atomised society".
The document, Redeeming Religion in the Public Square, is available on
Ekklesia's website; it summarises and extends arguments from the newly published book by Ekklesia's co-director Jonathan Bartley, Faith and Politics After Christendom.
Ekklesia challenges the popular idea that the only kinds of religion possible
are either domineering ones or watered down varieties.
It says that a renewal of generous faith, not its reduction, is the best way of "redeeming religion" from within – and enabling it to discover a positive, though not always unthreatening, role in society.
Both the paper and the book focus their arguments on Christianity in Britain, but highlight questions and challenges for other faith communities and for humanists or those of no religious affiliation.
Redeeming Religion in the Public Square says that displays of self-assertion
from some religious groups are not signs of strength, but of underlying weakness.
This is because, Ekklesia argues, Britain has seen an irreversible cultural and political shift away from a "mutually reinforcing relationship between Church and government" in recent years. What we are seeing is a backlash against this."
The thinktank says that these new attempts by faith groups to use the state to coerce others into accepting their norms and values is wrong and counterproductive – for religious reasons, as well as for political ones.
Ekklesia argues that Christianity has been corrupted by its easy alliance with the status quo, that faith cannot be imposed on a reluctant majority, and that "the new deal" between government and religious groups on education and public services raises serious issues of integrity, justice and human rights.
Redeeming Religion in the Public Square argues that Christian churches and organisations, in particular, can embrace a more marginal status in society as an opportunity to rediscover the levelling message of Jesus.
This approach is one of "witness, not control".
Redeeming Religion in the Public Square outlines 14 areas where this is
possible, including active peacemaking, hospitality towards migrants, restorative justice, involvement in anti- poverty alliances and the development of non-confrontational approaches to controversial
bioethical issues.
Comments Ekklesia co-director Simon Barrow, who wrote the discussion paper: "Politicians cannot ignore religion, and faith cannot be shut away from public life. So what we need is radical new thinking about religion and politics, both by government and all those who want alternatives to 'toxic religion', which tries to justify violence and domination in the
name of God."



http://express.lineone.net/news_detail.html?sku=595
Charles urged to give Christianty main role
22/10/06
By Polly Buchanan

Prince Charles should become the defender of the Christian faith and not
represent other religions in his title when he becomes king, according to a report out tomorrow.
The study by the Evangelical Alliance says the coronation service should not become an inter-faith ceremony, although it conceded that guests from non-Christian religions should feature.
The Prince of Wales told his biographer Jonathan Dimbleby in 1994 that he wanted to be seen as "defender of faith" instead of "defender of the faith" – a title used by British monarchs since Henry VIII.
This was seen as a sign that he wanted to recognise and represent all the
religions practised in Britain.
But the Alliance's report Faith And Nation calls for him to make a deeper
commitment to Christianity. The Alliance aims to unite Christians of all denominations to reduce poverty and influence the Government on
religious policy, and its report makes 100 recommendations, ranging from
religious liberty to the environment and constitutional matters.
Dr David Muir, the Alliance's public policy director, said: "We hope our report will help people understand the continued importance of the Christian faith in 21st century Britain.
"It offers Christians, peoples of other faiths, and those of no faith, resources for engagement, discussion and action on a range of contemporary issues."
Clarence House, the Prince's office, refused to comment.

 

[TonyGosling]

Prince Charles prepares to set Britain against Christ [editor's headline]
Hereford Cathedral School Lecture
The Rt Hon Lord Hurd of Westwell CH, CBE
In Hereford Cathedral, Friday 18 October 2002
CHURCH AND STATE – WILL THE PARTNERSHIP LAST?
http://www.eauk.org/faithandnation/upload/Church-and-State.pdf
Soon we will have a new Archbishop of Canterbury, whose arrival is already giving a stir to all the bubbling arguments on different subjects within the Church of England. We should not be afraid of argument, provided it is conducted in charity. There was only one century in the history of the Church of England when its life was placid and calm, at least until Wesley arrived; no one regards the 18 th century as the finest in that history.
One of these arguments concerns the partnership between Church and State. As it happens two events this year have illustrated vividly the outer show of that relationship – the funeral of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the Golden Jubilee of The Queen, both celebrated by our Church in established form.
Perhaps before we go on I should declare my own background, as a practising broad church Anglican who for eleven years held Cabinet posts which brought me into contact with the Church and who more recently, because of tasks at Lambeth Palace and Westminster Abbey, has glimpsed something more of the partnership, this time from the angle of a lay church man rather than a politician.
The partnership between Church and State described as establishment is well rooted in the past. This is not a trivial matter in this country. It does not mean that the partnership in its present form is perfect or that if we were sitting down now in 2002 we would come up with exactly the arrangements which we have inherited. But anyone concerned with the governance either of the Church or of the State in this country should know that the cutting of roots is a risky business.
Many of those thousands who at the beginning of this year circled the coffin of the Queen Mother were asked on radio and television why they were there. Almost all of them talked of a link with the past. Many of our fellow citizens come from pasts quite different from our own and we recognise that. They are now here in this country with our distinctive past.
The actual churches of the Church of England in our cities and our countryside represent more than the local centres of a sect. They are regarded, including by those who never enter them, as the natural and continuing focus of the community – which is why the heroic efforts to keep their fabric in good order are amazingly successful.
On the occasion of the D Day Memorial celebrations in 1994 I went with the French Foreign Minister, Alain Juppé, to some of the British Service Commemorations along the beaches of Normandy. Afterwards I asked the French Minister how our services differed from those which would have occurred on a French occasion. He said at once, "you have more religion in your form of service, you have hymns and a blessing."
That comes as no surprise to us. We are familiar with it each year because of what happens at the Cenotaph each November in a service in which the main performers, apart from the veterans themselves, are the Queen and the Bishop of London. These experiences, deeply rooted in our past, add for most of us something notable to our present lives. If my first argument is correct then those who wish to destroy or alter fundamentally this partnership have a high hurdle to surmount.
They have to show that this arrangement causes harm rather than good and that a total separation would be better. It is for them to make the case and I do not believe the case has been made. In particular it is for the Churches or the lay citizen to make the case. No Government will stir in the matter. No one who listened to the Lord Chancellor speaking on the subject in the House of Lords on 22 May this year could suppose that even this Government with its programme of constitutional reform would touch the partnership with the Church of England unless forced to do so by outside opinion.
What precisely is the relationship between Church and State in 2002? I can only speak out of personal experience. The relationship is not one of power. The established Churches in England and Scotland place no constraints on Government. Nor does Government or Parliament now seek to legislate for the established Churches. The Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament provides the last faint vestige of parliamentary vigilance over the affairs of the Church of England. There can be no prospect of Parliament seeking to return to the position of authority over the Church which it once held.
Certainly the Prime Minister still has a decisive role in appointing Bishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. But increasingly that role is constitutional rather than executive. By this I mean that the Prime Minister increasingly functions as a constitutional authority receiving and accepting advice from the Church rather than as someone possessing a separate and assertive power. How does the relationship work in practice? I will take a minor example.
When I was at the Home Office, and again at the Foreign Office, I used occasionally to cross the river to Lambeth and discuss with the Archbishop of Canterbury matters that were on my mind and about which I thought I needed advice that I believed he could give.
This was not exclusive; there were others whom I consulted from time to time. However, with the Archbishop of Canterbury it was a natural visit. It needed no explanation on either side. It was useful to me and conceivably to him. I certainly did not feel that I was enmeshing him or that he was enmeshing me in decisions which were unpalatable or improper. If that is true of the subordinate offices it is even more true of the private and continuous relationship, as of right and as of office, between the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury and between the Queen herself and the Archbishop. The good in these relationships is clear and I do not see the harm. There would be harm if the Church became a tool or a close ally of any particular Government, but I see no prospect of that today.
Lets us take another example. In the Royal Commission on the future of the House of Lords chaired by Lord Wakeham, we listened at length to views about the presence of Bishops of the Church of England in the House of Lords. We came to the conclusion that this presence was desirable in a reformed Chamber and should be retained. At the same time we believed that the numbers an Anglican Bishops in the Lords should be reduced so as to make room for representatives of other Faiths. We were told that the Bishops of the Church of England did not see their role in the House of Lords as one of defending the rights and interests of the Church of England. Rather they saw themselves there to bring a moral insight to bear on the problems of our society. That was their claim, and that is their practice.
As Lord Habgood, the former Archbishop of York put it, established Churches (he was including Scotland) "are valuable reminders that the State itself is not absolute. They point to a moral authority that transcends us all….. The established Churches hold in trust for the whole of the United Kingdom the belief that sovereignty is to be exercised as a God given responsibility and not as a manifestation of arbitrary power… They bring into politics perspectives and accumulated experience which can easily be ignored in the rough and tumble of political controversy."
Since Lord Habgood used those words, Bishops in the House of Lords proved the point again in our recent debate on Iraq. They were by no means unanimous, but the Bishops who spoke certainly carried out the function which Lord Habgood had described. In the past the position was different. For reasons of history which were perhaps understandable, the Church of England tried to defend its position against the Roman Catholic Church and the Dissenters by treating their own relationship with the State as exclusive. They used their privilege to keep others out.
No one could seriously argue that that is the position today. The Church of England and the Church of Scotland bend over backwards to recognise the changed nature of our society. For example, the funeral of the Queen Mother was conducted by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, flanked by the Cardinal, flanked by the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, flanked by leaders of other denominations and other faiths. All took part in Westminster Abbey because that was the natural place for the occasion. All used their own words alongside the traditional language of the Church of England. There were no jostlings or jealousies such as might have occurred in the past. Nor have we seen the end of change. That part of the Act of Settlement which prevents the Monarch from marrying a Roman Catholic has been much criticised and I cannot believe that it is permanent. Nor do I suppose that the Coronation of our next Monarch will follow exactly the rituals which were acceptable in 1953.
The Prince of Wales, in a television interview in 1994, used the expression "defender of faith" – not incidentally as is often misquoted "defender of faiths". By this phrase Prince Charles was trying in an age dominated increasingly by the secular and the superficial, to remind people of the crucial and eternal importance of the spiritual "faith" in all our lives. The justification of the partnership between the established Churches and the State is precisely that it enables the Churches to teach that lesson with authority in the nation as a whole. As Archbishop Carey said in his St George’s Day address this year, "part of the Church’s service, born out of establishment, must be on behalf of faith generally". That is precisely the point which I believe the Prince of Wales was making.
Inevitably there are rubs and frictions between the State as embodied in particular British governments and the Church of England. Archbishop Runcie found a good phrase to describe the attitude of the established Church to the Government when he spoke of "critical solidarity". Two actions for which he will be remembered were his sermon in St Paul’s Cathedral on the occasion of the Falklands Memorial Service in 1982, and the publication of the Church’s manifesto Faith in the City. Some members of the Government to which I belonged were highly critical of both these matters at the time. I believe that both pronouncements stand up well. Whatever their merits, no one can say that the Archbishop was acting as in some way a tool or ally of Government.
I quote Archbishop George Carey once again. "Establishment helps to underwrite the commitment of a national Church to serve the entire community and to give form and substance to some of its deepest collective needs and aspirations." Our new Archbishop takes over the leadership of the national church which is also the biggest voluntary organisation in the country. It maintains 13,000 parishes, offering a ministry that is available to every member of the community. In education alone, the Church of England is responsible for one in four primary schools. It has to meet great challenges in a secular society but it faces them with deep rooted strengths – of which personally I am much more conscious than I was a few years ago when I knew less of what it did.
Archbishop Williams brings his own notable gifts to the task which he has inherited. In the recent group which I chaired on the work of the Archbishop of Canterbury we tried always to bear in mind that we were not talking primarily of a Chief Executive of a big organisation. We were not wrestling simply with problems of managerial efficiency, though there is no spiritual merit in being inefficient. The Archbishop of Canterbury, because he leads the established Church of England, owns a spiritual authority, to which each Archbishop brings his own particular talents. The Archbishop is a priest and within the role of priest is contained that of prophet. There is now lively expectation in the air.
We know that our society and our world needs a prophet who can advise, warn and criticise. Politicians should not be afraid of this. No one should seek to confine Archbishop Rowan Williams with the authority of a priest to the smaller world of disputes within the Church or within the Anglican Communion. The Church of England at its best reaches out to people of other faiths and of none and is helped in this by its position established over the centuries. I believe we can welcome eloquence and conviction when it comes with authority on behalf of all of us from the throne of St Augustine in Canterbury.

[TonyGosling]

Charles must heed this Bishop who speaks his mind
5th November 2006
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_page_id=1787&in_article_id=414639

It takes a moment to recover from the shock of hearing an Anglican Bishop say something that is both morally tough and set out in plain English.

But Michael Nazir-Ali is not a typical modern prelate. He had to fight for his religion in a mainly Islamic country where being a prominent Christian involved some personal risk.

Nobody can call this man either a racist bigot or an Islamophobe. He is himself Pakistani by birth, and many of his family are Muslims.

His affirmation that he is absolutely against the washy, multi-faith, multicultural consensus must be taken seriously. And so must his criticism of Prince Charles's commitment to be a vague 'defender of faith' rather than a specific guardian of the Christian religion on which this country's laws, customs and traditions are founded.

The Prince has just discovered, in an awkward and nervous visit to Pakistan, that the sunny harmony he once hoped for is a rather elusive thing.

He would be wise to listen to Bishop Nazir-Ali's advice that he must first of all stand up for the Christian Church, which rules out the sort of multi-faith Coronation service that Clarence House advisers are said to be examining.

Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Communities, should also take note of his condemnation of multiculturalism. Her 'Commission on Integration and Cohesion' lacks a spokesman from any of the Christian churches, a failure that rightly angers Michael Nazir-Ali.

But the Bishop's most powerful warning is an almost exact echo of the one issued by General Sir Richard Dannatt two weeks ago.

Suggesting that we may be too weak to face down Islamic fundamentalism, he says that the real problem is our own moral vacuum. If we do not fill it - and soon - then somebody else will.

This is proper, robust, courageous debating, the sort our increasingly conviction-free politicians no longer do. It is what Bishops are for. It is the reason they are given cathedrals to preach in, and seats in the House of Lords. Let us hear more of it.

TV's early warning

We have developed a strange habit of panicking about unimportant things and being complacent about important ones. Almost every human pleasure now carries a health message - some serious, some frankly absurd.

Coffee cup lids are embossed with the message 'contents may be hot'. Packets of nuts proclaim that they 'may contain nuts'. Yet there has been little research - and little concern - about the possible effects on the brains and characters of very young children exposed to large amounts of TV.

Now, and none too soon, this is changing. Recent studies suggest a possible link between childhood TV-watching and autism. Two Scottish universities - Glasgow and Stirling - have produced disturbing evidence that excessive viewing may damage a child's ability to interact with other people.

These are small, early surveys, far from conclusive. But they suggest that we need to know more. Those who pay for and conduct scientific research should take note and go deeper into this subject.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_page_id=1787&in_article_id=414639

[TonyGosling]

How Britain Is Turning Christianity Into A Crime
http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/articles/article_detail.php?1161

How long will it be before Christianity becomes illegal in Britain? This is no longer the utterly absurd and offensive question that on first blush it would appear to be. An evangelical Christian campaigner, Stephen Green was arrested and charged last weekend with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour. So what was this behaviour? Merely trying peacefully to hand out leaflets at a gay rally in Cardiff

So what was printed on those leaflets that was so threatening, abusive or insulting that it attracted the full force of the law? Why, none other than the majestic words of the 1611 King James Bible. The problem was that they were those bits of the Bible which forbid homosexuality. The leaflets also urged homosexuals to “turn from your sins and you will be saved.” But to the secular priests of the human rights culture, the only sin is to say that homosexuality is a sin.

Admittedly, Mr. Green is not everyone’s cup of tea; other Christians regard him as extreme. But our society is now so upside-down that, by doing nothing more than upholding a fundamental tenet of Christianity, he was treated like a criminal. And yet at the same time, the police are still studiously refusing to act against Islamic zealots abusing British freedom to preach hatred and incitement against the West.
Prejudice
The Bible is the moral code that underpins our civilisation. Yet the logic of the police action against Mr. Green surely leads ultimately to the inescapable conclusion that the Bible itself is “hate speech” and must be banned. This bizarre state of affairs has arisen thanks to our human rights culture which automatically champions minorities against the majority. As a result, no one can say anything disobliging about a minority without being accused of prejudice or discrimination.

The problem for Christianity is that it holds that homosexuality is wrong. This, however, it is no longer allowed to say because it treats a minority practice as sinful. So it can no longer uphold a central tenet of its own faith without being accused of prejudice. This dilemma is currently tearing apart the Church of England itself. But it is also turning our whole notion of justice on its head.

Author Lynette Burrows received a warning from the Metropolitan Police merely for suggesting that gay people did not make ideal adoptive parents. The former leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, also had his collar felt by police after he said that homosexuality was harmful. Notably, in his case the matter was swiftly dropped. If there’s one thing that terrifies our PC police even more than being called homophobic, it’s being called Islamophobic — even though Islamic fundamentalism poses a real threat to the human rights of gay people.

If this wasn’t all so frightening, it would be hilarious. Christians, by contrast get very different treatment. An elderly evangelical preacher, Harry Hammond, was convicted of a public order offence after he held up a poster calling for an end to homosexuality, lesbianism and immorality. Although he had been the victim of a physical attack when a crown poured soil and water over him, he alone was prosecuted. And Lancashire pensioners Joe and Helen Roberts were interrogated by police for 80 minutes about their ‘homophobic’ views after they had merely asked their local council to display Christian literature alongside gay rights leaflets in civic buildings.
Bullying
Christianity is fast becoming the creed that dare not speak its name. It is being written out of the national script by ideologues seeking to hasten its disappearance. On September 6th the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said in a radio interview that Britain was “no longer a Christian country” because people no longer went to church.

Local authorities and government bodies are systematically bullying Christianity out of existence by refusing to fund Christian voluntary groups on the grounds that to be Christian means that they are not committed to ‘diversity’. Thus local and central government refused to replicate the vocational training provided by the Highfields Happy Hens Centre in Derbyshire for young offenders and pupils excluded from school despite its impressive record of success, simply because it is run with a clear Christian ethos.

Norfolk council objected to the inclusion of the word ‘Christian’ in the constitution of Barnabas House in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, which houses homeless young men. And the Housing Corporation, the major funder of Romford YMCA in Essex which looks after hundreds of needy young people, objected to the fact that only Christians were board members — which meant, it said, that the YMCA was not capable of ‘diversity’, even though it was open to all faiths and none.

The ‘diversity’ agenda, in other words, is a fig-leaf for an attack on Christianity. And to cap it all, we can no longer rely on our future monarch to hold the line, since Prince Charles has said that when he becomes King he will no longer be Defender of the Faith but “defender of faith”. But Christianity is still the official religion of this country. All its institutions, its history and its culture are suffused with it; Britain would lose its identity, its values and its cohesion without it. But minority rights are now being wielded against it like a wrecking ball.

What started as a commendable desire to ban hatred of the gay minority has morphed into a hatred of the Christian majority. Behaviour which was previously considered to transgress the moral norms of the Bible has now instead become the norm — and it is biblical values that are treated as beyond the pale of acceptable behaviour. This is no accident. The sacred doctrine of human rights — which explicitly sets itself up as the religion for the godless age — is the means by which secularism is steadily attacking the Christian roots of our civilisation, on the basis that religion is inherently unenlightened, prejudiced and divisive.

Christianity has been dethroned as this country’s governing creed on the basis that equality demands equal status for minority faiths and secularism. As a result, it is being marginalized as no more than a quaint cultural curiosity.
Offensive
It is a process before which the Church of England has long been on its knees, going with the flow of moral cultural collapse in accordance with the doctrine of multiculturalism — and then wondering why its churches are so empty, while those of uncompromising evangelicals such as Stephen Green are packed to the rafters.

As a result, Christianity is being steadily removed from the public sphere. Various councils have banned Christmas on the grounds that it is “too Christian” and therefore “offensive” to people of other faiths, and are replacing it with meaningless “winter festivals”. This attack on Christianity is not merely something that seems straight out of Alice in Wonderland. It is not merely a threat to freedom of speech and religious expression. It is a fundamental onslaught on the national identity and bedrock values of this country — and as such will destroy those freedoms which Christianity itself first created.

Reproduced in Sept 06 by CHRISTIAN WATCH with the author’s permission.
Christian Watch, P0 Box 2113, Nuneaton, CV11 6ZY
www.christianwatch.org.uk

[TonyGosling]

Defender of the faith
Mail on Sunday editorial – 12thNov06
ONCE again it is left to the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, to articulate what many in the Church of England fear to say.
He talks of a 'systematic erosion' of Christianity in public life. Rightly, he points out that Government Ministers who send cards censored of the Christ-mas message and Whitehall departments that change 'Happy Christmas' to 'Season's Greetings' only patronise Muslims and other non-Christians.
The Archbishop is an exemplary ambassador for the core beliefs that many in the Church of England hierar-chy have lamentably failed to articulate. The bizarre behaviour of local authori-ties who shy away from celebrating Christmas and the Royal Mail's removal of religious scenes from stamps go unchallenged by a Church that all too often appears cowed and ineffectual.
It is surely significant that its most effective advocate is a man whose faith was defined in his African homeland.
As for Government Ministers, if they are non-believers they should desist from sending cards. If they are truly Christian then they should set an exam-ple - and not shy away from proclaiming the importance of Christmas.