Do secularists bomb the life out of Christianity? I think not.

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17th March, 2009

HAPPY ST PATRICK’S DAY TO ALL – ESPECIALLY THE IRISH!

Bishop of Winchester: “I continue to see ‘non-faith’ as by far the most insistent challenge to Christian faith in this country”

What’s all this about? Why do so many churchmen seem to fear those who are NOT particularly interested in religion more, FAR more than they fear Islam? I just don’t get it. There are NO secularist, religious or not (and they are by definition BOTH religious and non-religious), going about suicide-bombing. There are none ranting that they will take over the country/world by any means possible. And yet our politicians and church leaders are SO tied to the idea all religions are equally more to be trusted than political secularism that they come up with with this. Is it getting in the defence before the attack? Are they concerned as to the outcome of a “separation of Church & state” debate when the Queen is no longer on the throne? Do they consider the country already LOST to Islam and are try to protect it for the future in THIS way – by strengthening the Christian churches?

I do wish they’d make all of this a little clearer. And WHY now?

Do they think that those opposed to Sharia Law are somehow also opposed to English/Scots Law? And WHY do few of them … some, yes … but few of them speak out in stronger tones against fundamental Islam in our country?

What IS going on here? There are no secularists threatening to bomb people to kingdom come, or its atheistic equivalent.

Above all, there is NO way that anyone can force religious faith into a faithless heart because the result of faithless hearts is little Christianity and by implication societal breakdown.

It’s bad enough than I am still having a crisis of conscience over Tony Blair’s thoughts on the “fuss about nothing comment over the Archbishop of Canterbury’s words on the “inevitability of Sharia Law”. Yes, he was calling for people to be free to be proud of their Christianity.  But keeping one’s religion private has always been the British way. There is nothing new in that.  And it has always been the case that we are somewhat suspicious of overtly religious political leaders. Thus Alastair Campbell was probably, sadly right to advise Blair that “we don’t do God”.

But we are also somewhat suspicious of political churchmen. That’s just we Brits. Somewhat suspicious.

But I can tell you this:

In recent weeks I have spoken on this subject to several men of the cloth, Anglicans all. Not one of them was sanguine about Islam OR Sharia Law in Britain. Not one. Men and women of the cloth are, generally speaking, somewhat MORE suspicious of that particular ‘religion’ than many of the rest of us, it would seem. Is it time to re-define “secularism”?

I for one think of secularism as a political term which refers to the state and belongs to ALL of us, religious or not. It is BY NO MEANS the enemy of modern, democratic civilisation as we know it.

Are some of our leaders attempting to move our eyes from one legitimate target of concern to another. Another perhaps less deserving of investigation, even contempt? Is there a fear that all religions are in it together, for good or ill? If so, I think that fear is unnecessary and quite unfounded. We can see the wood, despite the trees.

Secularism threatens British Christianity, says bishop

By Andrew Brown

The Bishop of Winchester, Michael Scott Joynt, is one of the heavyweights of what one might call “the Carey consensus” on sexuality: in favour of women bishops and divorce and remarriage; opposed to equality for gay people within the church. I remember debating this last question with him from one of the twin pulpits of St Mary le Bow, and how impressed I was by his utter imperviousness to arguments from educated secular opinion.

Now he has published a talk he gave recently on the threats to the continuation of the Church of England, and it’s clear that he thinks that educated secular opinion is one of the main hostile forces facing his church. It’s an interesting talk, if only because he speaks as an intelligent man with a deep historical perspective who simply cannot believe that a country can thrive without religion.

Disestablishment, he says, is not something that most people think about at all: it is the serious concern of a few Christians and the tiny factions of organised secularists. None the less, even the most simple fiddling with it would lead to a grand constitutional unravelling.

Just now the most popular means of raising the question, of the relations of the Church of England with the crown and with parliament, seems to be the Act of Settlement of 1701 – whether on the apparently straightforward issue of its clear discrimination against Roman Catholics in the succession to the Throne, or as a proxy for any, some or all of republicanism, secularism, Scottish independence or disestablishment itself! Its repeal would have … implications … much wider than generally admitted or perhaps even intended: could any legislation, that started from an anti-discrimination platform, restrict the heir to the throne from marrying an adherent of a non-Christian faith, or the throne to communicant Christians, or indeed to believers of any kind?

A Roman Catholic marriage would be likely to produce, a generation on, a Roman Catholic monarch who could not, as things are, formally recognise the Church of Scotland, or the Church of England, as churches, or their clergy and bishops, or their sacraments, as true ministers and true sacraments; nor could the Archbishop of Canterbury crown such a monarch (until the re-union of the Western Church has been given to us) – still less a Muslim or any other person unable to “join in Communion with the Church of England” (the requirement of the Act of Settlement). There would be a cutting of the mutual commitment of church and crown – and so in time the governance of the UK would cease to be by ‘the crown in parliament under God’.

He knows here that he is swimming against the tide. But he thinks the tide is wrong, and will turn to reveal the rocks of lasting truth:

‘Non-faith’ is fast becoming the assumed, the fashionable, the ‘default’ position, de facto the ‘established’ religion, of English culture and English politics. Think no further that Alistair Campbell’s ‘We don’t do God’; and Tony Blair’s more recent admission that people think a politician is a ‘nutter’ if he talks about his faith. And reflect on the implications of the dominant doctrine of ‘multiculturalism’ which, as Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has been bravely pointing out (bravely, because it is unfashionable, ‘politically incorrect’ to do so), disadvantages in practice every faith, not just Christianity, in its assumption that there is no governing faith-story running through British culture. The continuing existence, the thriving, of the various communities of Faith seems a surprise and an embarrassment to politicians brought up in the 60s and 70s; we are difficult to understand, and we constitute for them more a set of problems to be managed, than a rich set of contributors to the societies in which we are set.

Schism in the Anglican Communion seems inevitable to him (remember, he things the Church of England should side with Archbishop Akinola when the time comes). You may think that there has been quite enough about that in the blog recently. But his views are revealing of very widely held worries: he believes that too much movement away from the traditional position will destroy the church of England by schism and bankruptcy, if nothing else. If there is no provision for the opponents of women’s ordination as bishops, they will leave, and take their congregations with them; if the church is seen to be on the side of the gays, the evangelicals will go somewhere else and take their money with them.

But in all this, the most interesting thing – and at least to me surprising – is that he is completely sanguine about Islam, while acknowledging that lots of conservative Christians are not:

People quite often suggest to me that the presence and growth in England of Islam should be a major concern for the Church of England, as if the presence of Muslim people was the main threat, even the main opposition, to the Christian Faith in this country – can Islam bear not to be the dominant religion in the State? Will not England and the UK in the 21st century go the way of North Africa in the 8th and following centuries?

My own sense – though I recognise that I am far from expert in these questions – is that Islam in this country is much more a puzzle and a challenge to itself (a very recent survey, for instance, found that 95% of the UK’s Imams were born and educated abroad), and to the government’s understanding both of Islam itself and of the place of ‘faith communities’, and especially of the Church of England, in English society, than it is to the Church of England. I continue to see ‘non-faith’ as by far the most insistent challenge to Christian faith in this country

Well, there speaks the 96th Bishop of Winchester, fairly confident that there could be 96 more to follow him. We’ll know in 20 years if he was right.

RELATED:

• Does political state secularism protect religion or seek to destroy it? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.
• The Secular Society is PROUDLY atheist. Is THIS the threat?
• Jewish leader insists that the POPE removes his cross!?!?!?!?! What? Is the Pope a Catholic? Tony – put your ‘fundamentalist friend’ in Israel straight, please.  The Western Wall isn’t Britain, the home of PC DisUnited. Then again… on second thoughts … ours is the wall that “wailes” …

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Tags: aggressive secularism, Bishop of Winchester, secularism threatens British Christianity, Tony Blair on Archbishop of Canterbury Sharia Law