eChurch Christian Blog

Interesting article from Ekklesia this morning:-

Another article from the Telegraph this morning:-

At least 85 separate sharia “courts” are now openly functioning in Britain, almost 20 times as many as previously believed, a report by Civitas claims.

A study by the thinktank found that scores of unofficial tribunals and councils regularly apply Islamic law to resolve domestic, marital and business disputes, many operating in mosques.

It led to claims of a “creeping” acceptance of sharia principles in British law, but the Muslim Council of Britain dismissed the report as “scaremongering”.

The study follows the outcry over remarks by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, last year that the adoption of aspects of Muslim law in Britain, such as in divorce proceedings, “seems inevitable”.

Lord Phillips, who was then the Lord Chief Justice, attracted controversy by saying that there was “no reason why” sharia principles could not form the basis of mediation in disputes.

Some decisions of Islamic tribunals are already considered legally binding and could theoretically be enforced in civil courts in England and Wales.

Other officially recognised bodies can agree to grant Muslim “divorces” as part of a parallel system of religious law in Britain.

“This whole business is creeping up on us without anyone really noticing,” said Dr David Green, director of Civitas.

The existence of a network of five court-like sharia bodies in London, Bradford, Birmingham, Coventry and Manchester, expanding to other cities under the umbrella of the Muslim Arbitration Tribual (MAT) has already been widely reported.

But Civitas estimates that the real number of Islamic “courts” operating in Britain is at least 85, as a result of scores of unofficial courts sitting in mosques in which imams make judgments on day-to-day disputes.

It argued that they are unlikely to treat women as equals and could even be against human rights law.

The organisation called for a change in the law to stop the decisions of such bodies being legally enforceable.

The MAT, which deals primarily with disputes between business partners or mosques, says that as a legally constituted arbitration body under the 1996 Arbitration Act, its decisions could be enforced in county courts.

That claim has yet to be challenged in a test case but a similar status for Jewish tribunals is already long established.

Another organisation, the Islamic Sharia Council, has a panel of seven judges based in London, dealing largely with divorce and issuing “fatwas” on issues such as how to bring up children.

Mufti Abdul Kadir Barkatulla, one of its judges, said that the organisation had been operating peacefully alongside the civil courts for 25 years without any major problems.

He also confirmed that dozens of informal sharia bodies sit across the country.

“Every imam, if they are qualified can have a hearings and make decisions according to sharia,” he said.

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “To term them sharia courts is ridiculous, it’s just scaremongering.”

Qamat Bhatti, a member of the governing body of the MAT, said: “We don’t have a court, it’s an arbitration, we don’t have a judge sitting with a gavel in his hand but that’s the image that this report is creating.”

Article by the Telegraph this morning:-

Doctors and nurses should be able to offer to pray for patients without fear of disciplinary action, a medical conference will hear this week.

Guidance given by the NHS suggests staff could be sanctioned if they offer spiritual help to anyone who does not share their beliefs, according to the sponsors of a motion at the British Medical Association’s (BMA) annual representatives meeting in Liverpool.

The doctors will argue that the rules need clarifying to distinguish between those who try to offer religious support to patients as part of a programme of care and zealots who might target the infirm as potential converts.

The debate, which comes after the case of a nurse, Caroline Petrie, who given a warning earlier this year, will take place on Wednesday.

Mrs Petrie, 45, a baptist from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, was warned that she could be disciplined after a patient complained that she had offered to pray for her.

The primary care trust later agreed she could continue to offer spiritual support for patients, as long as she asked them about their needs first.

Guidance from the General Medical Council, which regulates doctors, recognises the importance of a patient’s spiritual beliefs in helping them to cope with illness.

But a Department of Health document warns explicitly that disciplinary action could be taken against health staff discussing prayer with patients.

The NHS guidance says: “Members of some religions … are expected to preach and to try to convert other people. In a workplace environment, this can cause many problems, as non-religious people and those from other religions or beliefs could feel harassed and intimidated by this behaviour.

“To avoid misunderstandings and complaints on this issue, it should be made clear to everyone from the first day of training and/or employment, and regularly restated, that such behaviour, notwithstanding religious beliefs, could be construed as harassment under the disciplinary and grievance procedures.”

Joyce Robins, of pressure group Patient Concern, said: “Offering to say a prayer is a kind thought. Most patients will accept it as such. It is no more offensive than being offered a sleeping pill. You can say: ‘Thanks, but that sort of thing isn’t my cup of tea.’?”

Dr Hamish Meldrum, the chairman of BMA council, said: “Certainly, there is no suggestion of imposing your beliefs on patients. If you have a terminally ill patient then it is perfectly acceptable to ask if they would like access to a chaplain or whatever, and out of that a conversation could develop.”

A Department of Health spokesman said the document was to encourage awareness for staff and patients.

Three of Britain’s most senior religious leaders have joined forces in a rare bid to stop a Lords amendment that they fear would pave the way to “legalising euthanasia”.

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury; Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, and Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, have come together for the first time to urge peers to reject proposals that would allow families to help loved ones to die abroad free from the threat of prosecution.

In a joint letter to The Daily Telegraph, they wrote that this legal change “would surely put vulnerable people at serious risk, especially sick people who are anxious about the burden their illness may be placing on others”.

It is the first time since his installation last month that the new Archbishop of Westminster has publicly joined with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi to intervene in a legislative matter.

Lord Falconer, the former Lord Chancellor, made the proposal to drop the threat of prosecution to those accompanying the terminally ill to die abroad, in an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill last month. It could be debated in the Lords as early tomorrow.

In their letter, the clerics also criticised legislators for trying to legalise euthanasia by the back door.

They wrote: “This amendment would mark a shift in British law towards legalising euthanasia. We do not believe that such a fundamental change in the law should be sought by way of an amendment to an already complex Bill. It should be rejected.”

Under British law assisting a suicide carries a sentence of up to 14 years. To date at least 115 Britons have travelled to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, to die at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich. Some 800 more are on the clinic’s waiting list.

Decisions on whether to bring charges on assisted suicides matters are taken on a case-by-case basis and so far no Briton who has accompanied a dying friend or relative to Dignitas has been prosecuted.

Those who object to any softening of Britain’s euthanasia laws take this as evidence that the current law works well to deter assisted suicide, with one saying the law had “a stern face and a kind heart”.

But others argue that the law forces terminally ill people to travel abroad to die earlier than is medically necessary, as well as causing “real distress” to their loved-ones.

Dr Peter Saunders, director of the campaign group Care Not Killing, said if the law were changed then vulnerable terminally ill people might feel pressured to ending their own lives for financial or emotional reasons.

“We think that the current law works well, it has a stern face and a kind heart,” he said.
“We see Lord Falconer’s amendment as an attempt to legalise assisted euthanasia by stealth – to get the principle established.”

“The next step would be say ‘We need to change the law here as well now’,” he warned.

He argued: “If we want to change of law on assisted suicide let’s have proper primary legislation, let’s not try to tack it on to an existing bill.”

The Coroners and Justice Bill has been labelled a ‘Christmas tree bill’ as so many people have tried to hang so many things on it.

The bill has become the home of such diverse legislative ambitions as holding some inquests in private, changing the defence of diminished responsibility in murder and manslaughter cases, and making “homophobic hatred” a crime.

However, euthanasia supporters keenly supported Lord Falconer’s amendment.

Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said: “At least 115 Britons have travelled abroad to die, and many more look set to follow them. This is despite a law which threatens anybody who accompanies them with prosecution and imprisonment of up to 14 years.

“This law causes real distress to those contemplating travelling abroad to die and their loved ones, and in reality does very little to protect against abuse.”

She stressed that Lord Falconer’s proposal “introduces upfront safeguards which state that immunity from prosecution only applies to those that accompany a terminally ill adult, who is competent to make the decision and has set out their wishes in a declaration witnessed by an independent person.”

Debbie Purdy, 46, a multiple sclerosis sufferer who has been seeking to clarify the law to enable her husband Omar Puente to take her to Switzerland without the threat of prosecution, said the current law protected neither the terminally ill nor their families.

“My right to control my own life is surely something the Lords should be defending,” she argued. “What Lord Falconer is trying to do is to bring reality to the law.”

Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said: “The UK’s religious leaders continue heartlessly to seek to impose their dogma by law against the majority.”

That nobody had been prosecuted was “evidence that their motives have been compassionate,” he said.

Lord Falconer defended his proposal, and attacked the three signatories as having “no idea” about the current legal situation.

“I’m genuinely surprised by their unthoughtout opposition,” he said. “The amendment does not enable people who wish to commit suicide to go abroad to do so; they can do that already.”

He argued that what the amendment did was “to make the law reflect current practice”.

“It brings into law the practice of the Director of Public Prosecutions, except it builds in safeguards [to protect the person intending to commit suicide] that are not there already.”

If the archbishops and Chief Rabbi were arguing that the amendment amounted to the thin end of the wedge, “then they should have said so, rather than their own rather complicated explanation of their opposition”, he said.

He doubted that as “humane” people they wanted to see prosecuted the friends and relatives of those who accompanied the terminally ill abroad to die.

Lord Falconer added: “I agree with the signatories that if we want a fundamental change in the law regarding assisted suicide in the UK, then it should be done by a bill and a bill alone. But that’s not the effect of the amendment.

Prof Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist, has helped set up an atheist summer camp where children will be taught rational scepticism and sing John Lennon’s Imagine alongside the more traditional activities of canoeing and swimming.

The evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, who stepped down from his post at Oxford University last year, has subsidised the five-day camp in Somerset.

Camp-goers will be given lessons in rational scepticism, as well as sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology.

There will be more familiar camp activities such as trekking, tug-of-war, canoeing and swimming but children will also be taught to disprove phenomena such as crop circles and telepathy.

The retreat is for children aged eight to 17 and will rival traditional faith-based breaks run by the Scouts and church groups. It will teach that religious belief and doctrines can prevent ethical and moral behaviour.

The camp is part of a campaign, backed by Dawkins and Professor AC Grayling, the philosopher and writer, designed to challenge Christian societies, collective worship and religious education.

Prof Dawkins said it was designed to “encourage children to think for themselves, sceptically and rationally”. All 24 places at the camp, which runs from July 27-31, have been taken.

Crispian Jago, an IT consultant, is hoping the experience will enrich his two children.

“I’m very keen on not indoctrinating them with religion or creeds,” he said. “I would rather equip them with the tools to learn how to think, not what to think.”

The emphasis on critical thinking is epitomised by a test called the Invisible Unicorn Challenge. Children will be told by camp leaders that the area around their tents is inhabited by two unicorns.

The activities of these creatures, of which there will be no physical evidence, will be regularly discussed by organisers, yet the children will be asked to prove that the unicorns do not exist.

Anyone who manages to prove this will win a £10 note – which features an image of Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory – signed by Dawkins, a former professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University.

“The unicorns are not necessarily a metaphor for God, they are to show kids that you can’t prove a negative,” said Samantha Stein, who is leading next month’s camp at the Mill on the Brue outdoor activity centre close to Bruton, Somerset.

“We are not trying to bash religion, but it encourages people to believe in a lot of things for which there is no evidence.”

A spokesman for the Church of England questioned Dawkins’ decision to stage a summer camp for atheists.

“We would defend the right for anyone to set up an event like this, as long as the young people are happy to attend,” he said.

“But in his imitation of the type of youth events that religious groups have been running for years, Dawkins makes atheism look even more like the thing he is rallying against.”