eChurch Blog

This is absolutely fascinating.

Jonathan Bartley of Ekklesia had a chance encounter with David Cameron a couple of days ago. Here’s how it all started:

Jonathan Bartley

This morning, my son Samuel had an appointment at the Evelina children’s hospital. We arrived early for the appointment and saw the TV crews and their vans just around the corner, so went over to watch David Cameron’s speech that was being shown in one of the TV vans.

Whilst we were watching, a Conservative party official came up to us and asked if Samuel and I would like to meet David when he had finished speaking. We said that we would and duly waited. The party official then came to get us, and took us outside the exit where David Cameron was to emerge after his speech. The Conservative leader was then brought over to us, and I explained my concerns about the Conservative’s plans for children with Special Educational Needs.

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And here’s a juicy vid of the confrontation:

This link takes you to a “factCheck” on David Cameron’s comments to Jonathan, from the Channel 4 website:

Channel 4 – Do Tories encourage special needs children in manistream schools?

And they conclude:

The verdict
Cameron said his manifesto “absolutely” did not suggest the emphasis towards educating disabled children in mainstream schools would be ended.

But that’s exactly what it says, even if further briefing from the Conservative party points towards parents being given greater choice, and therefore still being able to still send their disabled children to mainstream school if they so wish.

Cathy Newman’s verdict
Cameron denied “absolutely” that his manifesto suggested ending the bias towards educating disabled children in mainstream schools.

However, that’s exactly what it does say. The Tories subsequently briefed that parents should be given greater choice, allowing them to send their disabled children to a mainstream school if they wished.

But that’s not a subtlety contained in the manifesto, as Cameron should know. On the basis of what he said to Mr Bartley though, he needs to do some homework on just what is contained within the smart hardback cover of his manifesto.

The following are comments from Jonathan Bartley posted this morning on the Ekklesia website:

During last night’s prime ministerial television debate David Cameron referred to our exchange over Special Educational Needs as having taken place ‘on the street’.

The meeting was of course set up ‘on the street’ by Cameron’s staff, possibly to get a photo with a disabled child and his father. They certainly asked me on the way over to Cameron’s car – where we were instructed by the party official to wait for him – whether we would mind having a few photos taken. If so, I don’t hold that against him. He is a politician and this is an election campaign.

Following Brown’s ‘bigotgate’ incident, quite a few journalists, and last night’s Politics Show, have speculated about what Cameron said in the car as he left after our exchange. I too have been wondering more and more as the days pass. During our exchange Cameron promised to meet with me and other parents of disabled children. One of his staff took my number promising to call. But there has been no contact from CCHQ or Cameron’s office at all. Neither did Cameron’s staff discuss the party’s policy with me after the event as some newspapers reported (which now leads me to wonder where the newspapers got that impression from, and if anyone briefed them that this had taken place).

Channel 4 Fact Checked what Cameron said in response and found that it wasn’t in fact true. Cameron said his manifesto “absolutely” did not suggest the emphasis towards educating disabled children in mainstream schools would be ended. But as FactCheck concludes: “But that’s exactly what it says”.

Since Tuesday I have been inundated by messages from parents of disabled children, and disabled people, asking me to raise their concerns with David Cameron if we meet. I have promised that I will. They are greatly concerned that the Conservatives are not in fact offering true choice as they claim they are.

There have been two big recurring themes, and both directly address the idea of ‘choice’ which David Cameron is saying he is offering. The first comes from those parents who have struggled desperately to get their children into mainstream school, and then to keep them there, feeling that schools need to be made more inclusive. The second are parents who feel there is no alternative in mainstream schools for their child, and so have only felt they have the option of special schools.

But there are no proposals from the Conservatives to make inclusion work more effectively in existing mainstream schools. As such they are not representing the needs of thousands of families. If the Conservatives are to offer real “choice” as they claim, they are going to have to address this issue. As time moves on however, I believe less and less that this was a serious concern for David Cameron as he was being driven away in his Lexus.

Kudos!

Hmmm.

Telegraph:

Rev Mark Binney, vicar of St Andrew’s Church, Hampton, Worcs, said he had been told he needed planning permission if he wanted to fly a flag “advertising Christianity” in future.

The flag was put up outside the church in the week preceding Easter Sunday displaying the words ‘This is Holy Week’ and an image of Jesus on the cross.

Mr Binney said the warning was “appalling”, and he felt it was part of a gradual erosion of Christianity in Britain.

Wychavon council said it investigated a complaint from a member of the public and decided no consent was required.

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Check this one out. The Christian Institute have released a YouTube vid for Christians on the upcoming election, and they are encouraging us to show this in our churches this coming Sunday.

Take a look….it’s only 210 seconds…..thankfully

Did anyone else feel like he was addressing children?

Here are a few golden nuggets of advise from the vid:

It’s OK to vote for a non-Christian.

Perhaps you don’t think voting is a priority and you would rather concentrate on sharing the Gospel? Well sharing the Gospel was certainly a priority for the Apostle Paul…….

Usefully highlighted Scripture that commends us to PRAY for those in government, to reinforce the message that voting is the “right” thing to do.

No political party will perfectly reflect Godly values.

Find out what the policies actually are.

Individual candidates may not share ALL of the values of the party they represent, so find out what they “believe”.

Conclusion (in not so many words) the government and country is pagan and godless, but we should still give a hoot.

It’s still a little misty for me right now, but I’m sure all will become crystal clear, once I receive my copy of their election guide.

No big surprise here, but thought I’d keep you updated.

Gary McFarlane who was sacked by Relate Avon for refusing to give sex therapy to homosexuals, has had his appeal turned down by the High Court, despite Lord Carey’s untimely and bizarre intervention.

BBC – A relationship counsellor’s bid to challenge his sacking for refusing to give sex therapy to homosexuals has been turned down by the High Court.

Here are my previous posts on this one:

eChurch – Gary McFarlane’s barrister Paul Diamond at the employment tribunal today: “There will be a collision between the established faith of this land and judicial decisions which will lead to civil unrest.”

eChurch – ‘Christian Victims’ of English Judicial System to Challenge Master of the Rolls – today in Court

eChurch – Lord Carey and other church leaders will urge senior judges to stand down from Court of Appeal hearings involving religious discrimination

eChurch – A crucial case for Christian liberties is being argued in the Employment Appeal Tribunal today. Gary McFarlane, a relationship counsellor, was sacked because his Christian beliefs prevented him giving sex therapy to homosexual couples.

This defeat will of course be used to reinforce the narrative of UK Christian persecution, which in turn will fuel yet more ‘persecution’ legal cases.

UPDATE: Guardian have now covered this one.

UPDATE: The Christian Legal Centre have sent out an email as follows:

This from CCFON:

Justice Denied for Christians as Counsellor Refused Right to Appeal

Lord Justice Laws today refused permission to Gary McFarlane to have his case heard before the Court of Appeal.

Mr McFarlane, a relationships counsellor from Bristol, sacked by the Relate Relationship organisation after he refused to provide sexual counselling to homosexual couples because of his Christian beliefs, asked that his case be heard by different judges to those who ruled against Lillian Ladele in December 2009.

Church leaders have been deeply concerned by the ruling by Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, on behalf of the Court of Appeal, in the case of Lillian Ladele—a registrar who refused to conduct civil partnerships ceremonies because they were against her Christian beliefs—and have argued that the Court of Appeal’s decision effectively means that the right to express a strong Christian faith must take second place to the rights of homosexuals under Labour’s equality laws.

It was argued by Human Rights barrister Paul Diamond that previous decisions had failed to grapple with the fundamental clash of rights that has occurred within the law between orthodox Christian teaching on sex and marriage and the protection of homosexual rights. It was argued that the Courts were required by Parliament to undertake such an exercise and have allowed instead one set of rights to trump another.

Lord Justice Laws refused Mr McFarlane’s application, and a personal plea by Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury (1991 – 2002), and other senior church leaders, that the Master of the Rolls be asked to stand down from future Court of Appeal hearings involving cases of religious discrimination because of ‘perceived bias’ against Christianity.

Senior churchmen believed that Mr McFarlane would not have received a proper consideration of the religious convictions involved if his case was heard in front of judges who, they argue, had already shown a lack of understanding of Christian beliefs in previous cases.

In his Judgment, Lord Justice Laws accepted that laws in Britain can be influenced by Christianity and said: “The Judaeo-Christian tradition, stretching over many centuries, has no doubt exerted a profound influence upon the judgment of lawmakers as to the objective merits of this or that social policy.”

And Lord Justice Laws gave examples, such as the “core provisions of the criminal law: the prohibition of violence and dishonesty.”

However, he then seemed to draw a distinction between some moral positions of Christianity, where on merit they should be adopted by others, to other positions of Christianity, where he stated that it is “deeply unprincipled” to confer “any legal protection or preference upon a particular substantive moral position on the ground only that it is espoused by the adherents of a particular faith, however long its tradition, however rich its culture”.

Nobody would disagree that laws should not reflect purely irrational and subjective views of religious believers. However, it is deeply disturbing that Lord Justice Laws appears to place Mr McFarlane’s view on sex and marriage into the ‘subjective’ category as opposed to the ‘meritorious’ category. Hence it was held that the religious belief in question—namely that marriage as between one man and woman for life is the only proper place for sexual expression—could not be protected, because it is a belief held only on subjective basis with no objective merit to it.

Lord Justice Laws went on to say:

“…in the eye of everyone save the believer religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence. It may of course be true; but the ascertainment of such a truth lies beyond the means by which laws are made in a reasonable society. Therefore it lies only in the heart of the believer, who is alone bound by it. No one else is or can be so bound, unless by his own free choice he accepts its claims.

The promulgation of 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.”

Andrea Williams, Director of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “The notion that the Bible’s teaching, of particular focus in this case on sex and marriage is ‘necessarily subjective being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence’, is highly contentious to say the least. To put the reasonably held beliefs of Christians into a such a category is alarming and in effect seeks to rule out Christian principles of morality from the public square.

“Mr McFarlane simply wanted his religious beliefs to be accommodated by his employer, which in the specific facts of the case was not unreasonable. It seems that a religious bar to office has been created, whereby a Christian who wishes to act on their Christian beliefs on marriage will no longer be able to work in a great number of environments.

At the Christian Legal Centre we will continue to fight for people who find themselves suffering as a result of these kinds of judgments until the law once again recognised the public manifestation of faith within a free and civilised society.”

Couple of things to note on Iraq today.

Firstly, the National Council of Churches and its partners throughout the world on Monday sent a letter to Hillary Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates expressing concern about “the ongoing situation of violent attacks on minority groups in Iraq”.

Here’s a link to the letter:

National Council of Churches officers and communion leaders urge U.S. officials to help curtail attacks on Christians in Iraq

The UK and US are partly responsible for this escalation of Christian persecution in Iraq and are bloomin’ duty bound to do something, but seem disturbingly unwilling. In the seven years since the Iraq War was launched, 2,000 Christians have been murdered and 600,000 have fled Iraq, according to Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. 44% of Iraqi refugees are Christians, and many of the 600,000 Christians who remain are internally displaced persons who have had to flee their homes.

For background reading on Christian persecution in Iraq, see here.

On a more positive note we have had some news on the ongoing saga of Ezekiel’s tomb in Iraq, see here, here, here, here, here and here, for background reading.

The following is a cross-post by Bataween over at the Point of no return Blog, who is faithfully covering this.

Tourist hotels to be built near shrine of Ezekiel

The battle to save the shrine of Ezekiel from being converted into a mosque may be won, with the revelation that three tourist hotels are to be built in the nearby town of al-Kifl in central Iraq.

Baghdad-born Professor Shmuel Moreh received the news in a letter from a friend. The letter says that the people of al-Kifl are happy that the hotels, presumably for pilgrims, will be built. The letter also affirms that the authorities will work with UNESCO to preserve the Jewish character of the shrine.

It is not known on what information the friend has based his letter, but Professor Moreh deems him an influential man with connections.

Professor Shmuel Moreh of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has been spearheading a public campaign to preserve the shrine. Point of No Return has played its small part by setting up a petition requesting the immediate intervention of UNESCO and other western bodies. The petition has attracted over 280 signatures.

The latest campaign to save the shrine follows news reports that the Shi’a waqf, which is in charge of restoration work, wished to turn the site into a mosque, although a Shi’a Ayatollah has since denounced the plan. Fears for the future of the site were raised in January when it was revealed that workmen had accidentally painted over Hebrew inscriptions above the tomb.

On an aside, Christian persecution in Islamic lands often goes hand-in-hand with persecution of the tiny Jewish remnant who are grimly clinging on, The Point of no Return Blog has an interesting section on the Jewish community in Iraq……well, what’s left of them.

To think, if things carry on as they are now, we could eventually see Islamic lands ‘cleansed’ of Christians and Jews for the first time in thousands of years….imagine that, swathes of the world which are solely Muslim.

Whilst engaging in my ongoing science and faith quest, I came across the following article from Psychology Today – yes I know some of you view social sciences as pseudo-science – and was intrigued at the harshness.

This particular article is referring explicitly to those who hold the view that the world began exactly as described in the Book of Genesis, in other words, Biblical literalism or letterism. Given this, I’m still somewhat surprised that this article questions the sanity of 6/24 Young Earth Creationists, ties this in with psychosis and denial, and is filed under the category of autism.

Creationism as a mental illness

In Cockney rhyming slang, the word ‘believe’ is represented by ‘Adam and Eve’. When faced with something baffling, shocking or plain peculiar, you might use the rhetorical expression, ‘Would you Adam and Eve it?’ It’s ironic, then, that one of the great debates of the day is about the literal truth of the bible story; or in other words, the extent to which we should Adam and Eve in Adam and Eve.

It’s a question not just of belief but of denial. The phrase ‘in denial’ has become so commonplace it’s hard to still hear its power. In common with the ostrich which, as danger approaches, buries its head in the sand, those who are ‘in denial’ prefer a false but subjective sense of security to a true but objectively scary reality. Denial brings short term, if illusory, comfort.

Hence creationism, the theory/superstition that, contrary to massive scientific evidence, the world began exactly as described in the Book of Genesis. Instead of deriving from millions of years of patient evolution, Adam and Eve popped out, fully formed, like characters from a Swiss cuckoo clock. Would you Adam and Eve it? Of course not. It’s a myth, but like many myths it serves a psychological purpose which is to provide a storybook sense of simple origins, which allays people’s fears. Those who believe this myth to be the truth are in a state of denial.

Along with denial, two other factors connect creationism with mental illness. The first is psychosis, which is an extension of denial. If psychosis is marked by the discrepancy between one’s personal view of the world and the consensual view, creationism holds onto the personal view at all costs, refusing to accept what is abundantly clear. True, if creationism became the majority view, its psychotic character might be mitigated. Except that this majority view would have no more valence than the belief so widely held about the relationship between the sun and the earth before Copernicus proved how the latter orbits the former, and not vice versa.

Finally, creationism shares with autism an alleged lack of ability for irony. Creationists take the bible story as literally true, unable to recognise that it might be working on those other, mythic levels.

If tests for madness include talking to yourself and looking for hairs on the palm of your hand, then here’s another: do you Adam and Eve in Adam and Eve?

Scathing stuff!

Much of psychology is not too impressed with the concept of faith, which from my reading is more often than not viewed as an irrationality. When chatting to a psychiatrist some time back she said that the only good thing about faith is that folks are less likely to commit suicide because they are frightened of the eternal consequences! I get the impression that the social sciences and psychology in particular, struggle to understand the concept of faith as it is not necessarily easily cognitively quantifiable and therefore is usually defined in terms of a cognitive coping mechanism, or emotional crutch. Added to this of course, is the unhelpful fact that psychologists and psychiatrists often happen upon folk who are suffering from mental instability and who exhibit signs which they would term as religious mania.

Of course the irony is that the sort of mental processes described as cognitive are largely influenced by research which has successfully used this paradigm in the past, likely starting with Thomas Aquinas, who divided the study of behavior into two broad categories: cognitive (how we know the world), and affect (feelings and emotions).

So the birth of psychology can in fact be blamed on a man of faith, namely, Thomas Aquinas……only kidding.

Interestingly Biologos have an article looking at St. Augustine and Scriptural literalism and note:

…..the Fathers of the Church did not always follow what would seem to be the misogynist implications of Paul’s epistle. The most radical approach––and, by far, the most influential––is found in the writings of St. Augustine. At first, this may strike one as all the more curious for St. Augustine, in general, strives to be faithful to the literal sense of scripture. As we will see, part of the problem lies in the fact that moderns are heirs to a much different sense of the “literal sense” than was prevalent among the ancients.

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What do you fine blog readers make of this?

Everybody in the country must have now heard of Gordon Brown’s gaff after being caught on microphone describing Gillian Duffy as a “bigoted woman”.

Well, the spoof newspaper The Daily Shame has covered this one and I laughed my socks off:

Daily Shame – UK Bigots “not bigoted enough” say bigots

Came across two interesting little articles referring to scientists investigating human free will, so thought I’d post the links if you’re interested:

MercatorNet – Free will and fruit flies – If we are just a sack of chemical reactions and have no free will, shouldn’t we change our legal system accordingly?

BeliefNet – Researchers Probe Whether, Why, ‘Free Will’ Exists – Are people really responsible for all the things they do? Do they have what theologians call God-given “free will” to choose between right and wrong?

Cross-post Polycarp:

That’s right – Carbon Dating is good only if it reveals data under 6000 years old….

In the news today is the newest (re)discovery of Noah’s Ark. I saw rediscovery, because this happens about once or twice a week or so.

CHINESE and Turkish evangelical explorers believe they may have found Noah’s Ark – 4000m up a mountain in Turkey.

The team said it had recovered wooden specimens from a structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey that carbon dating proved was 4800 years old, around the same time the ark is said to have been afloat.

“It’s not 100 per cent that it is Noah’s Ark but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it,” said Yeung Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker and member of the 15-strong team from Noah’s Ark Ministries International.

The structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, which were believed to house animals, he said. (read the rest here)

Jim West has some thoughts, as does Richard Bartholomew who also has some background information on the groups behind the newest, but not that new, discovery.

I do tend to believe the bible, and I don’t mind so much people spending lots of money trying to prove something – except you know, that they could be spending that same money on trying to actually live the bible. I don’t much care for the hypocrisy of certain things, or the money making machine that this is becoming.

Ugh!

OK this is the biggy today.

David Cameron has swiftly sacked a Scottish candidate Philip Lardner for these comments as reported by Pink News:

Philip Lardner, the candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, stated in a section on his campaign website that he would support parents and teachers who do not want children to be taught about gay equality.

He added that “most” people agree that homosexuality is wrong.

Mr Lardner is a primary school teacher who unsuccessfully stood for Paisley & Renfrewshire North in 2005.

The incumbent MP for the constituency is Labour’s Katy Clark, who is defending a majority of 11,296

The section, which was removed from the website this afternoon, said: “I will always support the rights of homosexuals to be treated within concepts of (common-sense) equality and respect, and defend their rights to choose to live the way they want in private, but I will not accept that their behaviour is ‘normal’ or encourage children to indulge in it.

“The promotion of homosexuality by public bodies (as per ‘clause 28?/section 2a in Scotland,) was correctly outlawed by Mrs Thatcher’s government. Toleration and understanding is one thing, but state-promotion of homosexuality is quite another.

“Why should Christian churches be forced by the government to employ homosexuals as ‘ministers’ against all that the Bible teaches? They are being forced by the government to betray their mission – would the Equality and Human Rights Commission be fined for refusing a job to Nick Griffin?

“Christians (and most of the population) believe homosexuality to be somewhere between ‘unfortunate’ and simply ‘wrong’ and they should not be penalised for politely saying so – good manners count too, of course.

“The current ‘law’ is wrong and must be overturned in the interests of freedom as well as Christian values.”

Mr Lardner was criticised in 2008 for calling the racist former leader of Rhodesia Ian Smith his hero.

He also defended Enoch Powell, saying that “in a small way “, the former Tory shadow minister had been right on immigration. Powell was sacked from the shadow cabinet in 1968 for his infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech.

Interestingly Tim Montgomerie of the respected blog Conservative Home said:

“I see no evidence for hatefulness in Mr Lardner’s remarks, even though I disagree with his choice of words.

“Although he’s probably wrong to say ‘most of the population’ share his views, they are shared by many conservative Christians and people of other faiths. His suspension by the Scottish Conservative Party seems a disproportionate response.”

Here are some links on this one:

Pink News – David Cameron says he sacked homophobic candidate ‘within minutes’

Telegraph – The sacking of a candidate by PC enforcers demonstrates why the Vichy Tories must be defeated

TimesOnline – Would-be Tory MP Philip Lardner is sacked over anti-gay comments

Pink News – Updated: Tory candidate suspended for saying gays were ‘not normal’

Herald Scotland – Tory candidate calls racist Rhodesian leader ‘a hero’

I imagine we will see some vitriolic criticism from the conservative Christian wing.

Does most of the populace quietly believe that homosexuality is intrinsically wrong, or is it mainly the religious?

The sacking of Philip Lardner seems to me overboard, has this view of the gay lifestyle become so dangerous as to warrant a political candidate’s dismissal?