eChurch Blog

After hearing so much about it, I finally managed to watch the Top Gear US special and I wasn’t disappointed.

I just can’t help myself, I love Top Gear, which in my mind is the finest show on TV by far.

In this episode the guys are in the US and are charged with purchasing a car each for $1000, doing some driving and completing some tasks. Among those tasks was to drive through Alabama, a notoriously conservative Christian state in the Bible Belt.

They were challenged to get each other shot or arrested whilst driving through the state and this was to be achieved by painting provocative slogans on the side of each others car.

Watch it here from 42 mins onwards.

BBCiPlayer – Top Gear US Special

James May wrote on Richard Hammond’s car:

Man-Love Rules OK

Jeremy Clarkson wrote on May’s car:

Hillary for President & Nascar Sucks.

Hammond wrote on Clarkson’s car:

Country and Western is rubbish.

It was an ominous warning as they entered the state and the “welcome to Alabama” sign was peppered with gun shot.

Some of the honks and stares were worrying enough when they were driving down the freeway, but nothing compared to stopping in a small, proudly “hick” town, to refuel.

Check it out here from about 45 mins onwards.

Briefly put, the petrol station owner throws a loopy, calls in “the boys”, who promptly arrive minutes later in the back of a pick up truck and proceed to pelt the camera crew and presenters with rocks! You get the distinct feeling that they barely escape a proper old fashioned US style lynchin’.

I tell you the truth, I’d rather chance my arm in an Islamic state, stuff that brand of Christianity. It was edge of your seat stuff  just watching.

Quality TV at its very finest!

Ekklesia have released a response to two BBC ‘news’ articles this morning:

The BBC is really not doing well on its reporting of religion this election. Firstly it wrote a highly speculative article about the role of religion in influencing the election – completely ignoring the substantial evidence on the subject.

Now it is reporting the ‘news’: ‘BNP banned from Lichfield Diocese church hustings’.

The BBC headline is misleading for two reasons. As the BBC article itself makes it clear, the diocese has not in fact “banned” the BNP. Rather the diocese has just issued ‘guidance’ to its churches.

Secondly, the headline should really be ‘Diocese follows Church of England guidance’. The C of E issued this guidance through the Archbishops’ Council Mission and Public Affairs Division on 1st February. This advised all churches and dioceses not to invite extremist candidates to their hustings.

Gavin Drake, the diocesan communications officer quoted in the article, doesn’t seem to have realised this, or, if he has, remembered to tell this to the BBC.

This is neither a ‘ban’. Nor is it news.

We have about 100 articles covering the relationship between the BNP and churches/ Christianity, going back to 2004, which can be found here: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/bnp

[Update: 14.36 The BBC has now published another article: 'Archbishop backs Lancaster BNP debate ban'. Should be titled: 'Archbishop stands by his own guidance']

Bishop Alan adopts a similar strategy towards the proposed English Defence League (EDL) demo due to take place in Aylesbury next week:

EDL Aylesbury: The Wingnut dilemma

Should the Church of England advise all churches and dioceses not to invite extremist candidates such as the BNP to their hustings?

For the motion: Prevents extremist hijacking of Christianity for political gain.

Against the motion: Prevents an opportunity to publicly counter extremist views.

What say ye?

The other day I watched Louis Theroux on TV and he was participating in a “positive thinking will make you rich” seminar in the US, and I was astonished at the similarity of this seminar with some Pentecostal Charismatic services I have witnessed.

Similarities included; the use of suggestion, repetitive physical movements, chanting, eliciting a heightened state of emotion, physical contact (especially palm to forehead), peer reinforcement and pressure, ‘name it and claim it’, etc.

In view of this, some fascinating stuff from Tom Ress of Epiphenom.

Whatever else you think about charismatic preachers, they have a dramatic power over their audience. While their followers believe them to have special powers, a new brain imaging study by Uffe Schjødt at Aarhus University in Denmark suggests that it’s all just a product of their imagination.

In fact, the brain imaging study is only part of the story. What’s even more remarkable is what it says about how some people come to fall under the spell of these charismatics.

What they did was to take a small group of pentecostal Christians and a matched group of non-believers. Both were chosen so as to represent the extreme ends of the belief scale.

They were asked to listen to prayers being read by three different people who, they were told, were a non-Christian, an ordinary Christian, and a Christian ‘known for his healing powers’. In fact, they were all ordinary Christians…

So there was no real difference between the prayers (the speakers were mixed up to make sure differences in speaking style could not affect the experiment). The only difference was what the listener was told, but what a dramatic effect it had!

When asked, the pentecostalists rated the one they were told was a healer as the most charismatic, and the person they thought was non-religious as much less charismatic (see the graph). For the non-believers, there was a slight trend in the same direction, but it was small and insignificant. Basically, they weren’t taken in by the deception.

But the pentecostalists were. Just telling a pentecostalists that someone has healing powers makes them think that they are highly charismatic. What’s more, they didn’t feel God’s presence in the prayers read by the person they were told was a non-Christian.

So where does the hypnotism come in? Well, specific regions of the pentecostalist’s brains became somewhat activated when listening to the prayer from the ‘non-believer’, but highly deactivated when listening to the prayer from the ‘charismatic healer’. The prayer from the ordinary Christian resulted in deactivation too, but on a small scale.

And the regions that were deactivated by the ‘charismatic healer’ were all associated with ‘executive function’ – the part of the mind that evaluates, monitors, and makes decisions. A similar response has been seen in the brains of people undergoing hypnosis – as well as meditation.

In other words, they went into a bit of a trance.

What Schjødt thinks is happening here is that, when we listen someone we trust implicitly, we switch off our critical faculties, and just let what they are saying wash over us. In the words of the researchers, “subjects suspend or ‘hand over’ their critical faculty to the trusted person.”

Now, in this scenario the atheists were immune to the powers of the charismatic preacher. But we shouldn’t run away with the idea that this is a particular characteristic of religious people. Stage hypnosis shows that you that you can see similar effects in secular situations – and Milgram’s scary experiments in authority also spring to mind.

What strikes me most about this study is that the charisma of the preacher was all in the minds of the subjects. They were willing dupes.

And what this study also shows is just how closely linked the razmatazz of charismatic preachers is to the showmanship of stage hypnotists. They seem to be exploiting a common human weakness – and one that has enormous power!

Hat tip: Paliban Daily and New Scientist.

Continuing my theme on Science and Faith, here’s one I appreciated from Huffington Post by Karl Giberson PHD:

In one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons, “Lisa the Skeptic,” a plot involving a supposed “angel” pits scientists against naïve religious townfolk. The episode ends with a trial at which the judge puts a “restraining order” on religion, keeping it “500 yards away from science.”

Many people say that science and religion need to be even further apart. I disagree, however. And there are many scientists who agree with me.

I am a Christian. I believe that God is the ultimate reality and that the world, including me, was created by God. But this is not just an idle affirmation, a faith statement to be recited in church on Sunday. I find my experience of the world enriched in several ways by my belief in God.

For starters, my first contact with the world that God created is through its great beauty. I write these words from my desk in a sunroom on the back of my house. Outside my window a row of Newport plums is in bloom, their delicate pink flowers lighting up the landscape. My andromedas are also blooming. The dogwood, whose branches brush my window when the wind blows, is starting to bud. Directly in front of me the sun is coming up, visible through the forest. New spring foliage at the tops of the trees is becoming illuminated. In a few minutes I will have to pull my blind to keep the sun out of my eyes.

A choir of birds is singing, celebrating the arrival of the new day. I can tell from their joyous song that they must not be Red Sox fans. The sound of the birds is so welcome, in contrast to the traffic noise from the front of my house, which starts up shortly after the birds each morning.

Scientific explanations exist for all that I see and hear outside my window. And explanations can be proposed for why humans enjoy nature so much. But faith is God is not about explanations. We do not believe in God because we need to explain this or that feature of the world. That is what science is for. We believe in God because we see something deeper in the world, something that transcends the scientific explanations.

The experience of natural beauty is available to everyone, and only the flattest of souls cannot enjoy scenes like the one outside my window right now.

As a scientist, however, there are other layers to this experience. Underneath the artistic beauty of nature lies the deeper beauty of a system of natural laws. All the wonders in front of me are built from a few dozen different atoms — hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen. They combine and recombine to make life possible. Their molecular arrangements are the pixels of nature’s most beautiful scenes.

These atoms are all built of protons, electrons, and neutrons. In all the atoms, electrons hum about tiny nuclear cores, following an amazing set of mathematical laws. I can still recall those giddy undergraduate days, decades ago, when I learned to solve the equations that specify what these electrons can do. The solutions were difficult and required the better part of a math degree to produce, but they were elegant beyond belief.

I remember working into the wee hours of the morning, losing track of time, hoping that I wasn’t making mistakes along the way. And then finally a solution appeared on the paper in front of me that was so breathtakingly beautiful that I knew there was no way I had made a mistake. The solution was so simple. All you had to do was plug numbers into the final result — simple integers like one, two, three — and electronic arrangements would pop out. It was Sudoku on steroids.

The beauty of these mathematical patterns is a rich part of the scientific experience of nature. It is what draws people into physics and often turns them into detached and marginally functional mystics, like Newton and Einstein.

What seems the most remarkable of all, though, is the way that the whole system works together. That sun coming up in front of me is 93 million miles away. It takes eight minutes for the light generated by its fusion reactions to make the long trek to earth. Some of the light arriving outside my window is absorbed by chlorophyll molecules in the plants and becomes stored energy. Some of this energy was in the lettuce I ate last night in my salad. Now that energy is driving my metabolism, keeping me alive, letting me experience this new day, powering my fingers now on my keyboard. Some of the sunlight warms the ocean after a long New England winter, coaxing summer into existence. The light makes it possible to view the scenery outside my window. Everything I see becomes visible only when light strikes it.

I also note that this same multi-tasking sun provides the gravitational force that keeps the earth in its stable orbit, tracing out a mathematically perfect ellipse several billions times in a row.

The full experience of a new day is a complex mix of wonder and science, facts and beauty, mathematics and color. Science explains much of it, and what is left over is not so much in need of explanation as it is in need of celebration.

My belief in God provides a framework for this celebration. In some way that I cannot articulate, I praise God for each new day, dimly aware that I am sharing the experience with the artist who put it all in place and put me here to enjoy it.

This one’s causing a stir this morning.

It looks like a backfired attempt at humour to me, which [in my opinion] will serve nicely to benefit the Catholic church and more specifically the Pope’s UK visit.

Telegraph:

The Government has apologised to the Pope over official documents that mocked his forthcoming visit to Britain by suggesting he should bless a gay marriage and even launch Papal-branded condoms.

The astonishing proposals, leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, were contained in secret papers drawn up earlier this month by civil servants following a ‘brainstorm’.

The ideas, included in a memo headed ‘The ideal visit would see …’, ridiculed the Catholic Church’s teachings including its opposition to abortion, homosexual behaviour and contraception. Many appeared to be deliberately provocative rather than a serious attempt to plan an itinerary for the September visit.

The proposals, which were then circulated among key officials in Downing Street and Whitehall, also include the Pope opening an abortion ward; spending the night in a council flat in Bradford; doing forward rolls with children to promote healthy living; and even performing a duet with the Queen.

In reference to the hugely sensitive issue of child abuse engulfing the Catholic Church, the Government document suggests that the Pope should take a “harder line on child abuse – announce sacking of dodgy bishops” and “launch helpline for abused children”.

The document was sent out by a junior Foreign Office civil servant with a covering note admitting that some of the plans were “far-fetched”.

Recipients of the memo were furious at its content and an investigation was launched. One senior official was found responsible and has been transferred to other duties.

Yesterday the Foreign Office issued a public apology after being approached by The Sunday Telegraph, while Francis Campbell, the UK ambassador to the Vatican, met senior officials of the Holy See to express the Government’s regret.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, was “appalled” to hear of the proposals, according to a source close to him, and blamed “a colossal failure of judgement” by officials involved.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “This is clearly a foolish document that does not in any way reflect UK Government or Foreign Office policy or views. Many of the ideas in the document are clearly ill-judged, naive and disrespectful.

“The text was not cleared or shown to Ministers or senior officials before circulation. As soon as senior officials became aware of the document, it was withdrawn from circulation.

“The individual responsible has been transferred to other duties. He has been told orally and in writing that this was a serious error of judgement and has accepted this view.

“The Foreign Office very much regrets this incident and is deeply sorry for the offence which it has caused.

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BBC:

The Foreign Office has apologised for a “foolish” document which suggested the Pope’s visit to the UK could be marked by the launch of “Benedict” condoms.

Called “The ideal visit would see…”, it said the pope could be invited to open an abortion clinic and bless a gay marriage during September’s visit.

The Foreign Office stressed the paper, which resulted from a “brainstorm” on the visit, did not reflect its views.

The junior civil servant responsible had been put on other duties, it said.

Details of the document emerged after it was obtained by the Sunday Telegraph.

The UK’s ambassador to the Vatican, Francis Campbell, has met senior officials of the Holy See to express regret on behalf of the government.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband is said to have been “appalled” by the incident.

The paper was attached as one of three “background documents” to a memo dated 5 March 2010 inviting officials in Whitehall and Downing Street to attend a meeting to discuss themes for the papal visit.

It suggested Benedict XVI could show his hard line on the sensitive issue of child abuse allegations against Roman Catholic priests by “sacking dodgy bishops” and launching a helpline for abused children.

The document went on to propose the Pope could apologise for the Spanish Armada or sing a song with the Queen for charity.

It listed “positive” public figures who could be made part of the Pope’s visit, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair and 2009 Britain’s Got Talent runner-up Susan Boyle, and those considered “negative”, such as Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney and prominent atheist Richard Dawkins.

The civil servant responsible for sending round the memo said in a cover note: “Please protect; these should not be shared externally. The ‘ideal visit’ paper in particular was the product of a brainstorm which took into account even the most far-fetched of ideas.”

An investigation was launched after some recipients of the memo, said to have been circulated to a restricted list, objected to its tone.

A Foreign Office spokesman said the department was “deeply sorry” for any offence the document had caused.

“This is clearly a foolish document that does not in any way reflect UK government or Foreign Office policy or views. Many of the ideas in the document are clearly ill-judged, naive and disrespectful,” he said.

“The text was not cleared or shown to ministers or senior officials before circulation. As soon as senior officials became aware of the document, it was withdrawn from circulation.

“The individual responsible has been transferred to other duties. He has been told orally and in writing that this was a serious error of judgement and has accepted this view.”

Continue Reading

See here for Damian Thompson’s take on the affair and here for P Z Myers.

The Freethinker and Ruth Gledhill have now picked up on this one.

Thought this article interesting, in that it charts the death of God………in our minds……

American Thinker

The long, slow Death of God began on May 23, 585 B.C., when Thales of Miletus (625-545 B.C.) correctly predicted a solar eclipse.  That the birth of Western philosophy on this momentous day ultimately led to the so-called Death of God is not explained by the hoary, worm-ridden chestnut that religion and rational thought cannot co-exist.  It was rather the early seeds of materialism, planted by Thales and later thinkers, which caused philosophy’s cradle to be made, in part, from the wormwood of secularism.

Other pre-Socratic philosophers, notably the mathematical mystic Pythagoras (c. 570-490 B.C), took a decidedly non-materialist tack, and some even included an explicitly divine principle in their systems of thought.  So the die was cast, and the tension between philosophical and religious thought became a kind of “white noise” that often went unnoticed for its ubiquity.

Socrates (470-399 B.C.) claimed to be possessed by a daemon (spirit) that told him what to say, and his disciple, Plato (427-347 B.C.), recorded Socrates’ belief that the ever-changing material world was a mere reflection of eternal Ideas (or Forms), notably in Republic and Timaeus.

In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) argued that the activity of god, nous (thought), was the goal toward which men should strive.  Half a millennium later, Plotinus (c. 204- c. 270) described nous as a divine, foundational intellectual principle.

The late classical and medieval periods were naturally chock full of God-talk.  Indeed, God played a fundamental role for thinkers as diverse as the Jewish Maimonides, the Muslim Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and numerous Christian philosophers-including Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas.

If one were to regard philosophy as a football game, by the 13th or 14th century God would have been 1st and goal on the materialists’ two-yard-line (with three timeouts remaining).

Then came the fumble.

In 1453, Constantinople fell.  Accompanying the loss of this last remaining pillar of the Eastern Empire was the westward flight of many scholars of the ancient world, along with countless manuscripts previously unavailable even in the great monastic libraries of Europe.  The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were the most direct results of this mass exodus.

Europe began to see a general intellectual realignment away from Theism (the belief in god as a divine person) toward Deism (the belief in an impersonal divine order, often identified as “Providence”).  This wave of classical pagan thought rushing into Europe caused the dominant paradigm to shift from the Judeo-Christian conception of god as a divine person back to the pagan notion of god as a transcendent, divine principle of origin and order.

René Descartes’ Discourse on the Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) exemplify this paradigm shift.  The former produced the famous maxim, “Cogito, Ergo Sum” (“I think, therefore I am.”) and the latter purported to prove God’s existence based on the idea of God that Descartes found in his own mind.

The literary conceit of the Meditations was that they took place on six consecutive days, during which Descartes sequestered himself away from all human contact, in order to think-hence “meditations.”

Descartes first dismantled (or, in today’s parlance, “deconstructed”) then rebuilt his entire belief system.  God’s role was little more than to serve as an epistemological surety, guaranteeing that all of Descartes’ “clear and distinct” ideas were true.  Unlike the theistic god of his medieval predecessors, Descartes’ deistic divinity played only a supporting role philosophically, and no spiritual role at all.

At the end of the six days, Descartes saw that it was good.

And on the seventh day, presumably, Descartes rested.

Despite his admiration for both Cartesian thought and religious practice, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) concluded that god’s existence could not be proven.  He also restricted religion to what could exist within the limits of reason alone.  If you’ve ever been to a Unitarian service, you have seen what Kantian religion looks like.

Kant’s most famous, and rebellious, intellectual descendent, G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) fetishized the divine as “Spirit” and “Reason,” which he regarded as the prime guiding forces of history.  Christological imagery featured strongly at the end of his Phenomenology of Spirit (a topic treated at length in my book on the subject), but in the end the death of what Hegel called “The Divine Man” led not to moral salvation, but intellectual enlightenment.  For Hegel, the death of the Divine Man was the Golgotha of Spirit, which allowed it to shed its dependence on both imagistic thinking (Vorstellung) and god-talk.  Spirit could thus think for the first time in the terms of Reason itself.

That deadly dialectician, Karl Marx (1818-1883), ditched the “Spirit” side of Hegel’s philosophy in order to establish dialectical materialism, i.e. the free play of competing economic and social forces.  This move would prove to be nothing short of cataclysmic.  Marx was the first major Western thinker to advocate a thoroughgoing philosophical materialism that denied any place for god, spirit, or mind.

As Marx understood, and intended, pure materialism of this sort does not lead to the Death of God; it is the Death of God.

Everything was now permitted, because there was no transcendent moral standard against which one’s actions could be judged.  History was just the collision of differing points of view, the clash of wills-like so many faceless and nameless atoms.

Following a similar line of thought, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) claimed that only the Death of God allowed man to go beyond good and evil.  Nietzsche described the event as both terrifying and profoundly liberating.  With God dead and buried, there were no longer any moral standards; there was only the Will that could impose itself successfully against other, weaker Wills, by any means necessary.

In fine, when there is no external standard to which a man may appeal, he is entirely at the mercy of whoever manages to obtain power over him.

In George Orwell’s 1984, Comrade O’Brien describes The Party as “the priests of power,” with power itself as their god.  Power is simultaneously the method and goal of this new secular religion.  As O’Brien tells Winston Smith, “Power is not a means; it is an end…. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”

Cross-post Polycarp:

Television and radio evangelist Pastor John Hagee believes the recent eruption of the volcano in Iceland stems from Britain breaking God’s covenant.

The day after Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority said the Western Wall in Jerusalem could not be used in Israeli tourism ads in Britain because it is considered occupied territory, Hagee said, the volcano erupted, shutting down Britain’s economy in one day.

“That’s coincidence, like the flood was a coincidence. That’s coincidence, like the Red Sea was coincidence. That’s coincidence, like the earthquake and the Resurrection was coincidence,” Hagee told about 3,200 people at Lancaster County Convention Center on Thursday night as part of John Hagee Ministries’ Rally and Prophecy Seminar. (read the rest here)

Uh huh.

What an awesome God.

Click this link to zoom in.

NASA’s best-recognized, longest-lived, and most prolific space observatory zooms past a threshold of 20 years of operation this month. On April 24, 1990, the space shuttle and crew of STS-31 were launched to

deploy the Hubble Space Telescope into a low Earth orbit. What followed was one of the most remarkable sagas of the space age. Hubble’s unprecedented capabilities made it one of the most powerful science instruments ever conceived by humans, and certainly the one most embraced by the public. Hubble discoveries revolutionized nearly all areas of current astronomical research, from planetary science to cosmology. And, its pictures were unmistakably out of this world. This brand new Hubble photo is of a small portion of one of the largest seen star-birth regions in the galaxy, the Carina Nebula. Towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the wall of the nebula. The scene is reminiscent of Hubble’s classic “Pillars of Creation” photo from 1995, but is even more striking in appearance. The image captures the top of a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being pushed apart from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks like arrows sailing through the air.

NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) are celebrating Hubble’s journey of exploration with this stunning new picture, online educational activities, an opportunity for people to explore galaxies as armchair scientists, and an opportunity for astronomy enthusiasts to send in their own personal greetings to Hubble for posterity.

OK, Harry Taylor has been sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence and a five year Anti-social Behaviour Order (Asbo) at Liverpool Crown Court.

BBC – John Lennon Airport sexual image atheist gets Asbo

Telegraph – An atheist who left leaflets mocking Jesus Christ, Islam and the Pope in an international airport’s prayer room has been given an Asbo.

I’ve already commented on this case and have nothing more to add:

eChurch – Philosophy tutor and atheist Harry Taylor in court for leaving anti-religious cartoons in John Lennon airport

I suspect their will be some sharp responses to this online, which I’ll post links to here.

Belfast Telegraph – Asbo for man who poked fun at religion

National Secular Society – Atheist sentencing creates a new and dangerous blasphemy law

Independent – Atheist given Asbo for leaflets mocking Jesus

Happy St. George’s Day.

I have never really celebrated our patron saint’s day, but I certainly have nothing against doing so.

Normally the day passes me by fairly unnoticed, however, this year there seems to be some fervour in the air.

The Archbishop of York – Dr John Sentamu – has taken a firm stand today in the Mail. Here’s some of what he says:

The Archbishop of York yesterday called for a display of English patriotism on St George’s Day.

Dr John Sentamu said the failure to celebrate the English patron saint’s day is a sign of ingratitude for the country’s heritage and a mark of cynicism, said.

The Archbishop said it was time for the English ‘to rejoice in the land that we live in.’

Dr Sentamu, second in the hierarchy of the Church of England, made his plea for patriotism in the wake of a survey which showed that many people believe England has lost its national identity and feel ashamed of their nationality.

[.....]

Dr Sentamu said: ‘To be patriotic is to appreciate and be grateful for all that is valuable in the country you live in.

‘It does not require you to be a xenophobe or a blinkered nationalist.’

He added: ‘The failure to recognise and to appreciate the goodly heritage of one’s country of residence is a sign of all-round ingratitude. Ingratitude in turn breeds cynicism.’

Fair enough, although, I will note that you don’t necessarily need to be over patriotic to appreciate and be grateful for all that is valuable in the country you live in.

The Mail article goes on to make this interesting observation:

Earlier this week a poll conducted by This England magazine found that fear of being smeared as racist was greater than enthusiasm for expressing love of their country.

This fear is to me sad but understandable, and it is this very atmosphere that fuels the  BNP machine. Perfectly legitimate national sentiments and patriotism are all too oft jumped upon by the anti-racist brigade, or alternatively hijacked by the far right. Remember Nick Griffin recently heaped high praise on the Archbishop of York in an interview.

The BNP are making much of St George’s day as are other political groups, but I want to draw your attention to a press release from the BNP this morning:

BNP’s Commitment to Britain’s Christian Heritage Draws Applause from Hustings Crowd

The British National Party’s commitment to maintain Britain’s Christian heritage drew loud applause from a hustings crowd in Bridgwater, reports Bridgwater and West Somerset parliamentary candidate Donna Treanor.

“I read the other parties’ manifestos and noticed that not one of them mentioned Christianity, so I pointed this out at the hustings, and none of the other candidates could defend themselves,” Miss Treanor said.

“I then pointed out that the BNP had called for a return to our Christian heritage and values, and the audience all clapped very enthusiastically.

“The BNP will ensure that appropriate areas of public life, including school assemblies, are based on a commitment to the values of traditional Western Christianity, as a benchmark for a decent and civilised society,” she told the hustings, organised by the  Bridgwater’s Mother’s Union.

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As you will note, this fusion between nationalism, patriotism and Christian heritage is a heady mix indeed. Christians either have to take ownership of this and wrest control from the BNP, or avoid the issue entirely so as not to stoke an unhelpful fire.

Unfortunately it would seem some Christians wish to stoke the fire and blur the boundaries.

Much criticism was levelled against Rev. George Hargreaves (leader of the Christian Party) for recently providing a platform for a televised debate with Nick Griffin. George Hargreaves has also recently insinuated in a Guardian piece that Labour is in fact ‘worse’ than the BNP.

Given the above, I considered George Hargreaves to be simply woefully politically naive, so you can imagine my surprise when I found out that Pastor James Gitau, who was happily campaigning for Revd West of the BNP a couple of weeks ago, has suddenly defected to the Christian Party.

This begs the question in my mind of, is the Christian Party so similar to the BNP, that cross fertilisation can easily take place? Or put another way, are the BNP’s claims to represent Christian heritage legitimate?

Anyway, enough of this weirdness, here are some Christian responses to St. George’s day today.

Cranmer has used today to call for an English Parliament, akin to the Scottish parliament.

Two thirds of voters (68%) in England believe England should have its own Parliament with similar powers to those of the Scottish Parliament, according to a new ICM poll for the Rowntree-backed democracy campaign group POWER2010 published on St George’s Day.

The findings come as POWER2010 stage a huge guerrilla-style projection of the St George’s flag with the words ‘Home Rule’ onto the Palace of Westminster to brand it English for a day.

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Ekklesia want to re-brand St George’s day:

Note this pertinent comment in particular:

…….Similarly, some church figures, such as Anglican Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu, and past Archbishop of canterbury Lord carey, have sought to laud ‘Englisness’, but in so doing have found themselves inadvertently playing into the hands of a more insidious right-wing narrative that tries to fuse God, nation, ethnicity and empire together in order to defend an exclusionary version of national consciousness. This only illustrates the problem that many have been running away from. Something quite distinct from the establishment, ‘Christendom’ approach is needed – both in political and religious terms, with a recognition of the necessary distinctions that involves.

Continue Reading

Even Google has got in on the act.

Finally British Religion in Numbers have cited some interesting stats on Christian attitudes to St George’s day:

Interestingly, given the choice, only 25% of 512 practising Christians in the UK would choose St George as the patron saint of England, according to a ComRes poll for Premier Christian Media between 22 April and 1 May 2009. 11% preferred St Augustine, 9% St Alban, 5% St Cuthbert, 4% St Thomas à Becket, while 20% did not want England to have a patron saint at all.

Perhaps from this we might deduce that Christians in general are apathetic towards St George and I would be among them, even though I love this country.

What about you? Do you celebrate St George’s day in any special way, or are you apathetic?