eChurch Blog

I wholeheartedly agree with the archbishop of Westminster Rt Rev Vincent Nichols who is quoted in the Guardian as saying:

I personally don’t feel in the least bit persecuted. I don’t think Christians should use that word.

Absolutely right.

In fact, if Western Christians are to self-define as “persecuted” then we need a new term to coin the brutalisation of Christians minority groups in Islamic lands and elsewhere.

Nichols goes on to say:

“what might have started out as an acknowledgement of a variety of religious and philosophical positions has produced a seeming determination to tear the legal and therefore cultural life of the country away from its Christian roots.”

Again, absolutely right. And I will be the first to acknowledge that the secular agenda is on the ascendancy in the UK. However, this still does not equate to “persecution” in the true sense of the word.

It is entirely possible of course, that the UK Christian ‘persecution narrative’ is based on a subjective perception that we are witnessing the thin edge of the wedge, and I think this is the very heart of the matter. UK Christian persecution anxieties are not so much based on current events, but on the perception of what may be on the horizon. We can see a slippery slope and it makes us edgy.

Let me elaborate on the UK Christian “persecution narrative” as I see it. I believe it is a self-reinforcing group narrative within which subjective perceptions are evidenced as an objective reality. Firstly, you cite a few recent high profile legal cases. Any that were successful prove the encroaching persecution; any that were unsuccessful prove the anti-Christian bias of the law courts. Either way the narrative is affirmed and the lawyers make money.

All of this “evidence” of persecution perpetuates the narrative, leading to a subcultural “moral panic” that potentially precipitates a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Many outside of Christianity perceive Christians to be lamenting the loss of a privileged position and status within our culture, rather than anything else. Sometimes I can’t blame them. Many of the recent high profile Christian ‘persecution’ legal cases have revolved around the ‘Equality’ laws and many in society are annoyed that they perceive Christians as believing they should be exempt from such laws. Yesterday Sir Trevor Phillips, the Head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, was quoted as saying:

…..the law stops at the door of the temple as far as I am concerned.

Of course, this cuts both ways.

The crux of Phillips’ argument is that it is only inside a church or religious institution that believers can apply their own rules. Phillips also makes the argument that if we make exceptions for Christians, then we need also make exceptions for others; for example, the implementation of Sharia law. There is a logic to this in my mind.

In truth, no government will really be able to legislate for ‘offense’ or ‘equality’ for everybody, as it is inevitable that as a result of these laws, some will actually become discriminated against. Personally I believe the government should legislate as little as possible in this area of life.

Given the hostility of the world towards Jesus, should we always expect the world to be nice and friendly towards us? Is this even a healthy state of affairs for the Church, as it can potentially foster complacency and too much involvement in worldly affairs?

The truth is, if we define ourselves by our victimhood, we have a massive problem, as we ape the society around us, which is dominated by a hierarchy of victimhood.

In conclusion, I will state that I personally don’t feel that I belong to a beleaguered minority; we’re everywhere and I think Christians need to be more confident about who we are.

UK Christians need to stop using the word “persecution” for fear of devaluing the term. We may experience areas of discrimination, belittlement, exclusion, and so forth – Who doesn’t – but this is patently and qualitatively different to persecution.

Anyway, when did Jesus say it would be an easy ride?

This from the National Secular Society:

The High Court today ruled that “The saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a Council is not lawful under s111 of the Local Government Act 1972, and there is no statutory power permitting the practice to continue”. The judgement follows a Judicial Review initiated by the National Secular Society.

The judgement follows a Judicial Review initiated by the National Secular Society to challenge the practice of prayers as part of the formal business of council meetings in Bideford Town Council (Devon).

UPDATE: Here’s more from the BBC

UPDATE II: Cranmer has now blogged on this.

UPDATE III: Gregg has now blogged on this (Hard hitting with some swearing)

UPDATE IV: Cranmer has further blogged on this.

UPDATE V: The Telegraph have a voting poll on this issue; why not hop over and cast your vote. It’ll be interesting to view the outcome. At the moment, the results are surprising in a nice way

UPDATE VI: GodandPolitics and Roger Pearse have blogged and Premier have reported on this.

UPDATE VII: Heresy Corner declares this a pyrrhic victory for the NSS

UPDATE VIII: Ekklesia have a different take on today’s ruling. And here is an Ekklesia media statement.

UPDATE IX: Barrister Neil Addison comments.

I love to be inspired. I love sharing my life with others, and supporting them with their endeavours and being supported in return. These are important aspects of my church experiences and I have not managed to find other groups here at university that fill those roles in my life. Finally, I think I just really love food. My Thursday bible study group? We cook each other dinner! When I have a dinner party, who is by far most likely to attend? My Christian friends! Meal-sharing is emphasized in Christianity and there is little else in the world I appreciate more than good food and good company at the same time.

So yes, I love church. And no, I don’t believe in God. I hope that is okay with you, but even if it isn’t– that doesn’t matter to me, since I have a whole bunch of friends from my church who love me anyways

SOURCE

A post in which I muse a little, raise questions, and answer very little…..

I Tweeted earlier:

I sincerely believe that it is easier to publicly proclaim your sexuality than it is to declare mental illness and personality disorders.

This was met with a small chorus of agreement.

This thought derived from an incident on a prominent Christian forum in which a gay atheist activist took exception to the fact that the moderators had requested he change his provocative avatar. The avatar was of two naked men in an implicit homoerotic embrace. Given the history of this particular guy on the forum, which is typified by aggression – bordering on the threatening – vileness, rudeness, bullying, accusatory sentiment, ad hominem, Christian hatred, and so forth, it was plainly obvious to many that the avatar was designed to provoke.

This guy decided not to comply with the request of the moderator and subsequently was forced to do so.

The ensuing indignation from him and his supporters was quite breathtaking, and it wasn’t long until this polite request for him to change his avatar was conflated with the holocaust in accordance with Godwin’s Law.

What struck me most forcibly however, were the accusations flying around of Christian homophobes persecuting a gay man in violation of his “rights”. It didn’t take long to determine that this fellow identified himself primarily in terms of his sexuality; which he readily acknowledged.

This strikes me as odd, as we are all sexual beings one way or another and yet most of us don’t feel the need to define ourselves primarily by this trait, nor, make our sexual preferences a matter for public consumption. I would venture that we are in fact multi-faceted beings, with our self-identity being derived from many sources, both past and present.

In truth, the whole nature / nurture debate surrounding sexual orientation is of little import to me, even though it incorporates the contentious issue of reorientation therapy. To be truthful, I couldn’t imagine any amount of therapy reorientating my sexual proclivity.

Of course, the reasoning behind a person, especially a gay person, publicly parading their sexuality, is in the cause of changing societal sexual norms; especially in the realm of prejudice or discrimination. And let’s be frank, the Gay community has been enormously successful in this endeavour.

To self-describe as Catholic / Christian is, in the minds of some, to effectively declare yourself a homophobe. A person characterised by hatred of homosexual folk. And with the label homophobia being conflated with racism and such, it is certainly not something a person wishes to be associated with, and is indeed the ultimate conversation stopper.

On an aside, the word homophobia first appeared in print in an article written for the 23 May 1969 edition of the American tabloid Screw, in which it was used to refer to heterosexual men’s fear that others might think they are gay. It has also been used to describe a fear of people who ‘come out’ as homosexual. (SOURCE)

The term phobia obviously relates to fear and I would aver that the very term “Homophobia” now elicits a fear within some Christians; namely, the fear of being viewed as an unreasonable, bigoted, hate-filled, discriminator.

As it happens, I view homosexuality as “disordered”. There I said it. Does that mean I hate homosexuals? Absolutely not. Nor am I in “fear” of them. The fact is, you see, I view homosexuality as just one of a myriad of disorders that afflict the human race. I have my own disorders, and I seek to fight against them. That’s my choice. And others are free to view disorders in a favourable light and embrace them and let them form the basis of their identity.

Do I view homosexuality and Christianity as incompatible? Who the heck am I to judge another! A queer Christian has his / her own dealings with God, that are frankly non of my business.

But all of this pondering got me to thinking down a different line.

With so many different sub-cultures fighting for equality, there’s one group that always seems to get left behind, and that’s the mentally ill or personality disordered.

It strikes me that in our politically correct society, with the rights of so many being promoted through the powerful mechanism of Newspeak, it is still perfectly acceptable to malign another using mental health terminology. Not many folk would use the terminology now employed by the gay community to self-describe; in a pejorative manner. And yet this change has not taken place in relation to the terminology used to describe debilitating mental illness.

The obvious example is to employ the terms “mad”, “lunatic”, or “insane”, when debating someone. Or perhaps to label someone as schizophrenic when they exhibit the very common trait of cognitive dissonance. It’s interesting to note that even the Oxford English Dictionary has a secondary definition of schizophrenic as: “With the implication of mutually contradictory or inconsistent elements”.

I’m sure you can think of many other examples in which deploying the language of clinical mental illness diagnosis to describe everyday personality traits is used.

Many seem to labour under the misapprehension that using these mental health metaphors is simply a joke, not to be taken seriously. But I believe these language tactics further obfuscate conditions that are widely misunderstood and stigmatised. It’s deeply upsetting to sufferers, and is part of the process of creating and perpetuating stigma around mental illness.

Why hasn’t the mentally ill community made progress like other groups?

Firstly, because of the very nature of the illnesses. Secondly, because how does it sound to have a “Schizophrenic Pride” march? Or perhaps, “Mad Pride”? It’s not great is it.

And in amongst the stigma surrounding mental illness, believe it or not, there is a stigma within a stigma. I am referring to Personality Disorders.

How does this sound to you:

Hi, I’m Stuart, a diagnosed Psychopathic personality.

or

Hi, I’m Stuart, a Narcissistic personality.

or

Hi, I’m Stuart, a Borderline personality.

or

Hi, I’m Stuart, a Schizotypal personality.

Doesn’t sound great does it.

How about we bring the much maligned Christian label into the mix? How “proud” are we then?

On top of the debilitating symptoms or these personality disorders is a HUGE whack of shame.

Again, I don’t care much for the nature / nurture debate surrounding these disorders; one thing I do know, is that the folk afflicted with these, didn’t choose, or bring it on themselves.

Who really are the maligned, persecuted, discriminated, mocked, belittled, humiliated, within this society?

Who should really have pride?

Who’s rights really need fighting for?

I’ll leave it there…..

To some of us it will come as no surprise that this incident happened at the University of London:

‘Five minutes before the talk was due to start a man burst into the room holding a camera phone and for some seconds stood filming the faces of all those in the room. He shouted ‘listen up all of you, I am recording this, I have your faces on film now, and I know where some of you live’, at that moment he aggressively pushed the phone in someone’s face and then said ‘and if I hear that anything is said against the holy Prophet Mohammed, I will hunt you down.’ He then left the room.

….continue

A molecular biologist friend of mine in Cambridge once told me that the saddest aspect of the work of people like Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins was the way they identified evolution with atheist materialism.

The result, among those Christians, Muslims and others who had little understanding of science, was inevitable: reject Darwinian evolution altogether.

SOURCE

Christianity is one of the greatest strengths Europe has, and if it is lost, “we will be condemned to the erosion of the European spirit,” the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek has said.

[.....]

In an address at the European Prayer Breakfast, Mr Buzek, the former Prime Minister of Poland, and a Protestant, reminded his audience that “the founding fathers of the united Europe were active Christians”.

He went on: “At the same time, the question arises whether Christian heritage is still valuable, if it is not just another historical costume – respectable but useless?

“Let me be clear – a courageous testimony of Christians, present also in politics – tolerant and open to others – is one of the greatest strengths we have.

“If we give it up, we will be condemned to the erosion of the European spirit, digested by nationalism and atomisation; and also by increased feeling of spiritual emptiness – disease of a world of excessive consumption.”

[.....]

He said: “In this context, it is difficult not to notice that in Europe we have recently been witnesses of aggressive secularism. This is something I would call negative tolerance. One example can be the question of the cross in the public space.

“An aggressive, and in reality intolerant, minority would like to lock our faith in to the small box of our privacy.”

Such a move, he said “would mean to scrap the idea of religious freedom”.

Mr Buzek said: “History shows that the empty space left by the removed cross has always been conquered by totalitarian ideologies. The disappearance of the cross often resulted not in the release but the enslavement of man.

“I am convinced that we can not only save our faith, but through our attitude in a secularised world, we Christians can also be the salt of this earth and a light for everyone.”

….read all

A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:

Maggi Dawn – Battle On

A biologist’s view of science & religion – Typologies, categories, and the myth of science and religion at war

Washington Post – Vatican launches Catholic home for U.S. Episcopalians

Engage – Daily Mail reports that halal meat rejected in Parliament restaurants and cafes

A Tiny Son of Mary – God Bless the Oratorians!

The New Oxonian – Accommodationist of the Year!

Doug Chaplin – Maybe they should be ashamed of that gospel?

Theology Under Construction – Should Christians Refuse to Explain Christianity?

There is no doubt in my mind that there are many ‘churches’ in this country which would fall easily under the definition of a cult. From my experience they practice scriptural literalism and are in effect their own Magisterium. Oddly enough this ‘literalism’ doesn’t tend to stretch to the Sacraments. They are ‘independent’ in that have have no ecclesiastical hierarchy and therefore no accountability.

They are usually insular and avoid interaction with the wider body, for example: “Churches Together”. They tend to view other Christians as ‘not saved’ which begets a ‘them and us’ mentality. The hierarchy is usually comprised of one pastor and his ‘elders’ and they detest what they would term as ‘institutional’ churches such as Anglicanism and Catholicism, which they view as ‘deceived’ or ‘pagan’. In extreme cases this loathing may include ALL other denominations, sects and cults, making them true lone rangers. In other cases they may loosely affiliate with an umbrella organisation to lend an air of respectability.

I think you get the picture; in a nutshell, Biblical fundamentalists.

Given the nature of these fundamentalist organisations it would be difficult to know how prevalent they are, but it’s interesting to note in this regard that the leading UK organisation for Cognitive Therapy – BABCP British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies – has deemed this issue important enough to publish a series of articles in their in-house journal – CBT Today.

These articles are also available on their website which I will link to below, but first a caution. These articles were written in the US which has been picked up by Dr Rob Waller, Consultant Psychiatrist (BABCP Member) and he comments:

As you read these I think you will see that this is a very serious and sad problem and something that undoubtedly grieves Jesus and that he would wish his church not to do. However, because these articles are written from an American perspective, it can read as though most evangelical churches in the UK fall into this category. The word ‘fundamentalist’ means different things each side of the Atlantic.

I wrote a response to these articles which was published by the paper journal alongside the second article, but does not appear on their website. I have therefore reproduced the text below. I wrote it jointly with Greta Randle, Chief Executive of the Association of Christian Counsellors, and Gillie Jenkins, an expert in cult religions and pathological spirituality. Among other things we were surprised by the number of column inches over three editions given to this relatively niche topic and presented in [our view] quite a biased, antagonistic and pro-atheist way.

Please make up your own minds.

It’s well worth reading Dr Waller’s response to these articles first, before proceeding to read the articles themselves; which can be found on the following links:

Religious Trauma Syndrome: It’s Time to Recognize It 

Understanding Religious Trauma Syndrome: Trauma from Religion

Understanding Religious Trauma Syndrome: Trauma from Leaving Religion