eChurch Blog

Even more interesting was Mark Mardell’s report from Iowa in which he described Rick Santorum as an “evangelical Christian.” Rick Santorum is of course a devout Roman Catholic.

This could be seen in two ways. It could, like the previous example, be in line with the cultural bias of the BBC and be an attempt to label Santorum with a denigrating label. In the BBC mindset evangelicals are really foaming at the mouth fundamentalists who wish to stone homosexuals and force everyone else to wear chastity belts. If they are Americans they also speak in tongues, marry their sisters and handle snakes. Scary or what?

SOURCE

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

Accepting Abundance – On Dissent – Proud to be right?

Vatican Insider – Jews alarmed by Messianic movement boom

Cranmer – Alcohol price-fixing will not solve binge-drinking

iBenedictines – Holy Innocents

Ugley Vicar – Our Christmas Carol Sermon

Outside the Assylum – Who cares about religious apathy?

Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion – Nick Broomfield and Sarah Palin’s Religion

It would seem that the Christmas homilies of both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Catholic Archbishop have been used as an opportunity for political attack and this has not been well received.

Firstly the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams caught some flak for this comment:

The most pressing question we now face, we might well say, is who and where we are as a society. Bonds have been broken, trust abused and lost. Whether it is an urban rioter mindlessly burning down a small shop that serves his community, or a speculator turning his back on the question of who bears the ultimate cost for his acquisitive adventures in the virtual reality of today’s financial world, the picture is of atoms spinning apart in the dark.

This was condemned for attacking bankers and equating them with the rioters. The sentiment this aroused is probably best encapsulated by Tory MP Gary Streeter:

“He would be wise to leave the politics to the politicians and focus on giving much needed spiritual leadership.”

More disturbing however was Archbishop Nichols’ address, in which he attacked Israel:

That shadow falls particularly heavily on the town of Bethlehem tonight. At this moment the people of the parish of Beit Jala prepare for their legal battle to protect their land and homes from further expropriation by Israel. Over 50 families face losing their land and their homes as action is taken to complete the separation/security wall across the territory of the district of Bethlehem. We pray for them tonight.

CIFWatch responded:

As we typically see in the rabidly anti-Israeli Guardian, the Archbishop used Christmas and Bethlehem to direct an attack on Israel. Do we even know if there are 50 families, or do they exist only on the anti-Israeli websites? Do they need the Archbishop’s prayers when appealing to one of the world’s most respected judiciaries which has repeatedly ruled in favor of Palestinians on land issues?

After all, anyone with any real knowledge of the issues on the West Bank knows how complicated they can be, and how simplistic reports by interested parties can hide the complexity of what really happens there. For example, this report from Agence France-Press in August 2010 – “In gesture of peace progress, Israel demolishes massive concrete barrier” - tells a very different story and includes some context that explains why the security barrier was needed near Beit Jala:

Israeli troops on Sunday began demolishing a huge concrete wall erected nine years ago to prevent shooting attacks towards Gilo, a Jewish neighbourhood in occupied east Jerusalem

[....]

But more startling in this context, if he wishes to turn his attention to world affairs, was Nichols’ avoidance of any mention of the repeated attacks carried out against Christians almost throughout the Islamic world.

As Robin Shepherd commented more generally:

Every atrocity perpetrated against Christians in the name of Islam, by contrast, seems all too quickly to be brushed under the carpet.

While lamenting the pending “legal battle”, Nichols is oblivious to the way Christians have been forced out of Gaza and Bethlehem by Islamists, without any “legal battle”.

If the “50 families” do exist, is the prospect of waging a “legal battle” which they will win if their claim is justified in any way a greater matter than Christians being blown up in Nigeria, Pakistan and Iraq, beaten and burnt to death in Egypt, thrown out of Gaza, or having their lands stolen by Moslems in the West Bank?

When the Islamists force the Christians out, it is with stones, guns, and bombs, not “legal battles”, but Nichols cannot bring himself, as Shepherd says of the BBC, to say the “I word”.

But all is not lost.

I found a lovely Christmas homily by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin – Yes the very same Archbishop who recently urged ‘lapsed Catholics’ to hop it.

Here’s some of his homily, but I feel it’s all worth a read and certainly the best of the pretty woeful Christmas bunch:

Jesus appears in that concretely verifiable world but his birth cannot be identified with that world.  The census reminds us of the desire of the emperor to dominate and exploit; the design of God appears in a totally different and surprising manner.  God chose to reveal his plan of salvation not through the structures of geopolitical power and influence, but within the reality of a simple, lonely, anxious and disadvantaged family: Mary and Joseph. They travel alone to reach Bethlehem. Mary is expecting her child.  They are isolated, exposed and vulnerable.  They seek to understand. They have no armies or large business enterprises to protect them.  They have no place of outward human security.   Joseph provides the only shelter he can, that of his love and protective concern. 

The birth of Jesus takes place yes within the politics of human history; but the real truth of that birth can be understood only when we identify with the simple love and trust of Mary and Joseph.  Their extraordinary sense of responsibility to protect what is their precious gift lies far away from any sense of power or self-interest or the protection of possessions. Jesus who is the Lord of creation with his birth appears into our history in a manner in which our history is incapable of understanding, except by those whose faith was based on the simple humility which had marked the faithful believers who lived in expectation of the fulfilment of the promise, about which we heard in the first reading.

The loving kindness of God appeared in Jesus, but it was not understood and accepted.   In the Gospel reading of tomorrow morning’s Mass we will recall the words of Saint John:  Jesus was among his own yet he was rejected by those who were his very own.  When we reflect on the situation of the Church and the difficulties that the men and women of our generation encounter in believing, it is very easy to point the finger and say that it is all due to society or to culture or to secularization and even to hostility against faith and against the Church. We have always to remember that the first rejection that Jesus encountered was rejection by his very own.  Renewal in the Church must first come from conversion within the Church.  Conversion is not about fleeing from the realities of the world and society and culture and secularization, it is about understanding them in a different light.  Jesus is the light that enlightens but also the light that enables us to discern the realities of our life in a different way.

The loving kindness of God appears not in palaces, not in luxury hotels not even in the simplest village hostel, but in what was for the powerful an insignificant space.  Jesus was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn.  This was not an accident of over-booking.  It is not because accidentally there was no room; Jesus chooses to be born precisely into that space which belongs to those, at any time in history, for whom there is no room, those who are excluded from normal hospitality, those who live without security.  But it would be wrong to interpret that by saying that Jesus was born on the margins.  Jesus is born – and that is what we celebrate tonight – not on the margins of real life, but to parents who pilgrim looking for that space in which the love of God is truly at home.  That is the message of the birth of Jesus.  Our calling too is to journey discerning those spaces in our world, in our lives and in our hearts in which the love of God will be truly at home.

This is super news folks.

On Monday, for the first time in more than a decade, the U.N. General Assembly condemned religious intolerance without urging states to outlaw “defamation of religion”.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) – comprising 57 Islamic nations – have been trying for years to introduce a ‘Defemation of Religion” UN resolution. This would have only favoured Islam, violated free speech, and ushered in a dangerous global blasphemy law.

I think we have all seen how blasphemy laws are used in some Islamic nations to terrify, subjugate, imprison, and in some cases, murder religious minority groups.

I’ve blogged about the “defamation of religions” many times in the past; most recently: here, here and here.

The resolution approved on Monday declares that “discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief constitutes a violation of human rights.” It also expressed concern about the incitement to religious hatred and the failure of some states “to combat this burgeoning trend.”

The General Assembly adopted the resolution by consensus without a vote. The versions passed in previous years had enjoyed increasingly less support in assembly votes due to Western and Latin American opposition to the “defamation” idea. The resolution barely received a majority of yes votes in 2010.

The New York-based rights group Human Rights First welcomed the resolution prior to its adoption, describing the new version as “a decisive break from the polarizing focus in the past on defamation of religions.”

“Governments should now focus on concrete measures to fight religiously motivated violence, discrimination and other forms of intolerance, while recognizing the importance of freedom of expression,” Human Rights First’s Tad Stahnke said.

Earlier this year Western countries and their Latin American allies joined Muslim and African states in backing a new approach that switched the focus from protecting beliefs to protecting believers. That new approach led to Monday’s resolution.

….read all

I’m not going to say anything about David Cameron’s speech as so much has been said already. I think the general consensus in the Twitterati world seems to be that he’s a hypocrite, with a few folk suggesting he has no real faith, but more a belief in belief.

Anyway, you can be the judge of all that if you wish.

Here is the link to his speech in full.

Let us know what you think.

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

Tim Challies – Soft, Effeminate Christianity

Protect the Pope – UK Equalities Commission condemns National Secular Society’s ‘thoroughly bonkers’ misuse of Human Rights Act

A Reluctant Sinner – Joseph of Nazareth on Twitter – He only started tweeting ten days ago but already has nearly 10,000 followers!

Get Religion – The Economist on birth control for nuns

Mashable – What the World’s Biggest Websites Looked Like at Launch

iBenedictines – The Right Thing To Do

The Weekly Standard – The End of Canterbury

Spiked – The European Union has cracked. Good.

Two quotes from two different sources peering through the metaphorical lens at the deification of the beast that must be obeyed; namely, The Market.

The governments of the world, of course, bow down to the  Market. It is said you can’t buck it. You must prove yourself strong to be trusted. For if you cannot feed the Market with the debt repayments it deserves, it will not pour out its bounty upon you with lower bond rates. If you cannot impress the Market with your country’s virtue, your currency will decline or – if you are in the Euro – you will be required to cut the size of your state. Democracy is no defence – if you cannot meet the Market’s ravenous demands then it will install a new leader for you – one who understands the ways of the Market.

SOURCE

And:

The old God sanctioned the king to act as Christ, and suffer for the benefit of his people before bouncing back; the market-god and its plebeian rival expected the same from government with bourgeois liberty and social justice vying for the role of the holy spirit. Today, worshippers of the omnipotent market and of the masses seem ready to dispense with the services of any government-as-Christ. Salvation will come through the will “of the market” or of the “people” directly materialising itself.

SOURCE

Both of these rather ominous pieces are worth your time to read in full.

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

Society for Christian Psychology: Mediation: Moving from Unforgiveness to Forgiveness

Naming His Grace: Critiquing the theologies and connections of some pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel leaders: a series # 2

Melanie Phillips: From Red Toryism to Blue Labour, social renewal depends on Christian principles

Countercultural Father: Mindfulness…

Get Religion: Evolution and Islam

Vatican Insider: Year 2011: Less atheists, more believers

Assyrian International News Agency: Thousands of Muslims Attack Christians in Egypt, 2 Killed, Homes and Stores Torched

Significant Truths: When we walk in darkness – I’ve had plenty of opportunities to be depressed – I just haven’t taken them!

Seriously why? Why are the Occupy protesters setting up camp outside another bloomin’ Cathedral? Can anyone enlighten me?

Just returned from my local Remembrance Sunday parade and it was moving and fabulous as usual.

On an aside, I heard the police commander say: “My people are ready to shut down all the streets”, wouldn’t you love to able to say that; just once!

It was this time last year that I got into some serious hot water over my Remembrance Sunday blog post, in which I said:

Strangely, it was at this point I thought about atheists, humanists and secularists, as it was the very fusion with Christianity which gave this event meaning beyond the secular. The collective prayers and petitions to God for the fallen…

….the marvelous hymns and poems for reconciliation between people groups. I was particularly struck with the collective community holiness and solemnity of the proceedings. It was the very Christian aspect which provided the community glue and perception of togetherness in collective solemn remembrance.

All of sudden I felt pity for those who would desire the removal of Christianity from such occasions and who would exclude themselves from this type of collective worship.

I cannot conceive how a community could even begin to mark such an occasion without the Church, and of course God Himself.

For me, it was the revelation that humanists, secularists, and atheists might never understand or appreciate the essentiality of Christianity and the wonderful meaning this brings to such occasions.

Frankly I felt sorry for them and wondered if they would refuse to participate in the Christian element if they were present.

These sentiments caused something of a backlash.

Ekklesia were featured in that blog post, as they were busy lamenting the fact that a request from the British Humanist Association (BHA) for armed forces humanists to be included at the Cenotaph in London, was refused.

Well, guess what, Ekklesia feature in this blog post also.

I’ve just watched the BBC Newsnight episode (UK viewers only from 23 mins) from a couple of days ago, which features Jonathan Bartley arguing that the red poppy is now a political symbol. He was soundly trounced by Major Gordon Corrigan.

Bartley cited Cameron saying the poppy was a statement of pride in the nation state, and argued this was evidence of the poppy being a political symbol. The Major retorted with: “There’s nothing political in being proud of what you have achieved and what you have done”.

Bartley argued that as the poppy was a symbol of remembrance of those that had laid down their lives for our freedom; with those that lost their lives during recent conflicts such as: Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland, many folk may not believe they had died for our freedom. The Major responded by saying it doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with the war; you, the country, sent them off to die; therefore, you should remember them. We approve of the men, not the conflict.

Right at the end, in the concluding comments, Bartley mentions the language we use and says: “We need to recognise that they died in vain and death is not glorious”, to which the Major said: “They didn’t die in vain and we sent them off, so let’s remember them and have one symbol that’s all embracing”.

Bartley was sporting the white poppy, which I believe is symbolic of peace and ‘No More War’. Now I’m not entirely sure if Bartley is a pacifist, I do know that he supports such groups and that another director of Ekklesia certainly is a pacifist.

I don’t like war or conflict of any type, I also respect the fact that pacifists view war as intrinsically evil, but I’m with the Major when he says that in the real word, we will always have conflict. I agree. This is an irrefutable fact. Whilst Christians should be advocates for peace at every opportunity, we still live in the real world, and in this world there will be war. As a consequence, we must remember ALL those that go to war on our behalf, with pride.

Personally, I don’t believe we will have true peace on earth until the Prince of Peace returns, and at that time the great Scripture from Isaiah 2:4 will be fulfilled:

And he shall judge between the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

And so to conclude. Last year I was in trouble for my comments on atheists, humanists and secularists, and this year, I will say that pacifism; whilst laudable, is misguided in the real world that we inhabit.