Tag: Christianity

The headline story in the Daily Telegraph today is about a submission by George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, to a court case before the European Court of Human Rights. 

Britain’s Christians are being vilified, warns Lord Carey

Christians are being “persecuted” by courts and “driven underground” in the same way that homosexuals once were, a former Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.

Lord Carey says worshippers are being “vilified” by the state, treated as “bigots” and sacked simply for expressing their beliefs.

The attack is part of a direct appeal to the European Court of Human Rights before a landmark case on religious freedom.

In a written submission seen by The Daily Telegraph, the former leader of more than 70 million Anglicans warns that the outward expression of traditional conservative Christian values has effectively been “banned” in Britain under a new “secular conformity of belief and conduct”.

His comments represent one of the strongest attacks on the impartiality of Britain’s judiciary from a religious leader.

He says Christians will face a “religious bar” to employment if rulings against wearing crosses and expressing their beliefs are not reversed.

Lord Carey argues that in “case after case” British courts have failed to protect Christian values. He urges European judges to correct the balance.

The hearing, due to start in Strasbourg on Sept 4, will deal with the case of two workers forced out of their jobs over the wearing of crosses as a visible manifestation of their faith. It will also take in the cases of Gary McFarlane, a counsellor sacked for saying that he may not be comfortable in giving sex therapy to homosexual couples, and a Christian registrar, who wishes not to conduct civil partnership ceremonies.

Lord Carey, who was archbishop from 1991 to 2002, warns of a “drive to remove Judaeo-Christian values from the public square”. Courts in Britain have “consistently applied equality law to discriminate against Christians”.

They show a “crude” misunderstanding of the faith by treating some believers as “bigots”. He writes: “In a country where Christians can be sacked for manifesting their faith, are vilified by State bodies, are in fear of reprisal or even arrest for expressing their views on sexual ethics, something is very wrong.

“It affects the moral and ethical compass of the United Kingdom. Christians are excluded from many sectors of employment simply because of their beliefs; beliefs which are not contrary to the public good.”

He outlines a string of cases in which he argues that British judges have used a strict reading of equality law to strip the legally established right to freedom of religion of “any substantive effect”.

“It is now Christians who are persecuted; often sought out and framed by homosexual activists,” he says. “Christians are driven underground. There appears to be a clear animus to the Christian faith and to Judaeo-Christian values. Clearly the courts of the United Kingdom require guidance.”

He says the human rights campaign has gone too far and become a political agenda.

1. ^[1]UPDATE: But my memory deceived me when I wrote this.  I was thinking of an essay in volume 2 of that work, entitled Marie Bashkirtseff, wherein he writes on p.263, “The eclipse of faith has not proved fatal by any means to the instinct of confession.”  By the mysterious alchemy of memory this became the statement above.↩

An excellent article here.

Three stories in one day today.  The first is a general de-Christianisation thing; the other two involve state-backed attacks on Christians just going about their lives.  Three in a day is sobering, isn’t it?

The first story is at eChurch blog, in the BBC and commented on by Cranmer.  This is headline news here, so needs little special treatment from me.  Apparently a judge in the High Court has ruled, after a claim by an atheist activist, that having formal prayers before the start of council meetings — something that councils have done for a century — is illegal under some law of 1972. 

A Devon town council acted unlawfully by allowing prayers to be said before meetings, the High Court has ruled.

Action was brought against Bideford Town Council by the National Secular Society (NSS) after atheist councillor Clive Bone complained.

Mr Justice Ouseley ruled the prayers were not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972.

Christians will not necessarily be that exercised about these formal things, except that it indicates a general state determination to remove anything associated with Christianity — the official religion, remember — from official functions.

The ruling itself is absurd, of course, and the judge must have known it.  You can’t discover that a law says something as controversial as this after a period of 40 years, so evidently the judge was trying to invent the law for political purposes of his own.  However I don’t remember voting for Mr Justice Ouseley to invent law, and neither did anyone else.  The government should oblige him to resign; but I suspect it won’t.  Such behaviour by a judge is quite improper.  Issues of this kind should be decided by parliament.  But the verdict, to me, suggests that English justice is not to be relied on, and has been corrupted. 

The other items are much more sinister.  The case of two elderly Christians, Peter and Hazelmary Bull, who were targeted by the gay lobby continues.  Regular readers will remember the story.  The victims rented out rooms in their home to visitors on a bed-and-breakfast basis, aimed at Christians.  A pair of sodomites were sent by a gay pressure group as agents provocateurs to demand accomodation in a double room — which was naturally refused.  They had no business there, of course, so they were there to provoke that refusal.  They then denounced the owners to the police under the “equalities” legislation drawn up by that same pressure group and passed by a dirty deal with the government.  The court promptly found the victims ‘guilty’ of various absurd ‘crimes’ and fined them thousands of pounds.  The couple appealed, with the help of a Christian charity who funded the appeal (since the couple were penniless).  Today we learn via the BBC that the appeals court rejected their appeal.

Judge Andrew Rutherford ruled last year that the Bulls had breached equality legislation.

The appeal judges heard that the Bulls thought any sex outside marriage was a “sin”, but denied they had discriminated against Mr Hall and Mr Preddy.

Mr Bull, 72, and Mrs Bull, who is in her late 60s, were not in court for the ruling.

The judges heard that the Bulls’ appeal was funded by the Christian Institute and Mr Hall and Mr Preddy were backed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The sinister EHRC is a taxpayer-funded organisation.  The Christian Institute is a meagerly funded charity.  Nice to know that the state is harassing the elderly for who they let in their homes, isn’t it?  The EHRC stooge added, menacingly:

He added that the commission had no intention of enforcing its entitlement to legal costs.

Translation: “Now roll over or else.”  Nice again.  Again we have to ask whether the justice system has become corrupt; for what honest court would allow this evil? 

But the final word rests with the wealthy and well-connected gay activist who, I am told, drew up the law being used here, in a backstairs deal with the last government, and then masterminded this attack on two poor frail old people:

“I hope Mr and Mrs Bull will now feel content to go home to do God’s good work as Easter approaches, instead of relentlessly pursuing a happy couple through the courts.”

The only people being pursued through the courts, relentlessly, on and on, with state funding, are two old pensioners who were targeted out of malice, and Summerskill knows that very well. 

In the third story, the Daily Mail has been ordered to put the establishment line on this one in their headline, it seems:

Bible-clutching street preacher in court for ‘telling gay couple they would “burn in hell” in High Street’

Love the adjective “bible-clutching”.  The Daily Mail would usually be expected to object to this sort of thing, so evidently the establishment has instructed newspaper proprietors to toe the line.

A Christian street preacher told two gay men they were ‘sinners’ who would ‘burn in hell’ as they walked past him on a busy high street, a court heard today.

In a case which could reignite the debate over the boundaries of free speech, Michael Overd, 47, is accused of using threatening language towards civil partners Craig Manning and Craig Nichol when he saw them as he preached on a busy high street last July.

The court heard claims the lay preacher was provoked by a previous altercation with the couple in October 2010, when he singled them out when he saw them holding hands.

The words agents provocateurs again springs rather strongly to mind.  Walk past a street preacher ostentatiously holding hands, and then denounce him to the police if he shows any sign of objecting — yes, I think we all know what that’s about.  And since “the process is the punishment”, and the object is to chill free speech, it hardly matters whether the victim is convicted or not.  Others will be afraid to risk the same, and thus will not dare to say that homosexuality is a sin; and that, I think, is the object here.  What kind of country can’t tolerate sandwichboardmen saying “prepare to meet thy God”?

The defence counsel added an interesting snippet about the complainants:

He said: ‘You made up your mind to silence him, didn’t you?

‘You went up to him and abused him, saying ‘Who the f*** do you think you are? I’m going to kick your f****** head in. You’re dead, you’re dead’.’

They deny it, of course. 

Again, I think English justice is on trial here.  Is the judge honest?  Or will he behave as the establishment demand, and convict a man for stating an unpalatable truth in the hearing of overt evildoers desperate to “take offence”?

All this is very bad, and there is undoubtedly worse to come.

It is the hallmark of a repressive society that it cannot leave the Christians alone.  Such societies insist on harassing this unthreatening group, under one pretext or another. 

It is the mark of such societies that they pass laws which they know Christians must break, because Christ says so, and then the society treats them as law-breakers, and punishes them viciously for offences that wouldn’t even come to court, if the victims held some other views. 

This is how persecution is done, over some trivial pretext.  This is how hate manifests.

But let us not revile the wicked men who do these things.  They are merely dupes of Satan, allowed to make themselves miserable for the purposes of one who will treat them as meat.  Let us love them, and pray for them, and discuss them without reviling, as the scripture says.  Let us also pray for the confessors and the martyrs, for Peter and Hazelmary Bull, and those who support them; and for Michael Overd and his people.  Pray that God will strengthen them to endure this trial. 

UPDATE: Michael Overd has been found not guilty by the magistrates.  This is excellent news.

UPDATE2: Eric Pickles, the powerful no-nonsense Yorkshire MP who is Communities Secretary (and has been doing an excellent job of recalling corrupt local councils to the purposes for which they exist), has criticised the ruling that official prayers cannot be held.  Another MP has commented that, if the ruling stands, even the House of Commons could be interfered with.  Good news again.

Atheists often complain that they are not a popular group, that they are misrepresented and so forth.  In Santa Monica they’ve managed to give a whole city a reason to hate their guts.  (h/t Mark Steyn).  This from the Daily Telegraph:

For more than six decades, religious groups have recreated life-size scenes   depicting the birth of Jesus, alongside statues of the Virgin Mary and the   three wise men, on the city’s cliff top promenade.

But this year the traditional tableau in Palisades Park was replaced with a   battleground on religion.

Instead of Jesus being rocked softy in a manger, passers-by were greeted with   images of Satan, Father Christmas  and Jesus with the strap line: “37 million Americans know a myth when   they see one… What myths do you see?”

Fifteen of the boxes were simply left empty with a security fence surrounding   them.

Some years ago a nasty episode of Christian-bashing took place at Exeter university, with the connivance and support of the university authorities.  I read this evening (via Dyspepsia Generation) of similar harassment in US universities.  The university headlining the article is Vanderbilt.

Is Vanderbilt University flirting with the suppression of religion? Yes, according to Carol Swain, a professor at Vanderbilt’s Law School.

Specifically, Swain is referring to four Christian student groups being placed on “provisional status” after a university review found them to be in non-compliance with the school’s nondiscrimination policy.

Vanderbilt says the student organizations cannot require that leaders share the group’s beliefs, goals and values. …

Among the groups threatened with shut down is the Christian Legal Society. It ran afoul with this language from its constitution. “Each officer is expected to lead Bible studies, prayer and worship at chapter meetings.”

What fiends these Christians are.  The article continues:

CLS’s Gunter says his group’s membership is open to anyone, but leaders have a different requirement. “CLS is a Christian organization”, he told me. “That means to preserve our integrity, we need Christian leaders.”

Carol Swain is CLS’s faculty advisor. She insists the university has gone way beyond political correctness with its actions and demands. “It seems reasonable”, she told me, “to require that leaders share the beliefs of the organizations that they seek to lead.” She sees this as part of a larger problem at liberal-leaning universities across the nation. She says, “I see it as part of a larger attack on religious freedom that’s taking place across the country – particularly when it comes to conservative groups.”

This is familiar territory for the Christian Legal Society. Last year the Supreme Court ruled against a lawsuit it filed against Hastings Law School in California. CLS had argued that Hastings’ “all-comers” policy regarding student groups infringed on its right to religious freedom.  …

The Vanderbilt group – and the national CLS organization are worried about “infiltration”, arguing that a person hostile to the group could rise to a leadership position, then attempt to tear it apart through conflict. CLS did have a problem at Washburn University Law School when a student whose religious beliefs were contrary to the group was allowed to lead a Bible study. When CLS stopped him he complained. Washburn put CLS on “provisional status”, but reinstated the group when CLS sued.

I remember, when I was a student, that leftist student activists campaigned for “general meeting sovereignity”.  They wanted the student union meetings to have the power to do everything.  What this meant, however, was something different.

Most students never go to student union meetings, having beer to drink and other things to do.  The few that do quickly get bored and leave.  So what this innocent-sounding demand really meant was the abolition of student democracy and the transference of all power to the activists.  Quel surprise, perhaps.

A similar demand was made at Exeter.  (Rather to my surprise, I can find no blog post here about that event.  An article at Catholic Action is here).  The 50-year old Christian Union allowed any student to attend, but would not allow unbelievers to be officers.  One unbelieving student demanded this, and then organised a campaign to get the CU banned.  Various evil events then occurred.

The point of the demand is simple.  All these groups allow any student to come along, and often to be members.  But once a non-believer can be the leader, all an ill-disposed person has to do, is arrange for a couple of hundred non-Christians to turn up, “as a joke”, and vote him in.  At which point he can do with the CU — and its funds — as he pleases.  Effectively the CU is disbanded. 

But the CU refuses to allow this unreasonable demand, the university can be brought in to disband the CU on grounds of “diversity”.  Whatever they do, the Christians cannot win.  In both cases, it is impossible for the Christians to operate as a recognised student society.

In the Exeter case, the UCCF — the CU parent body — outmaneouvered the haters at Exeter by doing a deal with the National Union of Students, while friends in the media brought the story to national prominence.  There have been some nasty cases of attacks on Catholic student bodies also.

But it is telling that the same tactic is being used in the US.

We need to face up to the reality, that all of this harassment indicates a shift in attitudes towards Christianity.  It indicates that the amused contempt of the last few decades is giving way to real hatred.  The establishment has adopted a path of institutional vice, as it did in the Restoration period.  Those determined to follow vice do not care to be reminded that what they are doing is wrong, and are not scrupulous about how they deal with anything they dislike.  The government of Charles II created almost all the legislation for religious discrimination that stained this country for the next two centuries, and forced half the country into “non-conformity”, i.e. exclusion from state service or participation in the nation.  I remember seeing a gloating article in The Guardian, welcoming the possibility of recreating non-conformity.  I think we may expect to see more such harassment of Christians in the next few years, both here and in the US.

These are sad times.  Let us remember, however, that “they hated Me, and they will hate you.”