Christian Subversion And Missionary Activities - 6

[acharya]

Religious Right get all fired up over their fantasies



Religious Right get all fired up over their fantasies



By Terry Sanderson



The Christian extremists who are agitating around the country to create the impression that they are being “persecuted” and “marginalised” have been working overtime in the last few weeks.



On the back of a string of failed court cases involving trumped up, exaggerated cases of supposed religious discrimination, they scream and mewl about their unjust treatment. They appeal and appeal again against these decisions and each time they are thwarted, the caterwauling increases in intensity.



We had hoped that the ruling by Lord Justice Laws in the Court of Appeal last week in the case of Gary McFarlane would have brought the whole charade to a halt. But still the complaining goes on, despite the revelation above that Lord Justice Laws “could scarcely be more Anglican if he tried”.



In Eastbourne last week, about 1,000 of these “persecuted” Christians — who looked incredibly relaxed and free considering they are a hounded minority who need to watch their backs in case the militant secularists come to get them — gathered in Eastbourne for a conference called Bible by the Beach. It was there, as they enjoyed their weekend by the seaside with lots of praying and hymn singing, that the fantasy that they are poor, oppressed Christians whose religion is being denied full expression was repeatedly reinforced for them. Indeed, they repeatedly said what they say they are not allowed to say. And nobody batted an eyelid.



All the usual suspects were there. Andrea Minichiello Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre and Christian Concern for our Nation said that the law was “against” Christians in the workplace and that even where Christians had won their unfair dismissal claims, they had faced hostility from staff on their return to work. (Which cases have they won? We know of none).



“The law is being used to oppress,” she said. “Judges don’t understand that for a Christian, being free doesn’t simply mean being free to think like a Christian. It means that when a Christian goes to work they need to act like a Christian and work like a Christian.”



So what would that mean in practice, Andrea? Christians should be able to do whatever the hell they like at work and damn the consequences for anyone else – is that it? Want to take a few hours off for a prayer meeting? That’s OK. Want a special room set aside so that you can spend time communing with the Lord? Fine. Want to Bible-bash your colleagues during lunch break and make self-righteous comments about their own life-choices? Go ahead (and if they complain, you’ll want them disciplined for harassing you). Want to bring your hell-bound gay colleagues or living-in-sin colleagues or unmarried mother colleagues to Jesus? Yes, of course, well all know it is for their own good. Feel free to pester them until they come round to your way of thinking.



Ms Minichiello Williams put the wind up her audience by telling them: “We are certainly seeing the marginalisation of Christianity. In a biblical interpretation, it could be persecution, not like our brothers and sisters losing their lives in other countries, but the next step is criminalisation.”



Criminalisation? Really? Christianity is about to be outlawed, is it? Is this woman in complete control of her faculties?



The Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Rev Wallace Benn, warned that Christians needed to be aware that “rampant, illiberal secularism” had become the prevailing attitude in the UK. “We need to understand what’s going on at this moment in time. We are at a very, very tricky point as a nation because there is not a consensus commitment to anything else except hardline illiberal secularism and it’s a very dangerous place to be,” he said.



Dangerous? In what way dangerous? Are British Christians being hauled from their beds in the middle of the night and sent to a gulag? Are there men with coshes waiting to assail anyone caught in a church? What has got into these people?



The conference was joined by Mike Ovey, Principal of Oak Hill Theological College, who said he had been “shocked” by the “intellectual incoherence” and “godlessness” of Lord Justice Laws’ judgement. He said: “Lord [Justice] Laws also believes something, he fails to see that he has a faith too ... secularism fails to understand that it is a religion.”



He went on to say that Christianity was not only being marginalised in the UK but that there was a “deeply held antipathy” to the Christian faith and that other faiths were being treated more fairly than Christianity.



I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mike. There is no deep-rooted antipathy to Christianity, only deep-rooted apathy. And from your perspective, that is even more devastating.



Of course, this bunch of deluded activists (who really seem to believe their own propaganda) would be nowhere if it weren’t for newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph reinforcing the mythology by printing press releases from Christian Concern for our Nation and the Christian Institute almost verbatim and without question. Hopefully these rags will realise eventually that their own integrity is being compromised by the peddling of these half-told and half-true stories.



It is in the blogosphere that you can see what effect this is having on the people in the happy-clappy pews. Here are a few examples of contributions to various Christian blogs:



“Bp Nazir-Ali is correct - faithful Christians are now officially banned from various public positions in the UK”



“Basically it ends freedom of religion in the UK.”



“Christianity has now effectively been decreed a controlled religion, subservient to the State. Petitioning by Christians could result in arrests. Don’t think the National Secular Society won’t try it and judges would convict. They have a near 100% conviction rate on Christians.”



“When the State becomes tyrannical, Christians need to consider civil disobedience and be prepared to incur the resultant punishment for so doing.”



“This is persecution, without doubt this is persecution.” (Gary McFarlane, the Christian Relate counsellor who was sacked and who lost his case in the Appeal Court last week.)



“Terrifying as this may seem, the attempt to stamp out Christianity in Britain appears to be gathering pace.” (Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail)



Fri, 07 May 2010