Bishop of Rochester wants Christian fight back against militant Islam
The bishop of Rochester is a busy man. Only yesterday he called on the Church of England to do more to try and convert Muslims and other non-Christians, and today he’s at it again. He’s becoming like one of those loud and more than slightly annoying ads for some facial cream or the other. The product may be of no use whatsoever but that won’t stop the advertising people from praising its sheer magical effects at every bloody opportunity:
The decline of Christian values is destroying Britishness and has created a “moral vacuum” which radical Islam is filling, one of the Church of England’s leading bishops has warned. Dr Nazir-Ali faced death threats earlier this year after he said some parts of Britain had become “no-go areas” for non-Muslims. The Bishop of Rochester, claimed the “social and sexual” revolution of the 1960s had led to a steep decline in the influence of Christianity over society which church leaders had failed to resist. He said that in its place, Britain had become gripped by the doctrine of “endless self-indulgence” which had led to the destruction of family life, rising levels of drug abuse and drunkenness and mindless violence on the streets.
While I would agree with the bishop that our Western societies are indeed in the grip of the ‘doctrine of endless self-indulgence’, I feel that his cure would be a bit like that old saw, ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul.’ To claim that one militant belief form is gaining strength because another (formerly militant) one is on the wane, is not of much use to us now – even if it were true, which I seriously doubt.
Furthermore, blaming (almost) all our woes on that famed but seriously overstated ’social and sexual’ revolution in the sixties is almost as lame as claiming Paris Hilton wears no underwear because her parents didn’t force her to go to church more when she was a child. With a bit of effort and some fits-all-sizes statistics one could easily argue that the TV series Dallas has influenced our societies more than those evil hippies and feminists ever did.
Anyway, whatever the causes are behind society’s ills, I am afraid that the good bishop is in the wrong church – or was simply born a few centuries too late. The Church of England will never become (or return to) the kind of church he is dreaming of – and most of those who serve it wouldn’t wish their cosy workplace to be transformed into the kind of power house of the Lord that the bishop would enjoy. In other words, your average curate is quite happy with his humble egg and wouldn’t want to exchange it for a holy hand grenade.
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