Recently, at the first public event to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, Betty Windsor emphasised the importance of Christianity for the fabric of our nations.

The Church has “created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely”

Unlike France and the USA, in none of the nations which make up the United Kingdom do we have a written constitution, especially not one which demands the separation of church and state. Nevertheless, in a case of judicial activism a single High Court judge in England has recently effectively banned the centuries old tradition of beginning Council meetings with prayer.

The Queen was arguing in favour of preserving the foundational basis of our value system, whether we acknowledge God or not. In arguing for the retention of the place of Christianity in British public life the Queen was arguing for more than a privileged place for the Church of England. She was arguing for the retention of a coherent value system in the face of fashionable morality and subjective ethics.

When we reject this biblically based value system we take a huge step towards rejection of freedom of conscience. This is clearly seen in the latest pronouncements of Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Religious rules should stop “at the door of the temple."

Mr Phillips has argued that religious rules should stop “at the door of the temple” and give way to the “public law” as enacted by parliament. He cited the example of Roman Catholic adoption agencies which argued that they should not be forced to facilitate adoptions by homosexual couples. Phillips insists that religious groups offering public services have to chose between their faith and the law whenever their beliefs conflict with the expressed will of the state.

Referring to the closure of Roman Catholic adoption agencies which closed rather than be forced to go against their conscience and facilitate homosexual adoption the Thomas Moore Legal Centre said that the Equality and Human rights Commission “would prefer people not to do good, rather than do good on their own terms.”

Phillips said, “To me there’s nothing different in principle with a Catholic adoption agency, or indeed Methodist adoption agency, saying the rules in our community are different and therefore the law shouldn’t apply to us. Why not then say sharia can be applied to different parts of the country? It doesn’t work.”

There are two differing ideas behind what has been propounded by Trevor Phillips which should cause even the most rabid secularist to pause.

Despite arguing previously that Christian conscience should be respected in the public square, in his latest pronouncement Phillips appears to be arguing that the state is a totalitarian authority before which a believer’s conscience must always bow. As with Obama, Phillips appears to want the Christian faith to be something which takes place only behind closed doors, in the public square conscience must kneel before the state. Like many progressives Phillips confuses freedom to worship with freedom of religion.

In his deeply illiberal remarks Phillips has lost sight of freedom of conscience. Already there are issues where the believer has to pay the price for following his or her conscience when it conflicts with the will of the state. Conscientious Roman Catholics will find themselves excluded from employment in health specialities which demand they perform or facilitate abortions. Evangelical Christians will be excluded from employment which requires them to perform or facilitate homosexual civil partnerships.

Phillips has also rejected the notion that the legal  and moral culture of our countries are built on Christian principles. There is a world of difference between Christian morality and sharia law. The basic principles of sharia law contradict Western Christian based public law. Between sharia and Western public law there is and always will be inevitable conflict, they are eventually incompatible as they are founded on vastly differing premises.

Christians are not asking that the state bow before the church. We ask for our voice to be heard in the social argument and that our consciences be respected.

It is very doubtful that Britain’s secularists will recognise how dangerous Phillip’s position is for them. We Christians shouldn’t be surprised by this. Wasn’t it a Christian, Pastor Martin Niemoller who wrote, “First they came for the communists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for…”

This isn’t only a religious issue, it is a freedom issue.

Saudi Arabia has two principal exports, oil and Wahabi Islam with its attendant terrorism. The latter our governments ignore as the price we have to pay for the former.

If the archbishop of Canterbury wants to see how Sharia works in practice he need look no further than our ally the desert kingdom. Beheading, amputation, flogging and stoning are all public spectacles in Saudi Arabia. Crimes such as murder, rape and theft are treated with unrelenting severity; as are ‘crimes’ such as blasphemy, apostasy, homosexuality and being a woman out alone without permission or a male escort.

The corrupt family dictatorship running Saudi Arabia have obtained the return from Malaysia of Hamza Kashgari, a 23 year old Saudi journalist. Kashgari had fled to Malaysia after he had posted three tweets, as though written to Muhammad, on Muhammad’s birthday. The tweets were quickly removed and Kashgari apologised, but the campaign against him had gained too much momentum.

Hamza Kashgari Faces Death Penalty

Kashgari wrote, “I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me.” In ultra authoritarian Islam the description of Muhammad as being a rebel was a bit risky but overall the tweet was acceptably fawning. Unfortunately he then wrote, “I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.” He further wrote “I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speaks to you as a friend, no more.”

In yet another tweet, probably as offensive to the Saudi authorities, Kashgari wrote, “No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”

Within 24 hours there had been more than 30,000 tweets calling for his death and in a YouTube video Nasser al Omar, a Saudi cleric, can be seen in tears as he too calls for Kashgari’s death. He claims he is weeping because Muslims are not doing enough to defend their faith.

The Saudi government contacted Interpol who issued a ‘red notice’ declaring Kashgari a wanted man. He is at present being returned to Saudi.

In response to criticisms of the red notice system, Interpol has said: “There are safeguards in place. The subject of a red notice can challenge it through an independent body, the commission for the control of Interpol’s files (CCF).”

Don’t place any bets on the chances of Kashgari making a ‘challenge through an independent body’ from a Saudi torture chamber.

Not only have there been calls throughout Saudi society for Kashgari’s immediate trial, there have also been calls for the arrest and trial of those who have tweeted support for him. “Those who supported the contents of Kashgari’s tweets are considered criminal exactly like him,” said Khaled Abu Rashid, a lawyer and legal consultant. He called for any sentence passed on Khashgari to be imposed on his supporters too. The sentence for ‘blasphemy’ in Saudi Arabia is death.

From the UN, silence. From the EU, silence. From the Obama administration, silence. From British Foreign Secretary William Hague, silence.

Every time we ignore or excuse 7^th century Wahabism we make it more difficult for moderate Muslims to effect change. By accepting radical Islam as mainstream we weaken those who would be our allies and store up trouble for ourselves.

In 1939 the world had to pay a huge price for appeasement, yet it is still in fashion. The one lesson we learn from history is that we never learn.

Many years ago every Friday evening I would leave the front gate of a RAF base near Nottingham to hitch-hike down to Bideford. Then on Sunday afternoon I would make the return trip. My then girl-friend, later my wife, lived in the town, her first job after leaving college being in the office of the Town Clerk of Bideford.

Bideford is basically a quiet country town, with an interesting bridge, a sleepy harbour, several rather pleasant pubs and some of the friendliest people you could meet outside Glasgow. The sort of people who quietly go about their business and are happy to allow others to go about theirs. It is a rather understated sort of place. Bideford is the kind of town which makes outsiders like me admire England.

Bideford, An Understated Sort of Place

Unfortunately Bideford has become the latest focal point of interest with an ex-councillor and member of the National Secular Society claiming that having prayers before Council meetings disadvantaged him and made him feel bad.

The judge in the case ruled that his human rights had not been trampled upon but did rule that under the Local Government Act local councils in England and Wales had no right to have prayers as part of the agenda for Council meetings.

I am glad that Clive Bone the ex-councillor whose sensitive feelings had been trampled by those seemingly unfeeling Christians has won his case, even if only on a technicality.

I am glad because this is not a case about the actions of Bideford Council. It is not even about prayer. This case may wake up some Christians to the fact that there is a concentrated drive by progressive secularists to drive Christianity from the public square, and especially the body politic.

There is an attitude amongst secularist activists which is crushingly illiberal. That Bideford Council had twice voted to have prayers is of no consequence to the atheists who insist on ramming their lack of belief down our throats.

Forced conformity to the dictates of any worldview, even if only outwardly, is a mark of the constitutionally intolerant.

Those who cannot stand the thought of religion never actually campaign for a level playing field. Rather they wish to steamroller the predominance of their particular moral viewpoint. The concept of ‘live and let live’ is utterly alien to their mindset. There is something deeply un-Bideford like in this furore.

The great danger, apart from that to their eternal souls, is that when a stable moral order is overthrown it does not leave a moral vacuum. It is replaced by another belief system with its own list of virtues and vices. All the evidence would indicate that the progressive secularism which is replacing Christianity in England (and also unfortunately Scotland) is going to be much more intolerant and intellectually stultifying than the rather gentle and tolerant Anglicanism it seeks to replace.

There is a unattractive, bullying vindictiveness in progressivism which frightens. Homosexuals deliberately seeking out Christian B&B owners in order to be offended. A bureaucratic  official and admirer of the psychotic mass-murderer Che Guevara getting a Christian van driver suspended for displaying a Palm Sunday cross. Of all the councils in England the National Secular Society just happens to pick out one of the smallest in order to further its progressive jihad.

This is why I am glad that the NSS had even a partial victory. It may awaken the rest of us to the rather unpleasant future which awaits us.

This has as much theological integrity as right wingers maintaining that Paul’s injunction in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 “If a man will not work, he shall not eat,” justifies reduction or abolition of unemployment benefit.

Left or right there appears to be a political propensity to take the words of Scripture and use them in a attempts to justify economic policies.

Let us be charitable and assume that Obama’s theological excursion was the expression of a deeply held faith commitment to a social gospel which sees state intervention on behalf of the poor as a core facet of Christian activism; and not the tactless duplicity of a politician in the midst of an election fund-raising cycle.

What, Me Duplicitious?

As far as I am aware Jesus was pretty neutral concerning the paying of taxes, seeing it neither as an imposition of the sate to be avoided or as an alternative to personal charity to be welcomed.

The Christian tradition commends generosity to the poor, but stresses the personal and not the governmental level. There is always a human connection between the donor and the recipient, a voluntary giving out of compassion which is completely absent from state imposed taxes. Christian charity and state taxes are differing actions with differing results. One promotes human interconnectedness and compassion, the other promotes indifference and resentment.

In the story of Ruth we find her gleaning after harvest. In accordance with Leviticus 19:10 the edges of the field were left unharvested for the sake of the poor who were free to come and recover any wheat left behind. This was personal charity and not state mandated garnishing of income in order to effect the redistribution of wealth.

Like all amateur theologians Obama gets himself in a muddle. On the one hand he claims religious sanction for his tax system; whilst he on the other hand, in his latest pronouncements on the proposed American health system, he specifically excludes religion as a motive for good works .

Obama wishes to force all employers to provide free contraception and abortion to their employees. This may cause a problem to some atheists who fail to see why Americans are unable to purchase their own contraceptives, but they are probably so brow-beaten by the government that they will stump up for tax-payer Trojans anyway.

Not so the Roman Catholic Church. They hold this view that contraception is morally wrong and that abortion is a sin, murder actually, and that they are pretty much against both on an institutional level.

America has this document called the Constitution which, in its First Amendment, has what is termed the Free Exercise Clause. Progressives busily trumpet the first part of the First Amendment which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” and blithely ignore the rest of the sentence, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

It would drive a coach and horses through the First Amendment if the government were to require by law that Roman Catholic institutions were obliged to provide ‘health care services’ such as contraception or abortions.

The Obama White House recognises this difficulty and so has  found a way around this problem. What if the institutions which might object to the government’s policy were not religious? Then they could be forced to provide contraceptive or abortion services.

Thus they have decided that to be deemed ‘religious’ an institution must have “the inculcation of religious values as its purpose,” and that it must be one that “primarily employs” and “primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets.”

Gotcha!

The purpose of Roman Catholic hospitals and other charitable institutions is not to inculcate their religious values but to give succour to the sick and needy. Therefore, according to the Obama White House, they don’t qualify as ‘religious’ and can be forced to provide services which go against their deeply held beliefs.

Roman Catholic charities such as hospitals do not “primarily employ” Roman Catholic doctors and nurses, their soup kitchens do not demand that before you can hand out sandwiches to the homeless you must affirm papal infallability. Likewise they do not require that to be treated for an burst appendix or given a meal you must first convert to Catholicism. Therefore because it doesn’t primarily serve “persons who share its religious tenets” a Roman Catholic charity is not a ‘religious institution’ and is obliged to provide contraception and abortion.

To get his religious guests on side Obama proclaims his tax policies to be Christian good works. He then turns around and tells Roman Catholics who do engage in good works because of their faith that what they are doing is not religious at all. Religion happens on Sundays and if they want religion they should sit in pews.

Now, how could this be described as duplicitous?

The enlightened outlook which alone holds the moral and intellectual high ground is supposedly the New Atheism. Once the dangerous and untrustworthy ranting of the deluded it is now the only credible game in town.

Once atheism was merely one philosophical position amongst many; atheists could be communists, democrats, fascists, liberals, monarchists or anarchists, today it assumes the position of an entire worldview. Where it held a position on one issue, the non-existence of God or gods, today it encompasses the foundation of a moral and philosophical crusade.

Like any crusade it is zealous in its assaults on heresy. Although demanding the primacy of reason its assaults on religion quickly become heated enough to be described as hysterical. Religion is demonised as either delusion or fanaticism and in simplistic manner anyone unapologetically holding to a Christian worldview is dogmatically denounced as a dogmatic fundamentalist. The New Atheism displays the close mindedness and rigidity of thought usually associated with preachers on satellite television. Just as Bob Jones viewed the world in terms of black and white so Richard Dawkins sees the world in Manichean terms.

In the view of Dawkins Sunday Schools are a form of child abuse which damages children for life. He says ‘we should work to free the children of the world from the religions which, with parental approval, damage minds too young to understand what is happening to them.’ He demands that the influence of dangerous believers in God should be wiped from the social body.

Rousseau, guiding light of the bloody French Revolution hated religion but nevertheless believed that religion was useful a useful tool for pacifying and manipulating the masses. Later in the nineteenth century, we find the French philosophers Henri de Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte saying that social stability required them to create a new religion. Every such attempt to pacify the populace with an ersatz political spirituality has failed.

Nevertheless the New Atheism seems determined to become a religion in the worst sense of that ugly word. It is very selective about its targets. It claims to fight against the irrational and un-scientific, yet confines itself to what it sees as the follies of the great mainstream religions. Rarely do we hear them fulminate about the unscientific inanities of environmentalist belief in Gaia theory or the blind commitment, despite the facts, to cultural Marxism. Double standards are one of the marks of an authoritarian religion.

Humanity is viewed as consisting of helpless victims of circumstance, powerless against the predestinating forces of society. We are no longer held to account individually before God for our gluttony, rather we are treated for our obesity. Lust is no longer a sin, but therapeutic intervention is required for our sex addiction. Greed and envy are not the responsibility of individuals but rather the psychological reaction of helpless masses to the manipulation of our addictive consumer society. The psychologist is the new priest, both confessor and healer.

It is inevitable that the New Atheism would grab the outward trappings of religion. Alain de Botton in his latest book Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion proposes that atheists should build temples throughout Britain. ‘It’s time atheists had their own versions of the great churches and cathedrals’, he asserts.

Thankfully the usually sensible and interesting de Botton is nowhere near as strident or aggressive as Dawkins, yet his argument is indicative of the inherent need of the intellectual elite to control and rule. They decry the worst of religion and assume its trappings for their own ends.

Multi-millionaire Nick Clegg has missed out on life. Born into a wealthy family, Nick went to fee paying Westminster School and then Cambridge and Minnesota universities. This was followed by a series of non-productive  jobs such as fact checking for Christopher Hitchens, Brussels sinecures with the European Commission and working for a firm which lobbied for Libya in the early 90’s. Finally young Nick made the ultimate escape from reality and became a full-time Lib Dem politician.

Now I'm In Power It's Time For Fairness

Give Me A Fancy Title Or It's Going To Be Trouble

Likewise Nick’s counterpart as leader of the Labour Party, Ed Milliband, has had a privileged upbringing avoiding the rough edges of reality most of us have to negotiate. In this they are no different from most members of either front bench, practically all are wealthy or come from privileged backgrounds.

When politicians jump on the ‘fairness’ bandwagon I am tempted to ask just how ‘fair’ have their privileged lives been. To avoid hypocrisy ‘fairness’ has to apply to the practice of politics just as much as the practice of banking.

It may appear that they and those like them have lived a life of luxury and ease with their path smoothed ahead of them, and they have. However, they have also missed out on some of the formative experiences shared by we plebs, and they are lesser men and women for it.

Young Nick and Ed never stood shivering in the wintery blast in a primary school playground whilst teams were picked. The two best footballers, there was no other game, took turns picking. They went through the assembled boys selecting players in turn. Eventually the discard pile was reached, those there to make up the numbers and who were picked with reluctance. Somebody had to have them, it was just a pity it had to be your team.

If they had, as was my fate, stood with the relentlessly shrinking group of incompetents no-one really wanted they would be much better politicians today.

On what basis did the captains choose the teams? Only one, ability to play football. They didn’t care about looks, wealth or lack of it, status or scholastic ability. They didn’t care about the feelings of those picked last. They cared about one thing only, footballing ability. Any other suggestion would have been greeted with scowls of incomprehension.

And you know what, they may have operated with that ruthlessness found only in primary school playgrounds and the Hell’s Angels, but they were fair. They did not discriminate positively or negatively, they did not truckle to fashion. They chose those whom they thought best for their teams.

Given the context that was fair. Is the fact that some children are larger, faster, more experienced, and perhaps more talented somehow unfair? This is what Nick and Ed have forgotten or never learned, fairness depends upon context.

“Fair” is one of those warm, fuzzy words that allows the listener to define it to his own personal taste — and the definition changes from one specific case to another. Which is why grown ups, and that excludes populist politicians, do not talk about fairness but about justice. Anytime I hear the word fairness I expect it to be followed by “Teacher, make him give my ball back.”

This playing of the “fairness” card is evidence that they’ve never played playground football.  They recognize an unfair situation immediately, but can’t accept the fact that there are differences in life outcomes that are not the result of discrimination, patronage, or some other “unfair” factor.

They cannot accept that all men are not created equal when it comes to ability and effort, and early personal choices often determine the opportunities for reward later in life.

The equality of men is not a description of ability or skill, talent, intelligence or level of determination. There is only one area in which all are equal, and that is in the eyes of God. And God made us marvellously mixed and gloriously unequal.

There is no way that I would be able to beat Viswanathan Anand at chess. This is not just because the current world champion has bags of innate chess playing ability whilst I am to chess what a giraffe is to ice skating. Anand practices hour on end, day after day, week in week out, no matter what. He shows a level of determination separating himself from those who may have the same level of ability, but who are not as determined, or obsessed.

Fairness has to do with the opportunities presented to us, not to the outcomes. Is it fair that Stephen Hester should earn more in a day than a corporal fighting in Afghanistan earns in a year. Probably not. But I and most able bodied people could do what the corporal does, and conscription and several wars prove that true. I could not, however, and I doubt any of my readers could either, run the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The greed culture infecting much of the financial industry is an horrific example of a people operating without a moral compass. That is not going to be altered by vote-greedy politicians using ‘fairness’ as a momentarily useful political tool.

Incidentally Stephen Hester may have been forced by the public outcry backed by vote-seeking politicians to give back his bonus. A grand victory for Clegg etc., but a victory which has cost the British public £329,000,000 as Royal Bank of Scotland shares dropped 2.5% this morning on the suspicion in the market that this heralded greater state interference in the running of the bank.

" If You Don't Behave Yourself ..."

Now not all these do gooding tolerancemongers are in it for the power and the typically fascist rush of being able to tell the rest of us what to do and think. Many of them genuinely believe that if we follow their message it will do us good, a bit like stern Victorian parents “Swallow this medicine, it may taste foul but you’ll be the better for it; Mother knows best.” They think we need their prescription otherwise our innate cruelty would get the better of us and spew forth, and they ought to stop that.

If we are creating a fundamentally rootless society in Britain, and it certainly seems that way, then the tolerancemongers are only making things worse.

They destroy the idea of values which are universal. There are things which no-one should tolerate. When values become malleable and we are supposed to respect and allow any belief and practice no matter how absurd or heinous then there is no defence against the absurd and heinous. When what is absurd or heinous is decided by the latest fashion amongst the trendy elites who shape our society, particularly the media, then we are subject to an ever changing value system, and when values change constantly there are no values.

Yesterday’s report from Essex University, finding that over the last decade Britain has become a more dishonest and cynical country comes as no surprise. The study found that we Britons are significantly more likely to lie and cheat than we were 10 years ago.

According to the report less than 20% of us would hand back money we found in the street. Just a decade ago it was 40%. Today more than 60% of us are prepared to lie, and 30% would contemplate buying goods we know to be stolen. We could well ask: What sort of nation have we become?

Those raised before societal tolerance and malleable values became the controlling ethos de jour, those aged over 45, remain decent people, but attitudes have changed sharply for the worse among the young.

Saturday Night In Britain

We should not however, condemn these youngsters out of hand. They are merely reproducing the self-interest and contempt for decency and standards they see among the most powerful people in our society, whether prime ministers and politicians, media barons and newspaper editors, or even police chiefs.

Ultimately, however, the blame must lie with those with a responsibility for giving moral guidance.

The church, especially the neo-Protestant progressive pastiche which passes as a church, practices a strangely modern form of the heresy of docetism. Docetism argues that Christ was not a real human being but only seemed human to us.

In the progressive concept of Christ we do not have a Jesus who was God made true flesh, one of us, going to work on a building site, knowing our lives as they truly are, even tempted as we are; instead we are presented with an emasculated Jesus, a goody-goody Jesus wandering through Israel thinking good thoughts with a sad smile on His face, a prototypical Green Party councillor with added prayer. For them Jesus is a politically correct shell of a man, a wimp with a halo. He probably even eats tofu.

When Jesus encountered the woman taken in adultery he demonstrated the hypocrisy of her accusers. This does not mean that He accepted her adultery, He told her to “Go and sin no more.” He did not say “Your alternative lifestyle is something I respect, we must each find our own way to happiness.”

Jesus was not a “Whatever floats your boat” kind of guy, He was intolerant. Think of what he said concerning those who caused one of His little ones to sin, it would be better for them to have a millstone tied round their necks and be thrown into the sea rather than falling into His hands.

If teenagers think getting blitzed out of their minds and spewing in the street is cool I strongly suspect that they will receive more understanding from Christ than those who created a society in which this is normal behaviour.

The Lords Spiritual In Action

Last night the English bishops, 26 of whom have a place by right in the House of Lords, led the charge against the government’s proposed cap on welfare benefits. This they did in the name of holy compassion. According to the CofE the function of the bishops is supposedly to “provide an important independent voice and spiritual insight to the work of the Upper House.”

Strangely enough their position last night was based upon materialistic considerations. In the estimation of the bishops to restrict welfare handouts to £500 per week per family would be an act of cruelty worthy of Gradgrind. We heard heartrending tales of families being made homeless and cast out on to the streets.

Iain Duncan Smith

Iain Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions Secretary, did himself no favours by claiming on radio that according to government and charity definitions it was possible to be declared homeless if children had to share a bedroom. A claim easily refuted with 30 seconds research.

This is symptomatic of discussion around this proposal. Those involved take highly emotional positions which often lose sight of what is happening. The bishops, Lib Dem Lords and the Guardian (recently described as the Pravda of public sector workers) present anguished projections of families being forced to live in cardboard boxes. The Guardian headlined a piece by the ever reliable Polly Toynbee describing this cap as “the final solution.”

If any family is forced from its accommodation because it has fallen into arrears of rent the local council is still obliged to find them appropriate accommodation. That this accommodation is all too often in property owned by rack renting cronies of councilors is something else the government should tackle. But no family will be forced to live in a cardboard box because of this cap.

The government presents this measure as an attempt to cut the deficit and forced upon them by the debts racked up by previous governments. This welfare cap will save £290 million per year, a drop in the ocean when set against the total welfare bill of £192 billion per year.

That politicians peddle horror stories and selective interpretations to back up their party position is nothing new. However, we look to spiritual leaders to have deeper insight into the human condition.

There is a moral point here, one grasped by most non-bishops: paying benefits greater than the average working wage is destructive of society. It creates resentment amongst working people who would, once deductions have been made, have to work very hard to take home the same sum. It also has a destructive effect on the lives of recipients; it encourages dependency as a lifestyle, and it condemns countless thousands of people, generation after generation, to unemployment and wasted, pointless lives.

If this cap has any useful purpose it will be to herald a complete review of a welfare system, which whilst it rightfully gives help to those in need, has also created an underclass who have no hope, no intention, no concept of ever taking responsibility for their own lives. If the bishops truly had compassion they would support a widespread examination of an increasingly heartless welfare system.

Bishops rightly denounce the rampant materialism of our age because Christianity understands that people are more than an accidental conglomeration of atoms and that there is more to life than money. Consistency would be welcome here. If any are able to understand the deeply dehumanising impact of long term and intergenerational welfare dependency it should be their pastors.

Finally it is estimated that you have to earn £35,000 before tax to take home £26,000. The average stipend for a CofE vicar is just under £22,000 plus housing, well below £35,000. Perhaps the bishops could consider their own direct pastoral responsibility for those living on less than £26,000 after tax.

If there is one engine which is relentlessly driving Western civilisation to destruction it is the monstrous tyranny of niceness.

There is a move by the ‘Index on Censorship’ which should be supported by all thinking people, especially thinking Christians, which leaves out progressives. The ‘Index’ has called for the removal of the word ‘insulting’ from the Public Order Act on the basis that the word’s inclusion in legislation has “a corrosive effect on free speech” in the UK.

At present Section 5 of the Public Order Act imposes criminal penalties for using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress.

This should be opposed vigorously and not just because it leaves Christians wide open to charges that we have ‘insulted’ any particular group who take umbrage when we don’t give wholehearted approval to their particular depravity. It should be opposed by all thinking people on the simple grounds that some people, movements and ideas need to be insulted.

If someone believes that Prince Phillip is in reality a giant lizard, as David Ickes does, he needs to be told he is away with the fairies. David may find that insulting, but it’s for his own good.

If someone thinks that wandering around Glastonbury festooned in amulets and occult symbols brings them closer to Gia they need to be told they are several sandwiches short of a picnic. This is not being nasty, it’s compassionate, it’s trying to help the deluded.

Being nice is not the same as being polite. We should be polite, there is a need to show respect and not to cause needless offence. That is not the same as being nice. Being nice is being fearful of causing any offence whatsoever. There are times when it is necessary to cause offence.

The niceness cult has practically finished off the church. Our progressive friends (see I can be polite) tell us we must show compassion and understanding, that we should always walk a mile in the other fellow’s shoes before we criticise him. Balderdash. The only possible reason to walk a mile in another person’s shoes is if the shoes are a comfortable fit; then you will be a mile away, have his shoes and he won’t be able to chase you because he is in his bare feet.

The church must recover from its fear of speaking clearly. Look at the Bible, if the early church had been ‘nice’ it would never have been other than the hippy branch of Judaism, confining itself to sitting in a circle singing Kumbaya and thinking good thoughts about the worshippers of Diana.

When Paul found Peter consorting with the Judiasers did he just say that they were taking differing paths to the same destination? No. He confronted Cephas to his face. Bible speak for a knock-down drag-em-out argument.

When Jesus confronted the Pharisees was He nice? Far from it. He called them “Whited sepulchres,” just about as insulting as you could get. This was Bible speak for Jesus saying “See you, you get right up God’s nose.” Not nice, but accurate.

Christians should not be afraid of speaking plainly. We will be censured for sure. So what? I will be told we should speak the truth in love. Most certainly. But is it loving to pretend that some behaviours are acceptable to God when He pronounces them sinful and deserving of punishment? Sugar coating such behaviour is surely a cruel and unloving deception.

I make no plea for Christians to go around deliberately insulting people. But I do ask that we regain the willingness to speak plainly, to call a spade a spade and a sin a sin.

Awareness Raising in Derby

This is the first prosecution under a law which took effect in March 2010 which makes it illegal to “stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.” The maximum penalty for the crime is seven years in jail. Prosecution lawyer Bobbie Cheema, Senior Treasury Counsel at the Central Criminal Court, told the jury they were “threatening, offensive, frightening and nasty.” She was right.

Bobbi Cheema

So? Offensive and nasty they undoubtedly are but there is an important difference between written material or speech that is repulsive and distressing, and acts such as armed robbery that are physically harmful. One requires a subjective judgement, the other can be judged with legal objectivity

Laws governing thought and speech rather than actual deeds are not just difficult to enforce they are incredibly hard to confine. Much as it goes against the grain I must agree with Stephen Fry who argues that such laws lead to a culture of censoriousness. Worse they stunt free expression and lead to fearful conformity. Legal censorship leads to the even more pernicious and effective self-censorship. When people are afraid to speak freedom dies.

There is huge moral difference between the anti-Christian jokes of Rowan Atkinson and the repellent leaflets published by the accused. But who decides just where the line is drawn? Who do you trust to decide for you what you can say or write? The government? The lawyers? Editorial writers from the Guardian or from the Daily Mail?

AA Gill, is no stranger to controversy and the need to defend freedom of speech. He wrote of the Welsh that they are, ”loquacious, dissemblers, immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark, ugly, pugnacious little trolls.” Whilst in his opinion the English are “embarrassing” and an “ugly race” as well as a “lumpen and louty, coarse, unsubtle, beady-eyed, beefy-bummed herd”.

It is possible to dispute some of these remarks, I have met tall Welshmen and not every Englishmen is beady eyed. However, it is also possible to agree wholeheartedly with his argument that free speech is like being pregnant: “You either are, or you are not.” Freedom of speech means freedom of speech, no matter whom it offends.

Freedom of speech cannot be other than non-selective. If I support those newspapers brave enough to publish the infamous Danish Muhammad cartoons I must support Muriel Gray’s right to call me an idiot because I believe in God. As soon as we say “I believe in freedom of speech, but…” we have demonstrated that we do not believe in freedom of speech.

The religion of the five accused is irrelevant, their moral stature is irrelevant, whether they are brilliant scholars or never got out of the remedial class is irrelevant, whether their views are widely accepted by the majority of the population or are confined to a tiny minority of knuckle dragging adherents of Salafist theology is irrelevant. Above all whether we agree with them or not is irrelevant. Freedom of speech is indivisible.

If someone hands you an offensive leaflet calling for the death penalty for homosexuals and you find it repellent do what grown ups do with election material from the Lib Dems, put it in the bin.

We should be big boys and girls and stand on our own feet and not look for the government to preserve our fragile egos by shielding us from nasty people who might possibly offend us.

Being rude, offensive or bigoted may be crude, vulgar, boorish and discourteous, it should not be illegal. If it were John Prescott would be in prison and not the House of Lords. A nation which refuses to silence the rude or bigoted is not a nation which approves of or endorses their prejudices, rather it is a mature nation which values rational debate over state coercion and defends freedom, even when it has unpleasant outcomes. To uphold the freedom of the objectionable is to uphold the freedom of us all.