The Erosion of Christianity in Britain

[ramonmercado]

I find this truly bizarre. Maybe more will come out at the trial. Maybe they hassled an ill woman.

But it seems odd that the police would submit such a case to the CPS and then the CPS agree to prosecute it.

 

[rjmrjmrjm]

I agree Ramon, it does seem very odd behavior from all concerned. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

 

[Felicity]

I feel this case is an exercise in political correctness rather than justice.

But the justice system here in Australia is now governed to a great extent by media grabs, political opportunism and large corporate interests. Just look at how many cases are won because small individuals have not the resources of large corporations and each precedent set, makes it harder still for the little guys.

But they whitewash all this with the politically, 'We are going to drill this resource compromised couple for their opinion to keep the dumbed down public happy, while we screw them when we put power lines over kindy's, wind farms too close to people's homes, railroad unsustainable housing developments etc... "

Counseling would have been a better course of action- we need to introduce Globalism as a subject at school, rather than the buzz word Globalisation...

Globalism- the recognition of difference and the promotion of understanding of cultural divides... so allowing people to practice their beliefs, rather than everyone trampling them into an awful mish-mash of politically correct sludge.

Felicity

 

[rynner2]

Music 'is replacing religion' says academic
Music and DVDs are replacing religion as the focus for public devotion, a leading academic has said.
By Heidi Blake
Published: 7:30AM GMT 25 Mar 2010

Listening to music, regular film watching and “devoted” viewing of DVD box sets are becoming the “spiritual disciplines” of the day, according to Dr Clive Marsh of the University of Leicester.

internet fan sites are used as a form of worship, while people use music to explore the philosophical and ethical issues of the modern world, he said.

Dr Marsh, who has studied the relationship between religion and popular culture for 15 years, is conducting a study of the importance music in people’s lives.

“You see lots of people listening to their iPods seemingly caught up in their own private worlds,” he said.

“I am interested in the ways in which people consume music – what are they doing with it?”

An online survey designed by Dr Marsh has been completed by 200 people so far across Britain and the USA. The findings will be published later this year.

Dr Marsh began the study by examining the way fans of U2 interact with the Irish rock band and their music.

He believes that online fan communities form “not just to talk about music, TV or film, but to reflect on how their listening and viewing habits inform their living and help them develop their philosophical, religious, political or ethical commitments.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/musi ... demic.html

Back in the days before electronic media, church services were a major source of music. Choirs and orchestras (church organs arrived fairly late in the day) would have been a sophisticated alternative to the more robust folk music that was the only alternative for the common people.

 

[escargot]

Ah yup, like the rowdy 'church orchestra' described in one of Hardy's novels - is it Far From The Madding Crowd?

Organs were apparently introduced to replace church orchestras, who could be unreliable and prone to drunkenness. :lol:

 

[ted_bloody_maul]

Listening to music, regular film watching and “devoted” viewing of DVD box sets are becoming the “spiritual disciplines” of the day, according to Dr Clive Marsh of the University of Leicester.

internet fan sites are used as a form of worship, while people use music to explore the philosophical and ethical issues of the modern world, he said.

Dr Marsh, who has studied the relationship between religion and popular culture for 15 years, is conducting a study of the importance music in people’s lives.

Just as well he's come up with a theory then, really. You'd feel awfully silly if you'd spent 15 years studying the relationship between religion and popular culture if you couldn't come up with a way to publicise your work.

Personally I'd say that the cultural and spiritual import of music has diminished in recent years. That said, I'd argue that simply holding something to be important doesn't make it religious. That's essentially a view of the world which requires religion to be replaced by something where its tradional forms are less influential. It no more requires replacement than the stabilisers on a bike do upon a child learning how to ride it.

 

[Yithian]

That said, I'd argue that simply holding something to be important doesn't make it religious. That's essentially a view of the world which requires religion to be replaced by something where its tradional forms are less influential.

Leaving aside, for the moment, the idea that religion, once lost, need not be replaced. I'd say you've hit the nail squarely (odd considering nails and hammers are rounded) on the head. 'Being very interested/obsessed with something' or 'liking it a lot, even to the exclusion of other important things' does not equate to the sensation being 'spiritual' or the practice being 'religious'.

This study sounds awful.

“You see lots of people listening to their iPods seemingly caught up in their own private worlds,” he said.

He seems to trip over the figurative language we use about ourselves and assume that there must be a reality behind it.

“I am interested in the ways in which people consume music – what are they doing with it?”

Listening to it and enjoying the experience.

He believes that online fan communities form “not just to talk about music, TV or film, but to reflect on how their listening and viewing habits inform their living and help them develop their philosophical, religious, political or ethical commitments.”

This is what groups of people do together. The reason they are together is not what makes this happen. It's the fact that they are humans and, hence, social animals who live and learn in groups. Religion is one of the ways they do this, but so is drinking in the same pub. Why not posit 'fan communities' as akin to the 'regulars at a pub': oh, hang-on, i've stumbled on a more plausible theory!

 

[rynner2]

Senior bishops call for end to persecution of Christians in Britain
Christians in Britain are being persecuted and "treated with disrespect", senior bishops have said.
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs correspondent
Published: 10:00PM GMT 27 Mar 2010

Six prominent bishops and Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, describe the "discrimination" against churchgoers as "unacceptable in a civilised society".

In a thinly-veiled attack on Labour, they claim that traditional beliefs on issues such as marriage are no longer being upheld and call on the major parties to address the issue in the run-up to the general election.

In a letter to The Sunday Telegraph, the bishops express their deep disquiet at the double standards of public sector employers, claiming that Christians are punished while followers of other faiths are treated far more sensitively.

Their intervention follows a series of cases in which Christians have been dismissed after seeking to express their faith. They highlight the plight of Shirley Chaplin, a nurse who was banned from working on hospital wards for wearing a cross around her neck. This week she will begin a legal battle against the decision.

Christians are also increasingly concerned that the Government is ignoring their views on issues such as sex education and homosexuality when introducing new legislation.

A group of 640 head teachers, school governors and faith leaders have signed a separate letter to this newspaper warning that compulsory sex education in primary schools will erode moral standards and encourage sexual experimentation.

They call for the dropping of legislation that will see children as young as seven taught about sex and relationships.

In their letter, the bishops urge the Government to stop the persecution of Christians.

"We are deeply concerned at the apparent discrimination shown against Christians and we call on the Government to remedy this serious development.

"In a number of cases, Christian beliefs on marriage, conscience and worship are simply not being upheld.

"There have been numerous dismissals of practising Christians from employment for reasons that are unacceptable in a civilised country."

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... itain.html

I agree with some of their points, although not on religious grounds.
And I worry that dissing the country's traditional religion while deferring to Islam is seriously skewing what it means to be British.

 

[Beakmoo]

Feed them to the lions I say.

 

[Timble2]

Isn't that a bit unfair to the lions?

 

[ramonmercado]

Let me see now:

The CoE is the Established Church of the UK.

Some CoE Bishops automatically have the right to sit in the House of Lords.

The Head of State of the Uk, the Queen, is the Supreme Civil Governor of the CoE.

The CoE controls a large section of the Education Sysyem.

Thats not to mention the power of the Church of Scotland/Presbyterians, Methodists and ECC with their control over schools.

Persecuted? Yeah, right!

 

[misterwibble]

Apparently not getting your own way all of the time equates to persecution.

All I can say is MTFU and grow a pair.

 

[danny_cogdon]

Apparently not getting your own way all of the time equates to persecution.

All I can say is MTFU and grow a pair.

I'm probably being a bit dense here but what does MTFU mean?

 

[stu neville]

"Man The F$ck Up". As MisterWibble said, basically get a backbone, grow some bollocks and stop whining. Unfortunately for the Church of England, it spends so much time being non-confrontational that when it does try to assert itself it ends up sounding like self-pity.

I think it can be easily argued that the C of E has always been a bit too nice for its own good. It's quite English in that way: many churches sentence you to eternal damnation if you don't toe the line, but the Anglicans just won't invite you to dinner any more.

 

[danny_cogdon]

Consider me educated.

 

[rynner2]

Much as I'm agin religion, I'm also in favour of people's rights to believe what they want, and this ruling seems petty-minded.

Devon nurse loses crucifix 'ban' claim at tribunal

A Christian nurse moved to a desk job after refusing to remove her crucifix at work has lost a discrimination claim against her employers.

Shirley Chaplin, from Exeter, had argued the cross "ban" prevented her from expressing her religious beliefs.

But an employment tribunal ruled that the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospitals NHS Trust, where she worked, had acted in a reasonable manner.

Mrs Chaplin said it was a "very poor day" for Christians in the workplace.

Jane Viner, the trust's Acting Director of Nursing, said it was "absolutely satisfied" with the tribunal's decision.

She said: "These were very serious allegations of direct and indirect discrimination and we're satisfied that the tribunal has completely dismissed them."

She said Mrs Chaplin, 54, was a respected nurse and had a future at the hospital.

Mrs Chaplin, who is intending to appeal against the decision, said: "The law doesn't appear to be on the Christian side."

She said Christians in the workplace would feel "quite persecuted" by the ruling.

The NHS trust's uniform and dress code prohibits front-line staff from wearing any type of necklace in case patients try to grab them.

It offered Mrs Chaplin the compromise of wearing her cross pinned inside a uniform lapel or pocket, but she said being asked to hide her faith was "disrespectful".

She said the hospital had rejected any of the compromises she had suggested, such as wearing a shorter chain.

Mrs Chaplin, who is scheduled to return to work on Wednesday, said she would continue to wear her crucifix on duty.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/8605700.stm

The article doesn't seem to differentiate between a crucifix and a simple cross - would this have made a difference to the ruling?

 

[colpepper1]

The NHS trust's uniform and dress code prohibits front-line staff from wearing any type of necklace in case patients try to grab them.

Seems fair enough to me, if a sad indictment that hospitals are a 'front line'. I'd have thought the nurse's behaviour toward her patients was a better index of her Christianity than any logo she chose to wear.

 

[stu neville]

Presumably she could wear a crucifix badge pinned to her uniform. In fact, most hospitals don't allow front-line staff to wear dangling jewellery of any kind, for all sorts of reasons. It's not a value judgement on individuals .

 

[Dr_Baltar]

Much as I'm agin religion, I'm also in favour of people's rights to believe what they want, and this ruling seems petty-minded.

Just to play devil's advocate (pun only partially intended), how does this ruling have any effect on her right to believe what she wants? I agree with colpepper, it's a sad day for christianity if it can only be fully expressed by the bearing of a badge.

 

[colpepper1]

It's sad that religion, for believers and non-believers alike, is so often reduced to jewellery, hats, beards and the rest of the cultural flimmery and the big world changing stuff doesn't get a look in.
Whatever religion is or isn't, it's not a club that requires badges.

 

[Dr_Baltar]

Whatever religion is or isn't, it's not a club that requires badges.

We agree. I'm stunned.

 

[rynner2]

The Orwellian logic that's turning the faith Britain was built on into a crime
By Melanie Phillips
Last updated at 9:05 AM on 3rd May 2010

Terrifying as this may seem, the attempt to stamp out Christianity in Britain appears to be gathering pace.

Dale McAlpine was preaching to shoppers in Workington, Cumbria, that homosexuality is a sin when he found himself carted off by the police, locked up in a cell for seven hours and charged with using abusive or insulting words or behaviour.
It appears that two police community support officers - at least one of whom was gay - claimed he had caused distress to themselves and members of the public.
Under our anti-discrimination laws, such distress is not to be permitted.

And so we have the oppressive and sinister situation where a gentle, unaggressive Christian is arrested and charged simply for preaching Christian principles.

It would appear that Christianity, the normative faith of this country on which its morality, values and civilisation are based, is effectively being turned into a crime.
Surreally, this intolerant denial of freedom is being perpetrated under the rubric of promoting tolerance and equality - but only towards approved groups.

Never has George Orwell's famous satirical observation, that some people are more equal than others, appeared more true.

The Cumbrian arrest comes hard on the heels of last week's ruling by Lord Justice Laws in the case of Gary McFarlane, who was dismissed as a Relate counsellor because he refused to give advice to samesex couples on sexual relationships.

The judge not only upheld Relate's case against McFarlane but went even further, saying in terms that the law could provide no legal protection for Christians who wish to live according to their religious principles.

And how did he arrive at this remarkable conclusion that deprives Christians of their rights?
By cherry-picking human rights law.
The judge said merely that this conferred upon believers the right to 'hold or express' religious views.

In fact, the European Convention on Human Rights goes much further, giving people the right to manifest 'freedom of thought, conscience and religion' through 'worship, teaching, practice and observance'.

Yet the judge chose not to mention this right to put religious beliefs into practice.
Instead, he stated that giving legal protection to Christian beliefs was 'deeply unprincipled' and 'on the way to a theocracy'.

You really do have to scratch your head at this. The protection of religious conscience is a fundamental principle of a liberal and free society.
To equate this protection with theocracy - or the imposition of religious law upon a society - displays a remarkable intellectual and moral confusion, and has resulted in a ruling that is frighteningly illiberal and intolerant.

Of course, you could say that this is merely the result of human rights law for which Parliament rather than the judges is responsible.
But the courts could interpret that same human rights law very differently.
The problem is that the judges are refusing to strike a proper balance.

Instead of arbitrating fairly between competing rights by granting exemptions for religious believers from anti-religious laws, they are choosing to impose secular values and thus destroy the right to live and work Christian principles.

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/colum ... z0mr9FUY3a

 

[lawofnations]

By Melanie Phillips

This was the sign that meant I should have stopped reading.

Can I impose a law that allows for execution of everyone who discusses human rights law without any understanding of human rights law? Please?

In fact, the European Convention on Human Rights goes much further, giving people the right to manifest 'freedom of thought, conscience and religion' through 'worship, teaching, practice and observance'.

Yes, the ECHR says that. That doesn't guarantee that you won't have to face repercussions if your opinions lead you to violate the law. And I'd argue that "observance" has the specific meaning of religious observance. So Relate couldn't ask a Catholic counsellor to stop believing in the transubstantiation. But it can ask a counsellor who believes that homosexuality is a sin to still provide sexual counselling for homosexual couples, as that is a reasonable expectation of the job.

I'll bet that this person would have had no problem with giving counselling to unmarried couples (sinful), couples where one or both partners were divorced (sinful) or mixed race (sinful) or mixed faith (sinful). But no, we are expected to privilege homophobia in the name of a religion which has equal prohibitions against behaviour its adherents are wiling to tolerate.

 

[Dr_Baltar]

By Melanie Phillips

This was the sign that meant I should have stopped reading.

Quite so.

I'll bet that this person would have had no problem with giving counselling to unmarried couples (sinful), couples where one or both partners were divorced (sinful) or mixed race (sinful) or mixed faith (sinful).

No need to wager, he has appeared on TV and admitted to this. That would indicate to me that his problem is not based on religious conviction but on a personal disgust with homosexual sex.

 

[rynner2]

The case against McFarlane has already been discussed on the Atheism thread, where I've just posted another story about the National Secular Society. There does seem to be a growing anti-religious trend in this country.

Despite being atheist/agnostic myself, I do feel a little sad that an important strand of our cultural inheritance is being eroded. But it's a backlash against those times when the churches controlled evrything we were allowed to do and say.

I expect that eventually a British compromise will be reached, where everyone can believe what he wants, but cannot impose that belief on others.

 

[Dr_Baltar]

Despite being atheist/agnostic myself, I do feel a little sad that an important strand of our cultural inheritance is being eroded. But it's a backlash against those times when the churches controlled evrything we were allowed to do and say.

Important strands of our cultural inheritance were eroded when Christianity established its dominance. Everything changes.

I expect that eventually a British compromise will be reached, where everyone can believe what he wants, but cannot impose that belief on others.

I hope and believe that you're right.

 

[Quake42]

I expect that eventually a British compromise will be reached, where everyone can believe what he wants, but cannot impose that belief on others.

And I don't see that the case of the relationship counsellor, who refused to counsel those in gay relationships, is an indication that the compromise you describe has not been reached.

I simply don't accept that religious belief should give one an exemption from anti-discrimination laws. Just as importantly, people need to take some responsibility for their own choices. If you feel strongly that homesexuality is a sin, then don't take a job which will involve you counselling gay people. If you believe that alcohol is haraam, don't work in an off licence or supermarket which will require you to handle booze. Etc, etc. People bringing these cases seem to believe they have no free will in the process. It's ludicrous.

 

[rynner2]

Church warns BBC not to cut religion
The Church of England has urged the BBC not to cut any more religious programmes, warning that the Corporation is in danger of “losing sight of its essence”.
By Caroline Gammell
Published: 4:27PM BST 16 May 2010

It said reducing the number of hours dedicated to faith could lead to the “serious deterioration” of the BBC’s reputation for providing quality television.

The church called for a regular slot about religion on BBC Radio 1 to appeal to a younger audience.

Secular groups rejected the proposals, arguing that too much air time was allocated to religion.

The church’s intervention came as part of the BBC's consultation over its future as the Corporation. It has announced significant cuts and is considering where the axe should fall.

In its submissions, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester, said quality was fundamental to the BBC’s Charter.

“The Church of England is particularly concerned with ensuring that appropriate resources are allocated toward ensuring high-quality provision of contents that reflects and explores religion.

“We are concerned that religious broadcasting is one such area where output could not sustain further cuts without serious deterioration of the BBC’s proud record of providing engaging content.

“We emphasise the point that religion is just too present in the ‘public ether’ that the BBC seeks to reflect for it to be sidelined.”

The bishop said by making changes the BBC must make sure it does not “lose sight of its essence – the DNA that makes it an enduring part of national culture”.

Recommending that journalists study religious affairs, he said it was vital that the BBC was able to provide expert analysis in order to put stories in context.

“We suggest, for instance, that more resources should be devoted to extending the College of Journalism activity for BBC staff, which we believe should include religion as a compulsory module.”

The National Secular Society rejected the suggestions and highlighted a recent Ofcom survey which showed only nine per cent of people thought there should be more religion on television.

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... igion.html

 

[Pete Younger]

Anyone who wants religion rammed down their throat should check out satellite and cable tv, plenty of it there.

 

[colpepper1]

There does seem to be a growing anti-religious trend in this country.

Despite being atheist/agnostic myself, I do feel a little sad that an important strand of our cultural inheritance is being eroded. But it's a backlash against those times when the churches controlled evrything we were allowed to do and say.

I agree that anti-religious feeling has replaced a highly evolved national sense of 'who cares?', something we should have been rightly proud of. I'd feel similarly if any other cultural artifact was being attacked in the name of fashion.
I disagree that it's a backlash, churches lost any meaningful political power long before living memory. By the same token the country should be swamped with anti-American, French, German or Italian sentiments - I detect few outside the usual vested interests. It's fashion, 'the convenient thing to wear, for a while' and like all fashions, scathing to the old look.