I have recently had a bit of a 'Blog Spat' with a Reverend of the Church of England who had ‘back linked’ to a post on my blog as an example of a “Right wing Daily Mail reader” …..or worse!
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| The Dreaded Daily Mail Reader - Despised By Fat Vicars |
Mainly because of my backing of the Bishop of Rochester's stated views on the formation of Muslim 'no go' areas in inner city Bradford.
I didn’t mind entering into a little row on his blog page, but as we do not see Islam in remotely the same light, then it seemed a bit pointless to keep it up, I restricted myself to a couple of comments (only one of which was published … the other censored??).
Maybe he was so disgusted with me that he didn’t want his web page sullied any further LOL …. Who knows? Certainly he may not blog on this addition to the Bishop story, but since the original story was published the Bishop of Rochester has received credible death threats from 'someone,' and now has Police protection ... Hmm a religion of peace, tolerant and open to others opinions .... Only in the 'FatVicar's world view.
However it made me wonder about the current state of organised religion in the UK, particularly the Anglicans. Anecdotal evidence had led me to sort of assume that Protestant church attendance was down, Catholic up (East European Immigration), Islam growing (Birth rate and immigration), but I had never bothered to confirm this conception. The FatVicar has also touched on this subject (after this blog entry was first published ... coincidence?) and provided this link which I have now added to this blog.
I was also curious to see if those religions represented by the “Islam is peaceful and contributes greatly to the UK,” kind of thinking, that the blogging reverend appears to hold, were in greater decline, than those who had a stronger message than the Anglicans, such as the Catholics, Orthodox and African Churches?
I happen to believe that there is an increasingly irrelevant and discredited ‘Socialist’ Christian strand of Protestantism that views the world as it never was, and certainly never will be .... a blog name such as the 'Big Bulky Anglican,' reinforces this image in my mind (rightly or wrongly). This strand first developed in the 1940's and 1950's (although with roots back to the late Victorian period), and grew through the 1960's and 1970's, where it often led the calls for "Church Reform" to make it more 'inclusive'.
This attitude of Christian socialist naiveté was deliciously parodied at the time, by Peter Sellers as the Rev Smallwood, in the 1963 movie Heavens Above! and I suspect that forty years later the ethos is still alive in the Anglican church.
This perceived socialist wing of the Protestant religion, is illustrated by the old adage that "The British Labour Party owes more to 'Methodism' than Marx” , but this includes sections of the Church of England, those in the, 'Christ was a socialist school' of thought, and in some of them, the socialism aspect appeared to be more important than the practise of the religion.
I wonder how much it contributes to the decline of Anglican service attendances, that anyone who holds opinions that aren't 'left wing' would be very quickly alienated or discouraged by the attitudes of some of the ministers? I mean, the blogging Anglican and I hardly hit it off, and I doubt he would like me in his congregation, or even near it, so maybe Christianity as currently practised in the Church of England, now alienates the naturally conservative sections of our society?
Actually that thought is maybe worth an extra paragraph or two. Normally Churches are naturally conservative organisations, after all, to hold one set of ideas for over a thousand years or more, requires an innately conservative outlook, that abhors change, rejects revolutions and punishes heresy or deviancy from the traditional views.
These conservative followers, are historically the majority of any religions practitioners, and have formed the core of the worshippers for millennia. Yet the Church of England (and the other Western Churches to varying degrees), went down a route that has overturned this state of affairs, and made changes in the practise of the religion the main order of the day, leaving the natural conservative core of the religion with no natural home.
Maybe the decline of the churches in the UK (and Europe), is directly related to this one simple fact, because it's noticeable that the more traditional the values of religion that the church practise, the less it has declined in attendance figures. Conversely the more they have deviated from historic traditional church teachings, the faster they have lost followers ..... So the Church of England has experienced the fastest decline, because it's the church that has moved furthest away from the traditional Christian beliefs and manner of observances, that had been the norm up until the 1950's and 1960's.
If I was a conservative Anglican, I suspect I would be looking at the Catholic, or maybe even the Orthodox churches as a new home, because they have not embraced the changes to the traditional observance of the Christian religion, that seem to be the Anglican mission statement now.
This churchmen as socialist idea worked fairly well in the UK of the 1960’s and 1970’s, but even then, the decline of church attendance in the UK was accelerating. However it allowed for an ecumenical cosiness with the Catholics, Orthodox, Jewish and other Protestant groups, because none of the others were any more militant at proselytising than the Church of England.
Then along came Islam, the unaccommodating, iconoclastic, increasingly militant religion of the non English speaking Mullahs. Certainly the initial influx of Islam was of a less severe version of Islam, and although the Hanafi school of Islam was described as largely ‘liberal’ it is only ‘liberal’ by contrast to the other schools of Islam, and not by contrast with Christianity or Judaism as practised in the UK.
However, in the last twenty years, the makeup of Islam in the UK has been much influenced by Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia, playing upon the Deobandi (The school as followed by the Taliban of Afghanistan), influences already in the UK element of Islam. The rise of this ‘Petro-Islam’ has altered, possibly forever, the interaction between Islam and the rest of the world. Some of the religions, are now reacting to the threat to their congregations that these changes signify, but others are not able to do so.
The Church of England is already in the middle of a long (fifty year) suicide over Homosexuals, Women Priests and every other PC 'ism' that it can find to split over, so it has no hope of addressing the rise of Islam. You are now left with the 'socialist wing' of the church trying to come to local accommodations with “moderate” Islam wherever they can find it. For example the blogging Reverend has apparently found a Muslim Imam who is “embarrassed” by some of the more militant parts of the Quran (and there are a lot of them).
Here's a few he might be saying "Oops, Sorry" about:
The Quran encourages Muslims to fight, even when they would rather seek peace with those who do not wish to adopt Islam. (Sura AL-BAQARA 2:16)
If the blogging Reverend opened his eyes just a little, he might note that his Imam friend, whilst apparently embarrassed, has not denied that they are 'Allah’s commands to the faithful', and according to all the major schools of Islam, are to be obeyed by anyone who wishes to be a good Muslim. You can’t cherry pick your obedience to the message in Islam, unlike the Church of England with its pic'n'mix smorgasbord of beliefs.
He might also ask his mullah friend, how he reconciles his embarrassment with the Muslim belief that these are the actual commandments by Allah (even with the inherent aggression of the messages), and that Muslims must carry them out in total obedience (i.e 'Submission', or 'Islam'), even if they don't want to? (Sura AL-BAQARA 2:16),
Anyway back to attendance figures. As you might imagine, there is plenty of scope for confusion, particularly as the commissioners of the reports often have an agenda. Anyway the best I can determine is as follows:
The relative equality in their numbers over recent years is seen as surprising, considering that there are estimated to be 25 million people who regard themselves as Anglicans, as opposed to only 4.2 million Catholics.
The figures imply that Britain is on course to becoming a predominately Catholic country again amongst actual church goers, while the Church of England is losing its place as the nation's most popular Christian denomination. The conversion of Tony Blair from Anglican to Catholic may be the tip of a growing trend.
All the other reports largely support these facts:
If Christianity is to survive, desperate measures are required, but this is like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic LOL ... it doesn't stop the ship sinking.
As an atheist who occasionally thinks about agnosticism, I doubt that my observations would cut much ice in the Christian world, especially with the Rev Allen’s of this world, but for what it’s worth, I think that the Christians started to lose followers the moment that they started to lose their certainty in the creed, and the delivery of the message.
However it was now that it was decided that instead of the traditional splits (where every five hundred year or so, those unhappy with their current church could form their own churches), Christianity should instead “modernise” the credo, but the more they did so, the less followers they retained …. So the foolish carried on changing, instead of reversing the changes already made, and the decline continued.
The modernisation started with the Roman Catholics and the Second Vatican Council in 1962, although the last two Popes have shown signs of wanting to take the church back to its Latin roots.
The Church of England has had a whole series of “re-inventions”, which first opened the door to women priests (and thus ending hopes of reconciliation with the Roman Catholics), and then ordaining openly homosexual priests (this action has destroyed any hope of the Anglican communion staying as one in the long-term), and as a result the African communion, as well as separate dioceses in North and South America etc are breaking away, firstly from the US church, but undoubtedly from the Church of England as well in the very near future.
The African Anglicans are taking over administration of diocese's in North America, as the ‘traditionalist’ try to reclaim the Anglican church from those who should have really have been expelled and ‘split’ … it's odd that the liberal minority, have in effect thrown out the traditionalist majority from the Anglican Church.
I have to admit that I would be hard put to say what exactly the Anglicans believe in anymore …. obviously the Bible is more an advisory note than, well, err, a bible, if you know what I mean. And if the Rev Allen is any guide, I suspect that a 'soft liberal socialism' is the main creed, but I don’t know what their core religious belief is anymore. In other words what’s a sin, and what isn’t in Anglicism, and therein lays their problem, because you can't sell something if the message isn't clear.
To stop the decline in attendance and worship generally, I suspect all the Christian churches are going to have to deeply consider what their core message is, what the black and whites are, and then stand up and announce what’s right and what’s wrong … If that alienates a few of the more 'liberal clergy', then that’s a small price for finally getting the soul of the faith back.
If for example the main core following of a religion wants:
.... then that church should create a declaration of its beliefs, and proselytise on that set of values. For the Anglicans though, it may well be too late, they have no coherent message “except the good news” … A third of them appear to believe in the 'values' listed above, but the rest reject this, however its the minority view that prevails, and its the conservative wing that gets expelled.
What they really need is a dose of good, “old time” religion. The fact is, that it might take fifty years to work, but after the decline of the last fifty years, you can’t expect instant fixes. It’s going to take a generation or two to regain the moral high ground and certitude, that a religion has to have to attract followers.
Islam holds it adherents through a mixture of Ignorance (it has an illiteracy rate of over 50% amongst its followers), Consistency (Its message remains clear wherever it’s promoted), Certainty (it describes with some vigour, what’s right and wrong in its eyes), and Fear (of death for various ‘crimes’ including apostasy). Death threats are regularly issued to apostates in most of the world, including here in the UK, where even Government Ministers will not come out and threaten penalties for anyone who preaches that killing is OK …
Oddly the Egypt’s Grand Mufti, Ali Gomaa, who is the highest official authority for issuing fatwas, or religious edicts has said that “The essential question before us is can a person who is Muslim choose a religion other than Islam? The answer is yes, they can, because the Quran says, ‘Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion,’” citing from Islam’s holy book. “If the case in question is one of merely rejecting faith, then there is no worldly punishment,” Gomaa wrote it the article, published in The Washington Post. “The matter is left until the Day of Judgment, and it is not to be dealt with in the life of this world.”
On the other hand, some strands of Christianity have lost their certainty of message and beliefs, with a religion of all the consciences and flexible beliefs.
One Creed, One Conscience, No Alternatives, and One uncompromising approach to other religions, appears to be the formula for a successful religion in the present and future, and the only way forward for Christianity. If it ever hopes to break back into the cities again it is to find its heart and theologically (as well as physically) fight back.
Maybe he was so disgusted with me that he didn’t want his web page sullied any further LOL …. Who knows? Certainly he may not blog on this addition to the Bishop story, but since the original story was published the Bishop of Rochester has received credible death threats from 'someone,' and now has Police protection ... Hmm a religion of peace, tolerant and open to others opinions .... Only in the 'FatVicar's world view.
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| A Naive 'Socialist' Cleric |
However it made me wonder about the current state of organised religion in the UK, particularly the Anglicans. Anecdotal evidence had led me to sort of assume that Protestant church attendance was down, Catholic up (East European Immigration), Islam growing (Birth rate and immigration), but I had never bothered to confirm this conception. The FatVicar has also touched on this subject (after this blog entry was first published ... coincidence?) and provided this link which I have now added to this blog.
I was also curious to see if those religions represented by the “Islam is peaceful and contributes greatly to the UK,” kind of thinking, that the blogging reverend appears to hold, were in greater decline, than those who had a stronger message than the Anglicans, such as the Catholics, Orthodox and African Churches?
I happen to believe that there is an increasingly irrelevant and discredited ‘Socialist’ Christian strand of Protestantism that views the world as it never was, and certainly never will be .... a blog name such as the 'Big Bulky Anglican,' reinforces this image in my mind (rightly or wrongly). This strand first developed in the 1940's and 1950's (although with roots back to the late Victorian period), and grew through the 1960's and 1970's, where it often led the calls for "Church Reform" to make it more 'inclusive'.
This attitude of Christian socialist naiveté was deliciously parodied at the time, by Peter Sellers as the Rev Smallwood, in the 1963 movie Heavens Above! and I suspect that forty years later the ethos is still alive in the Anglican church.
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| Heavens Above - Rev Smallwood |
This perceived socialist wing of the Protestant religion, is illustrated by the old adage that "The British Labour Party owes more to 'Methodism' than Marx” , but this includes sections of the Church of England, those in the, 'Christ was a socialist school' of thought, and in some of them, the socialism aspect appeared to be more important than the practise of the religion.
I wonder how much it contributes to the decline of Anglican service attendances, that anyone who holds opinions that aren't 'left wing' would be very quickly alienated or discouraged by the attitudes of some of the ministers? I mean, the blogging Anglican and I hardly hit it off, and I doubt he would like me in his congregation, or even near it, so maybe Christianity as currently practised in the Church of England, now alienates the naturally conservative sections of our society?
Actually that thought is maybe worth an extra paragraph or two. Normally Churches are naturally conservative organisations, after all, to hold one set of ideas for over a thousand years or more, requires an innately conservative outlook, that abhors change, rejects revolutions and punishes heresy or deviancy from the traditional views.
These conservative followers, are historically the majority of any religions practitioners, and have formed the core of the worshippers for millennia. Yet the Church of England (and the other Western Churches to varying degrees), went down a route that has overturned this state of affairs, and made changes in the practise of the religion the main order of the day, leaving the natural conservative core of the religion with no natural home.
Maybe the decline of the churches in the UK (and Europe), is directly related to this one simple fact, because it's noticeable that the more traditional the values of religion that the church practise, the less it has declined in attendance figures. Conversely the more they have deviated from historic traditional church teachings, the faster they have lost followers ..... So the Church of England has experienced the fastest decline, because it's the church that has moved furthest away from the traditional Christian beliefs and manner of observances, that had been the norm up until the 1950's and 1960's.
If I was a conservative Anglican, I suspect I would be looking at the Catholic, or maybe even the Orthodox churches as a new home, because they have not embraced the changes to the traditional observance of the Christian religion, that seem to be the Anglican mission statement now.
This churchmen as socialist idea worked fairly well in the UK of the 1960’s and 1970’s, but even then, the decline of church attendance in the UK was accelerating. However it allowed for an ecumenical cosiness with the Catholics, Orthodox, Jewish and other Protestant groups, because none of the others were any more militant at proselytising than the Church of England.
Then along came Islam, the unaccommodating, iconoclastic, increasingly militant religion of the non English speaking Mullahs. Certainly the initial influx of Islam was of a less severe version of Islam, and although the Hanafi school of Islam was described as largely ‘liberal’ it is only ‘liberal’ by contrast to the other schools of Islam, and not by contrast with Christianity or Judaism as practised in the UK.
However, in the last twenty years, the makeup of Islam in the UK has been much influenced by Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia, playing upon the Deobandi (The school as followed by the Taliban of Afghanistan), influences already in the UK element of Islam. The rise of this ‘Petro-Islam’ has altered, possibly forever, the interaction between Islam and the rest of the world. Some of the religions, are now reacting to the threat to their congregations that these changes signify, but others are not able to do so.
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| Al-Birr Community Centre and Margate Mosque was formerly Congregational Church and the Union Church is now in the former Church Hall |
The Church of England is already in the middle of a long (fifty year) suicide over Homosexuals, Women Priests and every other PC 'ism' that it can find to split over, so it has no hope of addressing the rise of Islam. You are now left with the 'socialist wing' of the church trying to come to local accommodations with “moderate” Islam wherever they can find it. For example the blogging Reverend has apparently found a Muslim Imam who is “embarrassed” by some of the more militant parts of the Quran (and there are a lot of them).
Here's a few he might be saying "Oops, Sorry" about:
- (Sura al-Tawba 9:123). "O believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them find in you a harshness; and know that Allah is with the god fearing" (Sura al-Tawba 9:29).
- "Fight against those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger, have forbidden -- such men as practice not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book -- until they pay tribute out of hand and have been humbled" (Sura Al Ma idah 5:33).
- "The punishment of those who wage war against God and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;"
The Quran encourages Muslims to fight, even when they would rather seek peace with those who do not wish to adopt Islam. (Sura AL-BAQARA 2:16)
- "Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not."
Or the ‘they are not to be befriended’ parts: - Sura (5:51) - "O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people."
- Sura (5:80) Sura (3:28) Sura (3:118) Sura (9:23) Sura (53:29) Sura (3:85) Sura (1:5-7) are a few more he might also be embarrassed about. There are allegedly 123 verses of the Quran that refer to killing non Muslims.
If the blogging Reverend opened his eyes just a little, he might note that his Imam friend, whilst apparently embarrassed, has not denied that they are 'Allah’s commands to the faithful', and according to all the major schools of Islam, are to be obeyed by anyone who wishes to be a good Muslim. You can’t cherry pick your obedience to the message in Islam, unlike the Church of England with its pic'n'mix smorgasbord of beliefs.
He might also ask his mullah friend, how he reconciles his embarrassment with the Muslim belief that these are the actual commandments by Allah (even with the inherent aggression of the messages), and that Muslims must carry them out in total obedience (i.e 'Submission', or 'Islam'), even if they don't want to? (Sura AL-BAQARA 2:16),
Anyway back to attendance figures. As you might imagine, there is plenty of scope for confusion, particularly as the commissioners of the reports often have an agenda. Anyway the best I can determine is as follows:
- The number of people attending mosques will be double the Anglican Church congregations by 2040 according to a report by the British-based Buttociation Christian Research. It expected the total membership of all the Christian denominations to fall from 9.4 per cent of the population to under only five per cent by 2040.
- The study also anticipates that the poor attendance will force some 18,000 churches to close.
- More Catholics already attend church in England every Sunday than Anglicans, for the first time since the establishment of the Church of England in the 16th century, according to new figures. Statistics quoted by the Sunday Telegraph show that attendance at Anglican Sunday services has dropped by 20 per cent since 2000. Although like two old men fighting, the C of E has said the reports of its decline below Catholicism are wrong, as if it really matters!
- The Catholic Church has also suffered a serious fall in the size of its congregations, but the expansion of the European Union in 2004 resulted in its numbers being bolstered by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Catholic Poles and Lithuanians. Churchgoing in Anglican and Catholic parishes had stood at about a million each for the past 10 years. But last year's Church of England attendance was put at 852,000, while the decline at Catholics churches has been slowed by immigrants from east Europe and Africa.
The relative equality in their numbers over recent years is seen as surprising, considering that there are estimated to be 25 million people who regard themselves as Anglicans, as opposed to only 4.2 million Catholics.
The figures imply that Britain is on course to becoming a predominately Catholic country again amongst actual church goers, while the Church of England is losing its place as the nation's most popular Christian denomination. The conversion of Tony Blair from Anglican to Catholic may be the tip of a growing trend.
All the other reports largely support these facts:
- Judaism is either static or in decline as Jews leave the UK, under the threat that Islams rise represents.
- Orthodox Christian worship has grown due to immigration, but is still low.
- Catholic worship is in a slow decline, but Polish and East European immigration has improved matters and its now more numerous than the Anglican faith in actual church attendees.
- Most Protestants churches are in fast decline, but, the Afro Caribbean wings of all the Christian churches are in growth, fuelled by African immigration.
- Hinduism is growing, but slowly as most Asian immigration is from Muslim Pakistan and India.
If Christianity is to survive, desperate measures are required, but this is like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic LOL ... it doesn't stop the ship sinking.
As an atheist who occasionally thinks about agnosticism, I doubt that my observations would cut much ice in the Christian world, especially with the Rev Allen’s of this world, but for what it’s worth, I think that the Christians started to lose followers the moment that they started to lose their certainty in the creed, and the delivery of the message.
- Hindus don’t alter their beliefs over the millennium and there are nearly a billion of them. They are not a proselytising faith or they might give Islam a run for its money, because it could easily incorporate the heathens, pagans and others in the UK.
- Jews are renowned for their ability to retain the core of their creed without change for a couple of thousands of years or so.
- The Orthodox Churches (Russian, Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Serbian, Assyrian etc) have not really changed their practises and beliefs since 451 AD and show no signs of doing so …. their numbers are still slowly growing, and their methods have withstood long periods of occupation and oppression, and numerous attempts at forced conversion to Islam (under the Ottoman Turks and Arabs) or eradication under Communism ... indeed Russian Orthodoxy belief has grown since communism collapsed in that country.
- Muslims consider the Quran and its message to be the literal word of Allah, and not to be altered. This immutability is a myth, but the fact that they believe it to be true means that for fourteen hundred years the message has been roughly the same.
- Christianity, with splits every five hundred years or so, has until now retained its basic beliefs. The first split after five hundred years was followed by another split at about one thousand years, Christianity then retained its immutability for another five hundred years until the reformation, and then stabilised again for another five hundred year until the middle of the 20th century.
However it was now that it was decided that instead of the traditional splits (where every five hundred year or so, those unhappy with their current church could form their own churches), Christianity should instead “modernise” the credo, but the more they did so, the less followers they retained …. So the foolish carried on changing, instead of reversing the changes already made, and the decline continued.
The modernisation started with the Roman Catholics and the Second Vatican Council in 1962, although the last two Popes have shown signs of wanting to take the church back to its Latin roots.
The Church of England has had a whole series of “re-inventions”, which first opened the door to women priests (and thus ending hopes of reconciliation with the Roman Catholics), and then ordaining openly homosexual priests (this action has destroyed any hope of the Anglican communion staying as one in the long-term), and as a result the African communion, as well as separate dioceses in North and South America etc are breaking away, firstly from the US church, but undoubtedly from the Church of England as well in the very near future.
The African Anglicans are taking over administration of diocese's in North America, as the ‘traditionalist’ try to reclaim the Anglican church from those who should have really have been expelled and ‘split’ … it's odd that the liberal minority, have in effect thrown out the traditionalist majority from the Anglican Church.
I have to admit that I would be hard put to say what exactly the Anglicans believe in anymore …. obviously the Bible is more an advisory note than, well, err, a bible, if you know what I mean. And if the Rev Allen is any guide, I suspect that a 'soft liberal socialism' is the main creed, but I don’t know what their core religious belief is anymore. In other words what’s a sin, and what isn’t in Anglicism, and therein lays their problem, because you can't sell something if the message isn't clear.
To stop the decline in attendance and worship generally, I suspect all the Christian churches are going to have to deeply consider what their core message is, what the black and whites are, and then stand up and announce what’s right and what’s wrong … If that alienates a few of the more 'liberal clergy', then that’s a small price for finally getting the soul of the faith back.
If for example the main core following of a religion wants:
- Gay Clergy.
- Gay Marriages.
- Women Bishops.
- Same-sex ‘blessings.’
- A flexible belief system that can cast the Bibles teaching aside for the sake of modernism, and
- A passive acceptance of the equality of Islam’s value system.
.... then that church should create a declaration of its beliefs, and proselytise on that set of values. For the Anglicans though, it may well be too late, they have no coherent message “except the good news” … A third of them appear to believe in the 'values' listed above, but the rest reject this, however its the minority view that prevails, and its the conservative wing that gets expelled.
What they really need is a dose of good, “old time” religion. The fact is, that it might take fifty years to work, but after the decline of the last fifty years, you can’t expect instant fixes. It’s going to take a generation or two to regain the moral high ground and certitude, that a religion has to have to attract followers.
Islam holds it adherents through a mixture of Ignorance (it has an illiteracy rate of over 50% amongst its followers), Consistency (Its message remains clear wherever it’s promoted), Certainty (it describes with some vigour, what’s right and wrong in its eyes), and Fear (of death for various ‘crimes’ including apostasy). Death threats are regularly issued to apostates in most of the world, including here in the UK, where even Government Ministers will not come out and threaten penalties for anyone who preaches that killing is OK …
Oddly the Egypt’s Grand Mufti, Ali Gomaa, who is the highest official authority for issuing fatwas, or religious edicts has said that “The essential question before us is can a person who is Muslim choose a religion other than Islam? The answer is yes, they can, because the Quran says, ‘Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion,’” citing from Islam’s holy book. “If the case in question is one of merely rejecting faith, then there is no worldly punishment,” Gomaa wrote it the article, published in The Washington Post. “The matter is left until the Day of Judgment, and it is not to be dealt with in the life of this world.”
On the other hand, some strands of Christianity have lost their certainty of message and beliefs, with a religion of all the consciences and flexible beliefs.
One Creed, One Conscience, No Alternatives, and One uncompromising approach to other religions, appears to be the formula for a successful religion in the present and future, and the only way forward for Christianity. If it ever hopes to break back into the cities again it is to find its heart and theologically (as well as physically) fight back.
Figures from 2001 Census:
ReplyDeleteChristian: 72%
No religion: 16%
Muslim: 3%
Hindu: 1%
Christian charity Tearfund's survey in 2007 found that just one in 10 people in the UK attends church every week and one in seven goes once a month, according to research. This puts the UK among Europe's four least observant countries.
Northern Ireland: 45%
Scotland: 18%
England: 14%
Wales: 12%
Average Sunday attendance in the Church of England was 960,000 in 2008.
In British Attitudes Survey in 2010, 43% were Christian and 51% no religion.
Looks like the woolies will be gone in 4 more censuses.
ReplyDeleteI have had little cause to revisit the subject of the Anglican Church and its inherent contradictions between the bible teachings and western LGBT 'reformers' who have infiltrated the UK/North American wings of the Anglican Communion.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the corpse twitched this week, with a much delayed Lambeth Conference taking place (albeit minus the Archbishops of Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda - who refused to attend), where once again they tried to resolve the question of homosexuality. Archbishop Welby gave a keynote speech in which fudged the issue by on the one hand reaffirming a resolution passed by the Lambeth Conference in 1998, which said same sex marriage was wrong and "homosexual practices" are incompatible with scripture, while on the other saying that those Anglican churches which moved away from that historical teaching, would not be sanctioned or condemned.
They are so screwed up that its ridiculous .... you either believe in the great sky father and accept his teachings or you don't .... Leviticus 18 and 20 seem fairly clear on the matter. But hey, I am not trying to change the bible, so I do not try to wiggle out of the bibles accepted teachings.
For a coherent breakdown of the arguments about what the bible says or doesn't say go here
It just makes me laugh that this moribund organisation only makes the news at this decadal conference .... otherwise no one cares. Noticeably the Russian Orthodox church suffers none of the Anglican churches wobbles on this subject .... and has grown.