Of course, Infidel Bloggers Alliance is not a Christian website, but I think all our readers, whether Hindu, atheist, Buddhist, or whatever, can agree that Britain's Christian history is interwoven with it's culture, and that it is a good thing for Brits to fight for their culture.
And, apparently, that is happening (thanks to Religion of Pieces for the link):
A poll published today by the new think tank Theos reveals public confusion. If 42 per cent of a thousand adults agree with Dawkins that religion is like "the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate", 53 per cent claim that "religion is a force for good in society", with a slightly higher percentage agreeing that Christianity had an important role to play in public affairs.
Perhaps some strange dialectic between rabid Islam and the militant secularists is partly responsible for these mixed messages? The more secularists hear from those like Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali, the "Aussie imam" of Sydney, who thinks that underclad women are like displays of meat for predatory men, the more they feel entitled to lash out at religion in general.
However, daily Islamist provocations, a wider fatigue with consumerism and a popular culture in which a scion of the Victorian dynasty that built London's sewers brings us Big Brother could equally be fuelling a recrudescence of cultural Christianity, in which many people see personal or social benefit in the old faith of our Continent.
Encouragingly, Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, has forthrightly attacked the notion that Britain is a "multi-faith society", saying: "Almost everything you touch in British culture, whether it's art, literature or the language itself has been shaped by the Judaeo-Christian tradition, by the Bible, by the Churches, worship and belief."
Today's inauguration of Theos is an encouraging sign that intellectual Christians in Britain are not going to flee the battle that militant secularists have long declared, as can be seen from Owen Chadwick's Secularisation of the European Mind, which deals with their campaigns in the 19th century.
There is something encouragingly American about Theos, provided one associates US Christians with its many distinguished public intellectuals, like Richard John Neuhaus or George Weigel, rather than the literalists of dread imaginings.
And how revealing that it is a new think tank, rather than the limp-wristed universities with their cadres of Islamist militants, that has ventured into these contentious areas.
Supported by the Anglican and Roman Catholic primates, Theos will not confine itself to locking horns with academe's celebrity atheists, nor will it simply react to provocations (overwhelmingly involving radical Islamists) that appear to discredit all faith.
Rather, in a brilliant exposition of Theos's remit, entitled Doing God, Nick Spencer indicates that the very notion of a separate public sphere, or what we call civil society, is an indirect offspring of Christian rejection of imperial theocracy, and that Christians have much still to contribute to their own legacy.
Indeed, whether for demographic reasons, which over the long term favour religious believers, or, because of the creeping withdrawal of the state from social provision, future generations will hear a lot more about God and politics.
Go read the whole thing.
9 comments:
part of our history? fight for our culture? Our cultural history includes witch burning, the black plague, and turnips for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
We don't want them to come back and nor do we want to be pushed around again by preening bishops.
That's quite a summation of British history and culture LH.
You're right, you have nothing to be proud of, nor do you have anything to be thankful for, nor do you have anything to fight for.
Now, go back to sleep.
Yep - nothing to be proud of, LH.
Like the Magna Carta (1215) limiting the authority of powerholders, First elected parliament (1265), English Civil War (1642-1651), Habeas Corpus Act (1679), English Bill of Rights and Scottish Claim of Right (1689, and fighting the Nazis when it seemed all was lost in 1940.
i was saying not everything in our cultural history is worth preserving - but you two missed the point...willfully?
LH,
No, I didn't do so willfully. I simply didn't understand your point, apparently. I'm still not quite sure what you mean. Obviously, no one wants to preserve the black plague. And, clearly, the church has overstepped its authority on occasion, as have all powers.
Thing is, I think you understand what we mean by preserving the culture. British culture has made progress for many hundreds of years, and much of that progress involves the freedoms it affords its people, and the creativity that comes from those freedoms. And, of course, this creativity leads to successes such as the two British scientists who last week announced that they had grown a liver from umbilical cord stem cells. That is a magnificent achievement. That kind of achievement doesn't happen in the Islamic world. Nor, does it happen in much of the rest of the world. That kind of achievement pretty much only happens in America and Europe.
Take note of the study done by the UN on developing nations. Its report on the Arab world showed that the twenty-something Arab nations had only produced 300+ patents in the decade of the 1990's. In the same period of time, South Korea had produced 16,000 patents.
This shows the difference in the productivity of the relative cultures. In a culture where science and learning are valued, you will find innovation. In a culture where religion is valued above all else (and a particularly backward religion at that), then you will find little innovation.
p - don't see what is hard to understand about the rather obvious point that some historical cultural features of Britain are good and some are bad. The original blog entry seemed to suggest if it's old it's good, religious authority is old so therefore we should defend it, well, acutally no it isn't and no we shouldn't.
you mention stem cell research, what a great example! If the christians dominated our public life in the way they want to, and in the way this report flags up, Britain would NOT be leading the way in such scientific breakthroughs cos the bishops would have blocked it.
I also tend to agree with your last point, if you value science and knowledge above ritual and religious authority you tend to get a more dynamic society.
LH,
And Judaism and Christianity allows for reason more than any other religions. And, if you read what I wrote about the stem cell breakthrough, it was not achieved with embryonic stem cells, but with umbilical stem cells.
Stop fighting with religion. It's a lame fight. Start fighting against Islam and not against your own culture.
I'm getting your scent, dude, and you are fighting me for the sake of fighting me. You are fighting your own culture just for the sake of fighting. Your culture has produced great things. Cut it out with the ridiculous line of argumentation.
By the way, if any of our other contributors here think I am being overly hard on this guy, please tell me. It seems to me that he is coming here with this line of argumentation just to be rude, but maybe I am wrong.
And, of course, America is a pretty religious culture.
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