Editorial from The Church of England Newspaper, 29 May 08
Religious trends and our religious future.
If recent reports of trends in religious observance prove to be correct, then in some 30 years the mosque will be able to claim that, religiously speaking, the UK is an Islamic nation, and therefore needs a share in any religious establishment to reflect this. The progress of conservative Islam in the UK has been amazing, and it has come at a time of prolonged decline in church attendance that seems likely to continue.
This progress has been enthusiastically assisted by this government in particular with its hard-line multi-cultural dogma and willingness to concede to virtually every demand made by Muslims. Perhaps most importantly the government has chosen to allow hard-liners to act as representing all Muslims, and more liberal Muslims have almost completely failed to produce any leadership voices to compete, leading many Britons to wonder if there are indeed many liberal Muslims at all, surely a mistake.
At all levels of national life Islam has gained state funding, protection from any criticism, and the insertion of advisors and experts in government departs national and local. A Muslim Home Office adviser, for example, was responsible for Baroness Scotland’s aborting of the legislation against honour killings, arguing that informal methods would be better. In the police we hear of girls under police protection having the addresses of their safe houses disclosed to their parents by Muslim officers who think they are doing their religious duty.
While men-only gentlemen’s clubs are now being dubbed unlawful, we hear of municipal swimming baths encouraging ‘Muslim women only’ sessions and in Dewsbury Hospitals staff waste time by turning beds to face Mecca five times a day — a Monty Pythonesque scenario of lunacy, but astonishingly true. Prisons are replete with imams who are keen to inculcate conservative Islam in any inmates who are deemed to be culturally ‘Muslim’: the Prison service in effect treats such prisoners as a cultural block to be preached to by imams at will. Would the Prison service send all those with ‘C of E’ on their papers to confirmation classes with the chaplain?! We could go on.
The point is that Islam is being institutionalised, incarnated, into national structures amazingly fast, at the same time as demography is showing very high birthrates. Charles Taylor’s new and classic work on the Secular Age charts the rise of the secular mindset and what he calls the ‘excarnation’ of Christianity as it is levered out of state policy and structures. Christianity is now regarded as bad news, the liberal elite’s attack developed in the 1960s took root in the educationalist empire, and to some extent even in areas of the church.
Today the Christian story is fading from public imagination, while Islam grows apace. There needs to be some fresh thinking in this area where the claims of Christ are sensitively explained. Our church leaders must develop ways of explaining this, as our feature on mission and evangelism this week demonstrates.
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Prophet of Doom By Craig Winn.
www.prophetofdoom.net/Prophet_of_Doom_Prologue.Islam
".....Criticizing a religion is something that makes people squeamish, especially in the paranoid culture of political correctness. Christians say that we are to love, not judge. Jews, after millennia of persecution, are terrified of even the perception of intolerance. Secular humanists, in deference to multiculturalism and the peace process, have sacrificed truth on the altar of their political agenda. So why upset everyone?
Why? Because they will continue to kill us if we don't expose them.
Before revealing what the Qur'an and Hadith have to say about Muhammad and Islam, I'd like to clear up a few inevitable misconceptions. First, on Muslims - I love you in spite of your beliefs and deeds. I would like nothing more than to free you from Islam. I agree with Renan, the famed scholar, who, after dedicating himself to understanding Islamic scripture, wrote: "Muslims were the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain others in the practice of this religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him."
Second, on Christians, you are responsible for the awful mess the world is in. Christians have turned a personal relationship with our Creator into an emasculated religion, confused and aimless. In the name of that religion, they have perpetrated inhumanities. Today, for fear of appearing hateful Christians are apparently willing to let a billion people live in virtual slavery, perishing in ignorance and poverty. Tolerance of evil is not a Christian virtue. They are called to be discerning.
Third, on Jews - I love you in spite of yourselves. Fourteen centuries ago your forefathers sold Bible stories to Muhammad and then mocked him when he goofed them up. By doing so you manufactured your own enemy. Now, you are a divided people, unsure whether to appease or fight the terror you helped inspire. As the world's most lettered people, I fear that you understand less than you know. I pray that you come to trust your God before it is too late.
Fourth, on secular humanists, liberals, and agnostics - you are guilty of the very things you denounce in others. History is as condemning of man separating himself from God as it is of man-made religions establishing themselves as intermediaries to God. The last hundred years have been especially indicting; atheistic doctrines have annihilated more people than all religions combined. Truth is not relative. Yet in today's media, secular humanists judiciously edit under the guise of enlightenment. While irritating, this practice is particularly lethal as it relates to Islam. The errant recasting of the religion as peaceful, the reshaping of jihad into a spiritual struggle, the impression you convey that Islam is tolerant and that the terrorists have corrupted their religion, is wrong. Thousands have died in the wake of your illusions.
Fifth, on Islam itself - without deceit and sword, Islam would have been stillborn. An infinitesimal fraction of the one billion people subservient to Islam today actually chose their fate. In Mecca, fourteen hundred years ago, after a decade of preaching, as few as fifty men chose to follow Muhammad. But that all changed in Medina. There, according to the Qur'an and Hadith, Muhammad became a political tyrant, a terrorist, and a thief. His willingness to lead seventy-five armed raids against defenseless civilians swelled his ranks as swiftly as the spoils of "war" filled his pockets.
Equipped with booty stolen from others, Muhammad and his followers conquered and then plundered their neighbors, starting with Arabia. The only choice they offered their victims was "your money or your life." Once subjected to their will, Muslims compelled submission under penalty of death. Islam is, and has always been, a doctrine devoid of choice. It prospers at the business end of a bloody sword. Soon you will see why.........."
www.prophetofdoom.net/Prophet_of_Doom_Letter_to_the_Reader.Islam
How Christians in
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