Cranmer: September 2008

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Eid Mubarak!

Cranmer wishes all of his Muslim readers and communicants a blessed festival.

Eid ul-Fitr is a day of forgiveness, moral victory and peace, of congregation, fellowship, brotherhood, and unity. Muslims are not only celebrating the end of fasting, but are also thanking God for the help and strength that he gave them throughout the previous month to help them practise self-control.

Cranmer apologises that he can find nothing from Barak Obama on this occasion.

Guardian: Can Muslims trust the Tories?

What an utterly stupid question.

Yet it is one which obviously preoccupies Sarfraz Manzoor of The Guardian, as he ponders whether or not the Conservative Party has changed ‘since Enoch Powell gave his notorious speech in Birmingham’.

Why is this one speech by one Tory at one particular time deemed to encapsulate the beliefs and attitudes of all Tories for all time? It is not the Conservative Party which is incapable of change, but prejudiced journalists like Mr Manzoor who seek to tarnish entire groups of people because of the attitudes or actions of a few. If one were to ask ‘Can Tories trust Muslims?’, doubtless Mr Manzoor would be among the first to cry ‘racism’ or ‘Islamophobia’.

The Powell speech did not distort all discussion about race and immigration; it was the media response to it, and that remains the case. Even now, the moment anyone seeks to raise the subject it is usually the pathologically ‘centre-left’ media which silences those who dare to raise their heads above the parapet with cries of ‘extremism’, ‘racism’, or accusations of being (God forbid) ‘right wing’ which has itself become synonymous with extremism.

But Mr Manzoor is concerned to know if Enoch Powell is somehow vindicated because of the rise of ‘political Islamism’. It is such a tautology which persuades Cranmer towards the view that The Guardian has no depth and that Mr Manzoor is out of his. He clearly had little time for the Conference discussion on the distinction between Islam and Islamism. He summarises: ‘There was no inconsistency between the values of Islam and an open society: the quarrel was with those who had hijacked the religion for political purposes. And yet even though the panel were (sic) proclaiming the necessity of drawing a clear distinction between mainstream Islam and the ideology of Islamism, the audience had been handed a photocopied front page of yesterday's Sunday Express whose front page screamed: "Cameron: I'll curb Muslim fanatics".

And the dissemination of such an article really proves that Tories really do harbour racist views, does it not?

There are so many arguments one may adduce to negate Mr Manzoor’s facile reasoning that Cranmer can hardly be bothered. When it comes to the question of whether Muslims can trust the Tories, the simple response is that they will - if they are Tories. And, surprising as this may be to The Guardian, many thousands of them are. But then one might consider Mr Cameron’s ‘A-list’, designed specifically to permit candidates like Rehman Chisti to be selected for winnable or safe seats. Or the elevation of Sayeeda Warsi to the Lords to become ‘Britain's most senior Muslim politician’, which, according to Labour MP Sadiq Khan, was ‘because of her religion.

And Mr Cameron proposes to ban such groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, to confront the quasi-legitimacy bestowed upon organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain, and to encourage ‘the teaching of a more moderate interpretation of Islam in mosques’. There is also the possibility of the compulsory teaching of history in schools and the establishment of an ‘Institute of British Islam’.

If Mr Manzoor or any other British Muslims have any problems with these proposals – which are manifestly for the immense benefit of all British Muslims – then they should not only look to another political party, but to another country.

But Mr Manzoor is not persuaded ‘the nasty party’ can rise to the challenge of distinguishing the extremists from the law-abiding and peaceful. He is not persuaded that Conservatives can ‘show that their rightful concerns about Islamism are not a proxy restatement of broader prejudices’ and he questions whether Conservatives ‘are at ease with a diverse and heterogeneous society’.

Well, Mr Manzoor, how many Muslims are ‘at ease with a diverse and heterogeneous society’?

And what makes you think Muslims can trust Labour?

The Conservative Party represents the entire British population irrespective of race, colour or religion. The Conservative Party does wish to ensure that the Muslim community is fully involved in our national life at all levels. And what have the past 10 years done to encourage Islamic beliefs in enterprise, in the sense of community, the belief in the family and in the value of hard work?

How many Muslim businesses have been helped by a decade of Labour? How is it that so many Muslims are trapped in areas of great deprivation? How is it that the rate of unemployment among Muslims has risen to 15 per cent? How is it that there is a general underachievement of Muslim children in school, the health of Muslims in below average and there is a lack of interaction in many areas?

Ah, this must be the fault of the Conservative Party.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, Mr Manzoor is permitting his political ideology to colour his theological perception and cloud his sociological judgement.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

Cranmer would like to wish all of his Jewish readers and communicants G_d's rishest blessings for Rosh Hashanah. As you focus on G_d as King, he exhorts you to celebrate the sacred occasion with loud blasts of the Shofar (Lev 23:23-25).

In the words of Barak Obama: "The Jewish New Year is unlike the new years of any other cultures, in part because it's not simply a time for revelry; it's a time for what might be called determined rejoicing - a time to put your affairs with other people in order so you can honestly turn to God, a time to recommit to the serious work of tikkun olam - of mending the world."

Labour’s identity theft

Cranmer is expecting one firm policy commitment to emanate from the Conservative Party Conference this week, and that will be Dominic Grieve’s announcement that the next Conservative Government will abandon all plans for a national identity card scheme. Labour intends that all immigrants to the UK will eventually possess a biometric ID card (and Cranmer has no problem with that), but they also intend issuing such cards to all UK residents - at a cost of anywhere between 5 and 25 billion pounds (pick a number).

As the card design was unveiled by the Home Secretary last week, Cranmer was struck by the preponderance of EU symbolism and imagery upon it. There is a picture of a bull (of which the Government seems to be full) above golden stars, and the coloured background is made up of hundreds of tiny letters spelling 'EU'. The bull is drawn from Greek mythology, and is the beast upon which Europa rides.

Although it is presently denied, eventually all people will be obliged to present their cards for scanning when requested to do so. It will not only be the police, for the right to request proof of identity will inevitably be extended to council jobsworths, parking wardens, the litter police, the dog mess patrols and all the other sundry monitors and spies who persecute the innocent.

And these scanners will also need to be installed in every hospital, clinic, GP surgery, dentist, town hall, school, etc., etc. For there is no point having an identity card if those who provide the services do not have the means of authenticating the ID.

From 2010, the Government will ‘encourage’ all UK citizens to apply for a card ‘on a voluntary basis’.

How precisely will they be ‘encouraged’? Why would one ever ‘volunteer’ for such a thing?

Yet these cards are supposed to prevent terrorism and decrease all manner of other crimes. But they are certainly not likely to stop the likes of Mohamed Atta and his ilk, for Islamist terrorists do not seek to conceal their identity; indeed, they are proud of their martyrdom and seek to glorify their names.

But Not-So-New Labour is sure the cards will deter murderers and burglars. So when someone approaches you with a knife, be sure to ask him for his card first. And when you find a burglar in your home, instead of hitting him with a club or shooting him (and thus breaching his human rights), you simply ask to see his ID card.

Identity cards do nothing to protect the citizen against the criminal, but everything to permit the government to control the population. Socialism is all about control, and this initiative has its roots firmly in the continental Social-Democrat tradition of statehood. There are tens of millions of people in the UK who have driving licences which contain the same basic information as ID Cards and these can and often are used in many everyday situations. And then millions of others have passports, NI cards, student identity cards – all of which are acceptable as a means of official identification.

And if these are flawed, the addition of yet another card will be no remedy. The only absolutely secure way of identifying people is to insert a microchip. Cranmer suggests the forehead or the right hand to facilitate scanning. And then every time you walk down the street you could be recorded, late for work, entering a shop, going on a bus. Crime would disappear overnight, and credit card fraud would be eradicated, for one would only be able to buy and sell if one had been chipped.

But Cranmer has a question for the Home Secretary:

How precisely does one qualify for an ID card? Will not individuals have to provide some form of identification to prove who they are, and will not that be deemed sufficient evidence for the issuing of the card?

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Conservative Party Conference: All will be revealed...

...in Time?

Well, it wasn’t. In the UK, the feature was introduced as: 'Behind the smile: Gifted and polished or empty suit. Who the heck is David Cameron?' And so one awaits with bated breath to hear from this week’s Conference the positive pronouncements and the primary policies which will define the next Conservative government. And this Conference is the opportunity to do so. If an election is to be held in the spring of 2010, leaving the manifesto show-pieces until the autumn of 2009 will be too late for them to enter the public consciousness. While the world and his dog may be sick of the present government and even more sick of its leader, there is still a considerable element of ‘known unknown’ about Mr Cameron’s political philosophy, and this can only be rectified by distinguishing and by definition.

When Time magazine introduced the rest of the world to David Cameron as Britain's prime minister-in-waiting, he appeared only on the front of the European, Middle East and African editions of the magazine: he did not make it on (or even inside) the US edition, or those covering Asia and Australia. Time sells 3.4 million copies in the US - compared to just 1.1 million in the rest of the world. Having a cover on Time magazine is prized by politicians as a sign that they have made it. But it seems the Leader of the Conservative Party still has some way to go before he may reach the majority of his audience.

Mr Cameron may ooze Etonian and Oxbridge confidence, and he may embody the yearning for a generational shift. But he lacks the understanding of the need for clarity and definition. What made Burke, Disraeli, Churchill and Thatcher ‘great’ was that they personified the Conservative Party for a particular era, providing its policies, appeal, style and structure to suit the age into which they were born. In his approach, Mr Cameron risks being a Derby, a Bonar Law or even a Heath, insofar as he told Time: 'I think you just get on with it. It's the best thing to do in politics rather than trying to endlessly work out the definition of who you are or what you're about.'

No, Mr Cameron. The people need to understand ‘what you’re about’, and they will only grasp this through definition. Cranmer might agree with you when you say ‘You can't walk a mile in everybody's shoes’, but it is your task to make them feel that not only could you, but that you would want to. When David Willetts describes his leader as a man who ‘is comfortable with Britain as it is today’, the gulf becomes apparent. And it is not that the majority wish the nation to return to 1558 or recreate that of 1958, but that this majority is manifestly and distinctly uncomfortable with ‘Britain as it is today’, and decry what New Labour has done to it. And they may cite uncontrolled and uncontrollable immigration and the consequent ‘multiculturalism’ as a primary concern.

What are you going to do about this, Mr Cameron?

It is one thing to enforce a ‘points’ system upon those seeking to immigrate from India or Pakistan, but how do you intend to prevent millions of Poles, Romanians and Hungarians from taking 'British jobs', or making use of doctors, dentists, hospitals and schools while British taxpayers are forced down ever-lengthening queues? And you say you want Turkey to join the EU, granting its citizens the same border-free migration rights as all EU citizens. How will you stop millions of Turks from swelling the ‘ghetto’ communities of Bradford, Oldham or Leicester, storing up the potential for civil unrest, exacerbating the likelihood of civil war?

In 18 months, David Cameron is likely to be Prime Minister, and it is likely to be an electoral landslide of the magnitude wrought by Tony Blair in 1997. Yet 18 months prior to Mr Blair entering No10, the people had more than a vague idea of what he was planning to do - devolution, the minimum wage, the New Deal funded by a windfall tax on the privatised utilities.

What has David Cameron pledged?

He will raise the threshold for inheritance tax from £300,000 to £1m - a move which will not affect vast swathes of people. And he will find £121million to reinstate weekly dustbin collection. Yet even the announcement of this policy fundamentally contradicts his pledge to restore powers to local authorities.

What is to be Conservative foreign policy? – a known unknown.
What is to be done about increasing rates of crime? – a known unknown.
How will he mend Britain’s ‘broken society’? – a known unknown.
How will he address the crisis in the health service? – a known unknown.
How will he tackle the dire failures of education provision? – a known unknown.
What will be his policy on the Lisbon Treaty? – an unknown unknown.
Will there be a referendum? – an unknown unknown.

But doubtless he will talk about his ‘vision’ and promise to bring about ‘change’. And he shall bring his wife onstage, and the standing ovation shall be rapturous.

And the faithful shall feel good.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Dominic Grieve: ‘The role of Christianity is really rather important’

These are the words of the Shadow Home Secretary on the eve of the Conservative Party Conference. And they are evidently not simply a vacuous statement of the blindingly obvious, for the context is an interview with The Guardian which talks of the ‘terrible legacy’ of British multiculturalism which ‘has allowed extremists to flourish’.

He talks of the ‘cultural despair’ felt by the indigenous population, and the alienation felt by immigrants as ‘UK values’ are no longer articulated, and so cannot be understood.

As Mr Grieve warned against downplaying Britain's Christian heritage, he said: "We've actually done something terrible to ourselves in Britain. In the name of trying to prepare people for some new multicultural society we've encouraged people, particularly the sort of long-term inhabitants, to say 'well your cultural background isn't really very important'."

And so multiculturalism has ‘created a vacuum’ and ‘encouraged support for extremists on both sides’.

He then specifies the Islamist terror group Hizb ut-Tahrir on the one hand, and the BNP on the other. It is a pity he did not take the opportunity to point out a crucial difference between these two obnoxious polarities. While both may be typified by a distasteful antipathy to some other, only one of these extremist groups despises democracy to the extent that it resorts to violence and murder to achieve its ends. Only one of these pours scorn upon ‘UK values’.

And so Mr Grieve offers an antidote, but this in itself may be perceived as ‘extremist’, for it is probably one which members of the BNP would accord. He says: “...the part played by Christianity in Britain should not be ignored. The role of Christianity is really rather important. It can't just be magicked out of the script. It colours many of the fundamental viewpoints of British people, including many who've never been in a church."

But this Christianity is Protestant - the foundation of the nation's liberties - and at the last General Election it was the Conservative Party’s policy to repeal the Act of Settlement which, it must be observed, many Roman Catholic tolerate because it ensures an expression of Christianity at the heart of government. An established semi-Protestant Church of England is better than no established church, even if it is a reminder of the concerns of a bygone era. But it is not so bygone for some inhabitants of the UK, yet this debate has been confined to Belfast or parts of Scotland.

The demands for repeal of the Act of Settlement (without consideration of the implications for the Act of Union and other great constitutional treaties) do not only come from New Labour and The Guardian; there is a movement within the Conservative Party to unravel the Christian foundations of the nation as well. So when Mr Grieve talks passionately about civil liberties or 'the role of Christianity’, Cranmer would like to know if Mr Grieve intends ignoring the particular brand of Christianity which guaranteed the nation's liberties and was enshrined by statute three centuries ago to ensure that the Supreme Governor of the Church of England would be Christian and Protestant 'for ever’. He would also like to know why Conservative opposition to the repeal of the blasphemy laws was principally left to prominent Roman Catholics and a non-practising Jew. The only member of the Church of England to speak from the Conservative benches was Gerald Howarth. Where was Mr Grieve’s Anglican conviction then? While Ann Widdecombe, Edward Leigh and Bill Cash fought tooth and claw for the retention of laws which relate specifically to the Church of England, Mr Grieve was mute. Does he believe such laws - which underpin the Christian foundations of the nation - to be obsolete and otiose?

While the Shadow Home Secretary may bemoan the gradual diminution or the systematic eradication of the nation's Christian heritage and identity, he offers no solutions, no policies for revival, no religio-political strategies for resurrection. We are beyond soothing and sympathetic words, and yet these usefully conceal his essential support for the EU world order and his advocacy of the ECHR mantra of 'rights' which is antithetical to any notion of Christendom.

We might all agree that ‘multiculturalism’ now belongs to a bygone era. But there is plainly inter and intra-party division on what expression of Christianity must be asserted. And even the word ‘asserted’ is fraught with difficulties, for the age demands ‘neutrality’ and ‘equality’ in the religious realm, and it is perfectly obvious to those who have eyes and ears that the maintenance of the Established Church or the propagation by government of the Christian faith can be neither of these.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Tony Blair: Studying other religions strengthened Catholic faith

This is the interesting assertion, and not the most auspicious statement to emanate from the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.

The whole Telegraph article is worth reading, but the clearest inference of this statement is that in his efforts to study and understand other religions, he was persuaded of the rightness of the Christian worldview, and reinforced in his understanding of catholicity. By overcoming his ignorance of other faiths, he has rationally arrived at the view that they are all wrong, and that the Roman Catholic Church is right.

It is not the most diplomatic way of anointing 100 ‘mostly young people’ of varying faiths as ‘inter-religious ambassadors’. It is, however, the plainest acknowledgement made by him that in issues of religion, discrimination is a necessity and assertions of equality are nonsensical. If one is to be free to choose one’s faith, one has to be free to discriminate. It then becomes no business of the State to legislate against those issues of conscience which are intrinsic to one’s belief.

What a pity he was never so enlightened when he was prime minister.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

The Marxist Church of England

The Archbishop of York has called share traders who cashed in on falling prices ‘bank robbers and asset strippers’, and the Archbishop of Canterbury waxes lyrically of the virtues of Karl Marx, warning that in the face of the credit crisis, ‘the financial world needs new regulation’, and that ‘society is running the risk of idolatry in its relationship with wealth’.

Running the risk?

Does the Archbishop not understand that Mammon has been society’s idol for centuries, and that positioning the Church towards Karl Marx is naïvely simply supplanting one idol for another?

And Marx is in any case a curious exemplar for a church, as he sought to replace the Hegelian dialectic of the spirit with a materialistic dialectic located within the economic sphere. For Marx, the inadequacies of society were to be overcome by a transition from capitalism to Socialism and ultimately to Communism.

Perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury has failed to notice that in recent decades Socialism has become a spent force and Communism has been thoroughly discredited. Perhaps, like orthodox Marxists, Dr Williams will blame the imperfection of leaders for the non-arrival of his Utopia, but he would be something of an expert in that.

It is difficult (as ever) to fathom what the Archbishop is proposing, for his advocacy of the Marxist ideal and the repudiation of capitalism can only be accomplished through the diminution of democracy, or, what Marx oxymorincally called ‘democratic centralisation’. In fulfillment of the pattern of society set out by Plato in 'The Republic', the ultimate authority has to be intellectuals and experts – the Philosopher Rulers – and this paves the way for bureacratic authoritarianism. At best (if it be), this may be seen in the form of ‘democratic centralisation’ of the European Union. At worst, it is that of Stalin and Lenin.

Capitalism can be cruel, but so is nature. It is a manifest inconsistency for the Church of England in one week to apologise to the man who expounded a theory of survival of the fittest, and the next to denounce such a theory when it is manifest in the natural laws of economy and society. Exploitation is an undoubted evil, but this ‘extremism’ is not a capitalist necessity, but a result of the greed in the heart of man. And the Archbishop ought to know that one cannot change the human heart through legislation or external imposition.

Democracy has its imperfections, and so does capitalism. But both have been found by experience to be the better than the alternatives, and both yield a more just and less oppressed society. The ‘Protestant ethic’ identified by Weber is both rational and moral, and the history of the modern era attests to this. Marxism has failed along with the barbarities of fascism, and history attests to this also.

Cranmer hears the Archbishop of Canterbury is presently making a pilgrimage to Lourdes, and speaking at the shrine to the ‘Immaculate Conception’. It is time for him to follow the man who appointed him to Canterbury, and to take his pro-EU, anti-State, anti-individualist, Marxist, federalist, Socialist, ‘third way’ Catholic-ecumenism to another place. He belongs elsewhere.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Sheffield Council refuses to bury Christians on a Saturday

There are rites, and there are rights. And, in a blatant example of religious discrimination, it seems that only Muslims and Jews have the right to be buried on a Saturday. From The Daily Mail:

A council has barred a grieving family from burying their stepfather on a Saturday - because he was not Muslim.

Harold 'Charlie' Lemaire died last week aged 75 from pneumonia. His stepdaughter, Jean Maltby, wanted the funeral to be held this Saturday so family who live outside the city could attend.

The retired steel worker's stepson Stephen lives in Dorset while other members of his family live as far away as the Isle of Man.

But when her funeral director called Sheffield's City Road Cemetery to arrange a memorial service followed by burial, he was told the funeral would not be allowed on a Saturday because the family was not Muslim.

The city's council confirmed it does not offer funerals at the weekend except to Muslims, in line with the rules of the Islamic faith that the dead must be buried as soon as possible.

Ms Maltby said today she felt it was unfair to offer weekend funerals to one religion and not to others.

'It should be one rule for everyone - and I don't think the people of Sheffield realise the council has made this decision,' she said.

'It goes against the council's policy of equal rights. They are making a service available to one sector of the community and not another.'...

Let us be clear here. Undertakers have no problem with funerals on a Saturday. And Islamic groups have backed calls for all faiths to be treated equally. The initiative has come from some PC-obsessed jobsworth on the Labour-controlled* Sheffield Council.

Cranmer wonders why the council's own code of conduct and anti-discrimination guidelines do not cover this manifest inequality. But he more than suspects they do. All it will take is for someone to threaten court action, and the policy will rapidly be changed.

*Sheffield Council became Liberal Democrat in May 2008. The policy emanates from the Labour era.

'Catholics for Obama'

It transpires that Senator Obama is just as pro-family as Sarah Palin. And the Obama-Biden campaign has produced piles of merchandise to prove it. Just read it and believe. Suspend all criticism and imbibe. Allow it to enter the deepest recesses of the consciousness without question or doubt.

There is a certain disquiet in the USA as to how anyone can profess to be pro-family and yet support abortion. It is a question the Obama-Biden campaign is confronting head-on. The feeding of the five million with ‘faith merchandise’ has been referred to as the boldest move since Christ drove the moneychangers out of the Temple, and this postmodern messiah is bathing in the shekinah glory of the media spotlight. The faithful may choose from ‘Believers for Barack’, ‘Pro-Family Pro-Obama’ and ‘Catholics for Obama’ buttons, stickers, banners and flags. And they are currently planning ‘Clergy for Change’ and ‘Pro-Israel Pro-Obama’ merchandise.

It is a crude attempt to win the religious vote – in particular the Evangelical and Roman Catholic contingent - for whom family values and abortion remain the highest of priorities. The Roman Catholic Church has said that candidates who promote fundamental moral evils such as abortion are cooperating in ‘a grave evil’, and so Catholics should not vote for them to advance those evils.

A Catholic voter’s decision to support a candidate despite that gravely immoral position ‘would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil.’

The divergence between the Biden / Pelosi view on abortion and that of the Bishops is said to be simply ‘a running debate between Catholics’. But for many, abortion is the only issue: it concerns a fundamental teaching of the Church on justice and peace, serving the poor and advancing the common good — beginning with a fundamental priority on protecting innocent human life from direct attack, which abortion manifestly is.

The Catholic vote has historically been pivotal in deciding who occupies the White House. It has gone to the winning presidential campaign in every race since 1976, except Al Gore’s 2000 bid.

But Cranmer wonders why there are no buttons, banners or bumper stickers saying ‘Muslims for Barack’?

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Gordon Brown: I’m an ordinary man...

Who desires nothing more than an ordinary chance,
to live exactly as he likes, and do precisely what he wants.
An average man am I, of no eccentric whim,
Who likes to live his life, free of strife,
doing whatever he thinks is best, for him,
Well... just an ordinary man...

When Cranmer heard that the Prime Minister describe himself as a ‘pretty ordinary guy’, the words of the genius lyricist Alan J Lerner drifted into mind. And then the extent of Mr Brown’s self-delusion became apparent.

Setting aside the absurd notion that any politician (or aspiring politician) can be in any sense ordinary, and also setting aside any philosophical debate into the nature and definition of ordinariness, Cranmer has condensed just a few of the Prime Minister’s widely-publicised character traits, and is at a loss to find anything ‘ordinary’ about the man at all.

He is known to rant and rave and kick over chairs in fits of anger.
He refuses to admit responsibility, and pathologically pursues vendettas.
Despite his Christian profession, he is obsessive and unforgiving.
He is incapable of shouldering responsibility, except for that which succeeds.
He invariably blames others for his own mistakes.

But Gordon says he is ordinary;
And Gordon is an honourable man.

He uses abusive language and relies only on those who will tell him what he wants to hear.
He discards the innocent and protects the wrongdoer.
He is economical with the truth.
He preaches a ‘moral compass’, yet lacks any moral foundation or sense of direction.
He is self-righteous, and aggressively so.

But Gordon says he is ordinary;
And Gordon is an honourable man.

He is incapable of perceiving his own faults.
He is not easy to work with.
He has been judged to be 'psychologically flawed'.
Those who work closely with him have referred to ‘Stalinist ruthlessness’.
They also talk of his ‘complete contempt for other ministers’.
This Stalinist element creates a schizophrenic tension of Jekyll & Hyde proportions.

Yet Gordon says he is ordinary;
And Gordon is an honourable man.

He is Mr Bean and Mcavity – looking absurd when present or conspicuous by his absence.
He is a coward and a bully.
He can be nasty, incompetent, malign, cold, arrogant, blinkered and totally devoid of the warmth of human kindness.
He talks of ‘vision’ and ‘values’, and seems to be trying to build the Jerusalem which the Rev. John Brown never lived to see.
He refuses to listen to criticism or warnings.
He is stubborn and cannot trust or delegate.
He is relentless in his calculating ambition.

Yet Gordon says he is ordinary;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.

Further proof is not needed that Gordon Brown is manifestly not an ordinary man. And his very use of the word obscures and obliterates vital linguistic meanings, thus subverting distinctions and definitions that are essential for normal comprehension and familiar discourse.

But while he may not be an ordinary man, he may indeed be a perfectly ordinary politician, simply locked away in his own private monastery of self-perceived ordinariness.

And then we wonder why things are as they are.

Monday, September 22, 2008

The Blue Blog

It is official. The Conservative Party's new blog is to be called 'The Blue Blog'. Cranmer preferred 'Sacré Bleu', but wonders if this distinctly risqué and utterly unoriginal name might not get a little more 'passing trade', thus spreading the Conservative gospel further and wider, setting its bounds more ambitiously, boldly going where no Tory has gone before.

Blessings to The Spine for the graphic.

The importance of praying for Gordon

As the Labour Party gathers for its conference, Cranmer’s conscience is seared by the need to confess.

His Grace would like it to be known that he is an avid supporter of Gordon Brown. This support is sincere and wholehearted. He thanks God for him, and prays for him day and night as he is exhorted to do (1Tim 2:1-4). He wishes him good health and a hugely successful conference. May all those plotting his downfall be confounded. May his enemies be scattered, and those who wish him ill fall under their own curse. May he be preserved by his shield and protected by armour, and may those who seek to politically undermine or publicly humiliate him be silenced and bound.

It seems vogue to suffix all manner of verbiage with ‘con’ these days. Daniel Hannan MEP and Douglas Carswell MP profess to be an Obamacons – Conservatives for Obama – and they seem able to sleep at night.

Well, Cranmer is a Gordocon. If the term has not yet been coined, let it be so now. For His Grace’s support is sincere. And there is no philosophical contradiction or oxymoronic tension.

Gordon Brown is the Conservative Party’s guarantee of victory at the next General Election. If he remains, the shift in public opinion towards David Cameron will be just as seismic as it was for Tony Blair in 1997. Any replacement leader will pose a threat to the Conservative Party, though the magnitudes will differ.

Jack Straw will have popular appeal – he is safe and secure. David Miliband has the brains for PMQs, but all the charisma of a dung beetle. John Cruddas is eloquent and forceful. James Purnell is young and charming. Ed Balls - Cranmer won't waste his time. Harriet Harman is cold and calculating, but the thought of Labour’s first woman prime minister will capture the popular imagination. Alan Johnson will be profoundly dangerous, for it is difficult not to like the man. He is Labour’s Ken Clarke, with an affable blokish familiarity, a warmth and a genuine concern. John Reid would also be a challenge for the Conservatives. His experience is formidable, having held most of the great offices of state. He is a thug in private, and persuasive in public. And Hazel Blears might just get Cranmer’s vote, purely for the entertainment factor.

None of these, of course, may present the Conservative Party with any long-term threat. But with rumours of a leadership contest, the emergence of a shiny new leader would yield a honeymoon period during which a general election would swiftly be called. Disenchanted Liberal Democrats might flock to Labour, and those erstwhile Labour voters who deserted their party over Iraq or any of the recent policy fiascos might be persuaded to give a new leader the benefit of the doubt.

So Cranmer is praying for Gordon Brown.

He is similarly praying for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor.

He has given up praying for Archbishop Rowan Williams.

But he reserves his most fervent intercessions for the Bishop of Rochester, and he hopes to see the day that David Cameron permits the name of Michael Nazir-Ali to be put to Her Majesty in consideration for the See of Canterbury.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

The death of democracy and the rise of mediocracy

Peter Hitchens has an excellent article in The Mail on Sunday today. His thesis is clear: ‘Our political parties are corpses and democracy as we used to know it is quite dead’. And the evidence adduced is persuasive. Essentially, political parties have ceased holding to any coherent philosophy, and have become enslaved to the ‘centre-left’ zeitgeist which has spreading like bindweed for the past 40 years. Members are ‘driven away or sidelined’, and ‘traditional voters (are) taken for granted’. He identifies the Michael Howard revolution against Iain Duncan Smith as ‘a blatant takeover of a Right-wing party by the “Centre-Left” establishment’.

And one observes, every four years or so, what Dr Richard North prefers to call an ‘an electorally mandated reshuffle’, during which one party is replaced by another, but nothing really changes – especially in respect of the big political themes: Health, Welfare, Law and Order, Education, Defence, the EU. The faces change, but the ‘narrative’ – that postmodern fixation - is constant. There is no longer a right or left in British politics, but a murky and muddled perpetuation of a ‘centre-left’ manifesto of ever-expanding liberalism. And God forbid that any party should attempt to challenge this settlement, for the media world which drives it will brand that party ‘extreme’ or ‘right wing’, and Jeremy Paxman will sneer and sneer again to ensure that its very name will be such a jarring dissonance that, if it wishes to retain any credibility at all, it will have to conform and bow down to the spirit of the age.

And so the Conservative Party has subscribed to the cult of Mother Earth and pledged to tackle ‘man-made global warming’. It has abandoned its plans to reform the NHS – which long since ceased being either national or a service. It has abandoned selection in education – which historically has been the single greatest mechanism for social mobility ever conceived. And it long since abandoned its core philosophy of the defence of the nation state, in favour of ‘ever closer union’ and subjugation to an unaccountable and immovable government in a foreign land.

Cranmer will not bother to mention the undermining of the Christian foundations, since this is a natural consequence of a candidate selection process which is designed specifically to discriminate against the white heterosexual Christian in favour of the black or brown homosexual / Muslim / Sikh / Hindu. And if the latter is a woman, so much the better. Testosterone is too right wing, and oestrogen helps to feminise the nation’s politics. And God forbid anyone should dare to question the rights of these oestrogen modules, for their bodies are their own, and they shall do with them as they will.

The god of the centre-left became man in Tony Blair, but the hypocrites and vipers crucified him. And still the nation mourns his passing, rather like they mourn the loss of Diana, Princess of Wales. Yet idols are not only to be found on the football field or on X-Factor. The centre-left powers which found their incarnation in Tony Blair have now identified David Cameron as the Chosen One. And the cameras are drawn to him like crowds to a messiah, and, sure enough, Mammon is not far behind. And when they grow tired of him and the once-passionate relationship diminishes to a pathetic luke-warm glow, they shall spew him out of their mouths and seek another charismatic, photogenic political pin-up with the ability to talk well and say nothing at all.

Mr Hitchens is a wise and perceptive man, for he notes that politics is ‘played out almost entirely on the airwaves and in the newspapers’, and so ‘MPs (do) what they (are) told by the media’.

Cranmer is quite sure he does not need to remind his readers or communicants of the identity of the Prince of the Power of the Air. For it is he who has subtly and successfully supplanted democracy with mediocracy: the power of the people is as nothing to the power of the media.

And it is not only MPs who are obliged to take their orders from the liberal media, but party leaders as well. Because ‘the rule nowadays is that you cannot become the government unless you bow to the views of the “Centre-Left” media elite, especially the broadcast media elite... which fanned out in the Seventies into the civil service, education, entertainment, the law, the arts, rock music and - above all - the media’.

Thus the victor in every general election is always the ‘Centre-Left’, ‘which claims to be moderate but is in fact a swirling cauldron of wild Sixties Leftism - anti-British, anti-family, anti-Christian, anti-education and pro-crime. But if you dare to oppose this stuff, they’ll call you an extremist.’

And pro-British, pro-family, pro-Christian, pro-education and anti-crime extremists have to be eradicated. One might choose the Paxman strategy of attrition - sneering at them and hurling insults – like Alan Duncan's ‘Tory Taleban’. Or one might sack them from the parliamentary party or prevent them from ever holding positions of responsibility. Or, better still, one simply ensures they are never selected as a parliamentary candidate in the first place.

The bloodless revolution to ensure the propagation and perpetuation of the centre-left is successful and secure. God help anyone who tries to confront it.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Tony Blair begins teaching at Yale

With most excellent timing, on the eve of the Labour Party Conference, Tony Blair begins teaching a course in ‘Faith and Globalisation’ at Yale University. While the UK’s political focus is on Gordon Brown’s miserable visage and his never-ending purgatory, the cameras and glitzy chat shows cannot help but be drawn Mr Blair’s charismatic promise of life-giving water. He has no qualification to teach - no degrees in theology, politics or philosophy - and yet he is being paid a fortune for spouting his nebulous, ecumenical, third-way religio-political pap to the some of the world’s finest young minds.

And what is his thesis?

‘Religion can either harm or heal’.

What a mind-blowing and profoundly academically challenging course this must be.

And Cranmer thought educational dumbing down and worthless degrees were just a British problem.

Blessings to Mr Beau Bo D’Or for the excellent graphic

‘Religious cleansing’ in the UK police

It is reported that The Metropolitan Black Police Association (MBPA) have withdrawn their cooperation with the Metropolitan Police Service after accusing it of ‘ethnic and religious cleansing’ following the suspension of Commander Ali Dizaei for a second time. This comes after the force's assistant commissioner, Tarique Ghaffur, was suspended last week after launching a racial discrimination claim. The perception is one of ‘relentless attacks on minority staff’, compounding the ‘institutionally racist’ accusation of the McPherson enquiry.

MBPA chairman Alfred John said he was ‘appalled’ at the action taken against Mr Dizaei, who is simply the ‘victim of what we believe to be the culmination of a sustained witch-hunt’.

Cranmer is a little intrigued that Mr Dizaei had not received a single complaint about his character or any questions about his policing abilities during his four years of service and yet, within the last three weeks, three complaints have surfaced. This is indeed a curious coincidence, and Mr John may have a point when he refers to ‘the significance of the timing of these allegations’.

But the ‘timing’ he objects to is not that of the suspension. Mr John is persuaded that ‘this insult has come during the holy month of Ramadan to cause maximum distress to his family, his profession and his role as the President of the National Black Police Association’.

Are Muslim police officers to be exempt from the usual disciplinary procedures during Ramadan? Will the Christians be permitted the same latitude during Holy Week or Christmas? And Jews during Yom Kippur, or Sikhs and Hindus during Diwali? (Cranmer is unsure of the Jedi holy day/week/month, but feels sure they should have rights to exemption also).

If this is the future of policing in the UK, then a degree of ‘religious cleansing’ may be wholly justified. We are just a breath away from religious adherents who work in crucial public services demanding ‘special treatment’ (as opposed to employer discretion) during religious festivals. What happens when all Muslim doctors, nurses, firemen or teachers demand Eid off? Will Sikh and Hindu schools be permitted to close during Diwali?

The MBPA has declared that it ‘no longer had any confidence in the leadership of the police force or the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), which oversees it’. They have disengaged from all meetings with the MPA and MPS ‘except those that will involve discussions around the reinstatement of Mr Dizaei’.

They would have been on much stronger ground if they had limited their complaints to those surrounding the credibility of Commissioner Sir Ian Blair after being ‘drawn into an ugly investigation’ about contracts for friends. Or that of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick being promoted during the investigation into the mistaken killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005: an operation she led.

All of which is a very strong argument for making police commissioners accountable to those they are supposed to serve. Increasing centralisation of top-down policing is neither reducing crime nor inspiring confidence. If police forces were made accountable for their performance to the communities they serve, then the MBPA could simply propose Ali Dizaei or Tarique Ghaffur to be the next commissioner. And then one could test very easily how much credibility such characters have with the local population.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Public bodies are ‘intolerant’ of Christian groups

The Archbishop of York has spoken of Government ‘intolerance’ against Christian groups when it comes to funding community initiatives. While faith remains a primary motivation for charitable and voluntary work in Britain, increasingly voluntary groups which have a Christian foundation are viewed as ‘tainted and unsuitable for receipt of funding’ by public bodies.

Dr Sentamu said Christian groups ‘are working at the coalface of pastoral care and social practice, motivated by nothing more than their love of God and the love for their neighbour.’

And the statistics are unequivocal. There are 22,000 faith-based charities in England and Wales which work tirelessly for the benefit of the elderly, children, the homeless and the disabled. Churchgoers contribute more than 23 million hours of voluntary service each year.

But Dr Sentamu has noticed ‘a chill wind that blows around grant makers and managers of funds’ when they consider the plans of faith groups. He said: “We must resist any trend in national or local Government where the decision as to whether a solution works is not based on results, but upon the intolerance that sees a project motivated by faith as being tainted and unsuitable for receipt of funding. Rather there should be a recognition of the valuable work being carried out by groups motivated to serve the common good by a belief in dignity of all as God’s creatures in which his divine spark resides.”

The Archbishop added: “Of course there will be those who will say the Church has no role to play in service delivery and that faith has no part to play in the solution. But the facts tell a different story. The Church has a role to play because it is based in the community. It does not drive in to places of strife in the morning and leave before the lights go down.”

One might think that a nation with a Christian heritage might be content to trust the spiritual force and theological bedrock which forged its identity. The liberal democracy which has developed over the centuries has become manifestly illiberal where Christianity is concerned, yet the philosophy demands several ideological commitments:

First, it requires state tolerance of all beliefs that do not restrict the freedom of others. Second, it involves equality of citizens before the law regardless of their beliefs and practices. Third, it imports neutrality on the part of the state towards religions and their communities and even (though this is a rather grey area) towards distinctive moral visions of the common good.

In pursuit of Labour's 'common good', it is to be observed that the state is increasingly intolerant of Christianity; all citizens are no longer equal before the law; and the only neutrality expressed by the state towards religion is that which is profoundly anti-Christian, which is no neutrality at all.

Significantly, a study by Cambridge University accused this Labour government of ‘planning blind’ on community projects because they had no evidence of the work Christian groups carried out, despite ‘focusing intently’ on Muslims.

One wonders why.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Rev Professor Michael Reiss sacked by Royal Society over 'creationism'

Cranmer has received a request to provide space to discuss this incident, and he is pleased to do so.

Last week, the Rev Professor Michael Reiss called for ‘creationism’ (the belief in a literal 6-day creation) to be debated in the classroom if the subject was raised by pupils. Not, as was widely reported, to be ‘taught in science classes’.

Yesterday, he was forced to resign as director of education of the Royal Society, for bringing it into disrepute. The action followed a campaign by high-profile ‘militant atheists’, and some intolerant – one might almost say ‘bigoted’ - religious bloggers.

The Professor did not call for creationism to be taught in schools. Indeed, he stressed the belief had no 'scientific validity'. And with sensitivity to religious and ethnic diversity in schools, he observed that banning all discussion of an 'alternative world view' at a time of growing religious fundamentalism could backfire.

The Royal Society is of the opinion that these comments had damaged the body's reputation.
In a statement, it said: 'As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the Society, he will step down immediately as director of education.’

While the rabid atheists and obsessively-narrow religionists demanded Professor Reiss’s dismissal, Lord Winston supported him throughout the furore. He said: ‘This individual was arguing that we should engage with and address public misconceptions about science.... Something that the Royal Society should applaud.’

Quite.

If the theory of evolution is so self-evident, it ought to have no problem standing up to a classroom discussion. Science is about enquring, the prerequisite of which is an open mind. The Royal Society has manifest the antithesis; indeed, it has displayed intolerance and the enforcement of personal prejudice.

No wonder science is dying in Britain.

Incidentally, the Vatican has said the theory of evolution is compatible with the Bible and does not therefore plan to apologise to Charles Darwin. It advocates 'theistic evolution,' which sees no reason why God could not have used an evolutionary process to create humans.

Why can the Church of England, with its genius for the via media, not see the common-sense position of that?

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Sadiq Khan MP: David Cameron promoted Baroness Warsi ‘because of her religion’

While he sits in Parliament agitating for special rights ‘to improve the lives of British Muslims’, Sadiq Khan, a Government whip, is of the opinion that David Cameron appointed Sayeeda Warsi to the House of Lords and propelled her into his Shadow Cabinet to become ‘Britain's most senior Muslim politician’ simply ‘because of her religion’.

What an intelligent bloke.

It could hardly be because of her outstanding success in fighting general elections, and neither could it be because of her impressive record in any particular sphere, because she does not have one. Her elevation was tangential to but consistent with the aims of the ‘A-list’ – a fundamentally anti-meritocratic mechanism designed specifically to increase the number of female, minority ethnic, homosexual and disabled members on the Conservative benches after the next general election.

Cranmer thinks Baroness Warsi's religion was distinctly secondary to the colour of her skin. If Mr Cameron were overly concerned about religious representation on the Conservative benches, he really ought to discriminate in favour of a few members of the Protestant wing of the Church of England. It would, of course, be easier for him if they were black, brown, gay or one-legged.

But Mr Khan accuses the Leader of the Opposition of an ‘opportunistic courtship of the Muslim vote’, and the use of the ‘Tory spin machine’ to persuade them that the Conservative Party is ‘on the side of British Muslims because it needs their votes to win key seats’.

Of course, Labour has never courted any minority ethnic or religious vote, or used anything as crude as ‘spin’ to attempt to. And God forbid that anything like a ‘religious hatred’ law should be seen as an attempt to portray Labour as ‘on the side of British Muslims’.

But then Mr Khan waffles on about the Conservative Party having no Muslim MPs, and of selecting ethnic minority parliamentary candidates only for ‘hopelessly unwinnable seats’.

Maybe he is not so intelligent after all.

Does Mr Khan know of Rehman Chishti, selected for the very winnable seat of Gillingham and Rainham?

Or Zahid Iqbal standing in Bradford West, which has a Labour majority of just 3000.

Or Helen Grant who was selected to the very safe Conservative seat of Maidstone and the Weald?

Or Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones for the new notionally Conservative seat of Chippenham?

And what about Adam Afriyie? Or Shailesh Vara?

Sadiq Khan is a pompous oaf consumed by his pseudo-prophetic sense of self-importance.

While Sayeeda Warsi has been applying her efforts to educate the Conservative Party on the complexities of Pakistani politics, confronting ‘honour’ killings and forced marriage, and immersing herself in very relevant and pressing social issues which will benefit more than her co-religionists, Mr Khan has his sights firmly on the glorification of Allah and the wellbeing of the Ummah.

His desire is to ensure that the forthcoming ‘Single Equality Act’, which will force public bodies to actively promote equality on grounds of gender, race and disability, ‘must also tackle religion and end "Islamophobia in the workplace".’ He demands specific 'training for teachers and changes to the curriculum to improve education standards for Muslim boys'.

Their failure, he asserts, is because of our ‘laissez faire approach to Britishness’ which has ‘led to Muslims feeling like second-class citizens and being denied good jobs’. Mr Khan continued: ‘Without equal opportunities, integration stands little chance’, and he spoke of ‘anecdotal reports’ which suggest ‘Muslims were being blocked from progressing up the career ladder because of their religion’.

This, he said, is ‘fuelling alienation and the rise of extremism’.

So it is all manifestly the fault of all the kuffar (white, 'Christian') British who are quite simply failing to promote sufficient numbers of Muslims to directorships, chairmanships, headships or other positions of influence, such that they are left with no choice but to bomb their way to power.

Well, it worked for Sinn Féin.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Roman Catholic priests accuse C4 of pro-Muslim bias

It is difficult in these latter days of religious turf wars to discern who is leading whom, who is following whom, and why anyone should be concerned about either. It may be that it is simply a case of the blind leading the blind, or the deaf shouting at the deafer, while the rest of the country wishes the God in whom they do not believe would strike all the offenders dumb.

Since it is not remotely in Cranmer’s nature to manifest any religious bias, he is pleased to bring you news that, following the Sikh and Hindu accusation of a BBC which is biased towards Islam, Roman Catholic priests have accused Channel 4 of that very sin/vice/crime, and also of ‘not showing enough respect to Christianity’.

Their assertion is that the channel recently showed ‘a whole season of broadly positive programmes on Islam while a "Da Vinci Code-style" documentary on Christianity cast doubt on the validity of the Pope’.

Cranmer breathes deeply.

The priests accuse C4 of treating the history and beliefs of Islam ‘more reverently’ on its website than it does Christianity.

Cranmer has checked out this complaint, and he has not the foggiest idea what these priests are talking about. Whilst the BBC website is undoubtedly more comprehensive and nuanced, that of C4 certainly displays awareness of the differences between (and the origins of) the major denominations of the major religions, and there is no discernible bias in its presentation at all.

But Fr Ray Blake of Brighton detects ‘a rather supine attitude to Islam and a trivialising attitude to Catholicism’. He asserts: ‘Channel 4 has shown quite serious discussions about Islam but nothing that treats Christianity in the same way.’

Cranmer wonders if Fr Ray saw Undercover Mosque, or Undercover Mosque – The Return.

While there may be a bias in output quantity, this is quite simply because of the present obsession with finding a Muslim terrorist under every cornflake. If Sikhs and Hindus are relatively uninteresting, Fr Ray must understand that Rome only becomes interesting to the broadcast media when she is putting on a good show, or shaming the Church of England.

His concern continues with such issues as the claim that St Peter died in ‘Palestine’ - not in Rome as the church has always taught. But Cranmer thinks this to be a valid archaeological and historical enquiry, and Fr Ray should have nothing to fear from it. Indeed, he ought to be pleased that C4 is giving airtime to such issues, and volunteer himself as an advocate for his cause. Scripture does after all state that it was Paul, not Peter, who was the apostle to the Gentiles (Rom 11:13).

Yet he further complains that ‘academics quoted in the documentary say this means that he was not the first Pope and so other pontiffs have not been his true successors, with the Vatican accused of "fabricating" a connection with the apostle to justify its power’.

Fr Ray might as well berate all Protestants and a hefty proportion of the Church of England, for such assertions have scriptural, historical and theological validity, and it is quite bizarre to raise such concerns in a complaint of pro-Islam bias. Questioning Roman Catholicism is not the same as questioning Christianity any more than impugning the Church of England denigrates the name of the Lord. If C4 is showing ‘disdain for the Catholic Church’, it is certainly balancing this with a very real enquiry into what actually goes on in British mosques.

According to these priests, the anti-Christian and pro-Islamic conspiracy is explained by virtue of the fact that C4’s commissioning editor for religious broadcasting is one Aaqil Ahmed, a Muslim. The belief is that he has cleverly circumvented the rigorous filtering process designed to weed out all religious bigots and ensure the placement of an ultra-liberal. But he is really a Muslim fundamentalist intent on undermining Western Christendom and establishing a worldwide caliphate, and he is beginning his quest in the studios of C4.

There may indeed be a reluctance by much of the Western media to criticise Islam, and this is doubtless born out of fear of Islamist militancy. But Cranmer finds C4 to be on the right side of the battle for freedom of expression. And, moreover, it is more likely that a Muslim in such an influential position at C4 will be far more critical of his own faith than he is of others, and Muslims are more likely to heed the output of C4 by virtue of Mr Ahmed’s presence.

If there is to be any Islamic ‘reformation’, it will emanate within Islam and be led by Muslims. And Cranmer can think of none better than those more liberal types presently working in the Guardian-dominated world of the media.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Church of England apologises to Charles Darwin

Cranmer is sick and tired of this utter nonsense. It makes the Church of England look and sound even more ridiculous that it already does - if that were possible. In the creation of a cohesive society and for the pursuit of the common good, it is conceivable that one might entertain an apology to the descendants of slaves for the role the Church played in that trade, and even to attempt some sort of bridge-building exercise with Muslims by apologising for the Crusades. But who exactly is the target audience for an apology addressed to Charles Darwin? Who is grieving for reconciliation?

Some scientists dismiss the gesture as ‘ludicrous’; Mr Darwin’s descendants describe it as ‘pointless’, and Ann Widdecombe wonders why the Italians aren’t apologising for Pontius Pilate.

The apology is written by the Rev Dr Malcolm Brown. It raises so many issues of credibility that Cranmer is at a loss to know where to begin.

Apparently, the apology is ‘for misunderstanding his theory of evolution’. Apart from the fact that the Church has historically ‘misunderstood’ far more important things, the Church of England did not actually ‘misunderstand’ Darwin’s theory at all, not least because (as always) it was divided on the issue. The bishops understood completely the significance of the nexus of the theory (and theory it remains) - that man is the progeny of apes. It really is so simple that even a bishop in the Church of England can comprehend it. Looking at the similarity between Mr Darwin and Dr Williams, it may indeed be adduced that they have a common hairy ancestor. But believers were and are divided into those who perceive this theory to be anti-Scripture and profoundly evil, and those for whom it is but another possible explanation of how God created, totally consistent with Scripture.

It is possible to be so preoccupied by atoning vicariously for the sins of one’s predecessors that one ceases to be aware of one’s personal failures and shortcomings.

While the Archbishop of Canterbury purports to apologise on behalf of the Church of England, he most certainly does not apologise on behalf of Cranmer, or, he suspects, on behalf of millions of Anglicans who have an understanding of church teaching or writing which is time-bound or culture-bound. If he continues along this path, Dr Williams will find himself apologising on behalf of Jesus for choosing to become incarnate in a backward time and strange land. He ought to at least apologise for not waiting until the era of mass communication – spreading the gospel could have been so much easier via the internet.

But even more bizarrely, the Church has addressed its contrition directly to the Victorian scientist himself, even though he died 126 years ago.

Why on earth is the Church of England addressing the dead?

At least Cranmer can agree with one line of the apology:

‘People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and Churches are no exception.’

The Church of England is certainly no exception. One wonders if this ‘apology’ is simply a political move to distance itself from the furore surrounding ‘Creationism’. It seems it is now a sin to engage in the philosophical dimension of science, and heresy to question any aspect of the scientific method - even when practitioners of that method elevate theory to fact.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

God, who made thee mighty

Cranmer much enjoyed last night’s Last Night of the Proms. And not only for the manifest passion of and for the music, but also for the patriotic fervour it engenders. The Royal Albert Hall was draped with Scottish saltires, Welsh dragons and English crosses of St George, complemented by a healthy showing of numerous Union flags. And, as ever, the festival ended with ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, ‘Jerusalem’, and the National Anthem.

God, who made thee mighty... And was the holy Lamb of God on England’s pleasant pastures seen... When Britain first, at heaven's command... Was Jerusalem builded here... God save our gracious Queen...

It is not, of course, the greatest two hours of Promenade music, but it is British and it is a world class celebration. Yet, irritatingly throughout the evening, Cranmer’s mind was intermittently distracted by the voice of Labour’s Margaret Hodge, who earlier this year criticised The Proms for being ‘too white’ or ‘unrepresentative’ of modern Britain – in short, fundamentally ‘un-British’. While Stalin believed that the arts had the potential to shape his brave new world, Ms Hodge is concerned that they should express ‘inclusivity’ or ‘multi-culturalism’, and they ought therefore to be some sort of social barometer, with a healthy proportion of brown, black and yellow faces, with the implicit exhortation to wave the flags of Pakistan and Poland.

But the God who made Britain mighty was not Krishna or Waheguru; Blake did not have a vision of Mohammed walking upon England’s mountains green; Britain did not receive a command either from Jannah or act through karma; Mecca is not being builded here (or is it?); and it is not Allah we ask to save the Queen.

The Bishop of Rochester is right when he observes Britons suffer 'cultural amnesia' about Christian art. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he exhorts the rediscovery of the Christian foundations of British artistic expression:

‘The works of Shakespeare or Milton could not have been written without the English translation of the Bible and the publication of the Book of Common Prayer, while great paintings and pieces of music were inspired by Christianity and made to be showcased in churches and cathedrals.’

He asserts that ‘people are now ignorant of the religious background to our culture’, and this (sadly) includes our politicians. Firsts in PPE or doctorates in the big names of Socialism do not equip our leaders with an understanding of the function or purpose of art. And as they are systematically engineered by the ultra-pc Arts Council of Great Britain, the Christian values which were foundational to ‘Britishness’ are being supplanted by ethnic quotas and religious sensitivities which are invariably anti-white, anti-Christian and anti-British.

Dr Nazir-Ali said: "What amazes me is how people in this country don't take account of the brute fact that the Bible and the prayer book have shaped so much of its literary and cultural achievements... Certainly with art, poetry and music, people aren't exposed to the Biblical root of what has inspired people to create these themes. There should be better interpretation of things.’

So much of the inspiration for art was Christian, and the Bishop simply makes a plea for some reference to this fact to be made, ‘otherwise this amnesia will make the culture more and more shallow’.

Being born in Pakistan, he is well-qualified to warn of the decline of Christian values, which is ‘creating a “moral vacuum” that is being filled by radical Islam’. His solution is to educate, but this is only possible if one wrests education from the hands of manipulative and meddling politicians.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Laïcité - Pope urges France to re-think its secular republic

Pope Benedict XVI has urged Christians in ‘secular’ France to make their voices heard in the public realm, declaring ‘politics and religion must be open to each other’.

Cranmer is delighted to say that he fully accords with His Holiness on this, and looks forward to being invited to the Vatican for a private audience to discuss the details over wafers and wine. He would be happy to philosophise on the 1905 concept of ‘laïcité’ which has no easy translation into English: it is not ‘secularism’ - as frequently defined by the clericalism it opposes - but more a term for the separation of church and state. Intrinsic to it are various Enlightenment notions of liberté, including freedom of thought, conscience, expression and religion. And it is predicated upon the post-Enlightenment settlement of the division between the private realm of spiritual belief and the public realm of political policy. Laïcité is a founding principle of the French Constitution, which states in its First Article: ‘La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale.’

But erstwhile Catholic France – known as Rome’s ‘eldest daughter’ since Frankish king Clovis converted in the fifth century - is presently confronting a substantial transformation in its religious landscape. The country has the largest population of Jews and Muslims in Western Europe. Despite its deeply Catholic roots, of the 75 per cent of the nation's 62 million people who are baptised, fewer than 5 per cent attend Mass every week. And many of its centuries-old cathedrals are crumbling in towns that lack money or the motivation to renovate them.

But it is the growing number of Muslims whose ‘public’ customs – such as the wearing of hijabs - have resulted in a severe restriction of such expressions of religious adherence in government-owned buildings. The laïcité which applies to the church must also apply to the mosque. And yet these two religions are clearly not held as equals by the secular Republic, and obviously not by the Pope.

His Holiness rightly asserts that ‘the presence of Christian values is fundamental for the survival of our nations and our societies’, and he appears to be meeting President Sarkozy in one of those illogical, postmodern ‘third ways’ which permit mutually exclusive concepts to fuse into an oxymoronic nebulous entity which feels more than it means.

Thus we have a papal blessing upon the notion of ‘positive secularism’ – which will uphold the Republic’s demand for the separation of church and state while creating space within the public realm for religion. Curiously, the very act of inviting His Holiness to the Elysée Palace is the incarnation of the concept, for it is clear from this photograph that the Pope was not asked to remove his rather prominent cross or any other religious symbols he was wearing.

Pope Benedict said it was ‘fundamental on the one hand, to insist on the distinction between the political realm and that of religion in order to preserve both the religious freedom of citizens and the responsibility of the State towards them’. But he added that societies must also be ‘more aware of the irreplaceable role of religion for the formation of consciences and the contribution which it can bring to - among other things - the creation of a basic ethical consensus within society’.

The problem then is égalité, for secularism demands a ‘neutral’ religious outlook, such that what is permitted to Christianity in the public realm must also be granted to Islam. And if La République does not oblige, the EU will enforce it under its Human Rights anti-discrimination legislation.

The President’s ‘cultural Catholicism’ is weak, and only a vibrant and vehement expression of Christianity will fill the spiritual void which is being occupied incrementally by a very different brand of clericalism. While he is intent on rejecting the ‘negative laïcité’ of restriction in favour of a ‘positive laïcité’ of mutual benefit, the President speaks of a hope in faith which must be extended not only to Christian groups, but also to those religious groups which are inimical to France’s Christian roots.

It may be ‘madness’ to ‘deprive ourselves of religion’, as the President said. But, in the last analysis, there may be some expressions of religion of which it is undoubtedly better to be deprived, and the French may one day thank God that religion is subjugated to secularism.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Polly Toynbee: Gordon Brown cannot be resurrected

The great and wise Polly Toynbee of the erudite and infallible Guardian declares again and again that Gordon Brown is politically dead, and there can be no resurrection. According to 53 per cent of voters, a new leader would not make any difference to Labour's fortunes.

When one considers this time last year, on the eve of the party conference season, Gordon Brown was riding high and David Cameron was under severe pressure to make the speech of his life, it is a curious reversal of fortunes. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

Cranmer shall be enjoying his Burgundy this evening.

MPs have audience with Pope

Cranmer is a little intrigued to read that Conservative MP Brian Binley has had an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. Mr Binley is not Roman Catholic, and describes himself as an ‘irregular church goer’. He is, however, a Freemason and a member of Cornerstone. One must surmise that he values the Christian foundations of his party’s philosophy and the nation’s history.

But Cranmer is even more intrigued that this is Mr Binley’s second such audience, and that it was his hope that the meeting will be ‘productive and useful for our two governments' relations’.

Is Mr Binley there on behalf of HM Government?

Apparently, His Holiness greeted the ‘All Party Parliamentary Group from the United Kingdom’, yet this cannot be a public audience, for private discussions must be taking place for the meeting to be 'productive and useful'. But why are they granted such an audience, and what did they discuss? Contraception? The Lisbon Treaty? Child abuse? Islamic terrorism? Social Justice? The anti-Christian roots of Freemasonry? Or the remarkably successful ‘brand decontamination’ which ‘God’s Rottweiler’ has undergone to become the quite remarkable Pope Benedict XVI? The Conservatives could certainly learn a lot from that.

If any communicants can throw any light on these meetings, he would be deeply appreciative. All-Party groups are rather nebulous entities, and are usually despatched on ‘fact-finding’ missions. But Cranmer cannot find which such group has audiences with the Pope, and why.

Mr Binley’s specialism appears to be ‘Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reforms’. His Holiness must be a rather busy man, and is hardly likely to be much enthused by that.

Does this unspecified All-Party Parliamentary Group also have audiences with the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Sikhs and Hindus object to BBC pro-Muslim bias

And, moreover, they find it painfully obvious that the state broadcasting company is ‘pandering to Britain's Muslim community by making a disproportionate number of programmes on Islam at the expense of covering other Asian religions’. It is, they say ‘BBC policy’.

Research establishes that over the past seven years, the BBC has made 41 programmes on Islam, compared with five on Hinduism and just one on Sikhism. The Buddhists and Jedi Knights must feel profoundly short-changed.

According to The Independent, this disproportionate focus on Islam is ‘part of an apparent bias within the BBC towards Islam since the attacks of 11 September 2001, which has placed an often uncomfortable media spotlight on Britain's Muslims’.

Apparent bias?

The Christians have been saying this for years. The BBC has said it would be content to consign the Bible to Room 101 but not the Qur’an, and there are numerous instances of the denigration of the name of Jesus but not that of Mohammed; scorn being poured over the declining Church of England but not the ascending Mosque of England; and the incessant questioning to the point of ridicule of the foundational tenets of Christianity (frequently during Christmas or Easter), while the claims of Islam are treated with reverence and submission (especially during Ramadan and Eid).

Of course Hindu and Sikh licence-fee payers should feel cheated.

But there is a very simple remedy. If a few more Sikhs were to become as militant as those who forced the closure of a theatre in Birmingham; and a few Hindus became as militant as their co-religionists in Orissa, the BBC would feel obliged to redress the imbalance.

The reality is that Sikhs and Hindus are relatively boring, and the BBC is concerned with viewing figures. The Christians, of course, are always good for a laugh, so The Decline and Fall of the Church of England has become the sitcom of religious broadcasting.

But the BBC is the primary source of news for millions, with considerable influence over the formation of people’s worldviews. It has been admitted that there is a disproportionate number of homosexuals who work within its edifice, and it is unsurprising, though a manifest contradiction, that a culture of liberalism has permitted a reverence for Islam to supplant that of the indigenous faith. It is now subject to those mental pathologies which are at the root of the decay of Western Europe - anti-Americanism, anti-Christianity and anti-Semitism. Its anti-Israel reporting and the white-washing of Muslim/Arab jihadic pursuits permit the Islamist agenda to proceed apace.

Cranmer is fed-up of paying for this hideous propaganda narrative which is inimical to all that he believes and holds dear. The BBC needs reforming, and Cranmer prays for a broadcasting Martin Luther to pin his 95 theses to the door of Broadcasting House.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

TUC calls for Christian to be sacked from Equality and Human Right Commission

The Equality and Human Rights Commission was established by the Equality Act 2006, bringing together the three existing UK equality commissions - the Commission for Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission. During this process of rationalisation, the Government placed three new strands of human rights under the aegis of the EHRC - age, sexual orientation and religious belief.

According to the Trades Union Congress, no Christian (apart from he nominal variety) could possibly defend the rights of the oppressed, and they have therefore called for Joel Edwards, director of the Evangelical Alliance, to be removed as an Equality and Human Rights Commissioner.

The motion was moved by one Phyllis Opoku-Gyimah, who was ‘appalled’ by his appointment, and even moreso that he retains the support of the EHRC chairman, Trevor Phillips. She said: ‘Joel Edwards has clearly stated that same sex relationships are morally wrong and sinful. How on earth is he going to look at gay and lesbian issues when he has made a career out of opposing equality for LGBT people?’

She asked how people would respond ‘if he was to say the same thing about disabled people, Muslims, or older people, saying it would not be tolerated’.

And she is firmly of the view that ‘his appointment has distorted the concept of human rights’, and the Conference, which represents 6.5 million members in the UK, agreed to campaign for the immediate removal of Mr Edwards from his position.

The curious dimension of Ms Opoku-Gyimah’s perspective is that she presents Mr Edwards and the EA s being stridently ‘anti-gay’, ‘anti-equality’ and therefore ‘anti-justice’. Certainly, the organisation gave evidence to a House of Commons committee opposing the new crime of ‘incitement to violence on the grounds of sexual orientation’. But this was concerned with issues of religious liberty and freedom of expression. And certainly they also opposed the Sexual Orientation Regulations - which ensure equality of gay, lesbian and bisexual people when accessing goods and services- but, again, on the grounds of religious and civil liberties.

There appears to be an insistence by the TUC that all Equality Commissioners must share the same outlook and the same beliefs. This Marxist strategy is designed eradicate the expression of a range of views and opinions, and to silence debate, especially that which may relate to an expression of Christian orthodoxy.

According to her biography, Phyllis Opoku-Gyimah is proud of being ‘a black woman, a mother, a partner, a daughter, a friend, a sister, a full-time civil servant, a dog owner, an events coordinator / part of an executive committee for a voluntary organisation and not forgetting a Black Member Rep for PCS Proud’.

Apparently, she is a civil servant. One wonders which sorts of civilians she would be incapable of serving. After all, she could not possibly assist or represent the views of heterosexual white males, fathers, married couples, sons, brothers or cat owners.

Cranmer thinks she ought to be sacked from the civil service for failing to uphold its principles of anti-discrimination and tolerance of religious minorities, and for her manifest prejudice towards Mr Edwards for daring to be a Christian.

And, finally, why did she not propose a motion at the 2006 TUC Conference to demand the sacking of Ruth Kelly after Tony Blair appointed her as Equalities Minister? Is it because Mrs Kelly is a woman, a mother, a sister... and Labour?

EU subsidises End of the World... today

At precisely 8.00am GMT leading physicists of the world begin their quest for the ‘God particle’ as they attempt to recreate the Big Bang - despite warnings it could destroy the universe.

In the depths of a 17-mile-long tunnel somewhere beneath the Swiss-French Alps, scientists at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) are intent on causing particle beams to collide close to the speed of light. It is thought that this will create a Little Bang – a microcosm of the explosion which is believed to have given birth to the cosmos ex nihilo.

Cosmologists believe that an infinitely dense object about the size of a small coin (so not quite ‘nihilo’) occurred about 13.7 billion years ago, which yielded all the matter which constitutes the universe. In searching for the Higgs boson, or ‘God particle’, they hope to establish the existence of that which gives matter its mass.

But prophets of doom have warned that this is delving into the realms where no man has gone before, and that ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ are simply meant to remain in the realm of mystery. Their concern is that the experiment will create black holes with such a colossal gravitational pull that the whole Earth could be sucked into it. And if the planet does not implode, ‘worm holes’ might be created in the space-time continuum which will permit ET to invade.

Cranmer shall watch and wait.

However, since there has been no battle of Armageddon and the Lord has not yet returned, he is rather inclined to believe that the effects of this experiment shall not be so catastrophic. But he is most intrigued to know how many of the world’s starving could have been fed, or homeless housed, or sick healed for the cost of this.

It is curious indeed that ‘Science’ can throw £5 billion at research into these speculative and theoretical unknown unknowns, subsidised by European Union through a series of ‘loans’ - while the impoverished and destitute known knowns are left to suffer and die.

Man does not deserve to discover this ‘God particle’, for it is not yet time for the final apocalypse.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

The Church Times - it's just not green

Cranmer takes The Church Times – in a vicarious kind of way – and accords with those who find it the epitome of the via media established, which has been termed ‘The Independent at Prayer’. One might therefore think that it ought to be more in-tune with the green zeitgeist of the cult of Mother Earth which is obsessing politicians across the political spectrum and also Anglican clerics of all hues.

If the planet is so near its end that bishops are persuaded to forsake their chauffeur-driven cars and their frequent flights to foreign lands for theological enlightenment and spiritual edification, then all the more ought The Church Times do its bit to steward the Earth a little more responsibly.

But Cranmer has received a missive from one of its subscribers who is most frustrated with an apparently trivial issue, which is not at all so.

She would like to subscribe to The Church Times online edition only, which she deems (rightly and obviously) to be an ‘ecologically friendly’ choice. Since even the heathen capitalists who run Britain’s utilities offer discounts for paperless billing, one might have thought that The Church Times - being concerned with its obligations bequeathed in Genesis to steward responsibly - would have offered this at a lower subscription rate than the print version. It is, after all, saving on printing and postage costs, not to mention diminishing the use of energy and the exploitation of Earth’s natural and finite resources.

But, alas, it is not so. Both subscriptions cost £65 per annum.

Could The Church Times please pay Cranmer a visit and explain why it is offering no incentive at all for its subscribers to ‘go green’? Are any of its journalists familiar with the Assisi Declaration?

Hindu extremists murder Christians in India

The brutal and barbaric actions of Hindu extremists have gone on for decades in India, and Orissa has a dark history of inter-religious unrest, often triggered by Hindu suspicion of Christian missionaries. Cranmer is profoundly moved to share this plea from the Bishop of Phulbani in the Church of North India, who cries: ‘I request you with tears kindly organise the prayer for us.’

And so His Grace exhorts his readers and communicants to pray today for the persecuted Church in India, where nuns are being gang-raped, and many believers are being murdered, tortured or burned alive. Children are being hacked to pieces before their parents’ eyes, and churches, community and pastoral centres, convents and orphanages have been burned down and destroyed. Elsewhere, Sisters of Mother Teresa have been attacked by stone-throwing Hindu militants with some being seriously injured. And mobs are terrorising believers throughout the area, marching and shouting “Kill the Christians”.

Cranmer has followed the appalling developments in Orissa via The Times, The Church Times, and other agencies, and he has to wonder why Britain’s Hindu community has not condemned these acts of barbarism. Such atrocities might make one feel sympathy for the Muslims of Kashmir, who have been subject to manifestations of Hindu terrorism for decades.

It is apparent that there is a concerted campaign of terrorism to prevent low-caste Hindus from converting to Christianity. Historically, many have found in Christianity a refuge from caste-related discrimination. Christian missionaries provided education to Dalits and tribals, which has met with disapproval from higher castes for obvious reasons. The ‘untouchables’ have risen to become bureaucrats and members of parliament because of the education provided by Christian institutions.

But one must remember that this conflict is perceived by Hindus as a war not of religion, but of culture. The Christian Hindus are being empowered to challenge an oppressive political order, and liberation theology is yielding its fruit. The tragedy, however, is that while many Hindus find salvation and liberation from oppression through the actions of the Christians, the Christians receive nothing but death and destruction at the hands of the extremist Hindus. Thankfully, there are reports of numerous Hindu ‘Schindlers’ who are assisting those Christians who are being forced to flee for their lives. Cranmer prays that they shall themselves be protected, and rewarded a hundredfold for their benevolent acts of selfless love - in this life or the next.

Monday, September 08, 2008

UK Islamic school says ‘extreme punishments’ are on the way

Cranmer is not surprised to hear that the Hijaz Islamic College in Nuneaton, Warwickshire - which teaches Islamic studies and Islamic law alongside a secular education of GCSEs and A Levels - is running Shari’a law court. It is, after all, precisely what the Archbishop of Canterbury deemed ‘unavoidable’, and what the Lord Chief Justice positively welcomes.

The ‘Muslim Arbitration Tribunal’ (the acronym for which, as far as many Muslim women are concerned, might as well be prefixed with ‘DOOR’) is reported to have already dispensed more than 100 Shar’ia judgements to resolve civil disputes between Muslims across the UK. One inheritance dispute between three sisters and their two brothers resulted in the men being granted double their sisters’ inheritance, but, under Islamic law, this was deemed ‘fair’.

Of course, these women dare not challenge such rulings for fear of bringing dishonour on the family name. They will be acutely aware of tragic consequences which have befallen many Asian women who have been deemed to have done so.

The court presently operates ‘in tandem’ with the British legal system, but it is certainly aware that there is room for development in this area. Whilst being interviewed about the barbarism usually associated with the term ‘Shari’a’ - beheadings, public floggings and hands being chopped off - Faisal Aqtab Siddiqi, the college Head, said: ‘British society was not ready for such punishments’.

Not ready?

It is not for this learned gentleman and school principal a matter of amending the Shari’a code, or of eradicating the depraved torture and inhumanity of the extreme punishments, but of agitating for the UK to submit to the supreme law of Allah. According to the school’s website: ‘Hijaz is re-designing the basis of Islamic education that was historically the strength of Muslims, which has now been lost to sub-standard or subservient forms of education and thinking’. Mr Siddiqi is quoted as saying that ‘if society became more “civilised” then those who broke the law should expect to receive the highest degree of punishment’.

So there you have it. The Head of this Muslim school, who also sits in judgement within the jurisdiction of its court, is of the opinion that beheadings, public floggings and hands being chopped off are an expression of greater civility. Is this really what his students are being taught?

Cranmer is even more concerned to learn that, unlike the informal Shari’a courts which have operated within the context of local mosques for years, the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal has ‘binding legal status’. Mr Siddiqi triumphantly declares: “We can therefore, for the first time, offer the Muslim community a real and true opportunity to settle disputes in accordance with Islamic sacred law with the knowledge that the outcome as determined by the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal will be binding and enforceable.”

This is apparently because ‘decisions challenged by the losing party will be upheld by a county court bailiff or high court sheriff. The Nuneaton-based tribunal cannot force anyone to come within its jurisdication. But once someone agrees to settle a dispute at the tribunal, he or she is bound in English law to abide by the court’s decision’.

However, this appears to be predicated on the court’s decisions being ‘reasonable’.

Well, thank God for that.

Cranmer awaits the day when what is deemed ‘reasonable’ is itself a matter of political contention, for doubtless the Western and British notions, which have been informed and honed through centuries of Christian theology and spirituality, are ‘substandard’. Rather like defining the common good, such principles are mutable, and politicians are prone to bend with the strongest wind. Ultimately, as Mr Siddiqi points out, they are ‘subservient’.

Mr Siddiqi’s ‘not ready’ ought to be a reminder to all that liberties which are not rigorously defended are incrementally eradicated.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Obama: 'My Muslim faith'

Err... a slip of the tongue? The lack of a teleprompt? Or taqiyya interruptus?

It is curious that the Senator did not immediately correct himself and that the interviewer had to do so. Perhaps he has Democrat sympathies, and was more aware than the Senator of the magnitidue of the gaffe. This video clip will circulate the planet like a viral pandemic. And Cranmer is delighted to do his bit to spread it.

Senator Barack Hussein ~~Osama~~ Obama has two long months during which he must never mistake Lent for Ramadan, or Christmas for Eid.

Obama bin Biden

What’s in name?

“That which we call Obama by the name of Osama would smell as sweet.”

It seems that the increasingly gaffe-prone Senator Biden has said that Obama may be found in the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border. And the assertion is consistent with the circumstantial evidence which is appearing on thousands of US car bumpers.

Cranmer has to hand it to the Americans. When they decide a candidate has to be eliminated from running for political office because his distinctly Islamic name carries undertones of terrorism and overtones of Arabia, they are certainly very creative with it. His Grace cannot quite imagine car bumper stickers being produced for a UK election saying ‘More of the Brown stuff’ or ‘Darling, give me Balls’.

But Senator Obama appears to have something rather more nasty lurking in the woodshed. He rose to prominence so quickly that no-one had time to do a full background check on him. And now he is facing a court case to defend his right to be nominated as President of the United States. These bumper stickers may be a bit of fun, but they are having the corrosive drip-drip-drip effect of reminding middle America on every highway that he has alien roots, and those roots are firmly sunk in his father’s Muslim faith.

This is not about race: Cranmer has no doubt that the USA is ready for a black president. But while he would have preferred a Colin Powell or a Condi Rice, the only distinguishing factor, as far as he is concerned, is their politics.

But for very many Americans there are too many unanswered questions and just a few too many obfuscations to satisfy their enquiries. And it has not been for want of trying to get to the bottom of these enquiries either. There are manifest doubts over Senator Obama's eligibility to run for President, and a US court has been asked to stop his bid for the White House.

And the pressure is coming from bloggers of all shades of political opinion, who are becoming increasingly frustrated that allegations over the Senator are being ignored. Philadelphia attorney Philip Berg, a Democrat Clinton supporter, filed a lawsuit in the Pennsylvania District Court against the Senator, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission. It centres on issues of citizenship and eligibility, adducing his Indonesian school record and an internet post of his Birth Certificate.

While Mr Berg manifestly failed to halt the process of nomination, the case is sufficiently high profile to keep Democrat divisions in the media, and to sustain the political doubts and religious suspicions which many Americans have towards the Senator. There are now questions about he gained his place at Harvard, with an investigation into the Saudi funds which financed his time there.

It is apparent that he is indebted to one Khalid al-Mansour, who is said to be obsessed with ‘Muslim themes.. anti-Semitic theories and anti-Israel vitriol’.

Barack Obama may be a Christian, but he is manifestly not of the same stock as Governor Palin. The Apostle Paul insists that there is neither Jew nor Greek, and neither is there male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28). While the US may have largely come to terms with the eradication of black and white, it is evident that Barack Obama is still the wrong sort of Christian for them. He not only attended the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which is predominantly black, but his middle name is Hussein.

The seemingly innocuous bumper stickers and the senator’s middle name are a perpetual reminder of the subconscious link many still make between Bin Laden and Saddam. And how could they possibly vote for a president who shares a name with the murderous tyrant responsible for so many American lives?

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Hindus challenge UK cremation laws

The Guardian reports that a Hindu man, on behalf of up to a million others, is seeking the intervention of the courts to overturn a ban on open-air cremations. He not only demands the ‘right’ to an open-air cremation when he dies, but also demands the ‘right’ to practise ‘ancient religious rituals’.

It comes as no surprise that lawyers acting on behalf of Davender Kumar Ghai are invoking Human Rights legislation to make their case. They argue that ‘open-air pyres fall outside the 1902 Cremation Act, which regulates what happens inside a crematorium, which is defined as "any building fitted with appliances for the purpose of burning human remains". The burning of a human body in the open air is an offence only if it causes a public nuisance, which would be avoided because the sites would be in secluded locations.’

This is a curious case, and likely to yield a judgement based on ignorance. There is indeed an Indic requirement to cremate the dead, but it is tradition, not religion, which demands it. And the practice is by no means universal in India. The courts will be faced with the reality that in India there is no distinct word for ‘religion’; it is all culture, and therefore the two are synonymous. Post-Enlightenment Western courts of law will have no grasp of the complexities of Indic philosophy, which is foundationally pantheistic, and so anything that is a cultural manifestation for Hindus may also be adduced as religious.

In many parts of India, cremations are of necessity open-air. But there is no ‘Word of God’ to stipulate this. Samsara requires that the atman be purged in preparation for the next life, but the fate of the carcase is immaterial. The fire has simply come to symbolise the purging.

Cranmer covered a similar story two years ago, and it is evident that there is now a concerted effort to overturn UK law – passed by Parliament to ensure good hygiene and public health - in order to accommodate minority ethnic sensitivities. But where will this stop? If permission is granted to burn bodies in fields, why not light funeral pyres and float them down a stream? And when sufficient numbers of these have established a ritualistic precedent, why not declare the Thames a sacred river? And then let us have pilgrimage to its shores, and limit access to those who revere its preternatural flow to moksha.

And one wonders if, like helmet-less Sikhs on motorbikes or those who are permitted to carry knives in public, open-air cremation will be an exemption made for Hindus only. For, surely, the Sikhs will follow, and then the Buddhists, and then sundry Pagans, and (frankly) Cranmer would rather attend such an event for a Christian than endure the impersonal indignities of the 30-minute cremation factory. As is observed: ‘An open-air pyre allows you to make it an all-day event, where you can eat, drink and cry and make it a family occasion’.

Significantly, the cost of such an open-air pyre is likely to be around £500, while traditional cremation costs at least £2,000. By that criterion alone, Cranmer can see people of all faiths queueing to cremate their dead in Farmer Giles’ field. He just wonders what happens to the unburned bits of bone or rotting flesh which are not consumed, for the heat of a pyre is nowhere near that of the crematorium furnace.

Perhaps they can be placed on top of a Tower of Silence for the vultures to pick at.

That will be a step towards granting the Zoroastrians their human rights.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Gordon Brown's Ramadan greeting to British Muslims

Further to Gordon Brown’s Ramadan greeting to the Muslims of Kuwait, Cranmer has been directed to the Prime Minister’s message to the Muslims of the United Kingdom. It is dated Thursday 4th September on the No.10 website, so it is observable that he greeted the Muslims of Kuwait before those of the UK. Perhaps No.10 monitors His Grace, and has seen fit to issue a belated greeting.

In summary, he says ‘Ramadan teaches patience and humility’. It embodies ‘the message of empathy for the less fortunate’. It talks of ‘compassion and social justice’.

And the Prime Minister refers to ‘the Prophet Mohammed’ (he twice accords him ‘prophet’ status) who ‘emphasised the duty of care we owe one another’, so we should ‘celebrate diversity’.

Cranmer thinks this a somewhat tenuous interpretation of the hadith.

It is good, right and Christian to issue such greetings to our Muslim neighbours, as Cranmer did himself on Monday. But it is deception or dhimmitude to give the impression of accord with aspects of Islamic belief and theology. How can any professing Christian aver that Mohammed was a prophet of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Lord Jesus Christ? Since Mohammed denied that Jesus is the Christ, and rejects the resurrection, and refutes the truth of the gospel, he is manifestly what Christians throughout two millennia have called a ‘false prophet’.

Of course, the Prime Minister is not going to say ‘the false prophet Mohammed’, but what is wrong with simply saying ‘Mohammed’? And Cranmer is quite sure that the Prime MInister will not deliver any comparable dogmatic theological message to Christians at the beginning of their most holy week - on the run up to Easter.

Do you really him saying, ‘the Son of God, Jesus Christ’? Or might it be phrased something like ‘Jesus, whom Christians believe to be the Son of God...’? Doubtless there would be riots and uproar if he dared to say, 'Mohammed, whom Muslims believe to be a prophet...'.

Blasphemy! Jesus, the penis, and Conservative Party coffers

He did not say he was the erection and the life, though he was tempted in every way we were (Heb 4:15), and so must have confronted issues of sexuality. But Satan found nothing in him (Jn 14:30). Cranmer does not intend to delve into the divisive arguments which confronted the Early Church on the nature of Christ’s divinity and his humanity, but to focus on the controversy which has been caused by a statue of Jesus with an erect penis, which is on display at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead.

It forms part of the exhibition ‘Gone, Yet Still’ by Chinese artist Terence Koh, which also features dozens of plaster figures including Mickey Mouse and ET - all in the same state of arousal.

But this was a blasphemy too far for Emily Mapfuwa, a 40-year-old Christian from Brentwood, who has launched a private prosecution against the gallery for ‘outraging public decency’ and ‘causing harassment, alarm and distress to the public’. Ms Mapfuwa argues the Baltic would not have dared depict the prophet Mohammad in such a way.

Cranmer has no doubt that she is right on the last point, but, as he has previously observed, this is because the UK’s blasphemy laws which once related to Jesus and the Church of England have been repealed and supplanted by a de facto blasphemy law which now protects Mohammed and Allah, all under the guise of the ‘religious hatred’ legislation.

Yet in our postmodern, fractured, fragmented and bewildering world of subjectivity, blasphemy is now very much in the ears and eyes of the beholder. Only recently, the Pope himself became embroiled in the issue of a crucified frog which he deemed blasphemous because it ‘wounds the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God's love’. Yet others disagree, rightly noting that tens of thousands of people were crucified, and one is left to conclude that the frog’s name is Brian.

Dr John Hayward of the Jubliee Centre quotes Marshall McLuhan: ‘I think of art, at its most significant, as…a distant early warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.’

Yet McLuhan was not original in this observation: it has its genesis in the words of Shakespeare on play acting. Thus the function of art is ‘to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure’.

The contention is that the artist is not therefore guilty of blasphemy, but of holding a mirror up to nature, which is his very vocational task. For it is not the sexual Jesus which is his theme, but the sexualisation of everything, which is the obsession of the very age and body of the time. By devoting so much time, effort and money to issues of sexuality, instead of challenging society by deconstructing the obsession or focusing on poverty and wealth (for example), Christians are simply showing themselves to share the same obsessions as the world. Dr Hayward observes: ‘My guess is that anyone offended by a statue of Jesus with an erection (whether or not they are Christian) is likely to consider any statue with an erection distasteful. Arguably, such a statue could be a celebration of the Son of God's humanity and God's blessing of the sexual nature that he has created us all to have. Clearly, set as it was among a collection of other pop icons, Koh's statue had more to say about the values of modern society.’

The irony, of course, is that by bringing her high-profile case to court, Emily Mapfuwa delivers the gallery and the statue's owner millions of pounds worth of free publicity. The negative reaction or over-reaction therefore compounds the alleged blasphemy, not least because the courts of this world will not uphold Ms Mapfuwa’s interpretation of ‘outrage’ or ‘harassment’. There is simply an insufficient number of Christians rioting in the streets for the peace and security of the realm to be threatened.

But this artistic and theological dispute has become an acutely political one. The Conservative Christian Fellowship is in accord with the charge of blasphemy: 'We have an excellent history in this country of freedom of expression and thought. But we also have a Christian heritage which deserves some respect. A work like this needs to be treated with contempt. The artist was clearly just trying to shock and the people who should answer for it are the people who allowed it to happen. They should be treated with contempt.'

But it transpires that the statue is owned by one Anita Zabludowicz, whose husband, Poju, is the 24th richest man in the country, and has donated £70,000 to the Conservative Party.

Thus the more publicity this exhibition attracts, the more shall Mr Zabludowicz be able to contribute to the Conservative Party’s fighting fund for the next General Election. God bless Emily Mapfuwa!

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Rupert Murdoch diagnoses Muslims’ ‘basic problem’

It really is quite simple. His ‘genetic theory’ dawned on him one day, and he declared that ‘the basic problem of the Muslim people was that they married their cousins’.

There is no doubt that marriages between first cousins are permitted in Islam. In surat an-Nisa' (4:22-24), Allah talks of the women who are forbidden to marry, and then he declares: ‘Lawful to you are all beyond those mentioned, so that you may seek them with your wealth in honest wedlock…’ In surat al-Ahzab (33:50), Allah mentioned to Mohammed that he may marry the daughters of his uncles and aunts from the father's side or the mother's side. It is the consensus of the jurists that this permission was not only for Mohammed, but also constitutes permission for all believers. Muslims have practised marriages between first cousins in all countries since the seventh century.

The genetic effects of consanguineous partnerships have been widely reported in Islamic lands like Pakistan and Bradford. But the politicians do nothing.

The Bible does not specifically forbid marrying one’s cousin, and neither does the BCP, but it is important to remember that advances in science and knowledge have caused some governments to outlaw it, and others to actively discourage it. Christians are commanded to ‘submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men’ (1Pt 2:13ff).

One has to wonder at the potential consequences of this deeply-held diagnosis of one of the most powerful media barons in the world, for the inference is profoundly disturbing.

Gordon Brown sends his best wishes for Ramadan to Muslims...

...in Kuwait?

The Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) has published the Ramadan greetings sent to the Muslims of Kuwait by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

It says:

"Ramadan teaches patience and humility, and reminds us of our shared moral universe; our obligation to others," Brown said in a message to mark the beginning of the holy month.

"The message of empathy for the less fortunate is reflected in Ramadan by the daily fast. And Ramadan's message of compassion and social justice spreads beyond Muslim communities; it speaks of shared values that unite us all." He noted that "the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad emphasises the duty of care we owe one another. So during this special month, let us also celebrate the diversity that contributes to Britain's strength." Paying warm tributes to British Muslims, Brown said they "make a huge contribution to Britain's success - to our prosperity, our society and our culture. And of course, Ramadan is an opportune time to consider the contribution of Islam not just to Britain, but to the world: Islamic art, science, and philosophy have enriched our lives over many centuries." Ramadan is also a time to recall the Prophet's message that "the best richness is the richness of the soul." "This speaks to me, as it speaks to so many others." The Prime Minister said he looks forward to continuing positive engagement with British Muslim communities across the UK.

Cranmer is puzzled.

He can find nothing on the No10 website of a greeting to British Muslims. Why not? They are British citizens and taxpayers, and he is their prime minister. Are they less worthy? Or is it only the Muslim terrorists and criminals who are worthy of special treatment at this holy time courtesy of the taxpayer?

But neither can Cranmer find record of any Ramadan greeting to any Commonwealth nation. Moreover, such a greeting has traditionally been reserved for the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. Gordon Brown quite appropriately followed Tony Blair’s precedent last year.

So why now mark the beginning of Ramadan as well? And why on earth in Kuwait? And why are British taxpayers forking out for this? Surely Gordon Brown’s greeting for this most holy month is not sullied by any possible link with oil, is it?

Does he send Christmas or Easter greetings to the Christians in Kuwait? Or those poor persecuted believers in Iraq? Or Israel? Or Egypt? Or Iran? Or China? Or (let us not forget) the Christians in the UK?

It might cheer them up a little... you know, persuade them the world has not abandoned them.

If the Prime Minister now sends Muslims a greeting to mark the onset of Ramadan and also one to celebrate the end, then surely he must issue Christians with a greeting at the commencement of their most holy week, and also one to mark the end on the glorious day of resurrection.

Or is Cranmer missing something?

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

A global blasphemy law?

It seems timely after Cranmer’s most recent posts to revisit the development of what is rapidly becoming a global blasphemy law. There is increasing alarm from civil rights organisations, advocates of religious freedom, anti-censorship groups and sundry national governments at the United Nations General Assembly resolution (2004/L.5) which demands ‘respect’ for religion, but which critics say is being used to justify suppression of religious minorities.

Cranmer has previously observed that the UK now has a de facto blasphemy law which protects Allah, Mohammed and mosques more than it did in during the modern era the names of Jesus and YHWH or the Church of England. It is ironic that whilst Parliament was legislating to abolish the crimes of blasphemy and blasphemous libel as they related to Christianity, that the vacuum was being filled by politicians, police and the judiciary increasingly taking the view that Islam had to be treated with kid gloves, and blind eyes had to be turned to those professing Muslims who threatened murder and called for ‘Jihad’ against the apostate and the infidel.

But this UN resolution is now becoming a global blasphemy law by stealth. It is titled ‘Combating Defamation of Religion’, and is sponsored by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and has been approved by the world body annually since 2005. It comes up for renewal again later this year. Whilst it lacks the force of law, it has been used to provide diplomatic cover for Islamic regimes that wish to deny speech that is critical of them. Essentially, what they do in the political realm of man is sanctioned by the religious realm of God, and therefore any criticism of their policies amounts to criticism of their religion. Very convenient. One group has already discovered when they raised the issue of the inhumane treatment of those accused of apostasy in some Islamic countries, that this was construed by one delegation (Pakistan) as an attack on Islam.

Ekklesia notes that civil and religious rights organisations observe that ‘other United Nations measures, including statements by the Human Rights Council in Geneva, are increasingly replicating the language of the resolution and confusing the human rights agenda’. Felice Gaer, chairwoman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said: "Before, it was one resolution with no impact and no implementation, but now we are seeing a clear attempt by OIC countries to mainstream the concept and insert it into just about every other topic they can. They are turning freedom of expression into restriction of expression."

‘The European Centre for Law and Justice filed a brief with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in June 2008 warning that such anti-defamation resolutions "are in direct violation of international law concerning the rights to freedom of religion and expression." There is widespread concern that the resolutions are being used to justify harsh blasphemy laws in countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan and Afghanistan.’

This is no real surprise, for the Islamist dream of the Dar al-Islam continues apace, and the West is cowed and compliant. There is a pandemic of ‘Islamophobia’; indeed, it is a veritable global condition. But this term must rigorously and continuously be scrutinised, and those who so freely throw the accusation around must be unapologetically cross-examined in their definition of the word. For it is little more than a term designed to silence criticism, and to permit the most virulent manifestations of Islam to secure territory and propagate their messages of hate.

His Grace is not a Muslim, and neither is he a Jew. In case there be any doubt, he is not Roman Catholic, Sikh or Hindu. And neither is he a Jehovah’s Witness, Seventh Day Adventist, a Mormon or a Jedi (though the latter has many attractions).

Through critical analysis and by exercising overt discrimination, he has decided that he is a Christian and in communion with the Church of England. This does not make him ‘phobic’ about all the other options; it is simply that he has discerned the way of salvation and it sits well with him. It is truth; an ontological reality with which others are welcome to disagree or criticise, but such an onslaught will not shake his faith in his Lord.

But equally does Cranmer reserve the right to disagree with other religious ideologies, and assert the right to freely criticise their theology, ecclesiology and soteriology. And to those who call him puerile names for doing so, he says ‘grow up’. To those in Westminster who attempt to legislate away his freedom to do so through any so-called ‘hate’ legislation, he says he shall not heed such laws. To those in Brussels who assert their secular notions of ‘equality’ or ‘social justice’, he declares that Scripture has better informed the world on such concepts, and the liberty he asserts is that bequeathed to him through centuries of Christian insight. And to those in the World Government of the amoral United Nations who are intent on forming a One World Religion of generalised, syncretised mushed-up spirituality for the post-democratic New World Order of global governance, he says he shall not heed your notion of God, your concept of religion, or your definition of defamation. Your era has passed. Now is the time for the League of Democracies.

And Cranmer prophesies that President McCain and Vice President Palin shall deliver on this.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Oxford’s Christians apologise to Muslims for daring to pray during Ramadan

Cranmer is most disturbed, if not a little irritated, to read that a Christian group in Oxford has apologised to the city’s Muslims for having the audacity to organise a day of prayer during Ramadan. Oxfords Muslims found it ‘ill-conceived and insensitive’, not to mention ‘grossly insulting and inflammatory’.

The Muslim Education Centre of Oxford (MECO) has accused the Evangelical group ‘Open Doors UK’ of preaching ‘evangelical propaganda’.

Do not Muslims preach Islamic propaganda? Do the Christians in Oxford complain about this? Would the Muslims of Oxford apologise or even care if the Christians did complain about it?

But the greatest offence was taken because the Christians had dared to refer to their event as a ‘Call to Prayer’. Apparently, only Muslims may now use this term, despite the manifest and lengthy heritage Jews and Christians have of calling believers to worship, celebration or prayer with the blast of the shofar or the peel of church bells. It might also be noted that in previous decades the monarch or prime minister issued a call to prayer to the entire nation at times of crisis, though the practice has inevitably fallen victim to pluralism and secularism.

Let us not forget that it was in Oxford that Muslims were being insensitive and unduly provocative in their demands to sound the call to prayer amid the dreaming spires. But what irritates Cranmer no end - in fact he is incandescent with rage for only the second time since this blog’s inception - is that this Christian event was not some triumphalist public parade or obtrusive prayer march down the narrow lanes and crowded streets of the city (as some Evangelicals are wont to indulge in) - but that it consisted of prayer and teaching in a church - St Aldate's, to be precise.

And Cranmer’s incandescence is not because Oxford’s Muslim’s have complained - for they are surely entitled to voice their opinion, notwithstanding that what goes on in St Aldate’s in manifestly none of their business. No, what inclines Cranmer almost to use the very scriptural term recently deployed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is that these lily-livered Christians have apologised, saying they ‘regret’ any offence that had been caused. In fact, they ‘very much regret’ causing offence, and are bending over backwards to stress that they ‘were not denigrating Islam or criticising Muslim beliefs’.

Why IN THE NAME OF CHRIST are Christians apologising for praying in a church? And why are they so ashamed of the gospel that they prostrate themselves before those who have complained and express regret for seeking their salvation?

The chairman of MECO is one Dr Taj Hargey, and it is he who is ‘flabbergasted’ that these dhimmi Christians organised a day-long initiative termed ‘Call to Prayer’. But he really ought to express his humble gratitude to these Christians that they are so concerned about the eternal salvation of Muslims that they are even bothered to pray for them at all. Do the Muslims pray for Christians at Easter?

Apparently, Dr Hargey checked the Open Doors website, and was appalled that ‘innocent sounding publicity was headlined “A Call to Prayer”’. Dr Hargey was also offended that these Christians dare to tell of miracles and how ‘God answers these prayers, revealing Himself to Muslims around the world, and bringing many to faith in Jesus’. He was further offended that Open Doors refers to Islam as an ‘ideology’, and said he was ‘shocked by their theological self-righteousness’ because they ‘assume the self-appointed task to pray for Muslims'

Setting aside the manifest hypocrisy in the accusation of ‘theological self-righteousness’, the good doctor might like to consider that he is himself denigrating and criticising Christian beliefs, for Christians are not ‘self-appointed’ to pray for Muslims: it is the commandment of the Lord that they do so, and also that they preach the gospel – 'in season and out' (2Tim 4:2). And they do so not out of pride or with any assertion of superiority, but out of gracious humility and love (which in some countries would be on pain of torture and death), for they long to share with the world the wondrous salvation of Jesus.

But Cranmer wonders why one has never heard Dr Hargey be so vocal in his condemnation of Islamist terrorism - the murder, rioting, the execution of children, or barbaric tribal practices like burying girls alive for the glory of Allah.

And while he is contemplating a response to that, Cranmer would like to ask the good doctor how he would respond if Christians were to tell him what they might find ‘offensive’ about Ramadan or about his own ‘theological self-righteousness’. For who is he to express disapproval of Christian prayer in a church or disgust at the Great Commission when Muslims are still hearing exhortations to murder and messages of hate in their mosques? And he might also like to consider that he follows a man who massacred and assassinated women, children and the elderly; who married a girl when she was just six years old and had sexual intercourse with her when she was nine; and who taught that Islam is the one true religion and that all must be subject to the rule of Allah.

What ‘theological self-righteousness’ is this?

Some Christians might indeed be ‘appalled’ that such a man might be considered a role-model to be emulated. But they might be absolutely ‘flabbergasted’ to learn of the deceitful qur’anic doctrine of taqiyya (3:28 and 16:106), not to mention the humiliating and discriminatory jizya (9:29) which should be imposed on all non-Muslims.

But Cranmer is delighted to learn from Dr Hargey that MECO’s aim is ‘to bring people of all faiths together, not divide them further’.

He is sure that Oxford’s Christians will be delighted to receive this message of love and unity from a learned spokesman for the religion of peace.

And he is also relieved that MECO ‘would not hold a grudge’.

At least the dhimmi Christians of Oxford may sleep safely in their beds, secure in the assurance that there will be no reprisal... unless, of course, the assurance is just taqiyya.

Robocop Britain – the most expensive justice system in the world

Cranmer has been asked by the think-tank Reform (is not that a most excellent name for a think-tank?) to publicise their latest report, and he is delighted to do so. He does not usually publish 'press releases', and apologises to his readers and communicants if they feel somewhat deprived of his daily musing. But it is incumbent upon righteous government not only to maintain law and order, but to ensure that citizens have confidence in it, and that the taxpayer is receiving good value for money. That the UK has the most expensive justice system in the world is scandalous, not least because it yields nowhere near the best results, and the Government's notion of 'justice' has ceased to fuilfil that which has been understood as shaped by the nation's Christian heritage. The ‘local’ approach – that is subsidiarity (and therein lies the day's theology) – is very much the way to go:

"Centralised ‘Robocop justice’ has made Britain the most expensive country to police in the world as well as reducing public engagement, according to a new report published today. The report, by the independent think tank Reform, finds that the British public have become ‘passive bystanders, uninformed about crime and unlikely to participate in maintaining justice. It calls for open, participatory and accountable justice including online offender databases, a radical devolution of power to local Justice Commissioners and the establishment of a national police force.

Britons believe that anti-social behaviour is a matter for the police, whereas other countries see it as the role of parents, teachers and the community. Britons are the least likely in Europe to intervene when a crime is taking place. They receive less information about crime, offenders and punishment than overseas counterparts. Despite 66% of Britons wanting to play a role in tackling or preventing crime, instead they are ‘passive bystanders’ reduced to calling for ‘something to be done’.

Pressure for action has escalated as violent crime has increased from 8 per cent of all recorded crime in 1997 to 20 per cent in 2007/08. In particular Tony Blair instituted a ‘turbo-politicisation’ of criminal justice, stepping up legislation and public spending. Taking Nye Bevan’s mantra of Whitehall hearing ‘every bedpan falling in a hospital corridor’, modern politicians now want to be responsible for every ASBO and prison place.

The result is a move from Dixon of Dock Green to the Robocop of futuristic Detroit; mechanical, controlled from the centre and lacking human interaction. This has proved expensive and ineffective. Britain now has the highest spending on criminal justice as a proportion of GDP of any developed country, overtaking the US in the last decade, whilst not scoring highly on outcomes.

Current government attempts to localise amount to little more than a ‘colouring book’ approach, where national politicians dictate detailed targets and parameters, allowing for only a small amount of local autonomy.

Instead, genuine decentralisation to local Justice Commissioners is required; they would have responsibility for end-to-end criminal justice services. This would create:

• Greater local responsibility for funding law and order
• Innovative policing such as low cost wardens, Japanese Koban style police boxes, volunteer forces and specialist ‘hit squads’ that could be drafted in by the local force
• Interactive working between police, probation and correction, tracking offenders end to end and reducing reoffending
• Local debate and decision making about prosecution and correctional measures – for example Surrey could adopt a tougher approach than Yorkshire to prosecuting vandals.

A National Bureau of Investigation would be established with responsibility for strategic issues, serious criminals and high security institutions. Decentralisation should be accompanied by an information revolution, including:

• Offender databases that the public can access with details of sentences and release dates, like those in the US
• Televised and internet based community service, court proceedings and prison stays
• Full expansion of crime mapping

The report’s key findings are:

• There has been a shift in responsibility in the criminal justice system, away from the individual and towards centralised institutions, demonstrated by 76% of Britons believing that the police and courts are responsible for controlling anti-social behaviour, compared to around 45% in France and Germany.
• Six out of ten people in Britain would be unlikely to challenge a group of 14 year old boys vandalising a bus shelter in the UK, more than Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, France Spain and the UK. In Germany, six out of ten would challenge the group.
• British people are more worried about crime and violence with 43 percent reporting it as one of their greatest concerns compared to 21 percent in Germany and 27 percent in the US.
• The UK spends the largest amount in the OECD on law and order as a percentage of GDP, with nearly 40% more in real terms spent in 2006/07 than in 1997/98. This is higher than the US, double that of Sweden, France and Denmark and around 50% greater than that of Canada, Germany and Japan.
• Administration costs across the criminal justice service have risen by around 10% since 2002/03 – faster than frontline expenditure, which has risen by 7% since 2002/03.
• International comparison shows that criminal justice is most effective where it is close to the public and has strong local accountability.

Elizabeth Truss, Deputy Director of Reform and report author, said: “We need to slay the myth that the Home Secretary is responsible for every stabbing and car theft on the streets of Britain. We have to take back responsibility from Robocop.”

Quite.

But the problem which Reform has rather ignored will be the lawsuits that come your way if Robocop happens to be a Muslim, and he interprets your desire for localism or efficiency as being racist or otherwise discriminatory.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Faith schools may now legally discriminate

Faith schools of necessity already discriminate against students on the grounds of religion, but as of today, headteachers and school governors may also discriminate against teachers as well. That is 6,384 primary schools and 589 secondary schools which henceforth shall be permitted to include faith as a selection criterion for teaching and non-teaching posts.

Whilst Cranmer can understand the necessity for a headteacher, and perhaps other senior leaders or pastoral carers, and perhaps those who teach religious studies, to belong to a specific faith, he is utterly bemused that schools may now demand that those who teach mathematics or PE, or those who cook or clean or otherwise support teachers, must also now be practising members of a particular religion. Such discrimination, of course, remains illegal in other state schools.

Why on earth may a Muslim mathematician not teach Catholic children the wonders of Pythagoras? Why may a Hindu not be considered acceptable to prepare halal food? Why may a Protestant not be permitted to scrub the floor of a Guru Nanak’s primary school? And why may a Sikh classroom assistant be deemed incapable of supporting a Christian teacher?

It is all, of course, beneath the guise of ‘maintaining the ethos’ of an educational establishment. And some religious folk are rather more sensitive about their ethos than others.

The bizarre thing is that this utterly dysfunctional, deceitful and self-contradictory government has legislated to permit faith schools to do precisely what places of worship may not. Whilst faith schools may now refuse to employ a homosexual, churches are manifestly obliged to (and so, therefore, are mosques, but that challenge has not yet arisen), even when that ministry involves educating children in the nuances of Christian orthodoxy. So the Christian school may discriminate against the gay geography teacher, but the church may not discriminate against the gay youth worker, even if he happens to be a geographer.

The statistics for faith schools are in flux because of the ever increasing number of applications from minority ethnic groups. When Labour was elected in 1997, all faith schools were either Christian or Jewish. Now the taxpayer funds 4,716 Church of England schools, 2,108 Roman Catholic, 32 Jewish, four Muslim, two Sikh, one Greek Orthodox and one Seventh Day Adventist school. (UPDATE 19.00. His Grace said things were in flux: the UK's first Hindu school opened today).

Cranmer awaits the first application to found the Jedi Knight Academy. He shall gladly support their bid for state funding and join the governing body.

Of course, the reality is that in order to maintain a distinctive ethos and character, faith schools must discriminate. But if the law creates space for this, then a fortiori must it do so for churches, mosques and gurdwaras, not to mention adoption agencies. Discrimination is part of the process of discerning; it is intrinsic to being human. If it is to be restricted in the spiritual realm, then why not the political?

How dare New Labour object to a Tory leading their party.

Undercover Mosque – The Return... just in time for Ramadan

Cranmer wishes all of his Muslim readers and increasingly rare Muslim communicants God’s richest blessings upon you as you enter your most holy month of Ramadan. He prays that as you seek the truth with all you heart, soul and mind, so shall you find it.

But is it simply coincidence that this evening Channel 4 broadcasts the sequel to its controversial documentary Dispatches: Undercover Mosque? Channel 4 is not screening this on any Monday, but on the very Monday that heralds the beginning of Islam’s holiest month - the month during which Muslims observe prohibitions on eating, sex, smoking and other pleasures during daylight hours, in commemoration of the revelation of the Qur’an to Mohammed?

Christians are perfectly used to assaults upon the divinity of Jesus at Easter, or the ritual doubts cast upon the Christmas story, but the protocol in the West, especially by the dhimmi media, has been to respect Ramadan. George Bush Snr even postponed a war to mitigate any offence.

The new Dispatches programme - Undercover Mosque: The Return - shows that, apparently, the hate-mongering continues and that very little has changed in the intervening year.

After the broadcast of the original programme, Channel 4 handed bundles of evidence to the West Midlands Police on the assumption that they would want to prosecute those who were inciting hatred and murder. But in an ironic twist which had Cranmer incandescent with rage, the West Midlands Police tried to prosecute the programme-makers for ‘inciting religious hatred’ against Muslims. When this failed, West Midlands police referred the critically-acclaimed programme to media regulator Ofcom and, in conjunction with the Crown Prosecution Service, they issued a statement in which they insisted that the words of three preachers featured had been ‘heavily edited’, so much so that their meaning had been ‘completely distorted’.

But Ofcom cleared the programme of any attempt to mislead and concluded that the complaints had been orchestrated. The programme-makers consequently sued, and the West Midlands police and the CPS were forced to pay out a six-figure sum to Channel 4 and Hardcash, the independent production company responsible for the documentary.

Hardcash has now followed up the original programme, which is being broadcast tonight at 8pm. The programme finds that very little has changed. A female reporter attends prayer meetings at Regent’s Park Mosque which claims to be dedicated to ‘moderation’ and ‘dialogue with other faiths’. But she witnesses sermons given to the women-only congregation in which female preachers recite extremist and intolerant beliefs. In one scene, as hundreds of women and some children come to pray, a preacher calls for adulterers, homosexuals, women who act like men, and Muslim converts to other faiths to be killed, saying: ‘Kill him, kill him. You have to kill him, you understand. This is Islam’. They describe Britain as the 'land of evil' and say the behaviour of other races is 'vile'. In one of the recordings, a speaker says of the Jews: 'Their time will come, like every other evil person's time will come.'

Dr Ahmed Al Dubayan, the director general of the mosque, said the women were ‘not authorised’ and ‘did not reflect the views of the mosque’. He said the mosque 'is committed to interfaith and cross-cultural understanding. It does not support or condone extreme views, racial hatred, violence or intolerance.'

Despite this, Channel 4 also found in this mosque a bookshop selling literature and DVDs which promote hatred towards non-Muslims, and also those containing anti-Semitic, misogynistic and intolerant messages.

Dr Al Dubayan’s explanation?

The bookshop is run by ‘an independent company’. He said: 'We made it clear that it was not acceptable to stock materials containing extremist views.'

Obviously, they have not made it clear enough. Or at least they have not agreed a definition of 'extremist'.

The undercover reporter also films inside a key Saudi-funded Muslim organisation, which claims to promote ‘tolerance’ and ‘integration’, and yet distributes literature which promotes intolerance for non-Muslims, an extreme version of Shari’a law and teachings which support discrimination against women. This is the very ideology which the Government claims to be tackling, and for which British taxpayers are footing the bill.

It was New Labour which introduced the Racial and Religious Hatred Act to protect Muslims from hatred, but Cranmer would like to know who is going to protect everyone else from the hate-mongering going on in Britain’s most high-profile and supposedly respectable mosques?

Let the police and CPS demonstrate to the public that religiously-aggravated and incitement-to-hatred offences are not off limits to any section of the community.

Notwithstanding this call - which goes out not only from secularists but from people of many faiths - Cranmer cannot help feeling that by choosing the first day of Ramadan to screen this programme, Channel 4 is not only being every bit as insensitive as those who screen anti-Christian documentaries during Easter or Christmas; they are being purposely provocative. Indeed, they are inciting resentment at the very moment when Muslims are focusing on personal holiness and discipline.

But perhaps it is about time that the media treated other faiths with the contempt they usually reserve for Christians. Is not that 'equality'?

August statistics

August was another month of records for Cranmer. Following July’s record of 27,791 unique visitors, August saw the most page-views in a month (36,977); the most unique visitors in a day (2382 on Fri 29 August); and also the most unique visitors in a week (8449 in the same week).

The cause was His Grace’s prophetic foresight in having prepared an article for the appointment of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s VP before the announcement was actually made. That blog post has already become Cranmer’s most-viewed page (2406 in just three days), with the vast majority coming from across the pond enquiring into Governor Palin’s faith.

And Cranmer thinks he is honoured that The Guardian appears to be including him in their news blog.

But bizarrely, for all Cranmer’s wisdom expressed upon sundry and diverse important religio-political concerns over recent years, his second most-viewed page is that questioning why Team GB excludes Northern Ireland.

It is heartening to know that people have their priorities right and are avidly seeking the truth.

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues. Things got just a little bit too hot on 21st March 1556. His Grace hasn't been around much since, but he is as keen as ever to investigate and expose religio-politics or politico-religiosity, so email Cranmer with your insights, and he shall investigate - whatever the cost...

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Cranmer has won the Witanagemot award for ‘Best Blog dealing with Religious Matters’. (2007)

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Auntie Joanna Writes

Coffee House - The Spectator Blog

Freedom of speech must be tolerated, and everyone living in the United Kingdom must accept that they may be insulted about their own beliefs, or indeed be offended, and that is something which they must simply endure, not least because some suffer fates far worse. Comments on articles are therefore unmoderated, but do not necessarily reflect the views of Cranmer. Comments that are off-topic, gratuitously offensive, libelous, or otherwise irritating, may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on any thread does not constitute their endorsement by Cranmer; it may simply be that he considers them to be intelligent and erudite contributions to religio-political discourse...or not.

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.
Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

Religious faith will be of the same significance to the 21st century as political ideology was to the 20th century. In an era of globalisation, there is nothing more important than getting people of different faiths and cultures to understand each other better and live in peace and mutual respect, and to give faith itself its proper place in the future.
The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, Prime Minister 1997-2007; Middle East Peace Envoy 2007-2010; President of Europe 2010-

The epithet of 'great' can be applied only to those who were defining leaders who successfully articulated and embodied the Conservatism of their age. They combined in their personal styles, priorities and policies, as Edmund Burke would say, 'a disposition to preserve' with an 'ability to improve'.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.
Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS.
(Prime Minister 1979-1990)

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.
Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC.
(Prime Minister 1957-1963)

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can).
(Prime Minister 1940-1945, 1951-1955)

I am not struck so much by the diversity of testimony as by the many-sidedness of truth.
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC.
(Prime Minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937)

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC.
(Prime Minister 1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895-1902)

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.
Benjamin Disraeli KG, PC, FRS, Earl of Beaconsfield.
(Prime Minister 1868, 1874-1880)

Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs.
Sir Robert Peel, Bt.
(Prime Minister 1834-1835, 1841-1846)

I consider the right of election as a public trust, granted not for the benefit of the individual, but for the public good.
Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool.
(Prime Minister 1812-1827)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
The Rt Hon. William Pitt, the Younger.
(Prime Minister 1783-1801, 1804-1806)

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