Edward Leigh has been MP for Gainsborough since 1983, is chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and founded the Cornerstone Group of Conservative MPs. He is co-editor of The Nation that Forgot God, which is to be published next week by the Social Affairs Unit.
I applaud the Archbishop of Canterbury for his recent lecture linking care for the environment to Christian faith. He quotes beautiful passages of scripture - "The earth is the Lord’s" (Psalm 24) - in support of the argument that a proper relationship with the planet we live on can only be established by seeing it as God’s creation. It is refreshing to hear a senior cleric speaking so explicitly about faith itself, rather than parroting the usual secular line about global warming. But at the moment he seems a rarity. This is a symptom of the fact that Britain is the most extreme example of a trend towards secularisation which has, to a greater or lesser extent, affected almost all of Europe.
Next week, I am bringing out a book, The Nation that Forgot God. It has a dozen essays by various authors including myself. There are pieces by, among others, the late Shusha Guppy (a Sufi Muslim), the Rev. Peter Mullen (an occasional columnist for the Daily Telegraph) Roger Scruton, Archbishop Nazir-Ali, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the Abbot of Downside and Bat Ye’or, who coined the term "Eurabia".
The theme of the book is the secularisation of the West and the impact of that on society. Britain is merely the most extreme example of a trend.
Continue reading "Edward Leigh MP: Our bishops should talk more about God than global warming" »
Recent Comments