Christians unite against Co-op
Relgious pressure groups the Christian Peoples Alliance and Operation Christian Vote have issued a joint statement to condemn the Co-operative Bank for terminating CV’s account.
From The Good News:
Politically correct ‘diversity’ is a cover for intolerance and Christophobia that borders on sheer bigotry. If you don’t agree with their views, you are excluded and punished.
In contrast with the inclusiveness of those Christian churches who welcome practising homosexuals, atheists, and Muslims into their congregations with open arms, and whose god has no punishment lined up for non-believers.
That is the ugly position the Co-op bank has taken. Leaders of all faiths in the UK should condemn the bank and call on their adherents to boycott the Co-op. After all, once the bank has finished with the evangelical Christian Voice organisation, logic insists that the Co-op must go after orthodox Catholics, Jews and Muslims next, as they also consider homosexuality sinful and disordered – unless, like the perennial playground bully, the Co-op only picks on small organisations.
Time will tell.
MWW wonders how, say, Stonewall would get on if it wished to use the services of, for example, Kingdom Bank?
hee hee Christophobia.
aaaaargh! jeebus! run away! run away!
Interesting assertion there in the joint statement.
“Logic” dictates that rather than introducing a bifurcation fallacy, one should consider other reasons why the Co-op would want to distance themselves from the mis-named Christian Voice – could it be because their *attitude* is aggressive to point of being openly homophobic? Heavens forbid….
The point is true. If the Co-Op excludes people on those particular grounds, there are an awful lot of others that they ought to be excluding. No-one’s disagreeing with that, right?
Can you give an example of a Co-op Bank account holder which should be excluded on the same grounds as CV?
No Christopher, because CV are exceptionally voiceiferous about homosexuality. You could almost say the Green is obsessed with it. Methinks he doth protest too much.
A high proportion of Muslims, for a start. A whole lot of Christians. A whole lot of over-60s.
I’d be surprised if there were any muslim groups (particularly the very voiciferous ones) who used a western-style bank, rather than one in accordance with islamic law (i think it’d have to not lend money or something).
And when you say the over-60s, are there many groups with names like ‘pensioners against poofs’?
This wasn’t a decision about individual conscience, but about institutional bigotry.
Christian Voice calling someone intolerant?
Pot, meet kettle.
People act according to their own consciences. This often involves going against the majority, since there are all kinds of ‘forces’ (peer pressure / following the crowd; fear of being uncool; lack of historical imagination; lack of global cultural awareness; never really having thought much about it etc.) that may force the majority to go the way they do.
It seems unfair to penalise ppl for following their own conscience. That is equivalent to rewarding them for going against their own conscience.
That said, there is an issue about how ppl’s consciences are formed in the first place. So the worse thing is to penalise ppl for conclusions which they reach on the basis of statistical evidence. If the Co-Op or anyone else ever starts doing that, then for sure we will all be against them.
‘sfunny how christains and others are prepared to deny others a whole lot of free expression, and crave censorship of television, so we can only watch what *they* approve of… Yet when someone objects to them, and tries to deny their freedom of expression etc, all hell is let loose.
In honesty I am glad these “Christians” are getting taste of their own medicine. I hope they learn something about freedom…. I hope they learn that they’ve got to respect the rights of others, if they want THEIR rights respecting in return…
Re comment on main web page relating to this thread about Kingdom bank –
According to “Kingdom Bank” when I asked them if a gay man could have an account there:
”
Kingdom Bank does not restrict it’s savings accounts to particular groups of people and does not seek any information regarding savers apart from that required to manage their accounts.
“
Interesting stance by Christian Voice – makes me wonder when either of their apparent members was last inside a church!
How can Stephen Green not have noticed that every responsible Christian charity in the UK maintains their account with the Co-op because they are the only high street bank who guarantee not to invest in the arms trade? I’ve personally been at committee meetings of charities where clergy representing the major denominations have demanded Co-op Bank accounts as a condition of their church’s participation.
By comparison, if you’d like to discover which ‘caring’ church groups still have blood on their hands, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade Christian Network maintain a public record which can be accessed on their website.
It seems unfair to penalise ppl for following their own conscience. That is equivalent to rewarding them for going against their own conscience.
My conscience means I feel like burning down every Christian church I walk past – they’re a symbol of unspeakable villainy as far as I’m concerned. The laws and customs of a civilised society mean I do not – I simply campaign and work to kill it off.
Presumably you are stating that I should actually be free to burn them down? Or is this another case of “people should be allowed to do what they like, as long as I agree with it”?
Hi Andy-
If you read on in my comment, I point out that conscience itself is not infallible, since the sources of conscience are many and not always reliable. So in the last resort we have to rely not on conscience but on statistics.