“Is Britain becoming intolerant to Christians?”
Druid Priestess Emma Restall Orr, Reverend Martin Reynolds from the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement and journalist Lowri Turner will be leading the debate, which will look at cases such as Caroline Petrie, the Christian nurse who was struck off the register for offering to pray for patients, and Gary McFarlane, the Christian Relate counsellor who was sacked for refusing to give sex therapy to homosexual couples.
BBC presenter (and practising Anglican) Jeremy Vine has spoken of how he believes Christians are becoming social pariahs in Britain, and feels unable to talk about his faith on his Radio 2 show.
Vine told Reform, the magazine of the United Reformed Church, earlier this year:
Just blurting it out would be destructive. Â Just because something’s true doesn’t mean you can say it. Â That’s quite an important principle. Â Once I put my cards on the table about my faith in discussions, it becomes problematic.
Even Tony Blair jumped on the bandwagon when he revealed in 2007 that he had been unable to be open about his faith when Prime Minister for fear that people would label him a “nutter”.
It’s difficult if you talk about religious faith in our political system. Â If you are in the American political system or others then you can talk about religious faith and people say ‘Yes, that’s fair enough,’ and it is something they respond to quite naturally.
You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you’re a nutter.
Despite being discriminated against, their presence must demand at least a modicum of ‘special respect’, for I received the following instructions by email:
We usually advise people to dress smart-casual but please do wear whatever you feel comfortable in. Checked or striped clothes often cause a problem on camera and items that are revealing or religiously offensive often induce complaints from viewers!
Any questions, or tips on what to wear, welcomed.
The Big Questions will be broadcast live from 10am-11am on BBC1
Sunday 12th July 2009
Jeremy Vine`s a pain in the arse!
Is it more that the country is getting intolerant to intolerance?
In a country where rationality is showing that Christianity is just another religious cult people are getting fed up with having Christians telling us what to do based on what their invisible friend is telling them to do. If Christians kept their views to themselves and didn’t try and force their views on others and affect the laws affecting all of us no-one would bother with them. We aren’t intolerant of Druids because they keep themselves to themselves.
Well said, Alfster!
That’s about the size of it. Especially when it comes to gays. Christians seem unable to tell the difference between being persecuted and being prevented from persecuting others.
I’d hope someone else would bring this up, but if you have to, perhaps you could say something along the lines of: “The Prime Minister is a Christian, most of the cabinet are Christians, the leader of the opposition is a Christian, most of the shadow cabinet is a Christian, and out of all political parties with members in the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and NI Assembly, only one has a leader that isn’t a Christian. Several C of E bishops sit in the house of lords and the head of state is required by law to be a Christian. Outside politics, we have restricted shopping hours on a Sunday, we have tax payer funded Christian schools and even non religious schools are required to have at least one act of Christian worship each week. We have Christian chaplains funded by the taxpayer in almost every hospital in the country. So please, just how is this country intolerant to Christians?”
Or is that too long a question?
Andrew, I think that’s a brilliant question.
I agree – an excellent question. If you can somehow trim it down a bit to make it realistic to actually get on TV, I think this should be asked.
Spot on! What really gets up their prissy little noses is the fact that some of us are capable of thinking for ourselves, and have chosen NOT to be Christians!!
Is this where Christians whine that it’s increasingly hard to find Advent Calendars, or moan that they’re being oppressed because they don’t get to force religion onto people as often as they’d like?
Someone was sacked for refusing to do their job – whatever next. I imagine the same would apply to anyone who refused to give sex therapy to Christians, so whatever one thinks of this, it’s hardly discrimination against Christians. I imagine that gay Christians would have something to say about that case, too.
At least they don’t have to worry about whether they’ll be sacked, or not allowed to apply for promotion, if they’re an atheist teacher working at a Church owned school.
Anyway, have fun. How about dressing as a pirate, out of respect for the Flying Spaghetti Monster…? 🙂
PS The Pound Shops around here are stuffed full of them from October onwards, so they are obviously looking in all the wrong places! Perhaps if you`re a “Yawn-Again Christian” Pound Shops are too “worldly”, and you have to restrict your bargain-hunting to the Shekel Stores!!
That comment was supposed to follow my following comment – in case it doesn`t make sense! I think I`ll just go back to bed today and start all over again!!
Yes, Mark, it specificaly states in the Book of Codswallop, Chapter 666 v 3,768,584: “Woe unto the house that hath not ye Advent Calendar on display in ye run-up to Christmas. Verily, I shall visit said house with ye plague of boils and of locusts and of pestilence because of their exceeding great sinfulness. I the Lord am loving God, full of compassion and mercy.” (Very interesting articles – but don`t these bozos make you sick?)
Britain is not becoming intolerant to Christians but what is clear is that various pressure groups from the two biggest religions of Christianity and Islam are constantly bleating that there is some sort of conspiracy against their faith and that people are out to destroy their religion and stop them believing what they want to belief.
With the Christian lobby groups there is more than a bit of xenophobia (believing that there is a Muslim conspiracy to wipe out Christanity and make this country an Islamic state) and with the Islam lobby there’s some paranioa (believing that racists are everywhere trying to destroy Islam).
Each group clamours to be more offended and aggrieved than the other. Taking offence at something someone has said about their religion becomes a badge of honour.
When being offended the Christian lobbys display a lot of xenophobia with the tired old line “THEY WOULDN’T SAY THAT ABOUT ISLAM!”
I hope someone records this and sticks it up on YouTube.
My advice is to dress up as Bruno , come in on a wire, and land arse first on Nicky Campbell! That should get your views a bit of publicity!!
A suggestion with a risk you might find it somehow disagreeable..
The focus of the show, in my mind, betrays its line of questioning “tolerance”. Tolerance is, I think, a religious rather than a secular question. The secular question would be that of equality, for example, are religions in Britain are equal?
Religions, historically, have proved that they do not seek equality, but, at times they do relate to a predefined “other”, it comes with either violence, or the next best thing – tolerance. In other words, if I try to place the notion in practice, tolerance is as ridiculous as saying that as a man I am willing to tolerate women, or as a European, I am willing to tolerate Asians, and so on.
Now sure, equality is not a given, it is a process, but then, isn’t the very feelings of some Christians as not being tolerated by the rest of society, stem from the fact that the rest of society recognise Christianity’s place in the socio-political structure, a tad higher than other groups?
Is it not that the very fact that the show focuses on tolerance betrays the reality, in this case, of religious, inequalities? (..to which ofcourse Christianity is top-dog in this country, with links to power, educational systems, etc..)
Personally, I’d probably ask a question on that vain – hope you can find a better one..
Have fun! 🙂
I am intrigued by this angle of not wanting to be seen as a nutter. It suggests that Christians are fully aware that their beliefs are in fact nutty. Zombies, magic trees, talking animals, prophesies and a magic wonderland to go to after you die, all belong in fairy tales.
I also can’t understand the people who reject all the absurdities but still claim to believe in what is left, as far as I can see, there is nothing of much substance left at all.
As for intolerance, Christianity has historically been the most intolerant religion, and among some Christians it still is.
If I had more time I’d order this: http://bit.ly/yqSO4
TOLERANCE
To put up with; endure.
Andrew, if it is pointed out that virtually the whole of government is Christian all that will happen is ‘they’ will say…well, there you go the UK is Christian and the secular portion is a minority who should cede to the Christian majority…though I doubt they would use the word ‘cede’ it’s a bit of a ‘big’ word isn’t…
Aharon
Our enemies’ enemy is our friend…which is why you will see Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders standing together against secularism…once they have shut us up they can then start on each other. They have something in common:they ‘believe’ in something whereas we do not. Get rid of the rationalists and at least they only have other nutbars who believe in skyfairies to contend with.
‘Atheism: a non-prophet organisation’. Funny for athiests but just reinforcing the view of religious people that athiesm IS an organisation which it is isn’t. You can’t herd cats!
Very good, again, Alfster! I always wondered why I was a “cat person”, and now I know!!
I have watched with interest as the thread of this particular discussion has unravelled. I have been impressed by the people who have contributed to it in a reasonable and coherent manner but astonished by the people who have expressed themselves in a manner that suggests an inability to engage in a discussion with any reason or coherence at all. I appreciate that this is ‘a freespeech weblog’ but fail to see how a person’s views can be taken seriously when that person simply engages in an irrational outpouring of invective and vitriol. And I thought that Christians had the problem…
“I fucking hate those bastard Christians…”
JDavies, could you be more specific please?
For a short soundbite question how about “Can the panel explain why a secular society should be tolerant of an organisation that is homophobic and misogynistic, an organisation that is exempt from equal opportunities employment law?”.
That should at least shut them up about wearing religious symbols in normal workplaces.
“Is Britain becoming intolerant to Christians?†One can only hope!
Why should an organisation with huge assets and millions in the bank need public money to support them in their crusade against free-thinkers, gays, abortion, stem cell research…..
Angela, its an interesting point..
You are talking about chritian organisations which are indeed being privileged in the UK. However, for individual christians, it might be a different experience. I do not know, am not one. However, I would like to live in a society where people feel welcomed to speak their mind fearlessly.
The thing is, to which, perhaps, the head archbishop of Anglicans, referred to sometime ago, when raised a thought of “divorcing” the church from the state – that by being members of privileged organisations, christians may find themselves in a trap due to the systemic inequality such membership brings to mind. I do not think that all christians a privileged by default – but may be perceived as privileged by default.
As was pointed to in other posts here, the question of privilege – hence of its tolerance by the rest of population – is what each religious group strives for. This is the notion of “respect my religion and shut up”, that comes in so many guises. So its a question that goes beyond christianity and into how do we get an society that looks for equality, while still having religious groupings about..
Maybe, because tolerance requires power – either to exercise it or to be afraid of it – christians as individuals might want to ask themselves whether they want a society striving for equality or tolerance among its members.
The programme was an absolute disaster, and must have put back our cause by years. The Christians were well-chosen (surprise!surprise!), and came over as reasonable, well-informed, VERY well-prepared, and articulate. The atheists appeared to be an ill-informed, shrill, semi-coherent rabble, and must have left any open-minded viewer with the clear impression that THEY were, in fact, the bigots!! Oh,dear! Oh, dear! Oh,dear!
Not sure this person from the Beeb Religion messageboard would agree:
” rachelathome
I found it difficult to watch the ridiculing of the 2 Christians on the show just now, talk about throwing them to the lions!”
As usual, giving the impression that athiests are agressive again.
The problem is that if you were to have a discussion with a flat-earther and a round earther it would seem that the flat-earther is being ridiculed simply beacuse their arguments cant stand up to logical scrutiny and people hate being shown to be wrong. So, when secularist and ‘rational thinkers’ discuss with god-botherers the god-botherers come out worse…unless of course they have had the pat answers to everything bored itno them for decades.
Practically the last image of the programme was of some silly old bat shouting and screaming that all churches should be pulled down, and the land put to better use for the community! This may be an admirable idea to some humanists (though I am a lover of church architecture myself, and would never advocate such a course of action), but the impression given to viewers was of rabid opposition to those with religious convictions, and did little to support the thesis that they are not being discriminated against in our society!!
It is worth noting that while the Christians had been hand-picked, the only atheist who was ‘selected’ by the Beeb was the politician woman in the front row. Everyone else who spoke in defense of secularism were simply a random assortment of audience members – ranging from the mildly intellectual to the batshit crazy.
It’s also worth noting that not nearly as much camera time was devoted to said audience members. I had quite a few rebuttals I planned to say, but was only given the chance to speak once.
In retrospect, if I’d known I’d only have the chance to ask one question I might have chosen a better topic than sacrificed goats…
Yes – the AM member. And even she let the bigotted black bastard from Relate off the hook!! Just supposing HE had gone for counselling and someone had refused to see him on the grounds of his colour? The very idea is outrageous, but if you`re gay then that`s a “matter of conscience” then, is it? I am absolutely seething with anger that he was allowed to get away with it, and even made to appear to be the one who had been wronged!!!
I was there and did my best to challenge the guy on the fact that he was screaming equality whilst refusing to offer equality for gay couples.
There`s a very funny cartoon about “Christian Persecution” over at http://proudatheists.wordpress.com/ (Scroll down for it, but the rest is very good, too!).
What do we expect from the Bible Broadcasting Corporation, headed by a catholic and crawling with religious nutters. We will never get a fair hearing at the BBC due to its bias, deference to religion and being the Labour party’s mouthpiece – not to mention the BBC’s attempt and social engineering.
We are a rag-tag collection of free-thinkers, we are not organised very well and therefore doomed to fail. Furthermore, unlike the religions we do not have taxpayer’s money to support our cause – if indeed we have one – nor are any of us “groomed†by PR consultants as our opponents are.
If we want to stop religion interfering with our lives, we must find a way to be organised and perhaps have a number of people to speak on our behalf – along the lines Keith Porteous-Wood of the National Secular Society.
The National Secular Society website can be found at:
http://www.secularism.org
They have a free e-newsletter and issue quarterly reports. They also campaign tirelessly on behalf of unbelievers.
Sorry, I think that should be:
http://www.secularism.org.uk