The Aftermath of the Stephen Green Case

There was an interesting article in yesterday’s Telegraph, discussing the position of Christians in the light of the recent Stephen Green case that I was discussing a few days ago. Interesting because I broadly agree with the thrust of the arguments made. Also interesting because it propagates the usual insidious myths that the religious try to perpetuate about the irreligious.

After all, the Bible is the moral code that underpins our society.

No it isn’t. Once, when ours was effectively a Catholic theocracy, it might have. Morality is the distinction between good and bad, right and wrong. Frankly, if I want guidance on this, the Bible is the last place I would look. This is, after all, a tome that relates how God requires a believer to be ready to sacrifice his son in order to demonstrate his subservience to his god. Where, exactly does our society’s moral code accept this as suitable behaviour?

In Exodus, God is supposed to have murdered all the first born of Egypt. This is part of our moral code, is it? Still with Exodus, God thinks it is okay to beat a slave to death providing one doesn’t do it too quickly. One presumes that God thinks slavery is okay, too. This is part of our society’s moral code? God also does Genocide (again, Exodus). Er, that’s moral, is it? Moving on a bit, to Deuteronomy, God reckons that mass murder and pillage is acceptable behaviour for the victorious over the vanquished. Moral behaviour? I could go on, but you get the drift… This hateful book is not the basis of morality in our society, it is the basis of morality in a barbaric and prehistoric society. We have, I would hope, moved on since then.

People claim that Christian countries (and I hesitate to say that we are that any more) use the ten commandments as a moral code. Yeah, right… Of the ten commandments, four are to do with one’s relationship with God (and nothing to do with morality). The rest are either a matter of personal conscience or a part of the moral and legal code of every civilisation. And, before someone points out that my references are all from the old testament and Jesus swept all this aside, in Matthew, he states: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Jesus sanctioned this stuff. If he ever existed, that is.

Moving on…

The incident highlights Christianity’s modern-day dilemma. Increasingly, its congregations feel they are being sandwiched between twin threats: from secularism and from Islamic extremists.

Excuse me? Note the neat conflation of Islamic terrorism and secularism here. When, exactly, did the last secular terrorist strap on a bomb belt and blow up innocent people? Yet we are lumped together with extremists as a “threat”.

While I’m happy enough to let people get on with worshipping whatever imaginary friend they wish, and to talk to others about it, I also hope that enlightenment reasoning will eventually prevail. So, I suppose, in that context, we are a threat. It’s just the repugnant way that the author draws an equivalence that annoys me. Unlike the Islamic terrorist, I am not going to try and force my views upon practising Christians with the threat of death or violence. Indeed, unless the matter is raised (as it is here), I’m not going to mention it at all.

Having had my complaint, I’ll go on to reiterate that broadly, I agree with the gist of the article’s argument. This, from Dan Horrocks:

What worried him particularly was the police’s role. “They increasingly think it is their business to tell Christians what they can and cannot say,” he said. It is an issue that is also causing growing concern within the ranks of the Evangelical Alliance, which represents 1.2 million British Christians. “A lot of people get the distinct impression that there are certain minorities that are protected more by our laws than others,” said Dr Don Horrocks, its head of communications.

Quite. To misquote George Orwell’s Animal Farm; some minorities are more equal than others. It is not the police’s role to tell people what they can or cannot say. It was not part of their role to arrest Mr Green for dishing out leaflets to gay people. Gay people, like other people are perfectly capable of refusing to accept the leaflets. I do it all the time when travelling through Paddington.

And I do applaud the stance taken by Salvation Army Major, Malcolm Hampton:

One who has fought back is Major Malcolm Hampton, of the Salvation Army. When his band was asked to play carols at the switching on of the Christmas lights in Oakengates, Shropshire, he refused, because the local council had rebranded the event as “winter celebrations” to avoid offending non-Christians.

It was, Mr Hampton felt, the final straw. “We decided to take a stand,” he said. “We are a Christian church and it is a Christian festival which we did not want to see undermined or demeaned. They decided to remove the word Christmas from the event and we thought it was the thin end of the wedge. Enough is enough.”

Indeed. So, by all means defend your right to practice your faith. By all means point out the inequalities that marginalise you for practising it. But don’t project that faith onto those of us who do not believe, and don’t conflate secularism with Islamic extremism. Thank you.