Church of England in crisis

The Archbishop of Canturbery celebrating 25 years of women’s ordination to the priesthood in 2019                Source: CofE

Now, thirty years after the first ordinations of women to the priesthhood, one of their number, the Bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, is calling on Justin Welby to resign.

She has decribed the archbishop's position "untenable" following a damning report into abuse by a prolific child abuser associated with the Church.

She is not alone in her demand. The Revd Dr Ian Paul, a member of General Synod and the Archbishops’ Council, has, among others, initiated a petition calling for Welby's immediate resignation:

"Given his role in allowing abuse to continue, we believe that his continuing as the Archbishop of Canterbury is no longer tenable. We must see change, for the sake of survivors, for the protection of the vulnerable, and for the good of the Church—and we share this determination across our traditions. With sadness we do not think there is any alternative to his immediate resignation if the process of change and healing is to start now."

The archbishop is already under fire for making comments contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England after expressing his views on gay sex outside marriage.

One abuse survivor has demanded a “clean sweep” of senior clergy members. Allegedly, 7 or 8 bishops knew what was going on.

MPs are already considering a call to remove Church of England bishops from House of Lords, thus lessening their influence. 

If Welby does resign no doubt there will be fresh demands for a woman to become the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury providing feminists with yet another opportunity for celebration their success in the Church. 

Update

Archbishop of Canterbury resigns

BBC report here.

Election farce

 

Standing in the rain outside 10 Downing Street on Wednesday, the Prime Minister announced that there would be a General Election on 4 July, 2024.

Inclement weather was not the only thing Rishi Sunak was forced to deal with. He had to battle against a loud speaker which almost drowned him out as protesters played 'Things Can Only Get Better'!

Protesters now do as they please, disrupting the free movement of traffic, defacing works of art and public monuments, all under the guise of free speech.

Those of us who are sick and tired of protesters who abuse our freedoms to beat us over the head with will have ample opportunity to demand to know from candidates what they and their Parties propose to do to defend true British values against such abuse.

Resigned to Anglican Bishop Blunders!

The Bishop of Reading, Olivia Graham, attracted more criticism than she might have anticipated after the first of four 'environment' talks on Care for creation. 

The Rev Peter Ould tweeted: "What rampant heresy is this @oxforddiocese? God did not pour 'godself' (searches Bible for word) into the Universe. God and the universe are clearly distinct. This is basic theology."

After criticism of the bishop's video message Oxford diocese added this comment: "A number of commentators have said that the core message of this film by the Bishop of Reading is pantheistic or panentheistic. Of course, this isn’t the intended message of the film. Read a response from Bishop Olivia here." As a woman of some notoriety might have said: Well she would say that, wouldn't she?

Up North, the Bishop of Carlisle is facing calls to quit after he wrote – but later withdrew – a character reference for a paedophile priest. The issue became public after the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) released its report into the Church of England's handling of child sexual abuse. The inquiry’s damning report concluded that the Church of England failed to protect children from sexual abuse.

The Church in Wales did not escape criticism in the IICSA Report. The Inquiry found that "to date, the Church in Wales has never had a programme of external auditing, so there has been no independent scrutiny of its safeguarding practices. It also highlights record-keeping as a significant problem for the Church; the Inquiry’s sampling exercise demonstrated both poor record-keeping and a total absence of records in some cases."

'Barry Morgan's true legacy!' wrote a regular commentator under a previous entry. 

The former Archbishop of Wales did much to encourage the like-minded to interpret scripture as they pleased in pursuit of their secular, political goals. Something that attracted a stinging response from An Anglican Theologian among others.

Liberal drift is the legacy of Western Anglicanism. Oceanographer and former Presiding Bishop of the US Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, mentor of women bishops in Wales, left the Episcopal Church in a dire state of decline, foundering like the Church in Wales with the Church of England following close behind.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Anglican Communion, has often faced criticism, most recently from child sex abuse victims who have called for the Archbishop to quit. 

Archbishop Welby said that the damning findings of the IICSA inquiry were a 'big wake-up call' but he refused calls to resign insisting that he was "better staying in the role to continue his work"!

There have been previous calls for archbishop Welby to resign here, here and here. In the unlikely event that he were to go there would be more problems. His replacement would be political, not spiritual, causing more problems for the Anglican Communion.

As the current Archbishop of Wales said when he replaced Barry Morgan, it would be more of the same but faster, thus further hastening the demise of the Church of England and Western Anglicanism.

Essex "Oik" to be Confirmed as Archbishop of York.

BLM supporter Cottrell is also a vocal supporter of same‑sex relationships          Source: The Times

The self proclaimed “Oik from Essex” is to be confirmed as the 98th Archbishop of York at 11am on Thursday 9 July, 2020, in a service broadcast entirely via video conference due to the Coronavirus restrictions.

An apt description for a bishop in favour of same-sex relationships who has come out as a Black Lives Matter (BLM) supporter claiming that Jesus was a black man rather than a Jew.

It is reported in The Press that the new archbishop also claimed "the country's leaders had 'let us down' saying he despaired of a political culture that could not see beyond the five-year term of the next election."

That's rich coming from one of the Church of England bishops who have made the Church of England largely irrelevant in its attempt to become more relevant to society, jettisoning faithful Anglicans in the process with disastrous results as indicated by ever decreasing attendance.

Cottrell also warned of the "dangers of extremism rising up" but he backs the BLM movement, a movement that is about revolution.

According to The Spectator BLM want to ‘dismantle capitalism’, abolish prisons, get rid of borders and the police. They claim climate change is 'racist', unemployment is 'violence', that Churchill was 'staunchly racist' and that the government appointment of a Pakistani heritage woman is 'racist'. They 'condemn stop and search' and the suffragettes while describing big charities as 'colonisers'.

Writing about qualities required of Church leaders Christian Today commented that a Sunday Times interview with the new Archbishop of York was startling, puzzling – offensive?:

"The New Testament is pretty clear that those in leadership should be able to control their tongues better than most.

"It is surprising to read in the Sunday Times  that Cottrell 'peppers his talks to his clergy with phrases such as "what the bloody hell" and "who gives a toss?".'...Why use these words when there are more than 170,000 other ones in English to choose from? Cottrell needs to read Ephesians 4 v29. This is no trivial thing.

"Another quality the Bible tells us to expect from a church leader is that they 'must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine'.  Not for nothing does the Church of England consecration service for Bishops state that they must be 'guardians of the faith of the apostles'.

"But how can Cottrell do that in relation to issues of sexual morality? Far from teaching the doctrine of Christ in this area as the Church of England believes it, and handing it on in its entirety, he only 'understands it and respects it' according to the interview. Indeed, as is well known, he wants to change it."

Asked if there was any room for New Testament teaching on leadership? "On that, Bishop Cottrell, in this interview at least, remains silent."

He has however apologised for not properly reporting allegations of domestic abuse made against a parish priest a decade ago.

There were allegations that Cottrell's predecessor Archbishop John Sentamu failed to respond properly to a report of clerical child abuse to protect bishops from allegations of misconduct but any evidence was, allegedly, washed away in the Yorkshire floods.

In the last century four archbishops were translated from York to Canterbury.

One can but speculate on the qualities that will be required for the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

As Cottrell replaces a black man as Archbishop of York he has called for greater equality for black and minority ethnic (BAME) clergy in the upper echelons of the church, and said bishops “must take responsibility” for a lack of diversity.

The bishop of Dover has made similar calls.

You couldn't make it up.

Postscript [09.07.2020]

During Archbishop Welby's confirmation of Stephen Cottrell as Archbishop of York he referred to "the care, government and administration of the spirituals of the Archbigot of York" before hastily correcting himself . [After position 34 in the video.]

Freudian slip?

Victims

Neil Todd met the Bishop of Gloucester (pictured) in 1993 at 16 years old while acting as his trainee
and was the first victim to tell senior clergy about Ball's sex crimes. Source: MailOnline

Yet again, child sex abuse has been dominating the news headlines. Another harrowing report Commissioned by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham found that "A paedophile grooming gang was left to roam the streets of Manchester - and police knew who they were and exactly what they were doing:

- Social workers knew that one 15-year-old girl, Victoria Agoglia, was being forcibly injected with heroin, but failed to act. She died two months later.

- Abusers were allowed to freely pick up and have sex with Victoria and other children from city care homes, ‘in plain sight’ of officials.

- Greater Manchester Police dropped an operation that identified up to 97 potential suspects and at least 57 potential victims. Eight of the men went on to later assault or rape girls.

- As recently as August 2018, the Chief Constable refused to reopen the dropped operation.

Greater Manchester Police's Operation Augusta was set up to tackle "the sexual exploitation throughout a wide area of a significant number of children in the care system by predominantly Asian men".

From The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997 – 2013):
"By far the majority of perpetrators were described as 'Asian' by victims, yet throughout the entire
period, councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how
best they could jointly address the issue. Some councillors seemed to think it was a one-off problem,
which they hoped would go away. Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the
ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction
from their managers not to do so."

Not so reticent was former home secretary Jack Straw who was accused of stereotyping Pakistani men in Britain after he accused some of them as regarding white girls as "easy meat" for sexual abuse. "We need to get the Pakistani community to think much more clearly about why this is going on and to be more open about the problems that are leading to a number of Pakistani heritage men thinking it is OK to target white girls in this way."

Leading the attack against Jack Straw, Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee said it was wrong to "stereotype a whole community". Vaz was suspended from the Commons for six months after he was found to have "expressed willingness" to purchase cocaine for male prostitutes. He stood down before the General Election.

Many of the gangs' victims lived in child care homes, often miles away from their families but their plight was ignored for fear of being accused of racism.

Also ignored but in more comfortable surroundings were the victims of Anglican bishop Peter Ball and his accomplices. His friendship with Prince Charles made the paedophile bishop 'impregnable' while establishment figures rallied round to support.

There was a presumption of innocence, as there was in the case of Carl Beech who accused senior politicians, army and security chiefs of sadistic sexual abuse and claimed to have witnessed boys being murdered in the 1970s and 1980s. He was jailed for 18 years for perverting the course of justice, fraud and child sexual offences. The Metropolitan Police spent £2m looking into Beech's allegations, all of which proved to be false.

Bishop Peter Ball escaped such scrutiny. When charged with improper conduct towards Neil Todd a young novice monk he was given a caution and released after pressure from establishment figures. It was made clear that many bishops of the Church of England from the top down knew of the allegations. When Ball was cautioned other victims came forward, writing to Lambeth Palace detailing similar behaviour. The letters were not handed to the police.

 The story unfolds in the BBC documentary Exposed: The Church's Darkest Secret. Had it involved one apparently holy man manipulating victims and supporters alike, the deception would have been understandable. What is not is the blatant disregard for Ball's victims by bishops who knew of the abuse, withholding evidence, and the establishment campaign to discredit victims and avoid further investigation.

Another of Ball's victims, the Rev Graham Sawyer, had been introduced to him under a scheme Ball had started in 1980 called Give a Year to God, where teenagers and young men would go to live with him to 'learn the ways of a holy man'. After Sawyer rejected his advances, Ball said he would make sure he would never be ordained. He was true to his word. Sawyer was rejected for ordination. He moved to New Zealand where he was ordained three years later.

At The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), a solicitor for five survivors of abuse by Peter Ball told panel members:

"But what is now very clear is that in the Church of England, Peter Ball found the perfect cover for his offending. If a charlatan with an insatiable appetite for abuse wanted to secure a continuous supply of vulnerable young victims, there was no better way of achieving this than by founding a religious order not subject to any external supervision, and by making his victims' participation in the abuse a religious duty obligated by their oath of absolute obedience. Not for the first time, theology and religious ritual provided the ideal mask for abuse, with the evil of what Peter Ball did being compounded by his nauseating claim that the abuse was spiritually uplifting.

"Most of all, however, Peter Ball found in his fellow bishops in the Church of England the perfect accomplices, prepared to turn a blind eye to his abuse over many decades, to collude in the lie that the abuse of Neil Todd was an uncharacteristic aberration, to cast doubt on Ball's guilt, to smear his victims, and to rehabilitate him.

"It is now clear that for many years before the 1992 investigation, there were many in the Church of England who knew of or must have suspected his offending, and decided to turn a blind eye to it, and later tried to evade their own culpability by claiming that Ball had never really offended at all. Eric Kemp, the Bishop of Chichester, was aware of serious concerns about Ball well before 1992, yet in 2006 he repeated the lie that Ball's resignation had been the 'work of mischief makers'."

One would have thought that such a damning indictment would have seen many heads roll but this is the Church of England. Instead they continue as they wish. So there are more cover ups, this time in the evangelical wing, again going right to the top. Video HERE.

In no way comparable to the suffering inflicted by abusers on innocent children and young men, those who have looked for guidance to bishops now shown to be guilty of duplicity may be classed as spiritual victims of bishops who have been shown to care only for themselves and the establishment, not for those supposedly in their care.

Postscript [16.01.2020]

From Church Times:

Belated apologies from bishops and church leaders, praising survivors of the serial abuser Peter Ball for their bravery, after their testimonies appeared in a new BBC documentary on the case, broadcast this week. The church leaders also condemned the “cover-up” of abuse by the Church. Full report HERE.

Cop out?

Pope Francis and the devil                                                          Source: Twitter

As the sexual abuse crisis continues to haunt the Catholic Church Pope Francis blames the devil. 

He says the devil is alive and well and working overtime to undermine the Roman Catholic Church according to a report in Christian Today.

Too convenient? More here.

The Church is in a mess with Western Anglicanism on the brink and disunity in the Orthodox Church.

Does the Pope have a point?

If this doesn't make you weep...

https://twitter.com/NaomiOhReally/status/1031597634916630530

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10157051750178452&id=68969193451

Apologies for the crude presentation of this entry, H/T @gavinashenden, but if it doesn't make you weep....

The perils of organised religion

In March this year the Guardian carried an article 'Christianity as default is gone': the rise of a non-Christian Europe.

It showed that "In the UK, only 7% of young adults identify as Anglican, fewer than the 10% who categorise themselves as Catholic. Young Muslims, at 6%, are on the brink of overtaking those who consider themselves part of the country’s established church."

The figures are published in a report, Europe’s Young Adults and Religion, by Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary’s University in London. They are based on data from the European social survey 2014-16.

"According to Bullivant, many young Europeans 'will have been baptised and then never darken the door of a church again. Cultural religious identities just aren’t being passed on from parents to children. It just washes straight off them'.

"The figures for the UK were partly explained by high immigration, he added. 'One in five Catholics in the UK were not born in the UK'.

"And we know the Muslim birthrate is higher than the general population, and they have much higher [religious] retention rates.

"In Ireland, there has been a significant decline in religiosity over the past 30 years, 'but compared to anywhere else in western Europe, it still looks pretty religious', Bullivant said.

“The new default setting is ‘no religion’, and the few who are religious see themselves as 'swimming against the tide', he said."

The BBC recently highlighted a ComRes survey for the Asian Network. It revealed that "On religion, over half of 18-34 year olds in the general population said it wasn't important to them "at all". Just 8% of young British Asians said the same.

"Overall, 46% of British Asians said it was "very important" to them - compared to 12% of the general population."

Christianity is shrinking while Islam expands.

In Anglicanism the reasons are clear. As physical education activities are reduced in schools, sports replace religion on Sundays. Consequently few families attend church.

Also, the Anglican Church which provided the means of expressing one's faith in a structured way in fellowship with others has has been secularized, again resulting in falling attendances as gender politics have replaced spirituality.

Sadly nobody in the church cares about the disaffected. It is good riddance to worshippers who were valued only for their giving.

In Wales, what felt comfortable and familiar is being replaced by an alien structure reminiscent of nonconformity as the bishops tinker with the structure and employ more 'experts' to keep themselves in employment.

Anglican congregations are increasingly identified as elderly. The absence of families means the absence of children needed to maintain continuity. Without young people the church which nurtured past generations is dying.

So the routine ends.

For those whose lives revolved around the church, taking a step back from organised religion results in a significant change in their social lives as well as their spiritual lives.

After supporting the unsupportable for so long, former worshippers no longer have to accept what is served up week by week, often by manipulative clerics with a vested interest in what they preach. Faults projected onto submissive congregations, making them feel guilty and in need of forgiveness.

The problem with organised religion is that congregations are expected to obey the rules regardless of the examples set by those who seek change. Consequently views such as 'the Vicar knows best' or 'I just keep my head down' prevail implying acceptance.

Over the years much has been accepted in silence. Now stories of abuse abound.

Accounts of cruel treatment handed down by the Christian Brothers were accepted with resignation. The so-called care by nuns of "fallen women" in Magdalene laundries amounted to outright cruel exploitation.

That has changed. The Irish no longer fear the Roman Catholic Church as they did in the past.

Many RCs 'escaped' the authoritarianism by becoming 'middle road' Anglicans (catholic and reformed). They find themselves thrust into another quandary now that the Anglican church has departed from the catholic faith.

One Catholic priest who became an Anglican because he could not cope with a vow of celibacy appears to have accepted the whole 'do as you please' secular package. He has been forced to quit after it was discovered that he was having an affair with his married curate. Reminiscent of a former bishop of St Davids and his chaplain, the temptation of mixing with female colleagues can become too much.

"Lead us not into temptation" has clearly become more difficult for some clerics following the ordination of women, even when married.

Where celibacy is the rule temptation is more widespread. In the US state of Pennsylvania it is reported that more than 1,000 children were abused for decades by hundreds of priests and systemically covered up by church officials.

Stories of abuse are rife. They encourage critics to point the finger but it is not the Church. It is the people in it.

Guilt and the forgiveness of sins play a prominent part in organised religion. So much so that young children make up 'sins' so that they have something to confess. Meanwhile the most appalling abuse has been covered up by bishops fearing that the Church would be seen in a poor light!

Abuse is not confined to the clergy.

It was the 'purging of sins' which resulted in an alleged victim of a deceased former Christian charity leader being beaten by him 3,000 times in the shed of the perpetrator's home and at the camps he ran in Dorset for young evangelical Christians.

A confidential report seen by Channel 4 News in 2017 described what it called the “beatings” of 22 young men:

“The scale and severity of the practice was horrific…8 received about 14 thousand strokes: 2 of them having some 8000 strokes over three years,” the document, written in 1982, noted.

"Despite the findings of the report, the Iwerne Trust did not inform the police. Instead, a senior figure in the Iwerne Trust wrote to John Smyth, telling him to leave the country. He went on to live in Zimbabwe, and then South Africa."

Yet another cover up. The reports mount up.

For many Anglicans, supporting the unsupportable is no longer an option so there is a dilemma. For the architects of the dilemma, those who engineered the ordination of women, the answer is simple, go to Rome.

That suggestion shows a total lack of understanding of faith. Many who suggest it are late entrants who 'came to faith' when they saw a convenient opportunity for expanding the feminist movement. That has had dire consequences for the Anglican Church.

It is not a simple process of crossing one's fingers and saying what is necessary. Consequently people of conscience are stuck.

For them the 'catholic and reformed' Anglican Church is their church of choice. It says much about the bishops and those who are responsible for outlawing faithful worshippers that they couldn't care less about those who, effectively, have been excommunicated.

Christianity is under attack. Unless organised religion adapts to accommodate the few remaining Christians 'swimming against the tide' the outlook is bleak.

Predictions indicate that Western Anglicanism has no future. Secularizing the church has been an abysmal failure, surrendering the church to feminism and all the liberal baggage that comes with it.

True Anglicans have been thrown overboard, in Wales without a lifeboat. The mutineers are heading for the rocks.

While Anglican patrimony has been carried over to the Ordinariate, membership is confined to those who promise to accept the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. That is a big ask for anyone with a questioning mind as illustrated by the revelations detailed above.

Catholics who found that they could not in conscience continue to accept all the teaching of their church and who have become Anglicans along with Anglicans who can no longer accept the teaching of the Anglican Church are left in limbo.

Meanwhile the decline continues. Something has to give.

Protesters aiding the spread of Islam

Source: The Conservative Papers

If you think the claim on the placard (above) is ridiculous, think again. Many Muslims are working hard to ensure that not only Britain but that ALL countries are governed by Sharia law which is already offering "rough justice" for Muslim women "in the shadow of British law".

“Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man” said Aristotle. A practice put to good use by many but one which can be dangerous. The Trojan Horse scandal in Birmingham schools will be familiar to most people in the UK but there have been other worrying reports. In 2005 Muslim schools were accused of anti-Christian chanting in assemblies. The Christian Institute said that Ofsted and the Department for Education were not taking proper action to deal with some Islamic schools accused of bullying Christian pupils.

The Institute's director said it was "striking" that several official reports outlining examples of Muslim "intolerance" to Christians had gone ignored by Ofsted. "You will see they include anti-Christian chanting in assemblies, GCSE pupils who opted to learn Christianity being left to teach themselves, and Christians being called 'ignorant' or 'liars' by teachers," he wrote.

By comparison new figures have revealed that Muslim pupils outnumber Christian children in more than 30 church schools. One Church of England (CofE) primary school has a '100 per cent Muslim population'. In another 98 per cent of students are reported to come from a Muslim background and another has a 90 per cent Muslim population.

Their treatment is entirely different. The report refers to one CofE school where most of the children are Muslims. They begin each day with a school 'worship' recognising the place God in their lives. But which God? A vengeful god of fear who demands submission, the meaning of Islam, or the loving God of truth who sent Jesus Christ into the world bringing love and forgiveness to all prepared to listen.

In a CofE school where most pupils are Muslim, 'all children follow a course of Religious Education and observe both Christian and Muslim Festivals'. This is a fundamental to the problems facing Christians. Immigration and higher birth rates, added to by an estimated 20,000 polygamous marriages in the British Muslim community, is resulting in the growth of Islam while Christianity is waning. As many Christians desert the Church in despair of the leadership, Islam is treated with almost servile respect as a religion on a par with Christianity when in reality it is a supremacist ideology which threatens our way of life having been founded by a man who according to the Bible must be a false prophet.

As the Rev Jules Gomes put it in The Conservative Woman, 'Christian shepherds side with the Islamist wolf'. Not just Christian shepherds. Visiting Finsbury Park mosque during its open day, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn challenged the “demonisation” of Muslims and sent a message to Donald Trump that “drinking tea together is far more effective than pouring concrete to build walls to keep each other apart”.

Whatever Mr Corbyn thinks of President Trump his remarks betray a complete lack of understanding of the perils Islam present. Muslims may drink tea with non-Muslims when they are a minority but it is entirely different for non-Muslims, and for Muslims in minority sects, in Islamic countries.

Christians are being persecuted in Muslim countries around the world while church leaders and politicians prefer to take tea with followers of a faith which not only sanctions but encourages religious persecution and has done for 1400 years. Two recent examples. 'Fifteen Christian Women Raped By Muslim Mob In 'Revenge Attack' For Pastor Overseeing Conversions' (here) and 'Christians In Turkey: Attacked, Deported And Seen As A 'Threat Against National Security' (here).

The latest insult to British values occurred when a gang of UK Muslim men "systematically groomed" Rotherham teenagers. When they were convicted of crimes including rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment the sex abusers shouted 'Allahu Akbar' - 'Allah is Greater'. There was no mention of Muslims or Islam in the report, Neither was there in the BBC news report that I saw.

According a report here, "almost 90 % of all rapes and child grooming in the UK that was committed by Pakistani’s, resulted in a white girl under 16 being abused... Abduction and rape of young ‘kuffar’ (non-Muslim) children by Islamic Paedophile gangs is commonplace in areas near Muslim ghettoes in Britain."

While such behaviour is not be typical of all Muslims, it should signal the profound difference between an ideology in which followers are permitted to see such action against non-believers as being justified. This contrasts sharply with the 'love thy neighbour' movement where tolerance of others is permitted, even to the point of destruction of our own culture and values.

The Open Society movement in the US which has seen hordes of placard waving protesters demanding an end to immigration controls. That is not to say that I think Trump has approached the problem of 'dodgy' immigrants in a well-thought strategy but such protests used to be common in Europe until the penny dropped. The mood changed in Germany when 'Thousands took to the streets to protest Germany’s immigration policy following week of bloody violence'.

The Pew Research Centre says that the World’s Muslim population is 'more widespread than you might think'. The Centre estimates that by 2050 the number of Muslims worldwide will grow from an estimated 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.76 billion, or 29.7% of world’s population.

Jeremy Corbyn is one of many who succumbed to the Muslim charm offensive in the UK Mosque open day when "hundreds of Islamic centres across the country" welcomed visitors. Hundreds of people visited Finsbury Park mosque, which "gained notoriety as a centre of radical Islam in the late 1990s when the Egyptian cleric Abu Hamza became its imam". It is claimed that in 2005, the mosque underwent a change of leadership and is now considered "a model of community relations".

That may be so but the reverse is true when there us a Muslim majority in countries abroad:

 London mosque                                                                         Source; Guardian

Church in Turkey   Source: Christian Aid Mission

Whether the 'scales fall from their eyes' or not, one thing is clear. Christians have a duty to spread the Gospel, not to affirm other religions as if they were on a par with Christianity.

Islam has no problem denouncing Christians for believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, crucified, dead and buried. Christians should have no problem in recognising false prophets and must be prepared to say so.

Waters of life and death

Today is World Water Day. For Christians water will continue to be much in evidence this week in the Paschal Triduum liturgy of the foot washing and renewal of our baptismal vows.

Water is important in many faiths, be it plunging into the Ganges to wash away sins or Wudhu, the ritual washing performed by Muslims before prayer among them.

The images above compare the tranquility of the River Jordan, where John the Baptist identified Jesus as the Messiah while  baptizing, with the horror of seeing the blood of martyrs carried on the waves in the aftermath of the brutal beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by Muslims because they would not convert to Islam, staying faithful to Christ unto life's end.

Writing for The Independent Aaqil Ahmed the BBC's head of religion has warned that Britain needs to address its “chronic lack of religious literacy” if it is to accommodate the rise through new immigration of “more assertive” forms of Christianity with “conflicting views” on same-sex marriage and other human rights issues. His comments were made in advance of  a BBC1 documentary, The Battle for Christianity, to be broadcast late this evening (22 March) in which significant changes in the Christian Church in Britain are examined.

The threat to Christianity from within is clearly identified in the documentary. Quoting discredited statistics the Bishop of Buckingham, the Rt Rev Alan Wilson, claims that the Church’s resistance to same-sex marriage is "unacceptable to most young Anglican worshipers". Perhaps a little instruction would not come amiss, starting with trendy bishops.

The Independent article continues: "Linda Woodhead, a professor in politics, philosophy and religion at Lancaster University, claimed there was a "struggle now for the heart and soul of Christianity". She said: "For lots of young people, Christianity is now morally objectionable. They don’t want anything to do with churches that don’t believe in human rights and the equality of all human beings."

When it comes to human rights we would be better served if Ahmed concentrated more on the threat to Christianity posed by his religion, Islam. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) remains the single most significant statement of the international community’s commitment to freedom of religion or belief, something that Christians in Great Britain take for granted. But not so in many Islamic states.

From "Article 18: an orphaned right - A report of the All Party Parliamentary Group on International Religious Freedom" (page 13):

 " Within some states the continued application of classical punishments for apostasy, including the death penalty, and the imposition of draconian criminal sanctions for blasphemy, makes the free exercise of the right to renounce Islam or to convert to another religion virtually impossible. While acknowledging the deep-rooted colonial legacies of many of the current blasphemy laws, it unfortunately remains the case that the threat posed by the presence of such draconian laws does not permit a rational religious or ideological debate that would allow for free informed choices to be made on converting to another religion."

Any problems within Christianity pale into insignificance compared with the threat posed by Islam. The Christian/Islamic Struggle has been endured for 1,400 years. While ISIS has been committing genocide abroad, little if anything was being reported in the media about mainly Pakistani heritage men in this country raping and abusing white children for years while hiding behind a screen of political correctness or silencing critics with absurd charges of Islamophobia.

Anyone who doubts the wisdom of accepting thousands of Muslim immigrants with open arms having previously repelled Islamic invasions is characterised by morally superior do-gooders as lacking Christian charity. Again little is reported in the media but reports of appalling immigrant behaviour in Germany and Sweden are truly frightening if people take the trouble to read them.

Death for apostasy, honour killings, child marriage, FGM, sexual abuse, etc, etc, await Muslims found to be in error as well as non-Muslims, the Kafir, a derogatory term used by Muslims to describe those who reject Islam

Water is used for purification but no matter how many times Islamists cleanse themselves, they cannot wash away their sins. Ablution is not conversion. That requires making disciples of all the nations (bishops please note), baptizing them with water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The difference between Christian service of free will and Islamic servitude. This is the challenge Christians are charged with in the Gospel.

That is the "chronic lack of religious literacy" the BBC's head of religion needs to address before it is too late for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The real victims of political correctness.

In this 2010 CBN News video "What Will Happen When Islam Takes Over Britain WAKE UP!" a clear warning was given on the perils of not addressing political correctness.

The Prime Minister's claim in 2011 that multiculturalism had failed was met with a wave of indignant protests and denial. In 2016 the real victims of political correctness, mainly vulnerable children, are being identified on a regular basis.

This is the reality. From an Express report: The authorities spent years letting gangs of Pakistani and British-Pakistani men get away with horrendous crimes against white girls. Evidence suggests that such groups have been operating in Rotherham, Oxford, Keighley, Bradford and Rochdale. The dangerously misguided desire to appear tolerant and politically correct allowed these gangs to operate unchecked for so long.

Nobody in authority has been prepared to stand against the tide. While political parties spend their time harvesting votes from minorities, the Established church continues her obsession with politically correct quotas, advancing the cause of minorities over suitability and validating Islam. 

Tolerance of the intolerant rules. "WAKE UP" indeed!

"Easy meat"

In 2011 the former Home Secretary Jack Straw was accused of "stereotyping" after suggesting some men of Pakistani origin see white girls as "easy meat". He was quick to qualify his remark by adding "Pakistanis, let's be clear, are not the only people who commit sexual offences, and overwhelmingly the sex offenders' wings of prisons are full of white sex offenders" (here).

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997 – 2013) makes grim reading (download available here). From the Executive Summary:

No one knows the true scale of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Rotherham over the years. Our
conservative estimate is that approximately 1400 children were sexually exploited over the full
Inquiry period, from 1997 to 2013.

In just over a third of cases, children affected by sexual exploitation were previously known to
services because of child protection and neglect. It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the
abuse that child victims suffered. They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other
towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated. There were examples
of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with
guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone.
Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators

Over the first twelve years covered by this Inquiry, the collective failures of political and officer
leadership were blatant. From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual
exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham. This came from those working in residential
care and from youth workers who knew the young people well.

By far the majority of perpetrators were described as 'Asian' by victims, yet throughout the entire
period, councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how
best they could jointly address the issue. Some councillors seemed to think it was a one-off problem,
which they hoped would go away. Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the
ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction
from their managers not to do so. [My emphasis - Ed.]

This is a serious problem. Rotherham is just the latest town to be highlighted where Asian men have targeted vulnerable children. Evidence has been produced showing that children were "trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England". Where does it end? For far too long the politically correct have held sway. We have been inhibited from stating the obvious for fear of causing offence to minorities who in their own country in Pakistan, for example, do as they please using blasphemy laws to their own advantage. It is time to stand up and defend our values even if it risks offending the sensibilities of those who have accepted our hospitality.

Section 8.16 of the Report highlights: "One of the common threads running through child sexual exploitation across England has been the prominent role of taxi drivers in being directly linked to children who were abused. This was the case in Rotherham from a very early stage, when residential care home heads met in the nineties to share intelligence about taxis and other cars which picked up girls from outside their units. In the early 2000s some secondary school heads were reporting girls being picked up at lunchtime at the school gates and being taken away to provide oral sex to men in the lunch break."

I have often been puzzled by the rise in ethnic taxi drivers, especially those who are able to afford to live in the more affluent areas of our cities but the observation in the Rotherham Report raises a more serious issue which should place all of us on our guard for suspicious behaviour around our schools and the homes of vulnerable children.

The claim that most sex offenders are white also finds space in the Rotherham Report [11.2]:
 As has been stated many times before, there is no simple link between race and child sexual exploitation, and across the UK the greatest numbers of perpetrators of CSE are white men. The second largest category, according to the Children's Commissioner's report, are those from a minority ethnic background, particularly- 92 - those recorded as 'Asian'. In Rotherham, the majority of known perpetrators were of Pakistani heritage including the five men convicted in 2010.

Let us be clear. The population of Britain is still basically White. British people of Pakistani origin account for only 1.9% of the United Kingdom population according to 2012 figures. Of those, 90% living in England and Wales at the time of the 2011 UK Census stated their religion was Islam, mainly Sunni Muslims yet they comprise the second largest category of offenders. Proportionately that is a serious problem, the point Jack Straw was making. We need no more excuses that there are more White perpetrators for fear of being accused of racism or Islamophobia. That serves no interest, least of all to those who have suffered the most appalling sexual abuse, Muslim, Christian or no faith at all.

This evening on the BBC's One Show we were served up another helping of how the troubles in the Middle East are the fault of the US and the UK with no mention that the displaced peoples were there centuries before Muhammad was born. That minorities are being cleansed abroad is bad enough. We must ensure that we are not cleansed in our own country, standing up for what we believe even if it offends our guests.

Sorry!

I’m sorry but yesterday’s excuses for failing to spot family abuse which had been allowed to continue under the noses of more than 100 officials for a quarter of a century sounded too hollow for me. What hope can there be for victims when they put their lives on the line to report abuse only to be ignored by the very people who are supposed to protect them?

This sorry state is symptomatic of a society which is obsessed with targets and box ticking. The easy option often gains rewards leaving weightier matters ignored with figures fiddled where necessary to obtain the required shine.

When things go drastically wrong there is the customary hand wringing statement of apology with the promise to learn lessons. They seldom do if recent experiences are anything to go on.

Postscript

With the ink still wet on the above post we read of yet another tragedy in the death of a long suffering disabled person whom it appears the police were unable to protect despite modern surveillance techniques. We defeated Hitler, we hope to defeat terrorism yet we appear unable to defeat the affliction that most are more likely to encounter. Something wrong somewhere?