Welby's Muslim charm offensive

Click here for Archbishop Welby's understanding of Islam, a faith which denies that Jesus died on the cross, a faith that has no time for unbelievers in its political ideology, a political system which is explained here in a 5 minute video for those prepared naively to accept claims that Islam is a religion of peace.

Justin Welby says, "We can show the world around us that it is possible to differ and yet to support and care for one another very, very profoundly. That is particularly important for me and has been growingly so over the last few years when it comes to the unacceptable expression of Islamophobia which is totally against what anyone who professes to have their own faith should do."

The Archbishop then gives his blessing: "May God bless you and protect you as you dedicate yourselves to this time of fasting and discipline. I wish you a very good Ramadan. Ramadan Kareem."

On the same day, the Archbishop of Canterbury said: 'We mourn, we lament, we cry out for the injured and bereaved in Manchester' here. He fails to see the connection. Some leaders, political and religious, would have us believe that such attacks are our own fault, that Western foreign policy is to blame but Islam needs no such excuses.

I find Welby's comment about Islamophobia particularly offensive. It is a word conjured up to avoid any critical assessment of a supremacist ideology. There is nothing irrational in fearing such an ideology which has spread its influence through conquest for 1400 years. Accusations of Islamophobia also serve to obscure the fact as Alexander Boot put it in his blog Massacre, Manchester, Muslims that "Over 300 verses in the Koran explicitly call for murdering infidels, specifically Christians and Jews".

 Regardless of all the evidence to the contrary, Islam is being affirmed by the leader of the Anglican Communion as a great religion on an equal basis with Christianity which Islam is fighting to eliminate as illustrated by the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt, a pattern being repeated in many other Muslim majority countries.

How can that be? Jesus said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me".  He warned us about false prophets, "They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves."

Welby is not alone in his charm offensive. See Manchester chief of police posing after bomb attack with the Koran which legitimised the killing. Of course there are many Muslims who would not act as soldiers of Islam but there are many who are prepared to die for their religion and take innocent people with them.

The way to defeat Islam is not by affirming it but to confront the ideology that drives followers to present the ultimatum: convert to Islam, pay a religious levy or face death. The Great Commission is the key.

Corbyn the crass

In advance of Jeremy Corbyn's keynote election speech in which he linked the Manchester bombing to British foreign policy, former Home Secretary Charles Clarke last night explained the threat posed by Islam in terms which even Mr Corbyn should be able to understand. Sadly he and many others refuse to listen or choose to believe what they are told unaware that lying is a weapon being used as part of the deceptive claim that Islam is a religion of peace.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary it was claimed that the Manchester bomber "was a terrorist, not a Muslim". Muslim leaders in Manchester reported a rise in Islamophobic incidents. This has become a regular pattern after such incidents.

What foreign policy in Egypt was responsible for the latest atrocity in which a bus carrying Christians was blocked by three vehicles before militants opened fire? At least 26 Coptic Christians were killed and dozens injured including children.

It is often claimed, as Corbyn does, that the presence of Westerners in Muslim lands leads to terrorist attacks. These attacks have been going on for 1400 years. The so called 'Muslim lands' were home to Christians long before Islam came on the scene. Many Christian communities are being wiped out and face extinction within ten years. That is the reality.

Lands that have not been conquered by force are now subject to occupation by stealth with immigration and high birth rates. Read Maybe It’s Time For Some Reverse Creeping Sharia .

We do not need to look for excuses such as poverty and marginalisation, or whether the perpetrator was mentally unstable. No rational person would blow up him/herself with others in the expectation of a reward in paradise. Why would God want an ignorant savage to destroy what He had created?

Not all terrorists are Muslim, not all Muslims are terrorists but authority can be found in Islamic ideology to permit such acts of violence against Jews and Christians. It is that ideology that needs to be challenged without complaints of Islamophobia.

Update [27.05.2017]

From "Islamist Ideology, not Western Foreign Policy, is why ISIS Attack Us"

"We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah … and you indulge in all manner of devilish practices. … Furthermore, just as your disbelief is the primary reason we hate you, your disbelief is the primary reason we fight you, as we have been commanded to fight the disbelievers until they submit to the authority of Islam, either by becoming Muslims, or by … living in humiliation under the rule of the Muslims. … We hate you because your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited …"

Full article here.

That it should come to this

The Diocese of Bangor’s new LGBT+ Chaplaincy Team.                                                                                Source: Twitter

Following in the footsteps of the diocese of St Asaph with their LGBTQIA+ Chaplaincy, the diocese of Bangor has launched its own LBGT+ Chaplaincy for people who consider themselves to be members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Intersex and Asexual community. 

Its Chaplain the Rev’d Dominic McClean said, "In an ideal world a Chaplaincy such as this would not be necessary. But the LGBT+ Christian community is one that needs affirming within our Church. So this Chaplaincy will offer a safe and sacred place where LGBT+ people can be themselves as they worship and express their love for God and Jesus". 

What world do these people live in? The joke in Llandaff is that a straight chaplaincy is needed!

The only minority in the Church in Wales who cannot be themselves as they worship and express their love for God and Jesus are those who in conscience follow the traditional teaching of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. 

Still no safe and sacred place for them.

Who cares?

From the BBC video 'Do you remember that, mum?'

A recent BBC report 'Do you remember that, mum?' explained how the condition of dementia sufferer Andriani, who was last seen in 2014, had deteriorated rapidly while the costs to care for her rise.

The report explains why the son fears for his mother's future care. He explained that he would like to be able to say that the system is broken so potentially it could be fixed but having seen it from the inside he said "I don't think we have a system at all". Sadly that is the experience of most people who have had the misfortune to be involved. They are desperate to see a fully funded, workable system.

Care should not be a lottery but it is. If you have cancer much if not all of your treatment will be paid for. If you have dementia, hard luck. You are often on your own. The effects can be devastating but who cares?

On the face of it, raising the assets limit to £100,000 from £23,250 in England may appear "reasonable" but it is not. Read why here and here. The fate of someone who has lovingly cared for his/her parent at home when the parent dies and the family home has to be sold to settle the care account is an added burden. "As soon as my mum dies, will the council come for its money? Will I be homeless?" asked one carer.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that the "complex new system" outlined in the Conservative party’s manifesto, which would force more elderly people to pay for their own care, “makes no attempt to deal with the fundamental challenge of social care funding”. This warning is backed up by the economist Sir Andrew Dilnot who reviewed social care for the coalition government in 2011.

Accusations that the Tories were imposing a 'dementia' tax and a 'death' tax prompted a swift clarification that there would be a limit on the costs carers would be expected to pay but that would have to wait for a green paper consultation. The Prime Minister said “I want to make a further point clear. This manifesto says that we will come forward with a consultation paper, a government green paper. And that consultation will include an absolute limit on the amount people have to pay for their care costs.”

Under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government we were told that "people will see health and social care fully joined-up by 2018...Co-ordination would see better care and support, fewer people falling through the cracks and a drop in patients needlessly stuck in hospitals." Some hope!

Getting bed-blocking patients out of hospitals into domiciliary care was seen as a priority but with the UK home care industry on the brink of collapse there is a grave danger that any action will be too little too late. As one care provider said in a BBC interview, he doesn't have to advertise for customers but he has to advertise for staff. There is a recruitment crisis due to competition from hospitals and supermarkets.

Carers are severely undervalued. They should be properly rewarded but funding has been squeezed to such an extent that many existing carers are leaving for less demanding work. This is an extra burden for providers who have to train their staff at considerable expense only to find that they leave for a hospital job on regular hours. The Labour party has made much of zero-hours contracts, now the subject of Government review, but it is the flexibility of not having fixed hours that enables carers to meet the needs of those they care for.

The situation gets worse by the day. It could be you next, it could be me but who cares? That is the question. The right answer is needed urgently before the system collapses completely.

Postscript [27.05.2017]

Number of pensioners needing care set to rise by one quarter: Lancet

Forward to the past

Jeremy Corbyn with Len McCluskey at the bi-annual Unite policy conference in July.
Photograph: Rob Stothard/Getty Images/Guardian

 "FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW" !

There is an odd irony in the Labour Party's election manifesto slogan 'For the many not the few'.

The intended meaning is continually backed up in speeches by the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, but the slogan is more aspirational than realistic.

In voting terms 'the many' voters have little time for 'the few' party members who are driving the agenda with no apparent understanding that without power they can achieve nothing, thus leaving 'the many' as they were.

The fact that dyed in the wool party supporters who would never have dreamed of voting Tory are regularly telling reporters that they would rather vote for Theresa May than for Jeremy Corbyn appears to be a total irrelevance to them giving the impression of trade union conference where sectional interests are all.

The man pulling the strings is Len McClusky, General Secretary of Unite and a former Militant sympathiser. Wind forward from 1985 to 2017 and Momentum now holds sway so forward to the past.

Time for another Kinnock?

"A noble task"

The bishops of the Church in Wales, Llandudno 2012

 ‘The saying is sure: If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he  desires a noble task.’  I  Timothy 3

In his Theology Wales paper 'A Noble Task' Bishop David Thomas reflected on his experience of ministry as Provincial Assistant Bishop and how this might change if the episcopate in Wales were opened to women.

Bishop David died suddenly last week in the knowledge that the first woman bishop had been enthroned in St Davids and the imported bishop-designate of Llandaff is to be consecrated in Brecon Cathedral next month. Neither of the women bishops is a Welsh speaker, a language dear to +David's heart.

One can imagine the pain and the hurt felt by this faithful priest, bishop and pastor as his noble task was pushed aside to make the Church more relevant to society, principally by prioritising sexual minorities and gender issues. 

Bishop David's paper makes interesting reading in retrospect. Listed alongside it on the Church in Wales site are back papers including one by the Rev’d Joanna Penberthy, now bishop of St Davids, 'Learn from the past and build for the future', illustrating just how much theology has been replaced by politics in the Church in Wales.

It remains to be seen if loyal Anglicans who have been encouraged against the odds to 'Be joyful and keep the faith' can any longer survive in the Church in Wales. There has been a deathly silence since the Credo Cymru 'Conference to Preserve the Breadth of Anglicanism in Wales'. The divisive 'Code of Practice in relation to the Ministry of Bishops following the Canon to enable the Ordination of Women as Bishops' has yet to be tested. 

This will be the ultimate test of sincerity by a bench of bishops who "unanimously committed to securing a continuing place in the life of the  Church for those who cannot in conscience accept the new situation created by  the ordination of women to the priesthood." For others it is already over.

"People sometimes ask me how I imagine my ministry as PAB might change in the event of women being admitted to the episcopate in the Church in Wales. The only honest answer I can give is that it would not change; it would be over."  - 'A Noble Task'.

+David Thomas RIP

Bishop David Thomas RIP

Bishop David Thomas with Pope Benedict XVI                         Source: Twitter

Many people in Wales and far beyond will be saddened to learn of the sudden death of Bishop David Thomas, former Provincial Assistant Bishop in the Church in Wales. There is a tribute from Credo Cymru here.

Updated Church in Wales tribute here [17.05.2017].

Bishop David’s funeral arrangements here.