The excellent Matt and Madeline had Tertillian write on Maori animism as the de facto established religion of NZ. I commented on this yesterday, but the argument has continued overnight. The comments tell more about the dark underbelly of secular intolerence. Curious Presbyterian agrees with the statement.
In an older post, David Simpkin argues that we are not secular. We have inherited a religion through the Act of Settlement and the choice in the treaty of Waitangi to have Queen Victoria and her heirs as our monarch. The Queen must be a protestant.. It’s fairly clear that a large number of people wish to deny this… but the speaker still starts the house of parliament with a prayer.
It’s clear, however, that Christianity is now seen as offensive. People who try to be consistent with those beliefs are prosecuted in Britian. The Brits, however, are now facing one of their true tests — they have charged a bunch of Shariaites for giving out pamphlets outside mosques saying homosexuals should be hanged. As the good Cramner says…
Perhaps we have reached the long-foreseen moment at which ‘Muslim rights’ meet ‘gay rights’ in the battle for supremacy.
His Grace does not have access to the material distributed, but it does appear that the Attorney is right to proceed with this. And before His Grace is accused of being an ‘Islamophobe’ or (again) of ‘being Melanie Phillips’, he would say the same if this were Jews, Christians or people of any faith or none distributing such a message.
We are in a nation in which hundreds of young gay (mainly) teenage boys commit suicide every year, struggling with issues of sexuality. Pushing literature through people’s letter boxes demanding the judgment of shari’a is, indeed, an intimidating and threatening act.
And it strikes His Grace as more than a little hypocritical that Muslims in Britain have agitated for many years in order to enshrine in law the concept of ‘hate speech’ against a religion. Whatever these leaflets say, it is a fair bet that if the words ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual’ were exchanged for ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islam’, these five men would have been among the first to cry ‘hate’ and demand the full force of the law be applied to the ‘Islamophobes’.
Which brings us to the ongoing news of the week — the uprising in Egypt. There are those who fear that this will lead to democracy. There are more that fear that this will lead to Islamism — and ongoing persecution of the Copts. The local congregations are praying for their nation and family
Father Sourial Sourial, of the Coptic Church in Christchurch, said church members were feeling helpless. Some had not been able to contact their families for days after internet and telephone communication was cut. His Alexandria-based family had locked themselves in their home in fear.
“There is a sickness in our motherland and my family are scared,” he said. “It is horrible. Thousands of people are attacking, vandalising and murdering.”The Edgeware Rd Coptic Church congregation has had to worship at a Harewood hall since the September 4 quake shattered their church. More than 250 people had gathered to pray for peace in Egypt at Sunday’s service. Sourial was also organising a day of prayer for the community. “We need our country to be in peace. No more murder, no more corruption,” he said.
Some have argued that this nothing to do with any ideology. It is the desperation of a generation of young (men) who hare left with no prospects, no future — and that this http://www.inmalafide.com/2011/01/31/the-rise-of-generation-zero-part-2a-lexington-in-tunis-concord-in-cairo/.
The young men of Tunisia, Egypt and the rest of the Arab world are a Generation Zero unto themselves. Cast into a cultureless world in which they have zero prospects for success under the current regime, they’re not taking being pissed on by their society anymore. None of Mubarak’s attempts to fight them have worked, because you can’t fight a critical mass of your own citizenry looking to jam your decapitated skull on a pike. And that’s what Egypt’s revolution is – a true grassroots uprising, not orchestrated by any ethnic group or faction. You can’t fight that any more than you can fight a fire by shooting at it with guns.
I made a comment on this earlier this week, but this analysis covers the same area in a far better way.
Regardless, we should be praying for a limitation of corruption, and the chance to live a holy and productive life… for us, and for the people of Egypt. Be
