Tag Archives: Enlightenment

Christians for Ukip? A Plausible Ethical Perspective

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Published by Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics

Christians UkipThe United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) has made some significant electoral advances since the 2010 General Election, when they secured 3.1% of the popular vote. Not only did the party go on to win the 2014 Elections to the European Parliament with 24 MEPs elected on 26.6% of the vote, but they currently have 430 councillors across 76 local councils, and recently secured their first elected MPs to Westminster following Conservative defections and victory in two volitional by-elections. At the time of writing they are regularly scoring between 12-15% in opinion polls. Christians are deeply divided about the party’s perceived ‘undercurrents’ of racism, nationalism and isolationism which, some aver, put them beyond the pale of religious respectability. But despite episcopal denunciations(1), the party is attracting Christians from across the denominations, including the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church(2). Continue reading →

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The resurrection of the biblical epic

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Published by ConservativeHome

MosesIn an increasingly unbelieving world of humanism and secularisation, not to mention the jarring dissonance of a sharia-compliant caliphate and all the fuss over women bishops, religion has become a turn-off. God is bothersome: atheism rules the new enlightenment and Dawkins reigns supreme. Mention the Bible or Church, and eyes glaze over. But say “biblical epic”, and something numinous energises the spirit. You might not believe in the irruption of God into the affairs of man, but you will surely be drawn and compelled to all that is theatrically holy. Even Professor Dawkins might admit to being mystically gladdened by the ancient legends of transcendence and omnipotence. Continue reading →

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Archbishop Justin Welby will try to be all things to all men

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Published by Daily Mail

Justin Welby4“The archbishop / Is the King’s hand and tongue; and who dare speak / One syllable against him?”

So asked Sir Thomas Lovell in conversation with Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.

We know, of course, how things turned out for that King’s ‘hand and tongue’ under the next Queen – ‘Bloody’ Mary.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, architect of the Church of England’s XXXIX Articles and author of the vernacular Book of Common Prayer, went on to have a great many syllables spoken against him, principally by those who were suddenly aware that royal patronage had shifted, religion reverted, and those whose theology and beliefs were once in favour became the new outcasts and heretics – ‘a pestilence/That does infect the land’. Such is the ebb and flow of spiritual myopia and religious fanaticism. Continue reading →

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Douglas Carswell: ‘The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy’

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Published by Daily Mail

Douglas Carswell referendum5If Douglas Carswell had been born 400 years ago, he’d have been burned at the stake. There’s a touch of superstitious wizardry about his unnerving prophecy heralding the end of politics, and a fin de siècle inevitability about his sceptical doom and gloom. His problem is that he’s a Roundhead in a party of Cavaliers; a radical Whig in a sea of resolute Tories. He’s not just an irritating nonconformist; he’s a theo-political heretic. And we all know what happens to them.

But before they meet their grisly end, they tend to preach subversive sermons and write revolutionary tracts in the hope of winning a few souls to salvation. Carswell’s fiery homilies eventually brought down Speaker Martin – the first to be ejected from the Chair of the House of Commons since Sir John Trevor was forced to resign in 1695. Carswell now blogs profusely and incisively about how the oligarchical elite feed like parasites on the people, and how a corrupt and compromised Parliament is incapable of holding the Executive to account. ‘The End of Politics and the birth of iDemocracy’ is an analysis of the murky political morass into which we’ve sunk, and an observation of the emerging technological solutions. Continue reading →

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The Colorado shooting is a Groundhog Day tragedy

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Published by Daily Mail

Aurora Colorado vigilIt was a casual midnight massacre in a cinema during a screening the new Batman movie ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. And now, just as with every passing mention of Pearl Harbour, Dunblane, or September 11th , this film will most likely be forever synonymous with the tragedy.

Clad in gas mask, ballistics helmet and body armour, the audience thought the shadowy figure was part of the theatre experience, until he released gas-emitting devices and opened fire. But the story is a familiar one: a lone and unsuspected gunman enters a building and fires indiscriminately, targeting whatever moves – men, women and children, this time including a six-year-old girl.

And so the United States of America is (once again) in mourning. The number of dead and injured makes this incident the largest mass shooting in modern US history: Aurora, Colorado, 2012 (70 victims) now follows Fort Hood, Texas, 2009 (37), which followed Northern Illinois University, 2008 (21), which followed Virginia Tech University, 2007 (59), which followed Columbine High School, 1999 (39), which followed Springfield, Oregon, 1998 (25), which followed Killeen, Texas, 1991 (45), which followed Jacksonville, Florida, 1990 (14)… Continue reading →

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