Church and State in the UK: Further Reflections

In a post the other day entitled "Caesar's Orders: David Cameron Tells the Church to Change Her Doctrine to Suit His Late Modern Prejudices," I discussed the response of David Cameron to the recent court decision to bar Eunice and Owen Johns from being foster parents because they had the "wrong" views on the morality of homosexuality.

This case raises some troubling questions about the relationship between church and state and the state of religious freedom in late modernity. The UK is supposed to be a parliamentary democracy committed to liberalism. But as the practice of the Christian faith declines in Britain, as it has been doing precipitously since the 1960s, the basis of liberal tolerance declines as well. Christianity teaches that people are made in the image of God with reason and free will and, therefore, should be respected and not coerced into any religion - including Christianity. Christians have not always been perfect in implementing this principle, but compared to the alternatives (Islam, Communism) they have made Christian societies far more free than others. As Christian influence declines, the idea of tolerance gradually degenerates into majoritarian tyranny. What Christians once did occasionally and inconsistently with their own theology, secularists now do systematically and consistently with their own worldview.

Pope Benedict XVI, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in his funeral homily for John Paul II, spoke of the threat of the "dictatorship of relativism." Part of what he meant by this phrase is that relativism spawns dictatorship. A society that rejects Christian morality and natural law still requires some form of central authority to maintain law and order. The State is not going to wither away as in some Marxist fairy tale. The question is whether the State will make laws based on some sort of objective standard, knowable in advance, to which the rulers can be held accountable, or whether it will make laws based on a shifting, fluid, majority consensus that changes frequently and which is, in principle, beyond challenge by reason.

David Cameron seems to think it is fine to dictate to the Church what its doctrine must be - in the name of tolerance! So what is the actual content of the term "tolerance" now but conformity to the currently fashionable majority opinion? In a liberal society informed by natural law and Christian revelation, there is a basis for arguing for religions freedom that does not depend on the current majority opinion of the population. In "empty liberalism" or "post-Christian liberalism" there is no such basis. Tolerance becomes an empty notion filled by current majority prejudices. In such a situation, minorities have every reason to fear persecution by the majority.

This is quite openly acknowledged by many postmodern relativist who justify the increasing persecution of Christians as legitimate revenge. Christians persecuted minorities in the past, so the argument goes, so it is now right for them to get a taste of their own medicine. Persecuting Christians is justified by the sins of Christians in previous generations. This is a shallow, self-serving argument unworthy of serious consideration from a moral perspective.

Oddly, though, it mirrors the reason some Christians gave for persecuting Jews in past centuries. The Jews murdered Christ 1500 years ago, the argument goes, so we are justified in tormenting their descendants today. But if that was wrong, so is persecuting Christians today for the sins of Christians who lived centuries ago. But if, on the other hand, it is right to persecute Christians in revenge for the Inquisition or whatever, then we have the unexpected result that we have also justified Christian anti-Semitism as morally good.

But this is not a problem for the late modern Left, since it is implacably opposed to Jews getting uppity by daring to found their own legal state in their own homeland and expecting the Arab world to leave them in peace. So persecuting Christians and Jews is fine and dandy by the dictatorship of relativism.

David Cameron is going overboard in trying to tell the Church what it is allowed to believe and not believe. In trying to dictate doctrine he is being intolerant and no pious appeals to tolerance for homosexuals can extricate him from this charge. After all, tolerance is either a two-way street or it is not tolerance. If ways cannot be found to extend civil rights to homosexuals without interfering with the civil rights of those who continue to regard homosexual behavior as wrong, then the reason is not an over-zealous commitment to tolerance, it is a reduction of tolerance to the dictatorship of relativism.

Where once unscrupulous tyrants attempted to cover up their lust for power with appeals to Christianity, they now do it with appeals to the sexual revolution. But tyranny is tyranny.

Why Quebec Politicians Need a Course in Logic . . . or How Stupidity Leads to the Dictatorship of Relativism

It really is depressing to read utterly stupid and inane comments like the following one (see last sentence of quotation). Now, if a first year philosophy student said something like this in September, I would be patient, kind and understanding in correcting the obvious howler. But if that same student wrote a statement like this on the final exam in April it would be considered a glaring error and there would be no mercy. Frankly, I would feel like a failure as a professor.

But this comes from an elected official who could potentially (depending on the outcome of the next election) actually be setting public policy on education. And she is echoing the current government of Quebec. So what we have here is a set of ignorant, poorly-educated, arrogant politicians who lack critical thinking skills. It is a travesty, a disaster, an embarassment to the people of Quebec, a real mess.

Listen to Charles Lewis, who writes an excellent column in the National Post entitled: "Public Money is Religious Too" describe the situation:

The argument will soon be made that Montreal’s Loyola High School should not have the right to opt out of a Quebec government-sponsored ethics and religion program, despite a court ruling that said otherwise.

The argument will be made that if the private school takes public money, which it does, then it should follow the public program. Loyola, a Jesuit Catholic school, should have every right to refuse to institute the Quebec program, but only if it stops taking public money. Seem fair on the surface, does it not?

The assumption that many will made is that as a religious school it is somehow outside the public sphere and therefore should be grateful for whatever public support it gets.

On Friday, a court ruled that Loyola had every right to refuse to adopt the program and could teach faith and ethics from a Catholic perspective.

“In these times of respect of fundamental rights, of tolerance, of reasonable accommodations and of multiculturalism, the attitude adopted by the [Education] Department in the current matter is surprising,” Quebec Superior Court Justice Gérard Dugré wrote Friday.

“Canadian democratic society is based on principles recognizing the supremacy of God and the primacy of the law – both of which benefit from constitutional protection.”

Almost immediately, the Quebec government said it would appeal the court’s decision.

Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois, echoing the sentiment of the Liberal government, said: “It is up to parents and the church to transmit faith. Schools must transmit knowledge.

Read it all here.

The curriculum in question, by all accounts, teaches moral and epistemological relativism in a crude and popular form. But Marois thinks this is "knowledge" as opposed to "faith." No it isn't. It is just a form of faith called secularism. To take the leap of faith necessary to dogmatically proclaim the truth of relativism is (1) to take up a faith position, (2) to make a self-contradictory statement and (3) to claim to know that what Christians teach about God is untrue. How exactly does one know that? Is there an empirical experiment that proves it? This is in the same category of vulgar atheism as the USSR cosmonaut radioing back to earth from orbit that there is no God visible in outer space so there, that proves it.

And if everything is relative, then the statement that everything is relative is only relatively true, which means that the statement that some things are not relative is as true as the statement that everything is relative. So to hold this is to hold to a logical contradiction.

To hold that God both exists and does not exist (which is entailed in believing that Buddhism and Christianity are equally true), is to abandon rationality. The government of Quebec has abandoned reason in the name of Science. It makes Monty Python look serious.

Since Quebec has rejected Christianity, the realm of the secular is disappearing in Quebec. The secular is a Christian invention. Christians believe in the secular realm, i.e. that sphere of life in which people of various religious faiths can co-exist and even share some beliefs while being in fundamental disagreement on others.

But "Secularism" is different. That is a non-traditional, modern, religious faith that seeks to base ethics and politics on empirical science and logical reasoning. It is a demonstrably irrational faith because empirical science cannot tell us why we should respect all humans as being of equal value rather than considering one race superior to the other. Science can't tell this because it is not a scientific question; one must look to philosophy and religion for the answers to philosophical and religious questions. Some sort of non-relativistic worldview must underlie any society that wishes to avoid tyranny.

So now the secular is disappearing in Quebec. There is no secular left because without a belief in natural law or some other system of right and wrong, a great void is opening up into which all sorts of irrational philosophies, religions and worldviews are rushing. Secularism (or Scientism) is an irrational faith in which all the historic religions like Christianity and Judaism are considered wrong and untrue - or else redefined in relativistic terms.

What is left is government by whatever elite can grab power and morality determined by polling and sophistic rhetoric. In effect, the will to power is unrestrained by absolute moral truths and the weak just get exploited by the strong. When you see the government imposing by force a relativistic curriculum on Christian schools, you know that you have witnessed the degeneration into tyranny.

If all morality is relative then whatever the government does must be "right" in some sense. Since Hitler was democratically elected and the Holocaust was perfectly legal, then it must be all right. That is where moral relativism leads you and if Pauline Marois and the Charest government can not see that, then they are too poorly educated to be worthy of public office.

Some supposed relativists are really just uninformed folks who are trying to be tolerant so they do allow Christian schools to teach Christian morality. But when the rot of relativism reaches a certain point, tolerance falls by the wayside having served its purpose of undermining the moral order that places limits on the tyranny of the State. Then we have what then Cardinal Ratzinger called at Pope John Paul II's funeral "the dictatorship of relativism." Next comes the raw, unbridled will to power.

To pronounce glibly that relativism is knowledge and that morality is just a matter of faith is so inane and so out of touch with reason that it is unworthy of high school students, let alone the government of 8 million people.

Stamping Out Christianity in the Name of Tolerance

Melanie Philips, writing in The Daily Mail, analyzes recent trends in Britain as the momentum builds towards turning the UK into an intolerant, secular, soft totalitarian state totally detached from its Christian and politically liberal heritage. In an article entitled, "Orwellian logic turning the faith Britain was built on into a crime," she begins:

Terrifying as this may seem, the attempt to stamp out Christianity in Britain appears to be gathering pace.

Dale McAlpine was preaching to shoppers in Workington, Cumbria, that homosexuality is a sin when he found himself carted off by the police, locked up in a cell for seven hours and charged with using abusive or insulting words or behaviour.

It appears that two police community support officers — at least one of whom was gay — claimed he had caused distress to themselves and members of the public.

Under our anti-discrimination laws, such distress is not to be permitted. And so we have the oppressive and sinister situation where a gentle, unaggressive Christian is arrested and charged simply for preaching Christian principles.

It would appear that Christianity, the normative faith of this country on which its morality, values and civilisation are based, is effectively being turned into a crime.

Surreally, this intolerant denial of freedom is being perpetrated under the rubric of promoting tolerance and equality — but only towards approved groups.

Never has George Orwell’s famous satirical observation, that some people are more equal than others, appeared more true.

The Cumbrian arrest comes hard on the heels of last week’s ruling by Lord Justice Laws in the case of Gary McFarlane, who was dismissed as a Relate counsellor because he refused to give advice to same-sex couples on sexual relationships.

The judge not only upheld Relate’s case against McFarlane but went even further, saying in terms that the law could provide no legal protection for Christians who wish to live according to their religious principles.

And how did he arrive at this remarkable conclusion that deprives Christians of their rights? By cherry-picking human rights law.

The judge said merely that this conferred upon believers the right to ‘hold or express’ religious views. In fact, the European Convention on Human Rights goes much further, giving people the right to manifest ‘freedom of thought, conscience and religion’ through ‘worship, teaching, practice and observance’.

Yet the judge chose not to mention this right to put religious beliefs into practice. Instead, he stated that giving legal protection to Christian beliefs was ‘deeply unprincipled’ and ‘on the way to a theocracy’.

You really do have to scratch your head at this. The protection of religious conscience is a fundamental principle of a liberal and free society.

To equate this protection with theocracy — or the imposition of religious law upon a society — displays a remarkable intellectual and moral confusion, and has resulted in a ruling that is frighteningly illiberal and intolerant.

Read the rest here.

Note the very first word of this article: "terrifying." If the idea of a completely post-Christian state does not terrify you then you don't understand what lies on the other side of the completion of the process of de-Christianization. But really, there is no excuse not to know. We had several full dress rehearsals during the dark, violent 20th century: the USSR, Nazi Germany, the Cultural Revolution etc.

It is only possible not to know if one does the equivalent of putting one's fingers in one's ears and humming "I can't hear you" as prophets like Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky shout "Watch out where you are going! Don't go there!"

A Pro-life Ad for the Super Bowl

The "dictatorship of relativism" watch is pretty busy these days. You may have heard of the Super Bowl, which marketers expect to be watched by about 100 million Americans. That is a pretty big platform, I'm sure you would agree. But some people are upset that a pro-life ad featuring college sensation Tim TeBow will be allowed to air on the broadcast.

The radical left is losing the debate on abortion. Anti-abortion opinion has risen sharply in the past year, thanks in part to a reaction against the most radically pro-abortion president in American history. According a recent CNN poll, only about 18% of Americans now believe that abortion should be legal in all circumstances, as it in fact is now in both the US and Canada.

So what does the left do, having lost the debate? It shows its true fascist colors by attempting to stifle free speech and keep the people from hearing the truth. There is no hope for the pro-abortion forces except to intimidate and silence those who speak the truth and that is the opposite of classical, nineteenth century liberalism: it is fascism. And the left is less and less liberal and more and more fascist as time goes on.

The National Organization of Women has attempted to pressure CBS into refusing an ad featuring college quarterback sensation Tim Tebow, whose mother refused the advice of doctors and did not abort him when she was pregnant with him. You can read the details here. The headline of this post by Jim Hoft says it all: "Heartless Progressives to Tim TeBow: We Wish You Were Never Born."

(For the sports scoop on Tebow, go here. TeBow is the son of missionary parents and he was home-schooled. He is handsome, poised, well-spoken and has a strong Christian faith and strong moral convictions. He also happens to be one of the best college quarterbacks in America and is a projected first round draft pick.)

Now, Tim TeBow's mother made a choice. But does NOW honor that? No. Why? Because it was the wrong choice in their view. For the radical feminist movement, "choice" is a euphemism for "choice to abort." It does not mean a choice for life, only a choice for death. But in matters of life and death, that is, in matters of killing and bloodshed, choice is evil. There should be no choice to murder. A society that tolerates private murder for the convenience of the strong is a barbaric society and there is nothing good, wholesome or liberal about the choice to abort.

The evil of the choice to abort corrupts everything. It leads to attempts to supress freedom of religion and free speech. It provides a precedent for killing the elderly, the handicapped and those society deems to be unworthy of life. It glorifies killing as the solution to social problems and leads to eugenics while justifying racism.

It is very telling that ads objectifying women as sex objects can appear on the Super Bowl without feminists complaining, but ads that advocate choosing life offend them. That tells you who is really on the side of women.