Categories: uncategorized
Date: 01 November 2007 16:13:22
Christmas should be done away with in the UK; or so says a Labour party Think Tank.
They believe that in multicultural Britain the celebration of Christmas is no longer something to be proud of. Instead we should either stop celebrating it as a nation or start to give the celebration of other religions' holiday days equal billing.
It has been a belief of mine that socialism and religion do not mix. As a Christian is it really possible for you to really believe in a humanistic Socialist Utopia at the expense of religion? The denial of religion, as anything other than a means of oppression, has always struck me as being a reason never to vote for a socialist party. I have never been able to see the link between a movement that despises religion and my Christian belief.
Yes their are similarities in Christian belief and Socialist doctrine. We should all help the poor, the disadvantaged, the sick and the weak; after all we are commanded to by Jesus. However we cannot do so by denying the primacy of our faith. Being a Christian is the most important commitment in our life.
Personally I accept that we live in a society that should stand for religious tolerance and cooperation. We do not have the right to prevent the celebration of another person's religious freedom. Neither do we have to stand for the policy of our present government to denigrate our own beliefs.
The majority of people in this country claim to be Christian. They may not practice their faith, why is another question, yet that is their choice. So do we believe that this government has the right to discriminate against Christian work that is undertaken to make up for their failure to provide social service to its communities? Why should Christian charities be told that they cannot obtain funds because they are overtly faith based?
I'm not saying that there is an overt movement to persecute the church but the base is their to be built on. Messers Dawkins and Hitchen have begun the work. Mr Brown has, despite using his father's religion as a political tool, begun the task of minimising the access of evangalistic charities to public funds - plus those of other providers.
I have always believed that this country was wrong to have its present 3 party system. Why did we never have a Christian Democratic alternative, as other European countries did? Socialism has always been the prime mover in the former Christian strongholds of Wales, Scotland and England. Its strength was established in a welding of non-conformist church life and the religious element of socialist doctrine. I remember being told that I couldn't be a Conservatiove and a Baptist, as their beliefs were incompatible. If I wanted to be a Conservative then the Church of Wales was the place for me; that came from a respected member of the Baptist community.
Yet I've read my Marx and my Russian (Soviet) history; I read the Brother Andrew books as I grew up; I learnt about the persecution of the church by Nazis, Facists and everyone else. The main thing I learnt was that Christianity offers the remedy that no other political or social movement can. We know that government without God will fail, no matter how Christian its policies and beliefs may appear.
I want to live in a society where no religion is attacked, ridiculed and persecuted - whether overtly or covertly. Where a person's beliefs are valued and not denigrated. We are going to far along the road of "political correctness" and at some point we will need to say: "This far and no further!"
Yet will we dare?