Dr Michael Nazir-Ali is the Bishop of Rochester, and thus a leading figure in the Church of England, one of the Lords Spiritual; but, as his name suggests, he is from a largely Muslim family background. Dr Nazir-Ali was received into the Anglican Church of Pakistan at the age of 20 and became the Bishop of Raiwind in West Punjab at the age of 35, making him the youngest bishop in the Anglican Communion.
As Dr Nazir-Ali told me on an earlier occasion: “This was a time ”“ the late 1980s ”“ when there was a great movement towards political Islamicisation in Pakistan. As Christians we had to say that there were certain penal laws, partly concerning the role of women in society, which we could not support.”
The threats to Dr Nazir-Ali that resulted from this ideological conflict eventually became so unpleasant ”“ especially as they were also directed at his children ”“ that the young bishop left Pakistan, and settled in Britain.
What astounded Dr Nazir-Ali, when he regained his bearings, was that the dominant form of Islam in the UK that he recalled from his time here in the 1970s (when he was tutorial supervisor in theology at Cambridge University) ”“ pietistic, Sufi-orientated ”“ had, in little more than a decade, been completely supplanted by something much more militant and political: in fact, exactly the same form of the religion that had forced him out of Pakistan.
Dr Nazir-Ali claims that this had happened “because the British mosques had recruited people from fundamentalist backgrounds” ”“ people like Hannah’s father, as it happens.
Like Hannah, Dr Nazir-Ali cannot be described as anti-Islamic. As he pointed out to me, he has “a large number of Muslim friends and relatives with whom I get on very well and for which I am deeply thankful”. His complaint is against what he terms “the chauvinist manifestations of Islam, a kind of ideology which affirms the will to power”. He adds that he had been to Bosnia during the period in which Muslims were slaughtered in their thousands: “So I have seen such chauvinism in its Christian form.”
um, yes!
Where the spirit of life and light is, death and darkness have a difficult time finding a foothold.
Let’s declare a new decade of evangelism — and mean it, this time!
Jim Elliott <><
“Could a robust Christian response be the answer to Muslim extremism in Britain?”
WOW!, now there’s a novel approach. Has it been tried before?
Jim, maybe we should have an evangelistic crusade or two.
Christopher,
Now wouldn’t that go over well in the press!
Not gonna happen. We’re too busy robustly defending judeo christianity through water boarding and other forms of evangelization.
Justinmartyr, why are you waterboarding people?
I take it that you believe that we cannot as a church evangelize if the secular government of the society of which we are a part is using the weapons of the state to defend our society.
I’d like to see some more argumentation before I buy into that.
I’m thinking I would not want my sons and daughters tortured, beaten up, kidnapped and handed over to the Syrians, without a chance of a fair trial, wouldn’t you? Do unto others as you would have them do to you, our Lord commanded.
My family died on trumped up charges at the hands of the Nazis in WWII. I’ve seen enough of the world to know that when a bureaucrat, even an American bureaucrat, is able to lock someone up without trial the system is being abused.
Be careful Christopher, what you sow you will reap. If this government is indeed run by “we the people,” then we the people can expect God’s judgment. Our hands are guilty with the blood of innocent men.
justinmartyr,
I have not seen the Church waterboard anyone. Agents of the government have done this, but probably much less than you believe. The US Government is not trying to christianize Iraq or any place. There are members of the Church who are trying to spread the Gospel in Iraq and Syria and Iran and Saudi Arabia and at much personal risk. If you have evidence of people using waterboarding to spread the gospel, then please tell us.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
[i]I have not seen the Church waterboard anyone.[/i]
You’ve not seen anyone waterboard anyone–the CIA prudently deletes the videos. What concerns me is that their actions are justified by Christians here and elsewhere. And the Presidential candidates these Christians are voting for are, judging from their words, likely to support further use of this practise. (With the exceptions of John McCain (who knows what it is like to be tortured) and Ron Paul.)
[i]If you have evidence of people using waterboarding to spread the gospel, then please tell us.[/i]
Our candidates have to proved to us that they are strong Christians, born again, pro-life, and meet a host of other credentials. And yet we turn the blind eye when they abuse people who have not been tried or found guilty of any crime. Sorry, democracy can’t work two ways: either “we the people” actually means us, or it doesn’t. The reason we want our leaders to be men of our faith (sorry Romney) is because we expect them to preach or at least Christ from the bully pulpit. I hope, like Pilate, they wash their hands after reading the torture reports.
[i]There are members of the Church who are trying to spread the Gospel in Iraq and Syria and Iran and Saudi Arabia and at much personal risk.[/i]
God bless them, Phil. And if you’ve lived in the Middle East (as have I), you’ll know that their job has been made a whole lot more difficult. Arabs and Israelis conflate our leaders with our religion. In their minds there is no difference between our politicians and our faith.
justinmartyr, are you aware that our own soldiers undergo waterbaording as training. It is not torture, but it is very effective.
Furthermore, what our soldiers suffer at the hands of those wo recognize no rules to war is independent of what we do. Since when did such enemies taylor their treatment of prisoners by what they saw us doing? Did the North Vietnamese treat McCain the way they did because we were doing the same to our prisoners? Are jihadist savages beheading prisoners because we are doing that as well?
Only civilized countries enter into agreements about the “rules of war”, and history has shown that the more agressive of them will violate those rules whenever they see fit. Didn’t the Nazi’s pretend to follow the Geneva Convention?