Maybe [Rowan] Williams has given up. But one Anglican bishop, a brave soul who happens to have a Muslim name, has not. Pakistan-born Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, has made it clear that England has to fight for its cultural life and cannot yield to Islamic extremists who he says are taking advantage of the moral vacuum left by a nation that has largely abandoned Christianity in the wake of the 1960s cultural revolution.
As Archbishop Williams was busy surrendering his nation and his faith earlier this year, Nazir-Ali dared to publicly refer to the no-go areas in Muslim neighborhoods and blame them on government multicultural policies that create divisiveness. For that, this courageous clergyman has received death threats.
England would do well to listen to Nazir-Ali, tune out Williams and resist giving in to the impulses of opinion shapers who have opted for moral cowardice. If not, there will be no England, no Great Britain, left.
As it is, England has become a revolving door of migration, the rotation of which is putting a new face on an old nation. Britons are leaving in large numbers and are being replaced in larger numbers by outsiders.
While many of the foreigners relocating in Britain are skilled workers who are necessary to the health of the economy, the country is experiencing a brain drain, the worst in 50 years, the media say. The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development says no other nation is losing qualified people so fast.
The first two sentences again make me wish that Michael Nazir-Ali had succeeded George Carey instead of Rowan Williams. What a difference that would have made!
To put it in terms of the USA, instead of an Abraham Lincoln, we ended up with a Stephen Douglas.
This is not the first time Britain has faced an “invasion” of foreigners with a vastly different culture and religion. The Church ought to be praising God for bringing the nonbelievers to THEM, since they failed to reach the nations.
The majority of current immigrants to Britain are Roman Catholics from other parts of Europe. This sort of hysterical racist rubbish would have been more appropriate in the 1960s and 1970s when the parents and grandparents of the present English-born Muslim population mostly arrived from Muslim parts of the British Commonwealth. And, by the way, Nazir-Ali is not a Muslim name, it’s an Arabic name, and there is a difference, as the many Arab Christians who will be watching GAFCON with great interest could tell you.
[blockquote] much of England has given up on being England [/blockquote] Now that’s just plain sad.
[size=1][color=red][url=http://resurrectioncommunitypersonal.blogspot.com/]The Rabbit[/url][/color][color=gray].[/color][/size]
Samh (#2),
Perhaps you’re thinking of William the Conqueror the Battle of Hastings, “1066 and all that.” But at least the Normans were Christians. The great St. Anselm of Canterbury (of Norman extraction) was one of the fruits of that particular cultural invasion. So yes, not all prior invasions have had a negative effect on the Church and the course of English cultural history from a Christian perspcive.
But perhaps you were also thinking of the earlier Nordic invasions of pagan Viking type peoples who terrorized the British Isles for many generations. They were eventually assimilated, but not without a long, hard struggle.
Yet today’s situation has its own special characteristics and dangers. I hope some of the readers of this blog from across the Pond will weigh in here. Yes, as I understand it, the single largest ethnic group flooding into England in recent years has been a huge wave of Polish workers, seeking better economic opportunities than their homeland provides. And that influx of conservative Catholics bodes well for the future of Christianity in England, though not perhaps as much for the venerable old C of E.
But this report of the actions of some profoundly mistaken Birmingham bobbies/police officers trying to stop street evangelism in a heavily Muslim area is still deeply disturbing. Of course, handing out tracts is not a very effective form of evangelism, but that’s not the point. The key thing is that it’s certainly no “hate crime.”
I think the author is onto something. Western civilization as a whole does seem to be undergoing a sort of collective “failure of nerve.” In abandoning its Christian roots, Britain (like Europe as a whole) is losing its soul. Like a cut flower, without its life-giving roots, English culture is sure to wilt and die.
History indeed has many lessons to teach us. For instance, England tried appeasing Hitler under Neville Chamberlain and quickly discovered how futile that naive policy was. The heroic, noble Bp. Michael Nazir-Ali is issuing a sort of cultural call to arms. How quickly will England wake up this time? And will it be soon enough?
David Handy+
I think the tone of this article is unfairly derogatory towards Rowan Williams. Of course, I have never quite understood the furor that Williams’ comments of Muslims and England a few months ago caused.
I think immigration is certainly an issue in England. Whole sections of London look like a Middle Eastern city market as soon as you get off the tube. Still, I think blaming immigration for the collapse Christianity in England is putting the cart before the horse.
Of course the other problem is that GB is now a liberal socialist police state.
Right, Br.Michael. And Rowan Williams is an appointee of that state’s current government. So, no surprise. The question is will the U.S. pay attention to its partner’s experiences before it is too late.
[blockquote]”As Archbishop Williams was busy surrendering his nation and his faith earlier this year,…”[/blockquote]
Let us not forget to include the WWAC! What a disgrace to the Canterbury space!
So what will happen to the Monarchy?
11. The monarchy will become a caliphate…and that dunce Charles will be the first!
The furor over Rowan Williams comments are about his refusal to stand up for the Christian faith. As the Archbishop of Canterbury it would seem that he has a moral responsability to defend his church, as he swore to defend the faith when he was consecrated a bishop. Lately he has failed miserably in doing that. He has not defended against heretic revisionists nor non christian influence from other sources. People are tired of being overrun and leaders doing nothing to defend them whether political or religious. As I said in another post on a similar topic, maybe someone can send the bishops and Rowan a copy of “Onward Christian Soldiers”. Of course, he would probably dismiss it as being to aggresive and exclusionary. We can’t risk hurting someone’s feelings while they take over our country now can we?
Totally off topic, but that “brain drain” phrase was a bit of deja vu … has it been 50 years since “Help!”?
Wouldn’t it be nice if the orthodox bishops used Lambeth to unite behind +Michael and forced the conference to confront the issues before the church.
I don’t believe it will happen, but it would be great to force the issues into the open and make bishops declare before the world where they stand.
RS Bunker
I have one answer to the question posed in the header. [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ2FOBxshWY&feature=related]There’ll always be an England![/url]