A Muslim UK Cabinet Minister, addressing a meeting in The Vatican, warned against an aggressive secularisation that was on the rise in Britain and Europe
“My theory is that… we have got to the stage where aggressive secularism is being imposed by stealth… denying people the right to a religious identity and failing to understand the relationship between religious loyalty and loyalty to the state,”
Warsi, born and bred in Yorkshire of Pakistani parents is a combative conservative who has fallen foul of both the gay rights lobby for opposing homosexual marriage and of jihadists who have threatened her for her support of Bitish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
She has consistently and robustly defended the role of religion in modern society and poured scorn not just upon those militant atheists who seek to drive it out of public life but also upon so called religious “leaders” who seem to be in constant retreat in the face of those militants.
to create a more just society, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their creeds. In practice this means individuals not diluting their faiths and nations not denying their religious heritages
But what is most striking about this Muslim lady is not just her acceptance that Christianity is a key element of European culture and civilisation but her insistence that Europeans should make that fact a cause for celebration.
today I will be taking the argument one step further. I will be arguing for Europe to become more confident and more comfortable in its Christianity. The point is this: the societies we live in, the cultures we have created, the values we hold and the things we fight for all stem from centuries of discussion, dissent and belief in Christianity.
These values shine through our politics, our public life, our culture, our economics, our language and our architecture. And, as I will say today, you cannot and should not extract these Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes.
How sad that it falls to a Muslim politician to defend Christianity and Britain’s culture and history. Where are the bishops and archbishops who should be fighting the good fight?. Oh, I forgot….they are too busy APOLOGISING for the very thing Warsi was eulogising.
What a crazy world…..
