Melanie Phillips, a commentator with the UK daqily "The Spectator" observes the declining state of freedom in Britain.
There can hardly be a more graphic illustration of Britain’s helter-skelter slide into dhimmitude that this story:
Two Christian preachers were stopped from handing out Bible extracts by police because they were in a Muslim area, it was claimed yesterday. They say they were told by a Muslim police community support officer that they could not preach there and that attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity was a hate crime.
The community officer is also said to have told the two men: 'You have been warned. If you come back here and get beat up, well, you have been warned.' A police constable who was present during the incident in the Alum Rock area of Birmingham is also alleged to have told the preachers not to return to the district.
The noteworthy point about this incident is that it was a Muslim police ancillary officer who was involved. He did not uphold the law of the land, which gives people the freedom to say in public whatever they want within the law. Instead he upheld the Islamist principle that this particular area of an English city was a Muslim area, within which it was not permissible to do anything contrary to Muslim principles such as preach Christianity.
When the Bishop of Rochester recently warned that Britain was developing Muslim no-go areas, he was denounced the length and breadth of the establishment, with government ministers and bishops falling over each other to declare that they did not recognise the country he was describing. ‘There are no no-go areas in Britain’ they all declared. Well, here it is, in glowing technicolour and flashing lights, in Alum Rock Birmingham. What are they all saying now, those government ministers and bishops of the Church of England, to a situation where in the heart of England a British police support officer, employed by the British state to enforce the law of England, aggressively prevents Christians from preaching the established faith of England on the grounds that this is now a ‘hate crime’?
This is not a one-off. Alert readers will note that it was the West Midlands police force which tried to prosecute the Dispatches TV programme for revealing the true ‘hate crime’ in Britain’s so-called moderate mosques which preach hatred of the west and sedition. This in turn is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg. Up and down the country, police forces led by politically correct imbeciles are recruiting large numbers of Muslims, mainly as police community support officers like the officer in Alum Rock, in order to ‘build bridges’ with the Muslim community, and with minimal or non-existent security vetting in case they upset or offend the said Muslim community. The result is, among other things, the development of Muslim no-go areas enforced by British police officers.
Welcome once again to Londonistan
New Life Narrabri 
You do put up some interesting information!!Most of the time that I respond to something like this, I get myself into trouble. What I say seems pretty reasonable to me when I write it, but I guess maybe I don't explain it very well or something because people usually end up mad at me. But here goes…. if you feel it's inappropriate, please feel free to delete this comment. I sincerely don't want to be unfair to anyone.I know it's considered to be the "right" thing to do to treat everyone the same, but in any group of people, individuals or larger groups, there is frequently one that is going to be more agressive. We hate doing it, but sometimes it's essential to push back with the same amount of force. We find acting like this distasteful because we generally interact with people who have respect for their host country and try to fit into the population, by learning the language, customs and laws. I think we've all had to deal with this on a personal level, we've all had that houseguest that tried to change menus, even move the furniture around. If we are not able to send the houseguest packing, we need to establish rules that are suitable for all concerned, probably rules that heavily favor the people who own the house.It's sad that the Christians were treated like this, but where this is going next? I'm sure it won't stop there. Will they try to outlaw all religions and customs throughout the world except for Islam? In Canada, the Muslim children were permitted to carry daggers to school because it was part of their religion. Canadian children were forbidden to take knives to school. It was unheard of! Probably most of the Muslims are fine people, but we have to admit that some do have a reputation for fanaticism, and now we're letting them be armed?? We had moved from Canada before this happened, but if my kids had been in school then, I would have pulled them out and home schooled them.So what do you think, Keith? What Would Jesus Do?
LikeLike
Lois you raise some great points.I think there is a lot of confusion between genuine religion and cultural issues. For example, many Muslim leaders see the west as being "christian" which it no longer is. Equally many things attributed to being Muslim are a cultural thing not a religious thing, such as carrying knives.Christians tend, by nature, to be less assertive of their rights than other people. We would rather pray for our leaders than fight for our rights. That means that scenarios like the one described in my post are quite common.Another factor is that while the dominant catch-cry in the West is "tolerance" that tolerance is by no means equally distributed. For example, the US media TENDS to portray homosexuals as nice loving people and Christians as narrow-minded bigots. The Law and Order series, for example, has a very strong anti-christian bias. Any other group that was so consistently negatively portrayed in the media would be organising protests and talking to lawyers.Despite the fact that 80% of Americans claim to be strongly religious, how often do you see that reflected in mainstream media?Some time ago, in Melbourne there were two pastors who were convicted of vilifying Muslims for discussing the Koran at a seminar and teaching christians how to share their faith with Muslims and how to show genuine love to them. Eventually the case was overturned on appeal but only after huge cost to the people involved.On the other hand, there is a lot of racism that comes out, including from christians. I was pretty disgusted by protests against a proposed Muslim school to be built on the outskirts of Sydney. It seems to have been a silly place to want to build a school and the local council eventually rejected it for town planning reasons. The comments of some people, including christian leaders, were pretty bad I think.Western democracies have protected people by the rule of law which basically says the laws should apply equally to everyone. You can't break the law just because you are the king or because you belong to a particular group. We might disagree with certain laws but the consequences of breaking laws should apply equally to everyone.Muslims, atheists, Jews and Christians should all be treated alike. If it's illegal for one person to take a knife to school then it's illegal for everyone. If our constitution says that people have freedom of speech and freedom to associate then that applies to everyone.I don't think that we should discriminate against Muslims. Once you start picking on one group then it becomes easy to pick on other groups- including christians.I don't think we should accommodate every demand for special treatment either.
LikeLike
Extremely well put, Keith. Thanks for such a great response.
LikeLike
"In Canada, the Muslim children were permitted to carry daggers to school because it was part of their religion. Canadian children were forbidden to take knives to school."Lois, are you sure that it was Muslim children who were allowed to carry daggers to school? This is the first time that I have seen a claim that followers of Islam carried daggers as religious symbols. I know that Sikhs do (see for example http://www.sikhs.org/art12.htm), but that is very different from Islam.And if Muslim children are allowed to carry daggers to Canadian schools why do you write that Canadian children are not. I presume that in Canada the Muslim children allowed to carry daggers to school are Canadians. I presume Canadians can be Muslims and Muslims can be Canadians? Or maybe they are not? So in asking 'should we treat everyone as the same', maybe in thinking of people who are not Christians of Anglo origin we Christians of Anglo origin – and I am only partially of Anglo origin, being partially at least a good Celt – should remember that 'they', to put it very mildly are not all the same. And indeed 'we' are not all the same.Particularly in a climate where so much fear of the 'other' (and just as Paul tells us that love drives oout fear so fear drives out love) is being bred we can start to jump to all sorts of conclusions about who or what the 'other' is. Hey, isn't Barak Obama really a Muslim? I mean where was he born and look at that funny name? I mean, he has to be related to that guy, what is his name Obama, Osama, Bin the Lad, Bin Laden, you know the fella that heads up the Taliban. Oh no, it is Al Qaeda that he heads up, but aren't the Taliban and Al Qeada the same thing, I mean it is all the war against terror, yes and the goodies, the Americans, Brits and Canadians are fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Yes that is right. Oh, I hear some one say – "The Taliban, I remember them, back in the 1980's, they are the good guys the American CIA trained and armed to fight the godless Ruskies (commie bastards!) in Afghanistan to save us all from Satan? And wasn't good old Obama or Osama or whatever his name is one of those good guys?Aren't there American Muslims serving in the American army fighting in Afghanistan, British Muslims too, maybe even Canadian Muslims? Sorry Keith but I cannot remember whether the Austalians have bogged themselves down in Afghanistan too or are they only involved in Iraq (And, being Irish, I am not getting smug here as the Irish army is currently running about the Sahara desert helping the French Foreign Legion prop up neocolonial rule in Chad as an off-shoot of the conflicts in the Sudan)There are many points it would be interesting to explore from what you and Keith have written here, but I would like to make three. Firstly, it is too easy to see anyone who is not a white Christian with a non Anglo sounding name as 'all the same'. Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, are not the same and there must be almost as many varieties of Muslims as there are of Christians.Secondly, why on Earth (or more appropriately perhaps, in Heaven) would you expect to see Christianity repected among the powers and principalities of this world? Why should followers of Jesus be striving for respect in worldly terms?Thirdly, there are Canadian Muslims, not just children of immigrants (but then most Canadians and Autralians are the children or granchildren of immigrants) but increasingly there are born and bred Canadians, as there are increasing numbers of born and bred Irish, Muslims. And many of these Irish, British (and I guess Canadian and Australian) grew up in at least nominally and sometimes more than nominally, Christian homes. So if the gospel is so powerful (and I believe it is) where did all of us followers of Jesus screw up in passing it on? Maybe it is because we are not living the gospel in our daily lives (yeah, I know a lot of us are good at preaching it, but living it?) – I certainly feel I have a lot of room for improvement, my life has been a total mess.So before we get all up tight about how the governments of our western democracies treat us, and about how nasty Islam is, and about how there is a pro gay agenda in the media maybe we should focus on being what God is calling us to be. Every time we start whinging about how the principalities of this world treat us we sound so pathetic: "Oh Satan, you are so nasty and mean, stop treating us so badly, whinge , whinge"We are obessesed with the work of the Enemy and when we focus on his work and agenda he wins, always. Instead we should, at this time in world history anyway, shut up from whinging and focus on what God is calling us to be. Let us become a radical loving holy Godly community instead, who are willing to turn the other cheek to the pathetic crap the Accuser throws at us!Enough ranting for tonight, I need to go to sleep.And for a final point, Keith, your Church web site on 'Get a New Life' quotes a passage from Jeremiah 29:11. In the context of where the Church is today maybe you should think about where the Lord was sending His people at the time he spoke these words to them, say read Jer 29:4 – 10, well you are probably more familiar with this than I am and I do not want to be accused of trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, as we say in Ireland. But I think it is relevant to the subejcts this thread on your blog touches on.And for a final, final point, to really stir the crap 😀 one the .pdf downloads from your church website states:"The Bible clearly teaches that homosexuality is wrong,"Well I have read the Bible, I expect not as often as you since you are a professional 😉 , but more than once all the same. But I have not read this in there. I have read for example that it is wrong for two men to have sex with one another. And I believe and accept that is right, whether they are homosexual or heterosexual or somewhere in between.Now sexual sin has been part of my life and in the course of holding myself and of being held accountable by and to others I have taken part in accountability groups with homosexual men. All of the men I met were striving mostly successfully (more successfully I believe than most heterosexual men in the church) to live chaste lives. Generally they were doing very very well on the chastity scales. Most of them, besides years of prayer, had been through the gamut of Christian programmes and psychotherapy programmes that denied they were really homosexual but that their sexual orientation was some sort of sickness that they could be cured of. And at the end of it all they still found themselves attacted to other men.For all of them I think it was an enormous relief that they found a place where they could be open about their sexuality and receive honest support to live Godly lives which for most of them will involve life long celibacy as one component of their life. And of course it is possible to live a very fulfilling celibate Godly life whether you are homosexual or heterosexual.On the other hand I know of men, who not being able to find a place where they could own their sexuality and who having gone through all the various living waters, psychotherapy, exorcisms and so on still found themselves homosexually oriented and believing and being told that their homosexuality itself was sinful thought that they must be abandoned by the Holy Spirit and committed suicide. How have we church, as the people of God, managed to curse our brothers and sisters in this way?Goodnight Keith and may your congregation continue to find the place of God's blessing and well may you all bring the Lord's peace hope to the people of Narrabri.
LikeLike