Anti-christian zealots have a new tactic
Militant ‘progressive’ secularists don’t just hate my religion. They hate its followers, too
You don’t have to dig that deep into the history of Oxford’s colleges to find they owe their existence to Christianity’s historic role in this country. For some it’s obvious: Christ Church, Corpus Christi, Jesus – the names give away the connection. But it’s also true for others. Take Worcester College. Its roots go back to Gloucester College, a foundation of Benedictine monks. That fell victim to Henry VIII and his henchman, Thomas Cromwell, as part of their dissolution of the monasteries. So rows about religion are not new at Worcester College, except today it’s not a question of tearing down buildings, stone by stone, or confiscating the altar plate for the King’s coffers. It’s about banning what you don’t agree with, and what Worcester’s woke students don’t like are Christian beliefs.
This month, a group of them are said to have complained to the college authorities about the organisation Christian Concern holding its weeklong Wilberforce Academy residential school at the college. David Isaac, the Provost of Worcester, has apologised to the students’ union, saying he regretted the “distress” the event caused its members.
This latest episode is more disturbing than a group of unliberal “liberals” making a fuss about beliefs they don’t like. It hints at something far worse: that what the secularist enemies of religion really object to is not just a creed, but also the people who hold it. Most worryingly of all, they have learnt to wrap up their bigotry as support for diversity.
There are plenty of churchgoers who aren’t very keen on Christian Concern. It’s an evangelical organisation whose supporters are very clear about where they stand on abortion (against), euthanasia (against) and homosexuality (sinful). They base their trenchant beliefs on their reading of Scripture. Other Christians don’t interpret the Bible the same way, and I’m not too keen on some of their ideas myself. Yet their fellow Christians should be concerned about what has happened to Christian Concern at Worcester College. It’s part of a bigger trend: to traduce not only a religion but also its followers.
A few weeks ago I spoke on Radio 4 in the Thought for the Day slot, celebrating the achievements of our Paralympians in Tokyo but also noting conflicted attitudes to disabled people. When I pointed out that disabled people have taken their objection to the current abortion law, which allows termination right up until birth on the grounds of physical or mental abnormality, to the High Court on the grounds that the law is discriminatory and does not respect them, I was the subject of a complaint by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which described my Thought as “low”. The Twitter trolls also waded in, calling me deluded, while one said that given I was a person of faith, I was mentally damaged. Unless you sign up wholesale to abortion as a human right and expression of feminism, it’s not just your views that are opposed: it’s you.
What are Christians to do about these attacks? Stay silent? Turn the other cheek? That saying comes, of course, from Matthew 5:39 but skip on a few chapters and you find Christ is realistic about what it is to have unpopular beliefs: you’re sheep in the midst of wolves, he says, and he suggests a certain guile. Be not only innocent as doves, he advises, but wise as serpents.
In 21st-century Britain, that could be interpreted as Christians using what is available to them to fight back: the law. One woman who did so, Kristie Higgs, was fired from her job as a school pastoral assistant after sharing a petition against extending relationship education on her Facebook page. She went to court and her case is to be heard by an appeal tribunal after a judge ruled it was an important case regarding the free expression of belief.
Mr Isaac, previously chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, pointed out in a blog post recently that freedom of speech in education was a foundation of an effective society. Yet it’s in danger of being lost at his college, where as part of his apology for the college hosting Christian Concern, profits from it will now be used for “diversity initiatives”. Yet surely a truly diverse society should have space for Christian ideas, for debating them, and for Christians, too.