A recent declaration has been launched by Christians that calls on the UK government and leaders in society and academia to respect human dignity and freedom of conscience.
The 2025 Westminster Declaration has been drawn up by Christians concerned by the deterioration of civil liberties, morality, and the worth of human life within the UK lately.
It is meant as an update to the 2010 Westminster Declaration in light of the large changes within the UK since then.
“Some of the alternatives made by Parliament and others in authority concerning the nature of human life, family relationships, sex education in schools, end-of-life care, and the use and development of latest technologies are having serious consequences,” the declaration reads.
“By ignoring Britain’s Christian heritage we now have endangered human life, weakened society, and created a fragmented nation uncoupled from its formative traditions, and and not using a unifying vision for its future.”
The declaration is split into seven key areas of concern: freedom of belief and of conscience; the worth of human life; marriage, family and youngsters; parents and college education; biological sex and gender; the role of the university; AI and moral reflection.
It warns that democracy in Britain is at serious risk unless freedom of belief, conscience and speech are protected.
“Religion is a protected characteristic, of equal standing with the eight other characteristics stated as having protection under law. We oppose subsequently any try and subordinate religious freedom to the demands of activist or political groups searching for to say dominance,” it states.
Elsewhere, it deplores “the present epidemic of family instability” and says that separation and divorce have change into “too easily available” and “normalised”. It calls for a strengthening of marriage and family life as an alternative.
On sex and gender, the document says that there’s a Christian duty to indicate compassion towards people confused about their gender while affirming “the givenness of biological sex” and calling on the Department for Education to be certain that classroom teaching reflects the recent Supreme Court ruling on the definition of ‘man’ and ‘woman’.
The declaration also speaks out against the legalisation of assisted suicide, and says that oldsters have the first responsibility for his or her kid’s education and upbringing.
The launch in Westminster on Saturday was led by various respected Christian leaders, amongst them the previous Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, the previous government’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, Fiona Bruce, theologian and peer Lord Biggar, and Major General Tim Cross.
In his address to the conference, Nazir-Ali said that if society asks Christians to do something unbiblical or prevents them from living out their faith “then we now have to say ‘no’, respectfully but clearly”.
“We must proceed to worship God in any way we are able to,” he said, adding that Christians must ask themselves whether society has reached such a degree that they have to “work against the grain”.
He suggested that there needed to be a paradigm shift within the Church to change into a “community of sunshine” that may attract people out of the “growing darkness”.
“[It] cannot simply mean being in a holy huddle hoping people will come and join us … the sunshine must illuminate what is correct in our society and what’s mistaken,” he said.
Commenting on the arrest of various street preachers “simply for sharing their faith”, Nazir-Ali said, “I could not agree with their methodologies but they must be free to achieve this.”
Mrs Bruce said that there was a “spiritual battle” waging at the extent of British politics as she called on the subsequent generation to think about whether or not they may be being called to Parliament, although she cautioned that “being a Christian in Parliament is spiritual warfare”.
Despite being a minority, she spoke of how a couple of committed Christian MPs had successfully challenged assisted suicide and looser Sunday trading laws, and secured hundreds of thousands of kilos in funding for a network of family support hubs across the country.
“That’s the difference only a handful of Christian MPs working together could make,” she said.
Mrs Bruce went on to say that she was greatly encouraged by reports of a ‘quiet revival’ amongst young people.
“The liberal experiment over the past two generations simply is not working; it’s failed … and so they want something different,” she said.
Mrs Bruce said she was meeting increasingly young people interest in moving into politics.
“They have a way of urgency to beat back against what has happened to their world,” she said.
It is her hope that if more young Christians enter Parliament, they are going to “not only hold back this tide of liberalism and progressivism but they might actually see Christian principles brought back into society, and society modified”.
Lord Biggar cautioned Christians to interact in a civil manner with individuals who hold different views, saying that they’d a “duty of affection” and were “to not alienate other people needlessly”.
The conference was hosted by former BBC journalist Robin Aitken who said that the mainstream media within the UK is “deeply antagonistic” towards Christian beliefs and has a “profound ignorance” of the Christian faith. His own former employer, he said, was no different and had “much to repent for”.
He said he desired to see more young people stand up against the “progressive heresy” dominating “all our institutions”, and that it was his prayer that the 2025 Westminster Declaration would lead the country back to Christianity.
“What today is about is nothing lower than the re-Christianisation of Britain,” he said.
“If that sounds ambitious, it’s,” he said, adding, “There has never been and won’t ever be a greater blueprint for human flourishing and happiness than the principles laid out for us by God Himself within the person of Jesus Christ.”
 A recent declaration has been launched by Christians that calls on the UK government and leaders in society and academia to respect human...){kind=link}