Western civilisation is built upon a foundation of Christianity. It is not any coincidence that as Christianity fades within the West so do those values which have distinguished the West: tolerance, freedom of conscience, the worth of all life and private responsibility. Those values which we have now taken as a right are in serious danger, and the more Christianity is pushed out of the national conversation the greater the danger.
Growing Intolerance
The abandonment of toleration as a civic virtue is deeply troubling. There is evidence of accelerating intolerance, harassment and discrimination being shown to Christians in Britain today. It is essential that Christians wake as much as the expansion of attacks on British Christians and our beliefs before it develops into something much worse.
A survey of greater than 1,500 people conducted by the conservative Christian organisation Voice for Justice UKÂ has reached the conclusion that individuals who hold biblically orthodox Christian opinions are being increasingly marginalised and treated with contempt inside society. This growing hostility, at times amounting to ‘Christophobia’, or anti-Christian hatred, is obvious in every sector of British national life.
Amongst the Young
Worryingly, the report indicates that social discrimination is most acute amongst the younger generation, those that have undergone the progressive-influenced school and university system. Fifty-six per cent of the respondents affirmed that that they had personally experienced hostility and mock once they attempted to debate their Christian beliefs, but this rose to 61 per cent amongst young people. More than half of under-35s felt there have been negative stereotypes of Christians at their administrative center. Thirty-eight per cent of Christians under 35 felt their freedom of speech was restricted, resulting in self-censorship.
Hierarchy of Protection
Unsurprisingly the report indicates that the strongest opposition got here when Christians revealed they didn’t associate with the beliefs of the LGBT-etc movement. According to the Equality Act 2010 there must be no hierarchy within the list of nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.
However, it is obvious that amongst the characteristics protected by laws there may be a transparent hierarchy with all things LGBT reigning supreme, closely followed by race. Seventy-eight per cent of respondents said they believed religious discrimination was not treated as seriously as other types of discrimination.
Many respondents noted that Muslims were being treated with ‘a greater sensitivity’ than Christians, with any criticism of Muslims perceived and treated as a type of racism.
The Barnabas Fund in evidence to the House of Commons has highlighted the plight of ex-Muslims being attacked. Attempts of ‘forced reconversion’ to Islam are widespread within the UK for Christians who’ve converted from a Muslim-family background, or Christians who come from Muslim majority countries. Tajamal Amar, a Pakistani Christian who had fled Pakistan after being shot for refusing to convert to Islam, was ‘knocked out and left with a broken nose by a gang of “Muslims” in Derbyshire who attacked him for displaying a cross and poppies on his automotive’.
Official Discrimination
Most concerning of all is how anti-Christian attitudes and actions are being perpetrated by the organs of the state. When official institutions discriminate against Christians there may be created an environment where anti-Christian prejudice appears acceptable and even encouraged.
The report found that ‘children expressing Christian beliefs could be bullied by pupils and intimidated by teachers’ and that ‘Christian teachers were required to show materials which went against their faith’. Schools are teaching progressive ideology to Christian children even when their parents object.
This isn’t confined to state schools: the mainstream churches are complicit in rejecting Christian social mores. Church of England guidance telling primary schools that children as young as five may be transgender was funded by Stonewall. The Catholic Herald is of the opinion that ‘progressive ideology has replaced Christianity in a lot of our Catholic schools’.
It seems almost routine that Christian street preachers openly promoting the gospel are arrested under the Public Order Act after being reported by LGBT activists for supposed ‘homophobia’. It appears that the police mechanically imagine the allegations of homosexual activists. Criticise Islam and the police might arrest you on the word of a Muslim or woke activist.
Perhaps probably the most frightening incident of official discrimination was not a physical attack or stream of abuse but reasonably the actions of the police and Crown Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland. In 2015 James McConnell, minister of a giant Presbyterian church in Belfast, was prosecuted for stating in a sermon that he believed that Christianity was the one option to God and that other religions resembling Islam were a satanic deception. Mr McConnell was acquitted after a liberal Muslim friend spoke up defending his right to specific theological disagreement. It is disturbing that the police and Crown Prosecution Service thought it likely that they may secure a conviction for hate speech against a Christian minister for expressing a theological critique of Islam during a sermon in church.
In circumstances of acquittal like this, the method becomes the punishment. A police arrest and the following charge and wait for a trial, the expense of lawyers, the constant worry, the disruption to congregational life, all these have a chilling effect and result in pressure about speaking out again. Christians must be seriously concerned that this is feasible within the UK within the twenty first century.
The Voice of Justice UK report concludes that ‘there may be growing concern that the power of Christians within the UK to practise and manifest their faith in public is deteriorating’.
Despite all of the evidence we wait in vain for any politicians referring to the rise of Christophobia. Just as we wait for any of the mainstream denominations expressing concern that society as a complete has fallen into the grip of a progressive ideology which is actively hostile to Christianity.
Campbell Campbell-Jack is a retired Church of Scotland minister. He blogs at A Grain of Sand.
