I am pleased you raised this topic Melanie, though I was not sure if you would.

There is a tendency in the CofE to see itself as a Department of State and therefore 'secular'. There is similarly a move to turn Churches into "Community Centres" so the State pays the cost and the church maintains a room inside......or to seek EU funds which will not give it to religious institutions and so the "Church" becomes a centre to teach Muslim women PC skills....this is a specific case.

There are many in the Church who are amateur politicians and journalists and act out these roles.

The worst are the academics - the Jeffrey Johns, the Rowan Williams, David Jenkins ilke who spend so much time studying abstruse texts, and engaged in committeee work that they forget the Wesleyan Mission to reach out to the people and raise them above their own mediocrity and vice.

These are the new-style clerics who do not believe in the core message of Christianity and seek to be a facilitator rather than proselyte.

These are the men for whom Scripture is myth and for whom vestments and good feelings are reality; and who see themselves as Rotarians collecting money for good causes.

I hear more about fundraising in Church than ever I hear real discussion of Scripture and the ignorance of this is breat-taking. I reather like the CofE, but not what it is becoming........

To send out a Christmas Card with a photograph of Lambeth Palace rather than the Christian Message is an affront to the Congregation....and to usurp the primary Christian festival of Chritmas with an appeal on behalf of Muslims will increase the hatred and anger at these same Muslims.

Why the secularists in the CofE try to devalue our Church is unclear....it is clear however that this Church needs a Martin Luther.....we are faced with a modern-day Tetzel destroying the Sanctity of the Church and devaluing our Scripture.

The religion is Judaeo-Christianity and it is not be be confused with Islam.....I am tired of hearing every word from the Bishops about Islam and little about Christianity.......they have been driven from the public squares where no crib scenes are displayed, isolated on the airwaves, and mocked in the press........the CofE is a disgusting spectacle overladen with petty bureaucrats....just why does it need 113 Bishops and made do with 44 in 1900 ?

Islam is an inferior religion to Christianity....but now they are proposing using State funds to train Imams in Britain........when there is a $50m Mosque in Rome paid for by Saudi, but Christianity is persecuted in Saudi......it is time to express anger.

That Christians are murdered and the "Archbishop" remains silent is what we should expect from an essentially weak man with no claim to moral leadership.

The Pope is the towering figure of our age. When the Chief Rabbi of Israel spoke in Berlin he spoke of the wartime Bishop of Krakow, Karol Wotyla and his own family......what 'depth' does Rowan Williams have ? A few chic articles, a few committees, a paper, a book, espousal of flaky causes ?

To see the Church become irrelevant is depressing, but it is being made absurd by low-quality moral leadership and will find fewer and fewer are prepared to finance anything beyond their parish......it will develop as a presbyterian church no doubt as central cohesion ebbs through the pusillanimity of these apostate bishops..........hard to believe that this religion was founded on martyrdom when you look at the bourgeois complacency of those making a career in the unworldly aura of clerical orders.......maybe Rowan Williams belongs in a monastery ? Usually they require a discipline and adherence to Christianity....so maybe he should become a TV pundit.

To Melanie - Your article was brilliant and, as always, you employed your diamond sharp mind for piercing directly through to the truth.

Romulus - Your post was also brilliant.

Your article reminds me of a story told by a professor of British history at the University of Texas. He was discussing how soldiers were being processed for induction into the army in World War II. One of the standard questions was religious affiliation. Most responses where CofE, which he duly entered in each soldiers record. However, when a draftee responded "none" he also entered CofE. Who would have thought that one of the "nones" would one day be the Archbishop.

Funny about the soldiers because CofE meant "Church Parade" so soldiers often said "Methodist" because they had no Church Parade.

The Archbishop's Christmas Speech was the contribution of a cleric who heads a church which seems to have capitulated to the spirit of the age. Since when has the Gospel of Christ ever been expected not to offend anyone? But here we are with another politically correct offering which refuses to challenge the British people with the claims of Christ. After generations of agnosticism in the media, no wonder no-one seems to know that Jesus came to save sinners and secondly that He said that He was the Only way to God.

Of course we now apparently live in a multi-faith society, even though the statistics don't support that opinion.

What I find interesting though is the fact that Islam historically stands full-square against almost every liberal and agnostic tenet of our current society and yet there is a process of appeasement going on not least on the part of our serious media.

Have you ever heard a muscular debate on Islam and homosexuality or marriage or vegetarianism or pluralism or teenage sex or abortion rights?

It's almost as if God is judging this nation which once believed in the grace and forgiveness of God and which has now sunk into moral decay, and doing it with a movement which believes in legal coercion of right behaviour.

http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/10-14-00/international_1.asp

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/akz/akz9608.htm

"To begin with, the Communists were convinced that aggressive confrontational measures were needed to destroy the churches' traditional position in society and to overcome the last remnants of Christianity's "pre-scientific" ideology. When these steps evoked opposition, produced numerous "martyrs", and were clearly counter-productive, the state was forced to see that its long- term goal of eradicating church influence altogether would have to be postponed. Instead it began to seek to sow divisions in church ranks, to place spies in all church offices, and to rely on its massive atheistical propaganda to secure ideological victory. "

"The churches could not be wiped out; but neither could they be absorbed under Communist auspices. This was the regime's dilemma. Mau's excellent and detailed account of the convoluted and sometimes contradictory efforts within the party bureaucracy to deal with this unwelcome situation is therefore much to be welcomed. His analysis of the evolution of the state's mechanisms for dealing with the churches, its success in breaking the links to west German Protestantism, and its attempts to foster "progressive elements" among the pastors and laity loyal to the regime is a reliable guide to the intrigues and chicanery practised. "

"Forty years of incessant atheistic propaganda, to be sure, have had their effect. Church participation is at a record low"

"which reprints a selection of the secret "assessments" written for the Ministry of Culture about theological literature, all of which required a "Publication Permit" before appearing in print. The determination with which the regime sought to exclude anything which was likely to enhance the church's reactionary views extended from scholarly texts down to ephemeral up-lifting pamphlets and even to church calendars. Ideological conformity demanded the excision of opinions which, even in a disguised form, attacked the regime's policies or encouraged Christians to resist the state's pretentions. Officially the GDR claimed that there was no censorship; in fact, over the forty years of its existence, the regime perfected the art of suppressing unwanted publications on a scale far beyond that practised by the Nazis or any of their predecessors. These "assessments" were written by a limited handful of loyal party members, some of them bureaucrats in the offices dealing with the churches, others by party-line theology professors in Leipzig and Berlin, continually on the watch for "dangerous" infiltrations of ideas opposed to the goal of realising "the atheistic character of Marxism-Leninism as the dominant ideological force in our society". "

"the party-line theologians took issue with any presentation of Christianity which contradicted party ideology. Even though in the 1980s the system became more relaxed, these secret critics adhered right up to 1989 to the idea that the churches were doomed to die out, and hence nothing should appear in print which suggested the contrary"

"only a small part of the regime's determination to impose ideological conformity. It is hardly surprising that the editors can show that these same bigoted theologians and pastors were not only being paid for their censorship efforts, but were for the most part also unofficial collaborators of the Stasi assisting in its all-pervasive surveillance activities. To be sure, after 1990, these men and women were quickly removed from the scene. But the damage they inflicted on the life of the churches, and the discredit they caused to the institutions they alleged served, remains a horrendous legacy to be resolved by the battered survivors. "

Splendid stuff Melanie.

Further to something Romulus mentioned... As a Christian and still a member of the C of E, the Pope and the (Roman) Catholic church do begin to stand out for me, amid the nonsense of so-called "liberal Christianity", like a towering beacon of integrity and solace to a (traditional) Christian like me, who watches his own church becoming less and less Christian each year.

Archbishop Williams prospective Xmas sermon is, as Melanie says, an excellent example of the risible moral confusion of the modern clerical establishment. Likewise, as an example of its profound doctrinal confusion too, and of the triumph of secular modernism in its theology, try Revd Paul Thomas' article, "To Hell with Hell" in last week's Church Times.

Does Archbishop Williams have an inkling how betrayed many of his poor old flock feel by the men (and now women) who're supposed to be ministering to us?

The more I read about Dr. Rowan Williams, the more I almost start to sympathize with Henry the Second.

Simon, in the US at least, the Catholic Church is the best friend of the Islamists.

The only Christian groups that I've found that are serious about fighting both the trendy-lefties and the radical Islamists
are the evangelical Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox. Wouldn't it be a kick in the pants if in the end, it is the mysterious Eastern Church that saves our Western civilization from its own self-destructiveness?

There is a book on Amazon by a Protestant priest who became an Orthodox and his comparison of the two churches. I understand there is an expanding Russian Orthodox presence in Britain and that its liturgy is unchanged since 427 AD......

http://www.antiochian-orthodox.co.uk/

The situation will come to a head however with the schism in the US...the Episcopalian Church is miniscule and in fact its very name - suggesting "Bishop" is where its weakness lies because "trahison des clercs" has undermined it from within.

We should not forget that even Jesus was betrayed from within his apostles (the precursors of our bishops), but at least Judas decided to hang himself.

This situation is not new within the Church; but it is time to fight it to the death and if the Church gets crushed in the fight a new one will emerge........the people who cut the boats adrift from the moorings have no idea how to bring them back to shore and we should forget politicians who cannot even organise their own feeble personal lives: it is resolve and determination that will decide not extemporising and trying to be all things to all men.

It is sweet music to hear someone of prominence come out and say, "Our Western values are worth fighting for."

Incredibly this type of thought brands one as a "racist" in increasingly growing circles in the West.

I am not sure it does Susan. Maybe once, but people are fed up of the Lord of the Flies and its inanity in public life.

It is simply that old quotation about "all it takes for evil to establish itself is for good men to stand idly by"

Each person in their daily life has to be true to his beliefs and to fight each little battle.......and not to be browbeaten......noone is asking for crucifixion just asking to avoid Peter's three-fold denial of Christ......

The media is mindless and chants whatever......I laugh each time i hear them tell me the Conservatives cannot get a big enough swing to win an election; they said exactly the same about Labour when John Major was PM.

In short they say not what they know or believe, but what they hope to convince you of.......unless you believe Daz does wash whiter, you must ignore anything spouter by empty barrels on TV or Radio......they do not think, they utter.

Intelligent dialogue is gone from the airwaves and the forums of debate; and it was the chanting of slogans since the 1970s that ruined things.......but go read George Orwell's Essays and see it was ever thus.....only now the bulk of the populace has withdrawn from the debate into docile consumerism (wow, I start to sound like Herbert Marcuse !)

Still, Christianity like Judaism puts the onus on the individual not the group, to be true to his faith and it is the scheme of the secularists to make the individual conform to group rights that is at the heart of the battle against religion.

Do you think Rom that the C of E could be saved by being disestablished? There will always be these trendy political types like Williams as long as it is part of the prevailing political order. The Church members should be able to choose their own leader through representation at least, not have it imposed from above by the likes of T. "Third Way" Blair.

Susan, Gladstone dis-established the Church of Wales....Rowan Williams came from The Church of Wales.....it is a tiny Church.

It would be a disaster for both country and CoFE if it was disestablished and if you look between 1649 and 1660 it was and there was no Archbishop...when Charles II returned Edward Hyde restored the CofE to hold the country together.........

Diestablishment would make the country open to US sects and there would be no cohesion whatsoever.....after the Church the Monarchy would go

The world for some reason does not seem to be concerned with the Christian suffering. On the other hand, the world is obsessed with Israel. When the Israelis demolish an empty building used by the terrorists to kill Israelis there is hardly a publication or a news network that would not place that story on the front page.

The Coptic Christians in Egypt have been persecuted for a very long time. How many people even know about their plight and situation? In most Arab states the Christian population is decreasing as the Christians are leaving for other countries. The only country where the Christian population is increasing happens to be Israel. However, over 70% of all United Nations resolutions are directed against Israel. How many UN resolutions are directed at countries that persecute the Christian population?

Hmmm, maybe you are right there Rom. I'm no authority on the Church of England. I was raised in the Church of Rome, but I've often kind of secretly toyed with the idea of converting to the Anglican community, which is called the Episcopal Church in the US. It seemed like a Church that would offer a similar liturgy and dignity, as the Church of Rome, but without all the over-the-top frippery and lockstep conformity. A good compromise between high and low church. Also, I like the Anglican Church's hymns. However, I'm completely turned off by the Anglican Community as personified by the trendy-leftoids like Rowan Williams. Yuck.

Not having an established church seems to have worked well in the US. We've so far avoided the religious strife of Europe and I think not having an established church has been a big reason for that. It could also be the reason why religion is still more powerful in the US as a social influence than in Europe. Our concept of secularism is different from that of Europe -- it means not only that the church must not tell the government what to do, but it also means that the government must not tell the church what to do (within reason of course -- you can't have religions that practice human sacrifices or slavery, etc.)

Well Susan, the Anglican Church was THE Established Church in MA and VA at least until 1820 with a Church Tax levy.

As for the US because of tax-advantages it has spouted Churches with some weird notions and crackpots.....remember that in Continental Europe the Churches are often STate-financed, but in England it is privately funded and must pay 17.5% VAT on all repairs to the fabric of its historic buildings.......so it does not enjoy taxpayer subsidy as in the USA.

Having lived in the US I prefer our system, I have to say that whenever I hear Episcopalian clergy interviewed on TV it is their basic insincerity that comes over and a smarmy sort of sales pitch of mock piety and saccharine.

As for Roger's point - I recommend Frankfurt Allgemeine on Saturday 20th December, an article on Christians in Israel, and Bethlehem and Nazareth, and the rape of Christian girls by Muslims, the protection money demanded of Christian shopkeepers by the PLO; and the refusal of the Greek Orthodox Church to allow Russian Orthodox immigrants to worship in their CHurches on orders from Athens......and the problems of some soldiers in the IDF finding places for Christian worship; and the disdain/antipathy of Israel towards its Christian minority

This is the book I mentioned about The Orthodox Church

Paperback: 368 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.70 x 7.79 x 5.14
Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper); 2nd edition (June 1993)
ISBN: 0140146563 | All Editions

Average Customer Review: Based on 40 reviews. Write a review.

Amazon.com Sales Rank: 14,897

The Orthodox Church
by Timothy Ware, Kallistos Ware

I am familiar how the Muslims treat the Christians. As for Jewish/Christian relationship, we can only wish the Christians throughout our history treated the Jews 5 times as bad as the Jews treat the Christians in Israel. Had that been the case there would have been a lot more Jews alive today.

Melanie reflects on a person who was voted into position by the church, so he represents the church.

What does that say about the people who claim they are in the church?
One of the biggest stumbling blocks to my own coming to faith in my thirties, was the hypocrisy I saw (and still do) througout my life by the church and it's people both with their positions and actions on both personal and contempory issues.

a question.
If all the believing Christians left the so called visible church who's leaders are abdicating their primary function.
Where would the church get the money to pay for all the buildings and salaries and stuff?

I'm not a big fan of George W but his doctrine of engaging tyrants and countries who terrorise will funnily enough free so many Muslims from tyranny.

One would have thought church leaders per se would be applauding from the rooftops that someone has started this policy. He of course should lead the way!
Indeed the UN should be so happy that finally someone has stood up and said we need to hold each other to account for the way we live.

Because we affect others.
Jesus did.

Mike NZ

"Melanie reflects on a person who was voted into position by the church, so he represents the church."

Untrue Mike.

The Queen appoints the Archbishop based upon two names going forward to the Prime Minister from the meeting of bishops; he forwards one name only to the Supreme Head of the Church of England.........Tony Blair chose Rowan Williams using Royal Prerogative Powers

Reverend David Holloway, a prominent Anglican Church reformist, has thrown doubt on the current selection process of the Archbishop of Canterbury, stating that he does not believe it will produce a strong leader

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1755314.stm

The new leader of the Church of England will be elected via an ecclesiastical committee, made up of members of the Anglican clergy and laity.

This committee will draw up a shortlist of candidates for the succession and the prime minister will make the final decision.

However in the interview, Mr Holloway criticises the prime minister's role in the Archbishop's appointment, stating that Tony Blair should not be so involved in the choice of the new Archbishop:

Every preacher should ask himself: what would Jesus say and do? This most basic question has not been addressed by Rowan Williams in any of his sermons or articles that I have read.

Rowan Williams' boss is Jesus and he is answerable to Him, and his job description (same as that for all Christians) is what Jesus says at the end of Matthew's Gospel : "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Teaching people to obey everything Jesus commands is the Archbishop's job, and he would be well advised to stick to that rather than to stray into areas outside his remit in an attempt to attract publicity to demonstrate the wrong kind of credentials for an Archbishop. His Christmas message is an opportunity to tell people the Good News of Jesus, and deviating from this confirms in the minds of those who don't accept the Good News that bishops no longer have a clue about what it is they are supposed to say and do.

Rom
I have to disagree with you as the bishops were chosed of God/or chosen of the people of the church or both.
The arch-bishop was chosen of God/chosen of the peoples representatives or both.

Therefore he represents the church both as figurehead, spiritual head before God and man (OT system)and as a representative of the people in the church.

By claiming he doesn't represent who the people are is specious as you are ignoring the fact that to get there he had many steps and hurdles.
At any one the people could have said no way mate.

They didn't, nor to his supporters so they therefore represent the people in the that church family.

I never could understand my pentecostal friends quoting "come out of her now" and other texts until 10yrs ago a homosexual bishop was appointed over us.

My 40 min phone call with him led me to believe that he was ok with God sending on him a orientation that would effectively keep him out of heaven.
Go figure.

We voted with our feet and ended up with a church family that loves God over man's word.
Which was painful as we left a family group we loved who were prepared to accept a behaviour choice God clearly doesn't.

Mike NZ

Well Mike in NZ, you are entitled to your popish analysis of the Anglican Church, but the Archbishop is selected exactly as the BBC laid down.

If the Bishops are chosen by God as you suggest, just why was he satisfied with 44 Bishops in 1900 but needed 113 in modern times with just 16.000 clergy ?

The Church is a secular institution charged with spiritual aims; it is not a spiritual institution per se....that is a Roman Catholic position and not one acknowledged within the Anglican cHurch

WE do not elect Bishops in the Anglican Church, and as one on the electoral roll, I have no say on who becomes a bishop, or a dean, or a canon.

Nice article I suppose,
as a only Muslim on who perhaps reads these articles , I do agree partially what was mentioned.

Of course , most of the Muslim, Islamic world views various laws and wars being fought on as an attempt to occupy more Muslim land thats all. Since we do see alot of destruction and images that degrade Muslim values in the world. I mean its shown every day on CNN , BBC or any other world news.

The truth is that I 'do' agree that Muslim leaders have failed us in providing most of the basic needs of a free world. Its tragic.

But, Its quite unfortunate that Miss Manji is seriously considered a Muslim voice , which to me is quite funny since her cliams to be a observant Muslim do not really make any sense since her actions do not follow the teaching (Her Homosexual tendacies) . Since being in a free country I understand her choice and respect it. But its sort of hard to digest that the western media thinks she represents the Muslim Women? Come on really?

The real Muslim women are the women who have decided to keep their religious identities , intact even after 911. Most of them have kept to their beliefs with out fear , same goes for french Muslim women that are now demonstrating for their freedom to religious rights.

Its interesting how the western media wants to idolize certain 0.1% monority women like Miss Manji. Since I suppose they feel more confident that the general public can handle a view that Muslim women are opressed.

I think A debate can be made on the contrary Christian women are opressed in the corporate work force where perhaps 80% of them work under men. I mean I am sure you women will agree with me out there. I mean they are told what to wear and dress like in advertisement campaigns like GAP , Nike etc. But I do admit that they have some freedoms that Muslim women do not have yet .. please do not confuse freedom of speech & right to work and civil liberties with wearing the Muslim Hijab , which is a symbol of a pious women and is a part of the faith. For those who observe it. If you don't well you are just a non observant Muslim , but I find it quite astonishing that people have started to question of people's right to religious freedom.

I think that christianity was viewed with more respect in the Muslim world before the wars, because some christians were running orphan houses and doing community work , I mean I really admire those christians rather then people who drop bombs form the sky. I do feel sad when I read that any christian was persecuted in Muslim world , and Muslims should do more to protect them period!!!!

As for the persecutions of Christians in Muslim worlds , let me assure you if I knew someone was in trouble Christian /jew / any one... I would not hesistate once to open my doors and help them, just like any sane person form any religion would do ...who belives in the importance of preserving Human life.

Some times I think its not right to crucify a religion based on action of some ignorant individuals.

In essense I understand what the Christian bishop is stating ...and to me it feels good "Thank god atleast there is one person out there that feels that way. To know
that he does not justify military actions and guatanamobay is really good.

Is Guatanamobay ? Legal

No, who knows you may have a sheap hearder in there and the army rounded off him and since he does not speaks a word of English Guess what ? He is stuck in a 6 foot prison.

You know what lets look at it form some sheep hearder's prespective... the guy is walking his sheaps in war torn Afghanistan , when a tribal leader comes and tells him , Hey dude we are going to war some outside the nation is invading. Now since he is un educated guy who wants to defend his little piece of land he starts to fight? His knowledge of America is simply that it is the country that will drop bombs...he does not has cnn to see what is happening ...he does not have radio nor did he ever study history. All he knows is that a metal bird will drop bombs and his house made of Mud will be destroyed and his family of 3 will be killed.

All he knows is that someone is gona drop bombs on his land first it was the Russians now its the American ... I am sure 75% of them had no clue of 911 how could they know .. they don't have cable or TV people.

The army took them if they were found on the other side of the border .. just put them in the truck like animals....they do not understand that these people only know that USA abandoned them .. after russia left .. they only know that USA is attacking Afghanistan... thats it ...

Wouldn't you try to defend America if it was attacked?

But does that means .. putting some sheaphearder in a prison...or some ignorant guy in hell cell , even if you met him 2 months before war or American invasion , he would have invited you in his home and prepared tea and gave you all he had in his home, which would be just couple of loaf of bread or may be if he is rich some warm tea?

Most of the 911 terrorists were educated. They were not these uneducated people form Afghanistan. They were once armed by US to fight against Russia and then Chechneya. These people became renegades and just went out of control and lost meaning of life and Humanity.

From my personal point of view Guatanamo bay is a way to scare the general Muslim people form joing the war in Afghanistan. That is the whole purpose behind it. Its a pshychalogical tool. The googles and masks etc were leaked on purpose.

Also if you dig deep enough you will see anyone who would have tried to leak out more info on the guatanamobay people's suffering is either .. demoted or is charged with misconduct ...like the Muslim chaplins...

I am sure through out history Kings and civilizations had tourture chambers where ... people were kept and fear was spread with the stories from these torture chambers. I mean its so obvious.

Alot of people argue well they are with Al Qaida... if so well doesn't the American charter of rights states that Americans are entitled to a free trial. Forget that well Geneva conventions gives them some rights to defend themselves in court. Or even so what about Humanity ... doesn't your mind tells you its wrong ... without any far trial .. without .. any real evidence that there were planning to attack civilians ... they were locked up ...

So what if they were in a training camp , think of it this way .. it was a hip thing to do fight for defending your country , they had no clue perhaps that something of a magnitude of 911 may have happend and I am sure alot of they did not want anypart in the whole thing.

My point is ... lets find out if they are with Al Qida lets see what damage they did to civilization .. before they die comiting suicide.

I think 99% of them their only guilt is that they tried to protect the country where they lived...they never went to USA , heck they would never get a VISA its pretty hard to get a VISA for USA...

I think even form a religious point of view if Jesus was here , he would not do something like that to any one.. I mean he was the Saviour...

Anyways I do see a huge double standard if you had an American passport or if you had anyother nationality ...come on people what is a passport its just a piece of paper...
created to control how can enter and get jobs and who can buy and trade things .. it does not means you are a sacred person or any high being .. so why is there a discrimination on the basis of what nationality you own.

Humans share the same feelings ..of love , fear, anger, sadness, hope...so why descrimination when it comes to providing justice to people.

As a human I value life ..and I hope to defend it when ever I can but I would never put an innocent person in a 6 foot cell knowing I have no idea if he is innocent or guilty.

Guatanamobay is a sad chapter in American History, and it contradicts what American set out to protect, sadly

Sheraz, I'm sure you mean well and you seem to be a kind and balanced individual, but your post was too rambling and incoherent to read all the way through.

I will answer you one two points, though. No boss - male or female - in the Western world would dream of telling their female employees what to wear to work! All companies have dress codes for both men and women. Men, in most offices, are required to wear suits and ties and real shoes (not trainers or sandals). Women are expected to appear in business clothing. Some institutions, like the police and nursing, require the wearing of a uniform for both males and females. So. please. Disabuse yourself of the notion that anyone can dictate choice of dress to women in the West.

Second, Guantanamo Bay is completely legal. The people being held there are not prisoners of war. They were not with any legitimate branch of any country's armed services. They wore no uniforms. They had no service papers. They had no identification numbers and no commanding officers. In other words, they're a bunch of freelance loonies on a mission. But America is not required to treat them as "prisoners of war" because they're not. There isn't even a declared war.

In addition, they are being held in Cuba; not the United States. Their confinement is not subject to US laws.

Their conditions are very nice. It's warm during the day and cooled by mild sea breezes at night. Their main complaint seems to be that the food is too good and they're putting on weight. As a result of their complaints, the Americans are giving them more opportunities to exercise.

They are damn lucky to be alive.

Rom

If you believe that the CofE is a secular org then of course you wouldn't stand for God or the people chosing the bishops.

However, God wrote the bible, yes?
1600 yrs through 40 different people.

all of differnt personalities and education backgrounds, even home languages, differing culture influences too.

It is an integrated message system that conveys many different themes and strands throughout itself on different subjects.
Starting in Genesis and wrapping up in Revelation.
It is written in such a way that, say, if you wanted to cut out the book or chapter on baptism, you couldn't.
as it is themed right through the whole collection of books.
so is relationships etc etc.

Bear with me.
So the people in the CofE influence who goes to bible college or semminary by recognising their gifts/talents.
They also send people to the diocean meetings and have votes on what happens and who sometimes.

The bishops come out of the arch-deacons and the arch-deacons out of the clergy and the clergy out of the congregations.

My questions revole around, So are you saying that God isn't in this at all?

that the people who become bishops do so totally secularly as humans through their human wants desires etc?

For as I understand it the church per se is a spiritual body, made up of people at different places in their journey with God.
growing into deeper relationship with him and in doing so outworking His will on the earth where they are.
to a greater degree as their relationship with Him gets more and more intimate?

Am I wrong here about the CofE?

in anticipation
Mike NZ

sorry Rom
I don't understand your comment about popish?

What did you mean here?

Thanks
Mike NZ

Well MikeNZ - it is Catholic doctrine that the priest is the link between congregation and God...it is not that of a Protestant who has an individual link to God.

You will look hard and long in the Bible to find the Holy Trinity....do you MikeNZ accept the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost ?

The Church is secular, it is built of bricks and mortar, it is Judaism to invest the Temple and the Tabernacle with unique significance, but the Protestant Church does not.....the High Church is Anglo-Catholic and likes to see itself as a Reformed Catholic Church; and the Church of Rome does not recognise Anglican priests as valid prelates not the Anglican Church as a valid church.

The Bishops are men of straw in the main, politicians and committee men.

As for Sheraz, if the Christians enjoyed so much respect for running orphanages just why was that couple in Somalia recently murdered....they were doing just that, running an orphanage ?

I am familiar with the construction of The Bible MikeNZ, and of the Apocrypha missing in the Protestant Bible.....but that has little to do with the selection of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which as you know was a position subervient to The Pope until 1538 and following this, to the King (and now via powers vested in the Prime Minister).

The Anglican Church is a top-down Church, with Bishops representing the King and Churches being used to read proclamations from The Pulpit.....over the centuries these functions have fallen into abeyance and the upper levels of the Church have atrophied.

It was not until 1962 I believe that an Anglican Archbishop first met with The Pope.....over 400 years.

There is no mechanism as such whereby PCC representatives speed their choice up the Church hierarchy. When the selection for the AoC came up - one candidate was Nazir-Ali, a Pakistani and former Catholic priest who had fled to Britain when Muslims threatened to kill him, and he has become a Bishop in England.

MikeNZ has some notions of the Anglican CHurch which I find very strange, and at variance with its history and structure.

http://www.christiannewstoday.com/

"I think that christianity was viewed with more respect in the Muslim world before the wars, because some christians were running orphan houses and doing community work , "

Posted by Sheraz at December 24, 2003 08:30 AM

"A number of Christians, including foreign missionaries, have been killed in violent attacks as anti-Christian violence spreads throughout Somalia, reported Barnabas Fund, an organization that supports Christians in the Islamic world. Well-known Italian nun Annalena Tonneli was among those Christians murdered in recent weeks along with other missionary workers. Tonneli, who had served in Somalia for 30 years, founded a TB hospital, orphanages and schools. She was killed on Oct. 5 by two armed men in front of the hospital. On Oct. 20 Richard and Enid Eyeington, working with Somali children, were shot dead by several gunmen in their home inside the school compound while watching television. In November a Kenyan Christian working for the Seventh-day Adventist mission in Gedo, Somalia, was reportedly murdered by Islamist radicals, although no more details were given. “The attacks appear to be deliberately anti-Christian and anti-Western and are likely linked to the radical Somali Islamist group, Kulanka Culimada, which threatened violence earlier this year,” reported Barnabas Fund. "

http://www.hcjb.org/displayarticle1268.html

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36247

In a move that many might consider ironic at the least, a charity Christmas CD has been banned from distribution because it mentions the baby Jesus.

The decision by the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, Scotland, was instituted because of fears it could offend people who belong to a faith other than Christianity.

"We could not just hand out the CD," a hospital spokeswoman told the Scotsman newspaper. "If it went to every child it could cause offense to those who are not Christian."

""If it went to every child it could cause offense to those who are not Christian."

Yet the Hospital knows the religious affiliation of every patient...from when they check in

To Caroline, thank you for your reply to my incoherant message.

Its strange you stated that no one , tell people what to do. Yet in the very next line you stated that there are dress code for people in Business. Isn't that whats telling people what to wear. Poeple should be able to expresee their religious existance. Anyways I know many corporate offices where freedom to work in casual attire is accepted and yeild a more happy work force.

As for Guatanamo bay I rest my case since I think it does not matter what a single person thinks in this world. Usually through out our history people have had wars and torture chamber. It does not matter where they make them under the castle or over the mountain or on Cuba.

One thing is for sure if there is one single person in that bunch that is innocent its worth the fight to give them a fair trial. This is the essense of America's fight to protect freedom. For those who were indeed guilty of killing innocent lives they should be put to rest by bringing forth in Trials that state a valid case against them.

and just how do you wish to proceed to try irregulars fighting in Afghanistan ?

The logical place for them to have been held was Afghanistan itself; interrogated, then passed over to the Northern Alliance as their prisoners.

It is clear that being engaged with a terrorist group in Afghanistan is not a charge which can be laid in the USA or Great Britain as there is no statute to cover this; and using the Statute covering british nationals fighting on behalf of foreign powers whilst the country is at war is not appropriate since the Taliban regime was recognised ONLY by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and was not therefore legitimate.

The prisoners should not really have been taken, and should have been "casualties of war".....the US was wrong to take them to Cuba and should have left them in Afghanistan ......

Sheraz - In your previous post, the one to which I responded, you referred to employers specifically telling *women* what to wear - trying to equate this to the male Islamic practice of ruling on what women may wear. In the West, as I said, dress codes are for both sexes and promote the company's image as a responsible corporate entity. They don't exist to oppress either sex, but to be congruent with the company's image.

Companies, plus restaurants and clubs, that experimented with "smart casual" are now going back to formal corporate wear. "Smart casual" mutated into mental slackness and a casual atmosphere that didn't serve customers well. So people who work in most corporations are now required to dress to a certain standard that says "responsibility" again. Both men and women. And not for religious reasons. For the perfectly normal reason of corporate profit.

As for Guantanamo Bay, they'll get their military tribunals, but when it suits the United States. When you are the victor and the richest and most powerful nation on earth, you get to dictate the terms. Life was ever thus. Just thank your God that they will be tried in the West.

If someone is indicating that corporations specify the clothing their staff may wear, I should like to know which companies have this policy of prescribing exactly what staff may wear.

I have never worked with any woman who was required by her employer to keep her head, or her legs covered.

I know of no corporate fashion code which requires any woman to dress in a black winding sheet and peer through eye-slits at the outside world......but I acknowledge that it is a uniform........imposed for tribal and not religious reasons.......

Romulus - Thank you! I keep arguing here and elsewhere that the wearing of the scarf if not required in the Koran. It is a fiat by desert tribal chiefs who want to control women because they cannot control themselves. (And don't think they should have to.) Another way to control women is by clitorectomies, of course. The insecurity of these men and their raging need to control is totally abnormal in humankind - and this is why they will take to any means, including terrorism against thousands of innocents going about their lives, to try to control other people and make them fit in with their primitive superstitions.

What they are frightened of appears to be their own sexuality, which can be fixed easily enough. Most vets could take care of them in 10 minutes and send them home with a couple of pain pills.

The requirement to wear the veil is not in the Koran but it is in the Sunnah (the collected sayings and doings of Muhammad.) For Sunni Muslims the Sunnah is only second in authority to the Koran.

Interesting point Susan, does the Sunnah also state much about mobile phones, motor cars, airplanes, television, and credit cards ?

I would not need to watch women if full chadoor paying their Visa bills in Barclays then, nor would satellite receivers and televisions be required to view graven images in pious homes

Hi Romulus!

Further to your thought, does the Sunnah say whether it's OK to remove the veil to have your driver's licence photo taken, or is the rest of the world expected the develop the forensic ability to differentiate between hundreds of thousands of black blobs? (Somehow, I don't think we'll be the ones making the concession here.)

Personally, I think the women who "refuse" to have their photos taken for drivers licences are attention seekers. They already knew when they applied for a licence that they'd have to have their photo taken. Refusing probably gets them some extra brownie points back in the compound.

The photo is esp. important as DVLA and the Passport Agency share the photo databank via electronic transfer.......if you read Blunkett's Document on ID Cards it shows that the two agencies share the DVLA database

"and to usurp the primary Christian festival of Chritmas"
Rom, pagans probably experience some deja-vu here.

"Islam is an inferior religion to Christianity", yes I hear 'flames' 'fanning' 'hatred', Rom you are quite a guy.

Hi Caroline and Rom: There's a difference between hijab (hair-covering only) and niqaab (the full-on face covering with only slits or mesh for eyes.) I've never seen anything in the Sunnah that supports the niqaab -- this appears to be more cultural than religious.

I agree that niqaab is a danger to society as well as to the psychological development of little girls (who may be negatively impacted by being exposed to this affirmation of extreme hatred of female sexuality.) I don't feel as negatively about the hijab, I guess.

The only thing I feel negatively about when it comes to hijab is if it is used to separate rapeable women from non-rapeable women (as I 've heard is happening in the ghettos of France.)

Bernie, are you capable of expressing any thought that is not some dreadfully cliched multi-culti bromide?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/12/28/dl2801.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/28/ixportal.html

Yes Bernie, in my opinion Islam is a far inferior religion to Christianity. Now tell me which you object to, my expressing a personal opinion; or one that is different from your's ?

Just which Faith do you adhere to Bernie ? We hear so much from you, but nothing about you !

Susan - Yes, in the ghettoes surrounding the big industrial cities in the north of France, girls who go outside the house without a scarf - be they 10 or 11 or adults - are looked upon as whores who "need a lesson" and are gang raped. Horrifyingly, this includes native French non-Muslim girls who are unfortunate enough to live near this garbage.

They've even got a slang word for "teaching whores a lesson" in the Muslim ghettoes. It gets worse. They've got a special cell phone ring tone called by this slang word (which I can't remember).

Personally, I think Jacques Chirac is, besides being a crook, a pretentious prat. But I am with him on his determination to get the scarf out of state school classrooms. Sadly, he has felt, in an obvious attempt to appear even-handed, he also has to seek to ban the kipput (sp?), which is not at all the same thing.

To my mind, the scarf isn't a just a religious artifice (as is the kipput - I believe). It is a means of teaching little girls that there are normal people and then there are girls. The presence of girls is so profoundly disturbing to boys and men that they have to diminish the signs of their femininity. In other words, men and boys are not responsible for keeping their own sexual urges in check. It is the responsibility of little girls and women not to inflame them.

What kind of dumb-assed message is that? For any girl who doesn't cover her head, well, she gets what's coming to her.

Muslims will say they are teaching girls to be "modest", and if they wish to do this in religious schools, then fine. But not in taxpayer funded schools in an enlightened society where women are free to choose to be immodest by wearing low cut cocktail dresses and bikinis if they damn' well feel like it. So already these little schoolgirls are destined to grow up feeling excluded and alien in the country of their birth.

The teaching of female submissiveness has no place in a taxpayer funded school. It also sends the wrong message not just to Muslim boys and girls, but native French children too. They have to wonder if there's something abnormal about being a girl. Even boys and men in enlightened societies have enough trouble understanding girls and women without this nonsense!

Footnote: There are successful Muslim women in France. They don't wear headscarves. They wear make up and spend money at the hairdresser's. In other words, they have been smart enough to fit in with the host society. And no one holds them back from achieving. And it doesn't make them any less devout Muslims.

Caroline, I saw a comment in a German paper that really Chirac is only doing it because of Le Pen using it to illustrate the non-integration of Muslims in French society.

It has unleashed some controversy in Germany....but I suppose France will attempt to render it an EU-Norm within their nascent Third Empire

PS - I forgot to mention that in these northern ghettoes, it is normal for native French girls from nominally Catholic families to wear a scarf when going outside the home. So you see, they have extended their reach to the native population. Violence works. This is what Chirac is exercised about. The creeping imposition, in the ghettoes, of Islamic laws on non-Muslims.

Romulus - There have been eurosocialist knee-jerk articles on this all over Europe, not just Germany, but the fact is, Chirac doesn't give a flip about European culture; he cares about France.

Jean-Marie Le Pen is retired. If Chirac didn't take action to countervail his rhetoric when he was active politically, he certainly isn't going to take such a huge political step now he's off the stage. He's doing it for the reasons I cited. He feels this sentiment about the scarf is non-French and destructive in taxpayer funded schools. French taxpayers, by the way, are with him on this.

He has known for some time that it would come to this but, given French dreams of N African hegemony, he didn't want to offend the Algerians. Also, they've been allowed to get a big enough foothold in France to be dangerous if displeased. He should have nipped this in the bud years ago when (I believe it was an interior minister) another member of his government tried to take control of this subject. Now it is going to take the president of France to get action.

The answer to abuse is not to just shut every victim up. It is to let every victim complain about the abuse they sufered, and to get justice and to punish their abuser. If somene says they bully me because they were bullied by parents. My answer is let them complain about the abuse by their parents, and let me complain about the abuse by the bully at school or work. The answer is not to say eveyone shut up. All that does is supress problems and lets the abuse continue and the victims continue to be abused.
You can live in an abusers culture or a victim culture.

We cannot do anything against the terrorits who attacked the world trade center as that would be a victim culture. Why on earth did we try and help those victims of the towers collapsing. What waste of time. They should have stood up for themselves.

I am fed up with all those fire men victims of 9/11 they make me sick. Don't they see that by being victims they allow abusers to claim they are victims and then eveyone will be complaining about being a victim and so therefore no one should ever complain at all. The other day i was beaten up by my husband for no reason but i realised that if i complained and told the police, i would be part of the victim culture myself, and so i decided to just take this for the rest of my life. After all if i complained my husband might point out he was beaten up by his parents. And where does this cycle of blame end. It ends up that we would end up with a deep understanding of why abuse occurs, which is the last thing we need.

My advise is when ever you get abused just please shut up it is all your fault. If you fight back i will tell you off, if you don't fight back i will say you deserve it.
Because the way to stop abuse is to pretend it did not happend and then to you use otherpeople as your emotional punch bag, and to tell them not to blame you, and to instead beat up someone else.

THAT WAS MY DEVASTATING SATIRE OF THOSE WHOP INSULT THE VICTIM CULTURE

WEe can either supress abuse and let it continue or we can mention it and stop it. That involves abuses being allowed to complan about the abuses they had. That does not stop them being abusers but it menas we can tell them to take it out on their abusers not on others.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=476700

Is this the same bishop who has a conviction from 1968 ?

Why do we never hear Scripture from CofE Clerics ?

and yet this Bishop is not easy to pigeon-hole...

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=476650

This debate is really about the role of reason. We don't do reasoned moral discourse any more. We do, 'I feel strongly about this', 'I feel wounded about that', and 'Let me tell you about my pain'. Victimhood is the new moral high ground. We've slid into a post-modern morass which sounds like reasoned discourse but which is really just an exchange of strong emotions. Feelings matter hugely, of course, but we mustn't mistake them for moral discourse. The debate has become so shrill precisely because we're trying to cover up for the fact that we no longer have any deep moral roots or thought-through moral principles."

Have any of you actually READ the Bible????

Or the Archbishop's sermon for that matter?

Do these phrases mean anything to the supposed Christians posting here?

"Love thy neighbour"

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"

"Judge not lest ye be judged"

Love thy neighbour"

Robbie G you obviously have not read The Bible, nor even The New Testament for you do not know that Jesus Christ said:

"Matthew 22:35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets"

The FIRST and most important Commandment to Love The Lord Thy God.........

if you get stuck try remembering that this is Jesus merely restating the Ten Commandments in two groupings.

and Robbie-G

"But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned.” Matthew 12:36,37

and Robbie G to help you with your biblical study.......

"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them:for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;" Exodus 20:5,

"For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose
name is Jealous, is a jealous God:" Exodus 34:14

""Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them:for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me," Deuteronomy 5:9

"(For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and
destroy thee from off the face of the earth."
Deuteronomy 6:15

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" John 14:6

"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. "
John 14:21

"He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me" John 14:24

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/37/00/acns3721.cfm

Okay Robbie - read the Archbishop.......you probably have not had the chance so far !

OK, some Bible scholars here.

Can someone point out to me how the above quotes are contradicted by what the Archbishop actually said?

(What he said mind you, not what other people have said he said)
I interpreted his sermon as a reaction to the fear that secular society appears to hold against those with religious beliefs, fear that makes people nervous about visible expressions of that religion, whatever that may be.

The way I see it, it is Archbishop Williams that is standing up for the true message of Jesus, while others who purport to be Christian (you know who they are) are merely twisting Christ's message to justify their own hatred, bigotry and
quest for wealth and domination over others.

Don't forget also
"Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. "

Trace. I've already read it. But thanks anyway.
I just cannot reconcile the sermon with the Phillips criticism of it.
For instance, nowhere can I find an allusion that "religious tolerance means tolerance of terrorism"

Nor can I find any reference to Guantanamo Bay.

I can only conclude therefore that much of the criticism posted stems from articles written ABOUT the sermon, rather than the sermon itself.
(Of course this does not include Mel's own critique of the sermon - this appears to be based mainly on her own narrow minded hatred of anyone that disagrees with her own opinion.)

Of course, it is easy for the Archbishop of Centebury to be against terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay. According the EU Report on antisemitism, Muslims are primarily attacking Jews in Europe. A French teacher who tried on teach about the Holocaust was threatened with a knife by a Muslim student. The Archbishop should be relatively safe.

I have a pet peeve. There is no such religion as Judeo-Christianity. It's really just Christianity with a false name. When was the last time someone who was Christian quoted the Talmud or Midrash.

Robbie G - your second missive I can assent to. The article by Melanie is using the Archbishop's commentary as a peg to hang other issues on.

A bit like Susan Stein who seems to have as much against Christians as against Muslims, which is more her problem than their's.

Trace, you did not understand what I said. I was not being anti-Christian. I was just pointing out the differences between Christianity and Judaism. It might be PC to assume that that there is a religion called Judeo-Christianity, but there isn't. It's just fuzzy-minded thinking.

As for Muslims, I have nothing against Muslims as long as they are not anti-Semites. It was the EU's report on anti-Semitism that declared that most of the violent attacks against Jews are committed by Muslims. This is a result of statistical analysis, not anti-Muslimism.

I am well-aware that Jews lived together peacefully with Muslims in Spaing under Muslim rule. Muslims and Jews don't have to hate each other.

Susan, I don't know anyone who has said there is a 'religion' called Judaeo-Christianity....indeed Replacement Theory espoused by some enthusiasts specifically claims that the Second Covenant replaced the First.

There is however a 'culture' called Judaeo-Christian which is the one currently under continuous assault in Britain, and quite possibly the USA.

It is a fount of values which are predicated on Judaism and brought into Western life by the Christian civilisation that was built in Western Europe.....and which was able to flourish without political interference as in Russian Orthodoxy or even German Protestantism and Catholicism........it is 'culture' not specific 'creed'

Yes, I see Susan Stein that Romulus did...he was wrong to call it a 'religion' when Judaism and Christianity are two religions.......but Judaeo-Christian is one 'culture'

"I interpreted his sermon as a reaction to the fear that secular society appears to hold against those with religious beliefs, fear that makes people nervous about visible expressions of that religion, whatever that may be."

Robbie - Newsflash: Call me prejudiced, but I get really, really nervous about visible expressions - like flying planes into buildings, suicide bombers and so on - of fundamentalist Islam. Flying planes into buildings, etc. is where we have to draw the line at freedom of expression, no matter how much that lefty,tranzi prat Williams would like us to tolerate it. Frankly, I hold a grudge against the people who destroyed the WTC, who bombed a nightclub full of innocent people in Bali, who blew up the British Consulate General in Istanbul and so on.

Williams, in his euro-socialist, directionless way, thinks we should look inward to see why we caused these people to get mad. He seems to adhere to the tranzi view that all these educated millionaires from rich families in Saudi Arabia were oppressed in some way I can't quite figure out.

Message for Williams: it is bigotry and medieval narrow minded intolerance for the Western way of life and Western civilisation that motivates these people to terrorist acts. It's nothing we've actually done, other than exist in our current form. We are too free, too libertarian. We dismiss the mental and spiritual straight jacket they've chosen for themselves. We oppress them by simply existing and infuriate them because apparently we are "getting away" with breaking all their bigoted rules and regulations and they are going to teach us a lesson.

As they brought up the discussion, we will see who teaches who.

Williams is just a self-righteous passenger riding the latest fad. A long period of silence from him would be much appreciated.

I don't know anyone who had any feelings one way or another about Islam before they started their terrorist programme. Even now, I regard normal Islam with indifference. But the fundamentalists must be stopped and pretending it's all a giant misunderstanding a la Rowan Williams is not only stupid but a very, very large mistake.

I understand what your saying, but from my vantage-point as a Jew, I live in a Christian culture. Calling it a Judeo-Christian culture just puts a P.C. gloss over it.

Our supposedly Judeo-Christian culture ignores 90% of Jewish culture and Jewish religous literature. It is a culture that thinks that Judaism begins and ends with the Old Testament. There is also a great deal of misinformation about Judaism as a religion and a culture. Most people, even today, don't understand who the Pharisees really were, for example.

Yes Susan Stein, but the 39 Articles probably cover the issue adequately. The other situation is Replacement Theology which I suspect you would like even less than Judaeo-Christian culture....Melanie was not too happy with it in the past....but some of the more extreme Christians espouse it....the fact is that our culture in the Anglo-Saxon world is different from that in France, or Germany, or Russia or Greece....all ostensibly Christian countries...it is similarities we try to find Susan, not always differences !

Susan Stein - With respect, this Judeo-Christian thing got started around 25 years ago because a small cadre of activist AAmerican Jews began to make a fuss about Christmas, i.e., letters to the papers saying: "What am I supposed to tell my children when they ask why we have to celebrate Jesus's birthday?" And similar.

Ever quick to accept criticism, Christians started downgrading Christmas. Believe it or not, in the US 30 years ago, people used to send cards saying Merry Christmas and Peace And Goodwill and so on, and they used to wish one another Merry Christmas. But this constant harping of how unfair this was to Jewish people, who claimed to feel excluded (no one ever explained why this was unfair; Christians and Hindus are excluded from Passover, for example, and everyone thinks that is perfectly fair)prompted Hallmark and others to tamp down the Merry Christmas message and switch to Season's Greetings. People began wishing one another Happy Holidays. Or, Christmas having largely lost its meaning, just saying, "Have a good one!" It would be hard to find an emptier expression of goodwill.

The politically correct bent even further backwards by conflating Christianity and Judaism which, as you rightly point out, is totally without basis. Certainly, Christians come from a Judaic tradition and some Judaism is incorporated, obviously, into Christianity. But Christianity has no role in Judaism and it's silly and empty to pretend that it does.

But this does all stem from activist Jews trying to promote the comparatively minor festival of Channuka as somehow the equivalent of the birth of Christ to Christians and appearing at the same time of year. There was even a movement to have some Jewish folklore woman promoted as a Jewish female Santa Claus. Anyway, people got trained by TV shows and by the card companies like Hallmark, to conflate Christmas, Channukah and New Year and make it a weird celebration of Judeo-Christianity.

Like all ideas, bad and good that start in the US, it crossed the Atlantic around 15 years later, by coincidence at just the time political correctness was being imported from the US, and the whole thing was unthinkingly swallowed hook, line and sinker by the Brits.

I hope you don't take this post as a criticism of Judaism, because it most assuredly is not. But this is how this peculiar construct came about. It would be nice if we could get rid of it and let each other enjoy our religious festivals without wanting to elbow in on them or feeling resentful. The end result has been destructive of the unique character of Judaism in the minds of the majority of non-Jews, which is what you complain about. Christianity is the dominant religion in the West and it is therefore natural that the biggest religious celebration should be Christian. It was never intended as the cultural imperialism that the activist movement in the US implied.

"Happy Holidays" always struck me as so Soviet whenever I heard this strange phrase in the US, it seemed there was something missing, like what kind of holidays ?

I suppose the word is anodyne, and frankly the US betrayed its original purpose with this secularised and disneyfied Christianity....it never was a comfort-blanket

No. It was the first creeping political correctness. It came at a time in the US when Jews were asserting themselves as Jews. No one mentioned, in those days, that the best Christmas movies and the best Christmas songs were written by Jews who were successful in the US. They didn't feel robbed of their identity because they made sentimental, wildly successful, movies for the majority. It was good business.

But then the entitlement culture began to creep in - at least 15 years before in Britain; perhaps 20 years.

Jews had never been held back from succeeding in the US (so far as I know; if they were, their achievement is even more staggering). In fact, all the major movie studios were owned by Jews who put out universally applauded movies. But there was the underside - as in, they would be blackballed in country clubs and so on, which would obviously not just have been extremely painful and unjust, bbut infuriating.

After a couple of generations of success, they felt confident enough to challenge the major religion. I think that was a mistake for everyone. Asserting the sheer value of Jewishness is one thing; working to dilute the religion of the host culture was destructive to both parties.

Caroline, that seems a reasonable assessment: I recall the comment made by Harry Truman that in the US there would be those who would want to oppose the 10 Commandments ! and then you see URLs like this

http://www.americasvoices.org/archives2003/ZeigerH/ZeigerH_072803.htm

I wonder though as in so much if there are actually securlarised Jews using their religious upbringing/zeal to push an anti-religious message as part of their rebellion..........and others who feel more firmly committed to their faith and withdraw from the public sphere leaving the range clear for the secularists to speak in their name.

I doubt this is restricted to Jews, but is probably nowadays the secularists who use Muslims as an excuse to drive Christianity from public life, whereas I should have thought pious Muslims would prefer Believers to secularists who seem to have an unstable, if dynamic, campaign to rid themselves of their own demons.....and in so doing bring about hell on earth for the rest of us.

Romulus - I don't think so. There are secularised Jews, of course, but they don't, in my experience, seem to have a mean-spirited hatred of religion, the way communists/socialists do. In fact, secularised Jews remain very Jewish regardless, because you can't opt out of your race.

I think this misguided push to include Jews in Christmas all came about when Jews decided to be proud of being Jewish. They stopped anglicising their names around the same time. There were sun hats that said "Kiss me, I'm Jewish!" and a product (I've long forgotten which one) whose slogan was, "You don't have to be Jewish to love [whatever]".

The push of some of the more aggressive and, frankly, short sighted, to get themselves included in Christmas came at the same time.

Interestingly, American blacks, who have always been strong Christians (by and large) are now including themselves out of some of the European Christmas traditions that have been part of their own tradition for the last two and a half centuries. Someone invented some mishmash of many African cultures and called it Kwaanza and, although they still celebrate the birth of Christ, they use Kwaanza trimmings. So while some professional malcontent Jews elbowed their way into Christmas and confused the whole issue of Christianity of Judaism by so doing, black Christians are hiving off the anglo trimmings and developing their own.

SIR - I hope my indigenous friends have had a good Christmas and not been upset by the censoring of nativity scenes by the Red Cross, Abbey and many schools.

It is about time Christian leaders stood up and challenged this lunacy; they owe it to their worshippers. Can you imagine a Muslim cleric being told to "play down" the Eid festival? What would the white liberals say about that?

I find censoring of the nativity quite insulting. What the zealots of the PC movement are, in effect, saying is that Muslims like me are so intolerant that we might cause a storm of protest! Okay, some fundamentalist nutter might object but surely we are not pandering to them?

Whatever next? Banning ornamental pigs and bacon butties because it might offend Muslims? Give me some respect for my intelligence and tolerance and concentrate on more important matters like car-jacking, muggings and racist attacks on white people that get ignored.

M Zafar, Fairbank Road, Bradford.

http://www.thisisbradford.co.uk/bradford__district/bradford/news/BRAD_LETT0.html

I am unaware of these so-called malcontent Jews or Jewish activists. I read several Jewish newpapers and I've never heard of them. Nor have I ever heard of a Jewish female Santa Claus.

Most of the lawsuits come from the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union. America does not have an official religion like the C of E.

While I have no objection specifically to a nativity scene. I do object to having my tax dollars pay for it.

It's not being PC, it's just being sensitive and thoughtful to realize that not everyone celebrates Christamas. I've never put up a Christmas Tree. I never for a millisecond believed in Santa Claus. I realize that's hard for some people to imagine. I don't think that makes me a Scrooge or overly PC.

By the way, most American Blacks celebrate Kwanza in addition to Christmas, not instead of Christmas.

"While I have no objection specifically to a nativity scene. I do object to having my tax dollars pay for it."

Do you likewise object to your tax dollars being spent on subsidising religion in the USA by not subjecting Church incomes to full taxation ?

Do you object to taxpayer subsidies for healthcare in the form of Blue Cross and not taxing in full the contributions made ?

Do you similarly object to the use of taxpayer funding for elections in which only a minority vote ?

Do you think it is right for US foreign aid to be so skewed in favour of one privileged beneficiary ?

Do you think it is right that clauses in the US Tax Code favour particular companies, particular communities, and even specified individuals ?

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1026315/posts

The Colorado ACLU is threatening to sue a school if the principal refuses to censor Christmas for its students.

"Most of the lawsuits come from the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union. "

That is an institution, what about the men and women who are its officers ?

"America does not have an official religion like the C of E."

and yet you don't explain what impact that has ? All it means in England is that anyone can be baptised in the CofE whether attending Church or not; anyone who worships God is welcome at services; and noone can be refused admittance provided they believe in God......it does make it harder to run as it cannot be as sect-like as religion is in the USA, nor is it as financially rewarding as the CofE gets NO taxpayer funds, and NO exemption from taxation, and unlike Denmark there is no politician involved in the Church, and unlike Germany that State does not collect funds on its behalf.

http://www.aclu.org/ReligiousLiberty/ReligiousLibertylist.cfm?c=38

Quite how this case benefits Americans I do not know. So maybe the 10 Commandments impose standards of behaviour Americans find oppressive, but which group in America says "Thou Shalt Steal; Thou Shalt do murder" ?

Do Jewish and Muslim Charities help Christians and Atheists ? Unless they do should they not forfeit ALL tax advantages ?

Christian charities in Britain help all regardless of creed, which I am not sure is a good thing unless there is a quid pro quo.

Local authorities use tax pounds for Diwali lights but not Christmas nativity displays......and they now talk of State-funding the training of Imams.

http://www.aclu.org/ReligiousLiberty/ReligiousLibertylist.cfm?c=139

Why is the pledge of allegiance anathema to Americans of the ACLU ?

Why should tax dollars be used to support State education ? The Founding Fathers did not lay down a constitutional provision for the State to create an ideological apparatus to indoctrinate children; and on what basis are taxes levied to fund education, and by what right does the US Treasury fund scholarships and bursaries predicated upon belonging to a specific ethnic grouping ?

Susan Stein - If you are not aware of Jewish activists, you are probably in your 20s or 30s. I remember when I lived in the US there were some very noisy people objecting to Christmas being a state holiday - despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are Christians and they want Christmas as a holy day.

Whether you like it or not, these were the people, primarily from NY and CA, who pushed their way into Christmas by setting up Channukka as being somehow on a level of importance with the birth of Christ, despite Jewish friends telling me that Channukka is of minor importance.

You object to the conflating of Judaism and Christianity and I don't blame you. I am simply telling you how it came about. I was in the US for those few years and I thought it most peculiar that Christians were so eager not to have Jews feel excluded (the noisy ones, who said they were hurt by all the attention Christmas got; that Christians celebrate the birth of Christ never disturbed sensible, more secure, less chippy Jews)that they were prepared to dilute their own most important religious festival at the behest of those practising a different religion.

I think this unwarranted accommodation turned out badly for both religions. It diluted the idea of celebrating the birth of Christ for Christians, and it got unthinking people all confused about "Judao-Christiantity" which you rightly object to.

I don't understand your bold assertion that you've never put up a Christmas tree or believed in Santa Claus. As they are part of Christian heritage, I would not expect you to participate. I've never attended a Passover supper. I know it is a holy time for Jews and I respect that. So what? Other than secular holidays, Jews, Christians, Hindus and Muslims have different religious festivals and those festivals are very important and holy for the people involved. So what next? You feel excluded from Deepavali and Ramadam? I suggest that you settle down and allow people their different beliefs in the knowledge that their faith does not detract in any way from your own.

In my post above, when referring to Kwanza or whatever it's called, I specifically and intentionally used the word "trimmings". I have read comments by black Christians saying they welcomed having an alternative to a white guy with a beard and a red suit to celebrate. They seem to be integrating some Kwanza ideas into their own Christmas. These were comments I read by American blacks, otherwise I would never have heard of Kwanza.

Anyway, here's something we can all agree on: A happy and healthy New Year to all who contributed to this thread!

Sorry, but PS to Susan Stein. Yes, the ACLU brought the suits, but who complained to the ACLU?

Thanks for letting us know that the US does not have an official religion, although I think most Brits are aware that America has a strict separation of church and state. We are aware of your Constitution - apparently more aware than you are of ours. America is the New World and did things in a new (and arguably better) way. The British and Europeans all have religious roots stretching back to before medieval times when the Church was much more involved in the ordering of people's lives than it is today.

Does anyone know if the RC Church is the official religion of any country in the New World?

Is the United States still the world's biggest Catholic country, or is it now Brazil ? I suppose in time it might be China.

It is funny that Amendement 1 to the US Constitution guarantees freedom of religion but is used to justify freedom of the press and buring the US flag......hardly what the Founding Fathers intended, but Larry Flynt seems okay with the revisions..........

Does the US still permit halal slaughter ?

Didn't Jesus once say "judge not, lest ye be judged"...

or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone"...

or "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. "

As far as I can see, Archbishop Williams is merely reminding people about the teachings of Jesus, which at the end of the day is his job, and jugding by the vitriol expressed against him here, by people who may well claim to be Christian, it's a job he needs to do.

JJ - I don't believe Jesus ever said terrorist suspects (taken into custody in compelling circumstances) who committed acts of atrocity undreamed of in his time, shouldn't be held until it is convenient to try them. Williams is a hectoring, lecturing do-gooder who doesn't even understand the harm his posturing does. This is why the pews in the CofE are emptying as fast as people can scuttle out of them. They want to be preached to about the Christian message and its application to their own souls. They are not interested in ignorant political lectures on American foreign policy. We have James Naughtie and Jeremy Paxman for that.

Actually JJ you are very judgmental yourself and seeingly condescending towards Christians.........

The Archbishop of Canterbury to give him the correct title is having great difficulty living up to the status of the office, largely because of much of his earlier actions as a prelate in the rather marginal Church of Wales......he is now in great difficulties without moral authority....and there are many who think he gave nods and winks to certain clergy who have set the Church on the path to schism, and he is not sure where to turn.

Please do not invest prelates of the Church with Christian virtue to the exclusion of the congregation, Rowan Williams is a politician, and not a very successful one, and if he survives in his office it will be only because the Church does not survive.......

The teachings of Jesus are many, but in most cases are restatements of Old Testament theology; they include Sinners repenting as a precursor of Forgiveness; but the Church does not like to speak of Sinners in its current form...........nor does it anywhere ask us to understand why Pontius Pilate carried out the sentence, nor does it ask us to understand Pharisees or Sadducees, neither are we encouraged to understand the motives of Judas in kissing Jesus on the cheek, nor is his suicide explained or forgiven........

As a biblical scholar yourself JJ, and one who is despite his best instincts, highly judgmental, you may wish to reflect upon the simple message you have gleaned from the NT and wonder why it is proving so difficult for the Anglican Primate to uphold basic Scripture

I'm a firm believer in separation of church and state, at least for the US, and I used to support the ACLU, but not anymore. They are today clearly biased against ONE religion only in their legal activities and care not a fig for violations of church and state rules if it applies to any other religion. Last year, a New York city school district actually approved a request to provide prayer rooms for Muslim children in the public schools. (While Christian prayers are strictly forbidden from US public schools.) The only reason this daft plan was derailed is because the Catholic Archbishop of New York agreed it was a splendid plan and asked for public schools to provide prayer rooms for Catholic kids too. . .the school district quickly saw what a can of worms they were opening and backed off. . .I don't recall that the ACLU said anything at all about this clear proposal to undermine the secularity of the public schools. And there have been several other cases when the ACLU remained mum as a ghost about various attempts to proselytize or establish Islam in the public schools in certain places here too.

I think it's disgusting if British taxpayers are required to subsidize public displays of all other religions except the majority's own religion. . .I read in the Torygraph that the UK taxpayer even funds trips for a select Muslim delegation to the hajj every year. (Better be careful about that, or you'll soon be funding hajj trips for the general Muslim population as non-Muslim taxpayers in India are forced to do. Meanwhile, tax-funded trips to Christian holy places such as Bethlehem will of course be completely out of the question.)

The "progressive" morons who come up with these stupid ideas never seem to understand that blatant favoring of the minority at the expense of the majority only INCREASES racial and religious intolerance, rather than decreases it.

Or maybe that's the point -- their end game all along is to INCREASE racial and religious friction -- and pound another nail in the coffin of the civilization they hate so much.

Rom, Roman Catholics are the single largest separate religoius denomination in the US, but Catholicism is by no means the "majority religion" here. The various non-Catholic religious all combined together handily outnumber Catholics.

(Aside: One thing I've noticed on my trips to Europe is that Catholic Churches in the US, especially in the Western states, are a lot more "protestantized" than Cathlic churches seem to be in Europe.)

Further, Rom -- the first Amendment to the US constitution covers a lot more than just freedom of religion. It also guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of association -- that's where the flag-burning stuff comes in.

But again, the ACLU is as hypocritical on the freedom of speech question as much as they are on the separation of church and state question -- they'll lobby like hell to protect the right of some porn king to free speech, or for the right of neo-Nazis to demonstrate in Jewish neighborhoods, but they won't take on the case of a public high-school kid who's being demonized by his teaches for founding a student's club that espouses conservative political views (a real case happening in California right now.)

I seem to recall a phrase that goes "They strain at gnats and swallow camels. . ."

That's a good description of the ACLU in its current incarnation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/01/02/dl0202.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/01/02/ixportal.html

Susan - I am convinced that these divisive concessions to minority religions are motivated precisely for the reason you hit on: they are divisive.

I'm not so sure that they want to destroy the civilisation they hate, because they can operate in it very comfortably. I think it is simply to maintain an iron grip. Divide and conquer. Be everyone's friend against the majority. This is Blair's game; that's for sure. The biggest crime in Britain today is "racism". This in a country that has a massive 6% ethnic minority population.

He has elevated this 6% to holy status - clearly to appear to be their hero and get their votes. This backfires constantly, but he is too stupid - as in "Duh" - to understand why. Calling London police "racists" for "stop and searches" on black men, he got "stop and searches" of blacks stopped.

London's black people, most of whom work as hard to hold down a job and buy nice possessions as the rest of us, were horrified. Most of the crime in their - and many other - areas is perpetrated by blacks and it's drug-related and the experienced police know the type they are looking for. So the phony one's essay at being a saviour to London's black community came up and knocked him on the back of the head. The editor of Britain's most respected black newspaper wrote a killing leader on it.

Same with the vast majority of Muslims. Whenever they hear of the Nativity Scene being banned, or renaming Christmas Winterval or any other clearly insane proposal, they cringe. They keep telling whichever media they can get to listen to them, in effect: "Look, this isn't us! We know we live in a Christian country and we are perfectly happy here! We're glad you have your religious festivals and we're glad that you are tolerant of ours!" This is the voice of reason and civility. The voice of Blair and his jackbooted followers is: "Division!" The Hindus don't particularly want local councils getting involved in Deepavali lights. They understand Deepavali and celebrate it with their families and friends without ignorant local lefty councillors trying to horn in on the act.

Worst - honestly, the most horrifying of all - have you ever seen a photo of Cherieee Blair in a sari? I couldn't sleep for weeks.

I think it's shocking, and almost unprecidented in recent years, that we have an Archbishop who is not a raving tory biggot. Quite unacceptable!

Do we have an Archbishop of Canterbury ? We know about the one at York !

Still to call an Archbishop a "bigot" is indicative of a highly uncharitable and un-Christian type and really not the kind of language to be used in reference to well-meaning clergymen.....but at least C Tyler has shown his hand

Caroline, I have never seen Cherie in a sari, but I have seen both Hillary and Chelsea in hijabs!

PS -- I've also seen devout Muslim convert Jemima Khan in a black lace Versace number slit to the navel. Is Jemima just a wee bit hypocritical, methinks?

I feel the full burka treatment would be good for both Hillary and Chelsea.

Re Cherieeeeeeee in a sari, if I ate meat, I'd never eat another sausage as long as I live!

Jemima Puddleduck or so I always think, why did Sir Jams give his little girl such a name ?

Mrs Goldsmith-Khan must live a dual life like Benazir Bhutto did in her years at Oxford when she specialised in bedroom decoration.....

Still, hypocrisy is almost a ritual obligation in the Arab world.

Susan - Cherieeeee was gifted with the saris by the Hinduja brothers, Indian millionaires who accidentally got friendly with the Blairs and whose application for British citizenship (to avoid a court case in India) was mysteriously facilitated. I mean, talk about blind luck!! Makes them almost as lucky as Hillary with her beginner's luck in cattle futures ...

It seems a sad day when it falls to a talented Jewish writer to have to point out the problems in the Church of England. What does it take to get the English to get their act together and demand change at the top? I spend some time in the US and am (as a christian influenced atheist) impressed with the level of church activity which I encounter where ever I go. The moral teaching in both US homes and schools is almost always present and leaves me sad that the same standards are not present here.

". The moral teaching in both US homes and schools is almost always present "

I beg to differ......!!!!!

Maybe Geoff visited Utah, Rom. Utah at least is probably as Geoff described it.

Brilliant piece, Melanie, I wish I'd written it myself !

I hope you sent a copy the the Archbishop himself and that you pester him continually - and on the airwaves - for a reply.

He needs to be forced to confront his internal contraditions and not hide within Lambeth palace.

His amoral words encourage bloodletting and fail to lead people towards heaven.

For the head of a major Christian church - astonishing !

"multi-culti bromide?"
Susuan is that something you put in your hair?
I prefer reason to faith Rom.
Belated happy midwinter by the way.

Yes Bernie but since you would need a prior synthetic knowledge to prove your case, you might wish to read Kritik der Reinen Vernunft by Immanuel Kant to discover the limits of "Reason"

sorry rom, i am not learned in the ways of the german language. if one could corroborate the belief in an ominpotent being by the scientific method then i will literally be godsmacked.
to re-state - i prefer the limits of reason to the limits of faith.

I think the essence of the problem is this:

Jesus was a liberal.
Therefore the Archbishop of Canterbury makes "liberal" statements, in line with the teachings of Christ.

And Conservatives just HATE that...

Bernie, Romulus has every right to express his opinion that Christianity is superior to Islam; believe me, you will find no shortage of Muslims who are happy to proclaim very loudly to anyone who will listen that Islam is superior to Christianity! Are they also racists and hate-mongerers as you accused Rom of being?

What's good for the goose is good for the gander after all, but sorts like you really believe that only Western culture should be prevented from defending itself, and not any other culture, even if it displays the exact same "faults" as you find in Western culture.

Robbie G: Yes, "liberals" are always happy to claim the pacifistic and teachings about poverty of Jesus as their own, but only when it suits them. After that, they return to their usual mode of mocking and despising the church and all its adherents.

Witness the anti-war protests in March. Both the Pope and the Archbish. of Canterbury came out against the Iraq war, and what do you know? Suddenly the BBC and al-Guardian were slobbering all over these two prelates, urging the faithful to heed their godly words.

The next day the liberals returned to calling these prelates "Homophobic old farts in a dress" and bashing Christianity at every turn as they always do.

Can't have it both ways, old pal, or some people might call you a "hypocrite."

Well Robbie G do tell me where you get this idea that Jesus was "a liberal" from.

Do you think that has any bearing on his execution ?

What exactly was "liberal" in the Roman Empire in 30 AD ?

Do you imagine he was a Reform Jew ? Or do you think he might have been Orthodox ?

Where can you identify him disowning the Covenant made with Abraham or the basis of Mosaic Law ?

Just what Bible do you read to give you an impression that Jesus did not uphold the Torah ?

It seems very trite to say "jesus was a liberal", a bit like declaring him a piece of green cheese...it is nothing more than an unsubstantiated assertion.

I do not recall Jesus commenting on Islam so any reference to the incumbent at Lambeth Palace is void, since Islam did not exist. Trying to make out that the diffident and indecisive Rowan Williams is capable of the definitive statements of Christ ....perhaps you should read Matt 10:34-35

susuan -
using phrases like "inferior" is
using a language in an emotional way to antagonise and cloud issues.
Melanie states the detention of the suspected terrorists is unlike Guantanamo.
If the government has evidence against these people why does it not have the confidence to put it up in court? Some of these men have been in prison for two years now.
The archbishop was quite right to bring this up. Note that British nationals (including those “suspected of terrorism”) properly retain their rights to a fair trial.

Actually Bernie all those imprisoned in Belmarsh should be deported and declared 'undesirable aliens'...at least one is wanted to occupy a cell in Jordan after committing murder.........they should ALL be deported to their country of origin

1. why were they imprisoned?
2. why should they be deported?

further i understand that the people interned do have the option of leaving the country, which two have done.

which begs the question that if these people are "dangerous terrorists" why allow them to leave the country?

Bernie: Your points re: Gitmo may or may not be valid, but what you now write has nothing to do with your earlier accusations against Romulus simply because he declared his own religion superior to Islam.

You now go off on another tangent all together, probably to evade the issues I have brought up in my earlier post. Who's "clouding issues" now? And were you not "using language in an emotional way to antagonize the situation" when you implicitly accused Rom of being racist and intolerant?

Is there one rule for you and another rule for Romulus?

Not really a surprise, this is what people of your particiular belief system almost always seem to do.

Well Bernie why should anyone not born here be allowed to stay if they are suspected of engaging in activities prejudicial to the safety of the realm ?

Ever heard of 18-B ?

Actually Bernie, we should deliver them to their country of origin, but they seem reluctant to experience the warm welcome awaiting them.

Do you think anyone is a terrorist Bernie ? Do you really believe there are such people ? Frankly, we should liquidate all terrorists rather than be quite as soft as people in Britain tend to be, you included, life is not a bouncy castle - and some results are permanent.........I have yet o comprehend why we have so many Algerians here that France expelled

again i ask if the government has evidence against these people why does it not have the confidence to put it up in court?

susan, i stand by my explicit accusation that rom is stoking hatred with his "inferior" statement.

"You now go off on another tangent"
what on the main issue that the archbishop raises?

Well Bernie, Christianity is a superior religion to Islam, and being an older and more refined creed is also the belief of a far better educated congregation where almost all adherents can read the primary tenets of the Faith and are not functionally illiterate and kept in such a state by the 'clerics'; who under Islam tend to be associated with the local tribal chief or village elder, himself barely literate.

Further Christianity sees no necessity to urge the forcible conversion of adherents, nor the liquidation of apostates; and its charitable works extend to those of no faith, or even of other faiths, which I do not believe to be the case with charities sponsored by other religious groups.

All in all, Christianity is as Jesus said the one path to God.

Well Bernie you know the answer...they are in preventive detention.

What do you think Mohammed Atta should be charged with ? Should we get his bones out of that airbase and put them in court ?

Do you think it would have been an infringement of his human rights to apprehend him 'on suspicion' in Germany, or the USA before September 11 ?

Isn't is more sporting to let them do such things as 9/11 and just say "hard cheese old man, if only we had known' ?

ah that marvelous word "preventive".

could equally apply to rom's statements i.e. promotion of relgious intolerance (under the hate laws). might it not be better to hold rom in such detention WITHOUT a trial for two years and beyond? of course not (assuming he is a british subject, then he would have right to a fair trial). why is it different for a foreign national?

what is so different about a suspected "terrorist" that he/she is denied basic rights others have?

on a tangent! jimbo
two words "Bush Knew"
------------------------------
from the UK Guardian on May 19, 2002, was titled 'Bush Knew of Terrorist Plot to Hijack US Planes.' The first three paragraphs of this story read:

"George Bush received specific warnings in the weeks before 11 September that an attack inside the United States was being planned by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, US government sources said yesterday. In a top-secret intelligence memo headlined 'Bin Laden determined to strike in the US', the President was told on 6 August that the Saudi-born terrorist hoped to 'bring the fight to America' in retaliation for missile strikes on al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in 1998. Bush and his aides, who are facing withering criticism for failing to act on a series of warnings, have previously said intelligence experts had not advised them domestic targets were considered at risk. However, they have admitted they were specifically told that hijacks were being planned."

Another story on the topic came from the New York Times on May 15, 2002, and was titled 'Bush Was Warned bin Laden Wanted to Hijack Planes.'

Unlike the Guardian piece, the Times chose to lead the article with the Bush administration's cover story, one the administration has stuck with to this day:

"The White House said tonight that President Bush had been warned by American intelligence agencies in early August that Osama bin Laden was seeking to hijack aircraft but that the warnings did not contemplate the possibility that the hijackers would turn the planes into guided missiles for a terrorist attack. 'It is widely known that we had information that bin Laden wanted to attack the United States or United States interests abroad,' Ari Fleischer, the president's press secretary, said this evening. 'The president was also provided information about bin Laden wanting to engage in hijacking in the traditional pre-9/11 sense, not for the use of suicide bombing, not for the use of an airplane as a missile.'"
--------------------------------

Bernie - you corrupt your mind with The Guardian....Stalin knew Hitler was going to attack the USSR - Richard Sorge told him, Winston Churchill told him........so I guess Hitler didn't get near Moscow or Stalingrad.

Churchill knew the Germans would bomb Coventry. How many volumes of Great Conspiracies of Our Time do you get in Guardian Supplements ?

BTW. Please do not incite religious hatred by attacking my religion...you might find you are breaching my human rights, and as you have no beliefs, your attacks on mine represent an inflammatory incitement to blasphemy.

rom, i in no way "attacked" christianity. so try to imagine what your statements on religion might "inflamme".

with respect to the main point maybe you are in line with bush's logic. i.e. "they are jealous of our freedoms" so let's take away our freedoms i.e. patriot acts (US) internment (UK), draft civil contingency bill (UK)

Statements on religion can inflame nothing...why imagine you have no faith. You are not able to speak on behalf of any religious group because you are faithless...do not try to 'imagine' any religious affiliation you do not have.....it is secularists that have inflamed matters by antagonising the pious....and it is the mindset that empathises without feeling and 'imagines' without knowing, in short that has erected a 'belief' system to which it then arrogates the faith of other devout groups without actually believing in that faith.

You have still failed to ask at what point Mohammed Atta should have been arrested. You must provide a basis upon which the lives of persons can be preserved.

Are you so indifferent to the results of mass-murder that you would allow those likely to perpetrate such crimes free run of societies where they are not citizens ?

So you would oppose The Public Order Act 1936 ? Mosley should march in the East End....and until violence breaks out there is no reason to ban such a march; and no reason to intern him in WW2 even though they had married in Hitler's residence ?

"Statements on religion can inflame nothing"
so why have blasphemy laws?

"You have still failed to ask at what point Mohammed Atta should have been arrested."
we already have laws in place to deal with criminals (whatever sort they are). so it comes down to a failure in the people who are supposed to look after our "security". it amazes me how no top official has been brought before a court on this failure.

"Are you so indifferent to the results of mass-murder that you would allow those likely to perpetrate such crimes free run of societies where they are not citizens ?"
1. no, i want the US to sign up to the International Criminal Court.
2. in UK we are still subjects and not citizens.

---------------------------

According to a Time Magazine story that appeared on Friday 02 Jan, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice is balking at requests to testify before Thomas Kean's September 11 commission under oath. She also wants her testimony to be taken behind closed doors, and not in public. The crux of her hesitation would appear on the surface to be her comments of May 16 2002, in which she used the above-referenced excuse that no one "could have predicted that they would try to use a hijacked airplane as a missile." If that excuse is reflective of reality, why does she fear to testify under oath?

Perhaps Ms. Rice fears testifying because too many facts are now in hand, thanks in no small part to the work of 9/11 widows like Kristen Breitweiser, which fly in the face of the administration's demurrals. For example, in 1993, a $150,000 study was commissioned by the Pentagon to investigate the possibility of an airplane being used to bomb national landmarks. A draft document of this was circulated throughout the Pentagon, the Justice Department and to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In 1994, a disgruntled Federal Express employee broke into the cockpit of a DC-10 with plans to crash it into a company building in Memphis.

That same year, a lone pilot crashed a small plane into a tree on the White House grounds, narrowly missing the residence. An Air France flight was hijacked by members of the Armed Islamic Group, which intended to crash the plane into the Eiffel Tower. In September 1999, a report titled "The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism" was prepared for U.S. intelligence by the Federal Research Division, an arm of the Library of Congress. It stated, "Suicide bombers belonging to al Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and Semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House."

Throughout the spring and early summer of 2001, intelligence agencies flooded the government with warnings of possible terrorist attacks against American targets, including commercial aircraft, by al Qaeda and other groups. A July 5, 2001 White House gathering of the FAA, the Coast Guard, the FBI, Secret Service and INS had a top counter-terrorism official, Richard Clarke, state that "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon." Donald Kerrick, who is a three-star general, was a deputy National Security Advisor in the late Clinton administration. He stayed on into the Bush administration. When the Bush administration came in, he wrote a memo about terrorism, al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The memo said, "We will be struck again." As a result of writing that memo, he was not invited to any more meetings.
--------------------------------

Rom's declaring that his own religion is superior to Islam is the equivalent of the actions of a suspected terrorist?

That's gotta be one of the most ludicrous examples of moral equivalence I have ever seen.

Bernie, reading the Guardian rots one's brain, and you are living proof of that.

what "actions" do suspected terrorists perform susan?

The Archbishop of Canterbury delivered a speech calling on The People Of The Book to unite against the forces of Secularism and Unbelief........that means against The Guardian and its value-set.....against your Unbelief Bernie.

Actually Bernie, you are not subjects but Citizens - I suggest you update yourself on legislation in the past decade....or buy a new newsletter subscription......if you have a British Passport you could even look inside

So Bernie, you think it was wrong to imprison Oswald and Diana Mosley under Section 18-B during WW2 ?

Does that make you a Mosleyite ?

You tell me, bernie. You are the one making the blindingly stupid morally equivalent "argument". Is keeping a cache of arms in a mosque equivalent to Rom's saying he prefers his own religion to someone else's? Is slapping a death fatwa on Blair (which one nutter actually did last year) the equivalent of Rom's alleged "hate speech"?

It's so nice not to have any absolute moral values, isn't it bernie? That way you never have to make any "uncomfortable" decisions like trying to prevent an Islamic nutter from blowing up a Brownie troop on a field trip.

Just the ever-wavering trendoid cause of the month, helpfully telegraphed to the weak of mind through the soothing palaver of the Guardian and the BBC. If the nutter actually blows up a few Brownies, hey, don't acknowledge it, just consult the Guardian and slink away to the next cause, the next trend, the next fad. Today, you've adopted the cause of protecting Islamofascists from the evil War on Terror; when that blows up in your face, as it surely must, just move on to something else. So soothing, so non-committal, so non-taxing on the conscience, so "cool."

dear me susan talk about "twists" and "knickers".
i am pointing out not moral values but lawful values. i.e. the right to a fair trial.

rom,i do not know that particluar history of mosley (i'm sure you will care to enlighten me) but if it was during WWII then a different context was operating. if you start going on about the "war on terror" that is simple government propaganda.

p.s. susan the bbc was the most pro-war broadcaster according to a study from Cardiff University (compared to Sky, ITN and Channel 4).http://www.cf.ac.uk/news/02-03/030708.html

Technically, UK passport holders & people qualified to hold one, are the property of the Sovereign. In the UK we still do not have full citzenship. Issues include the Royal perogative, Head of State's powers, Oath to the Head of state by parliamentarians.
In many ways the written consitution of the US is much to be admired. e.g. if the government is not carrying out it's duties the people have a right to overthrow it.

http://www.britain.org.nz/vpass/britcit.html

Bernie I suggest you familiarise yourself with the British Nationality Act 1981.

Do not confuse Sovereign and Crown...the Queen is Sovereign but the Royal Prerogative is exercised by the Privy Council which includes most Front Bench Members in Parliament....it has nothing to do with the Queen save in an historic sense - go read your Jonathan Freedland book again.

The written Constitution of the US has no application in Britain which is a unitary and not a federal system.....you might as well say that Stalin's 1936 Constitution of the USSR should be preferred: it was certainly much more democratic on paper than the US or EU proposal.

http://www.britainusa.com/consular/bnatlaw.asp

. This country had no nationality law until the coming into force, on 1 January 1915, of the British Nationality & Status of Aliens Act 1914. The Act conferred the common status of British subject upon those persons who had specified connections with the Crown's dominions. The status of British subject implied allegiance to the Crown"

In short Bernie, you were once a Subject so the people in The Empire shared one united connection with this country. I thought you would have approved of such 'inclusivity', but you are right....far better to have our own national identity as Citizens and not mix it with non-Britons or Europeans......far better to be Citizens in our own land.

". The Act also provided for two categories of persons to remain "British subjects" only (not CUKCs). These were persons connected with the Republic of Ireland, and persons connected with one of the self-governing dominions which had not yet enacted its own citizenship law. From 1951 onwards the only persons remaining in the latter category are those connected with India or Pakistan. "

This helps explain why The British Nationality Act 1948
maintained the term "Subject"...."At the Commonwealth Conference in 1947 it was agreed that each of the self-governing dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Union of South Africa, Newfoundland, India, Pakistan, Southern Rhodesia and Ceylon) would introduce separate citizenships for those persons who belonged to each country, but all would continue to share the common status of British subject, or Commonwealth citizen, both terms to have the same meaning. The United Kingdom legislation, the British Nationality Act 1948, created the status of British subject: Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (BS/CUKC) for all those whose connection was with the United Kingdom itself or with a place which, on 1 January 1949"

Yes Bernie, all countries give passports on the principle that they can be withdrawn......it is an Identification Document given by the Government to validate that you are who you claim to be.......it is pretty obvious it cannot belong to you if someone else is stating and validating your identity......are job references your personal property too ?

i knew i should not have got into this citizen vs subject businesS.
again we go off course from the RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL.

http://www.cf.ac.uk/news/02-03/030708.html

Yes, I am sure that Cardiff Univeristy is a fair and unbiased source to judge the "pro-warness" of the BBC.

I read the BBC online everyday. If they are pro-war, I am the Queen of England.

Bernie does not know who Oswald Moseley was and why the British government tossed him and his Hitler-loving wife in the clink?

And you expect people to take you seriously!

The comments on this posting have drifted away from the key issue. The Archbishop of Canterbury has a job to do which is to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. He is also priviledged to sit in the House of Lords where he can exercise his political judgment and speak and vote on all the issues debated there.

When he is preaching from his pulpit, he would be well advised to stick to proclaiming what God reveals to him instead of making comments about political matters which quite frankly it is unlikely that God is too bothered about. God wants mankind to acknowledge Him and to worship Him and to obey His laws and to recognise that He wants a relationship with His creation. It is more important to God that men hear about Him and accept Him and so don't die in their sins and go to hell, than for the archbishop (who has access to the highest in the land who are able to do something about people detained without trial and who can speak his mind in Parliament) to waste his time berating politicians from his pulpit and in newspaper articles. If he has tried to speak to the politicians and found them deaf to his pleas for locked up detainees, then he should have raised his concerns in Parliament and got the Government to answer his concerns officially. There is no legal obligation whatsoever for Government ministers to respond to newspaper articles or addresses from a pulpit, whereas they are required to provide answers to any question put to them in Parliament. It seems to me that the archbishop is so weak that he is unwilling to stand up in the House of Lords to debate the matter and that as a weak man he would prefer to lob a few googlies from the safety of his pulpit instead of actually engaging in a serious debate where his credibility and knowledge of the facts would be tested by his peers in the House of Lords.

An archbishop who seeks to raise his profile by attacking the Government of whatever party from the safety of his pulpit instead of from his seat in the House of Lords is merely posturing and demonstrating that in reality he doesn't care about these unfortunate detainees at all. A member of the House of Lords or the House of Commons is able to hold the Government to account in a far more effective way by demanding answers to individual questions and obtaining access to detainees.

If the archbishop has managed to gain access to the detainees, and shared the Gospel with them, then he will have done his job well. Does anyone know if this is the case?

"dear me susan talk about "twists" and "knickers".
i am pointing out not moral values but lawful values. i.e. the right to a fair trial."

And I am talking about the hard choices that governments and other authorities must make under extraordinary circumstances, to balance the public good with the individual good. Not always a clear line. Because if someone you self-righteously achieve freedom for actually does blow up that Brownie troop -- how are you going to feel about that? Still feel you did the right thing?

These are hard choices to hard problems, and there are no clear-cut answers or perfect solutions. One thing's for sure, they require a lot more thought than comes out of the keyboard of the average Guardian editor. Or out of the average dope-smoking univeristy "peace teach-in."

Your comments about "the war on terror" just being "government propaganda" pretty much says it all.

It's "government propaganda" to you; to me, who intimately knows the ways and whys of Radical Islam, much more intimately and painfully than I would ever wish on any other person, it is not in any way "government propaganda."

You are a child, bernie, and a fool. You endlessly prattle out slogans cribbed from the Guardian and worse, but you can't defend yourself when challenged. Heck, you can't even be bothered to punctuate your sentences correctly.

Just babble.

who are these mysterious "Brownies" you talk about susan?

very good point you make peter h.
in the end the archbishop did not raise the issue of the interned people in his xmas message. maybe he is saving for the lords after all?

Funny that you write "Xmas" in the context of the Archbishop of Canterbury.....must be a pagan thing to miss the "Christ" out of Christmas.

susan, i did not say that i was ignorant of moseley, only of the
law under which he was imprisoned that rom mentions.
i am sure that if he was a nazi scientist rather than the sh*t stirring fascist orator that he was the US would have welcomed him. perish that thought.

they way you argue is most illuminating. aside from the insults that you liberally hurl, you invite people to trust your personal "intimate" knowledge of radical islam whilst at the same time dismissing a widely reported scientific study on the performance of the media as unfair and biased.

remarkable.

lol. a common shorthand form. so as not to offend "Christmas". and no i am not a pagan.

Bernie, you say I hurl insults but you yourself are constantly throwing in stupid comments like "What are these mysterious 'Brownies'" and "hah, hahha Melanie, you really need help, you should be writing for the Onion" etc.? Nevertheless you do not address the points I bring up at all, just babble on with irrelievancies as I predicted.

Now you bring up more useless tangents like whether or not Moseley would have been welcomed in the US. Predictable slam, but not really on point is it? Nevertheless you accuse others of doing what you yourself constantly do.

I have not asked you to "trust" my experiences with Radical Islam; you can take or leave my input for all I care. I merely state why I personally, do not go along with the all-pervasive leftist propaganda that "the war on terror" is mythical, etc. I feel I am more qualified than you to have a objective opinion on the subject but certainly that doesn't stop you from voicing your opinions on the subject now does it?

Regarding the BBC study by Cardiff U: I do not know much about that particular study you cite, but modern Western academia is notoriously far-leftist and IMHO, yes, they probably would see the BBC as being "pro-war", but that doesn't make it so; it is only "pro-war" to them, based on their whacked-out political scales, usually listing quite far to the left.

Most of modern Western academia is so distorted in its thinking and bias, that its expertise and pronouncements are not really credible to me, sorry about that. I regard most established Academia as you probably regard "Daily Mail" readers, etc.

no, but really who are these "brownies" and why would terrorists be targeting them?

"I do not know much about that particular study you cite"
ignorance is bliss apparently.

where were we? oh yes, interning foreign nationals and not having the confidence to put any evidence against them in a court.

Oh yes, where were we? Bernie's well-thought-out suggestions for balancing public safety with the individual rights of non-citizens and making it all come out fair and safe for everyone involved. And?????? Nothing, except of course to deny that there is any threat to public safety in the first place.

Brownies are baby Girl Scouts, although I believe they are actually called Girl Guides in your country. No special reason for citing them in particular. Interesting that you don't know what they are. Possibly you do not have any small children? That may explain a lot.

Regarding your Cardiff study, I am sure you are aware of the fact that statistics can be made to say whatever anyone wants them to say. In my particular case, I wouldn't say it's entirely fair to say "ignorance is bliss" because I have been reading the BBC Online coverage of the war and its aftermath quite extensively and it is definitely not at all "pro-war" in my humble opinion. Thus I would greet any "studies" positing to the contrary quite skeptically. I am not alone in my viewpoints; there are plenty of other commentators who have analyzed the BBC's bias on this and other subjects.

The plain fact of the matter is that you will believe whom you want to regard as credible and I will believe whom I want to believe as credible. That's one of the problems created by the relentless politicization of academia that we have experienced in the West over the past 40 years or so.

as i pointed out earlier we already have more than enough measures to combat terrorism. the failure of the authorities in the regard is criminal. penalising foreign nationals WITHOUT A FAIR TRIAL undermines our justice system.

the cardiff study looked at the main evening news bulletins over a three and half week period. it did not cover online news.

who knows maybe a survey comparing bbc onlne with itn, sky and channel 4 online would support your assertion, susan?

until such a study is done i beg to differ on the importance you attach to credibility of sources.

"The plain fact of the matter is that you will believe whom you want to regard as credible"

no i will believe on the weight of evidence

"No special reason for citing them in particular"
apart from propaganda value i.e terrorist attacking our daughters.

i do have nieces by the way, does that count?

"i do have nieces by the way, does that count?"

In a word, no.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-956617,00.html

This is what the A of C should be focused on, and why Islam is primitive in its application.

To educate Bernie in British history.......

Regulation 18B - Imprisonment Without Charge Or Trial

However, during World War II, Mosley together with some 800 of his leading followers and several hundred others were imprisoned without charge or trial because they were opposed the war. How did that come about?

On 24 August 1939 (a week before Germany invaded Poland), an Emergency Powers Act was rushed through Parliament

The position of Mosley and British Union was clear: they opposed the war. When the war started they campaigned for a negotiated peace securing British independence and leaving the British Empire intact. This was something which Hitler offered on many occasions. In the meantime, however, no member would do anything to endanger his country. At the beginning of September 1939, Mosley issued the following message to members of British Union:

"To our members my message is plain and clear. Our country is involved in war. Therefore I ask you to do nothing to injure our country, or to help any other power. Our members should do what the law requires of them, and if they are members of any of the forces or services of the Crown, they should obey their orders, and, in particular, obey the rules of their service.... We have said a hundred times that if the life of Britain were threatened we would fight again."

Only Britain and France intervened in the war. All other countries in Europe were unconcerned, as was the rest of the world. Although the British and French governments claimed to be fighting for Poland, their hypocrisy was soon exposed as war was not declared against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland two weeks after Germany.

As it happened, it seems that even 18B, as originally issued, provided insufficient grounds to imprison Mosley and his followers. Two Parliamentary sitting days after Labour joined the government (and four days after the Labour conference), a special amendment, Clause 1A, was rushed through Parliament. The amendment virtually allowed the Home Secretary to jail anyone he liked at his discretion, and the very next day the first arrests, including that of Mosley, took place. Apart from 800 members of British Union, several hundred others were arrested, including Admiral Barry Domville (former Chief of Naval Intelligence) and Captain Ramsay (Conservative MP for Midlothian). Both Domville and Ramsay had formed organisations (not connected to British Union) to campaign for peace.

Mosley succeeded in establishing the real reason for his imprisonment at his hearing before the 'Advisory Committee' set up by government to consider appeals against internment. This was a whitewash operation designed to the false impression that there was some justice or legality involved in the mass arrests. In fact all members of the Committee (one of whom, at least, namely Anthony Blunt, was a real traitor) were appointed by the government and they had no power at all. The final decision lay within the complete discretion of the Home Secretary.

The internees were initially sent to prisons, then to various concentration camps in England and the Isle of Man, where they languished for months and years at the whim of the Home Secretary, separated from family and friends, their lives and careers in tatters. Mosley himself was imprisoned for 3½ years and was only released when struck down with an illness which doctors certified would be fatal if he remained imprisoned.

Many of the internees spent time in the notorious Camp 020 at Ham Common. This was a secret camp not disclosed to the International Red Cross, not surprisingly as it subjected its victims to long periods of solitary confinement and intense psychological torture in order to obtain 'confessions' or information.

The hate campaign against the internees even continued after their release. No apologies have been made or compensation paid. Instead, the authorities imposed further losses where they could. Thus, civil servants, such as Andrew Burns, were deprived of their pensions in respect of the period of their detention.

There seems no doubt, however, that many people involved in the operation of 18B against innocent people were deeply ashamed. This is evidenced by the fact that most public records relating to the detentions have been deliberately destroyed. When the records were released under the Thirty Year Rule, files of only 18 out of some 800 British Union detainees were made available. Initially it was claimed that they had 'gone missing'. Then it was admitted that they had been destroyed as 'of no historical interest'. Thus, it seems that the imprisonment of hundreds of political opponents in concentration camps in Britain, without charge or trial, is not a matter of historical interest to the Establishment

Someone who was clearly embarrassed by the detentions was Lord Jowitt, who was Lord Chancellor in the Labour Government, 1945/51. In a House of Lords Debate on 11 December 1946 he stated : -

"I am not going to embark on a controversy as to whether Sir Oswald Mosley is an ordinary or extraordinary man, but we all agree that. he was a very prominent man, and everybody in this country, and I suppose a very large number of people abroad, know him by name and know the sort of action which he took.

"After all, let us be fair to those people who were imprisoned under Order 18B, and let us remember that they have never been accused of any crime; not only have they not been convicted of a crime but they have not been accused of a crime. That should be remembered in all fairness to them."
[Extract from Hansard, 11 December 1946 - author's underlining]

No Bernie, it is not The Guardian but you can find support for your arguments at

http://www.oswaldmosley.com/buf/18b.htm

well taking that history you supplied then looks like mosley was imprisoned unfairly.

along with susan's ad hominem attack on me (what does having children do with my argument over a fair trial?) you employ a similar attack: the character or
circumstances of moseley has nothing to do with the truth
or falsity of the proposition being defended.

p.s. i fail to see your obsession with the guardian as i have quoted from the new york times and time magazine.

Bernie, wake up and read !

Look at the URL...it is an Oswald Mosley site...it presents one viewpoint....is it true ? Have you checked the facts elsewhere ?

How can you say it is "unfair"...look where he hads his wedding ...with Hitler and Goebbels as guests.

Look how much Mussolini was paying him

You think perhaps 1939-45 might have been a difficult and uncertain time perhaps ?

How can you judge whether something is "fair" or "Unfair" based upon a URL which says Oswald Mosley, British Union of Fascists ?

I mean what does "fair" mean ? 38 million Europeans died in a war and you want to be "fair" to an ally of Mussolini and Hitler, and you form your opinion on the basis of a pro-Mosley Website ?!!!!!

"fair" meaning that mosely was never "accused" or "convicted" of a crime. whatever you may think of mosely himeself it is not relevant to the proposition that everyone should have the right to a fair trial.

Habeas Corpus is suspended in wartime.

so is your analogy with mosley with the people in belmarsh vaild? i.e. is the uk at war?

The United Kingdom is acknowledged to be facing a threat from forces inimical to the security of the nation, as such it has a derogation from the european Convention of Human Rights predicated upon the National Security clauses in the Convention itself.

Really Bernie, rather than pose questions like a 4 year iold asking "Why ?" incessantly, you might apply a little thought to matters at hand instead of making me feel like an adult instilling the facts of the big wide world to a querulous child.

On the balance of probabilities I would prefer not to imprison these persons but to deport them to their country of origin to be imprisoned there.

I have no wish to run the slightest risk: one outrage here would lead to a real backlash against Muslims living here, and they do not deserve to be made scapegoats for the nutcases hiding in their midst.......it is far better to remove bad apples so they do not spil the barrel

"The United Kingdom is acknowledged to be facing a threat from forces inimical to the security of the nation"
a threat that the UK did not face when the IRA was active?
yet i do not recall a single case of a suspected IRA terrorist being imprisoned without a trial.
maybe your "adult" wisdom could provide me with such a case rom?

I refer to UK mainland, the argument against internment in Northern Ireland was that it recruited more people for the terrorist cause and prolonged that conflict.

i suppose you either beleive in the presumption of innocence and the rule of law or not.

-----------------------
The Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner recently published his damning conclusions on the UK's internment power. He concluded that

"general appeals to an increased risk of terrorist activity post September 11th 2001 cannot, on their own, be sufficient to justify derogating from the Convention. Several European states long faced with recurring terrorist activity have not considered it necessary to derogate from Convention rights. Nor have any found it necessary to do so under the present circumstances. Detailed information pointing to a real and imminent danger to public safety in the United Kingdom will, therefore, have to be shown.

--------------------------

"The United Kingdom is acknowledged to be facing a threat from forces inimical to the security of the nation"

rom, it's amazing how gladly you believe the Home Office when it refuses to tell either the people it is imprisoning or the general public why.

p.s. i rather the searching questions of a 4 yr old than the laughable answers of an adult.

Frankly Bernie, much as I loath the current government I suspect it is turning their stomach to have to drop their libertine approach espoused in opposition: they used to sound just like you, but something has scared the former leader of the Soviet of South Yorkshire........

Frankly, if you don't see any threat you cannot be following events, perhaps you ought to look up pronouncements of bin Laden articulated on the air......maybe you should have a better grasp of things in the country at large......

I doubt there is anything that would convince you...even if Heathrow were a smouldering ruin you would find the CIA or George Bush responsible.......

"p.s. i rather the searching questions of a 4 yr old than the laughable answers of an adult"

That's the hard part about growing up kid, fewer easy answers........my advice is for you to stick at playgroup, it is much better letting the adults do their things and leaving you to play

well rom seems that the authorities can do no wrong (did you "follow events" of the report by the Carnegie Foundation) in your eyes. yet are "we" any safer?

It's interesting. Those of us who do not have a religion feel perfectly justified in telling thos of us who do how to practice it.

Those of us who do not have any children feel perfectly justified in telling those of us who do that we have no right to be concerned about how to protect them.

And those of us who do not have any moral convictions feel perfectly justified in instructing those of us who do in the fine art of practicing them.

bernie, go get a job as Bin Laden's personal secretary and leave the rest of us the hell alone; the West can no longer afford to support the likes of you; this is a deadly game for grown-ups, not petulant children. I am sure that Al-Qaeda would be willing to keep the Lord Haw-Haw spot open for a person of your unique qualifications.

I do not care what the Carnegie Foundation wrote; their agenda is clear, their policy declared. Did you know John Gielgud, Bernard Shaw etc wanted a negotiated peace with Germany in 1940 ?

Does their contribution make them right ?

I judge for myself Bernie, and I base it on far more background than most commentators. You are always looking for others to provide you with a crutch; but I prefer my own opinions, and do not defer to self-appointed think-tanks and letterheads for various academics. They have their opinion and I have mine; and under the current rules, they only get one vote each

rom
you like to dismiss any view that run contrary to yours.
and your arguments to compare our times with the the second world war is delightful. yet the analogy fails even simple scrutiny.

but at least you do try to engage with issues unlike some i could mention.

Bernie, I do put forward my views with some vigour, but when provided with a satisfactory rebuttal I can change those views. Rarely do I meet structured arguments.

On one hand I could agree with a contrary viewpoint in a purely academic sense; but what matters is the practicality of implementation.....survival means eliminating threats; and if my neighbour stores petrol in his garage I want it removed......and if he refuses and poses a threat to me, it is no use saying the fire brigade might attend the conflagration in time to save my house.

To take the analogy of the Second War further; in 1935 Pilsudski, the head of state in Poland invited France to join in a pre-emptive strike on Nazi Germany but was rebuffed.......the results are well-known.

Conversely, in 1969 the Soviet Union invited the USA to join them in a pre-emptive nuclear strike on China, but instead Nixon warned China and so opened up Sino-American relations after a 20 year freeze.

well that first sentence is laudable rom. however you show know evidence of recognising "a satisfactory rebuttal" Describing your opinion of the Carnegie Foundation rather than its report is a case in point.
----------------------
The Carnegie report says that Bush administration officials misrepresented Iraq's threat in three specific ways. First, they lumped together the threat posed by nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, even though there was no serious evidence of nuclear weapons.

Second, they told the American public that Saddam Hussein would give WMD to terrorists, for which there was no evidence.

Third, administration officials omitted "caveats, probabilities and expressions of uncertainty present in intelligence assessments" from their public statements.

In other words, officials used a "worse case" scenario that was not based on actual intelligence.

In early 2002, according to the Carnegie report, the U.S. intelligence community possessed an accurate assessment of Iraq's weapons programs. Soon afterward, a "dramatic shift" occurred as "the intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policy-makers' views." This change coincided with the creation of a separate intelligence unit, the Office of Special Plans, in the Pentagon.
------------------------
to take your example:
if a nosy neighbour told you that the neighbour with the "suspected" petrol in his garage was actually water. yet you still break into his garage what would the law think? would you not go to the police with your suspicions or do you go outlaw and take matters into your own hands?

Bernie, you and I both know that even if my neighbour did stockpile petrol, or even detonators and explosives in his garage......I would be charged with criminal damage for breaking in, and prosecuted. There is no way whatever I could claim the right to protect my property from 'a clear and present danger' without going through the court system for a civil injunction, and letting PC Plod and the Courts enforce it....my being at risk all the while.

That is the essence of that issue.

As for the Carnegie Report...I confess I always thought Blair was OTT, and I discounted all the hyperbole....for me Saddam breached the 1991 Ceasefire....that was all that mattered, nothing else.

He should have been forced to surrender in 1991 and not have a ceasefire, he had no means to stop a march on Baghdad and he should have been threatened with its destruction in 1991.

I believe, like Dr Kelly, that Saddam did have the capacity to produce bio weapons, maybe chemical; and as George Bush said, he would have the capacity to produce nuclear within 5 years......if the media hyped it beyond that blame Ali Campbell and his tabloid hype........

I am quite happy to destroy Saddam, I found the dossier crap embarrassing, a bit like Eden's leaflet raids over Suez, which no doubt he had learned from the Phoney War of 1939.

Breach a UN Ceasefire and get your block knocked off....seems eminently reasonable to me, instead of waiting to fight big wars.