Channel 4's history of christianity

Channel 4's history of Christianity is thankfully over, having given vent to every possible criticism of Christianity that the fashionable secularist could hope for. In week 1, we had Harold Jacobson discussing Christian anti-semitism; week 2, the lapsed (actually rather anti-) catholic conservative Michael Portillo on how Constantine spoiled Christianity by mixing politics and religion; week 3 was theologian Robert Beckford evangelising on how Christianity brought social cohesion to the diverse tribes of Anglo-saxon Europe: at least, he thought Christianity a good thing. We then moved to Rageh Omar and the religious fanaticism of the crusades and the West's failure to see this through Muslim eyes; week 5 - the best program - by Kwame Kwei-Armah (I can't remember his name), but this too associated Christianity with imperialism; week 6 Anne Widdecombe and the horrors of the Reformation; week 7 and Colin Blakemore to show why Darwin had disproved the claims of Christianity and why we should all be Jacobins, uh sorry, Humanists now; week 8 to finish it, why can't Catholicism and Christianity be more like modern liberalism? by Cherie Blair.

Did anything positive arise from Christianity over 2000 years? Well, the only sympathetic commentators were Beckford and Kwei-Armah, but even they saw it through a left-leaning perspective. I might say to Portillo that without Christianity, Europe would have probably been islamised; to Rageh Omar that the crusades were a defensive war against a relentless encroachment on Europe by Islamic armies and navies that lasted from the 7th to the 17th century. Anne Widdecombe could have spoken of some of the achievements of Anglicanism and English protestantism after the reformation instead of merely concentrating on the violence: I am a Catholic and it doesn't matter to me if the burghers of Lewes burn Pope Paul III in effigy; it bothers me much more that the Reformation gets used to paint Christians as intolerant bigots, Anne.

Beckford was sympathetic but Christianity has more to offer than an adjunct to Labour's social cohesion policies; Kwame is so preoccupied with post-colonial perspectives that he forgets how Christianity is seen by many Africans as the enlightenment. Christianity should modernise, says Cherie .. well, the idea that modern liberalism and Socialism are really "Christianity in practice" is the great heresy of the age.

As for anti-semitism, well Nazism had a neo-pagan ideology and had much more in common with progressive ideas than the left will admit; Blakemore underplayed the extent to which the Catholic Church and the monasteries sponsored science and technology - and overplayed the philosophical significance of the theory of Evolution.

The political slurs are part of the ongoing propaganda campaign of the cultural revolution; the irony was that there was very little about doctrine, very little spirituality; and of course very little about the civilising effect of Christianity. The series merely reflected the pre-occupation of Christianity's enemies and detractors.

Rowan Williams on Icons, Byzantium exhibition

I recommend an excellent lecture on icons by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The nuanced orthodoxy, as Rupert Short described it, of this outstanding theologian makes him always worth listening to.

Catholic schools without Catholicism

A look through the school profiles of Catholic schools in my city and I noticed that very few mentioned Catholicism in the text, or for that matter Christianity. Church of England schools were much better for this. However, these Catholic schools talked about implementing the Government's technology programme, ethnic diversity, themed classes.

The profiles are on the ofsted website, so are these schools trying to appease their persecutors in the state education system, who would so dearly like them all to become State Community schools? Or are they sincere about their duty to propagate the Gospel of Equality and Diversity?

I hope they still teach the Catholic faith in secret when Government inspectors aren't listening.

The Catholic Church must stand up for itself

Paul Gottfried asks: must One Believe in the Holocaust To Be a Good Catholic?. While pro-abortion catholics and other dissenters are free to remain in the Church, usually receiving support from the media whenever they air their liberal views, the unforgiveable crime is denial of the Holocaust, at least for the supporters of politically correct brow-beating and censorship. What if he had defended Stalin or Chairman Mao? No problem, I'm sure. While belief that the Holocaust happened is reasonable, it is not catholic doctrine; and in a free society, he can express his views.

Moreover, the threat of Anti-Semitism in Europe comes not from Catholic tradionalists but anti-israeli Muslims who don't take the trouble to distinguish between Israeli Government policy and Jewish people. Many Muslims believe that 9/11 was a plot by the Israelis; if they believe that, then it won't be difficult to believe the Holocaust was a Jewish plot either; the way to combat that viewpoint is by allowing a free debate rather than demonising every holocaust denier and accusing everyone who fails to do the same of being facists and anti-semites.

What matters here for the Catholic church is that the pressure on it to conform to modern-day liberal morality and beliefs is intense; any deviation from politically correct dogma will result in media-browbeating and demonisation. Like other Christian groups, the church is being policed here, whereas extremist and wacko views from members of other religions do not get the same constant attention unless, or even if, there is a terrorist incident associated with it. The Catholic Church probably needs a more media-savvy public relations arm, at least in the English- and German-speaking world; but it also needs PR to be backed up by Catholic Christian principles and its strong intellectual heritage.

Interpretations of the Bible and Darwin

Referring to my earlier post on Darwin and Christianity, it is often assumed that Christian thinkers tended to take the bible literally until refuted by some hero of science such as Galileo or Darwin. In fact, going back to St. Augustine, Christian thinkers were keen to seek truth both in revelation and the world around them. The tradition of interpreting the bible allegorically or metaphorically is much older than that of treating the Bible as literally true, which is a relatively recent development linked to fundamentalist evangelicalism.

St Pius X Society and holocaust denial

Damien Thompson writes a (probably) sympathetic article about Benedict, which criticises the handling of the lifting on the ban on the Saint Pius X bishops. He says that the Pope should install some English-speaking PR people at the Vatican, which I would have to agree with. The Catholic church's views are misrepresented constantly by the media, and the Vatican cannot rely on them suddenly becoming fairer.

In terms of the rightness of lifting the ban, the Catholic church can't exclude people on the basis of its political opinions. This leads to groupthink and the erosion of free speech. Holocaust denial has recently been joined by Climate change denial in the list of politically correct crimes. The accusation of “Holocaust denial” is linked to the suppression of debate on race and mass immigration in the West, which has done so much to subvert principles of free speech today. The suffering of the Jews was terrible but enforcing a culture of groupthink does more damaged to civilsed values in the end.

Nick Squires documents the fury of the progressive lobby. But I suspect these are the usual suspects, who rejected Humanae Vitae, were equivocal on abortion, and are generally speaking more loyal to the views of progressive liberalism than 2000 years of Christian tradition. In this case, they are part of the movement that wishes to banish from the public sphere anyone who does not have the right opinions. Yes, the wider issue about the role of the Jews in the crucifixion has political ramifications; the charge of Deicide can be used to support anti-semitism. I don't have an easy answer to this, but the ostracising of people with opinions you see as uncongenial isn't an answer either.

Darwin and secularism

Charles Moore has written tentatively on the subject of Darwin, noting the propaganda value of Darwin for agressive secularists and promoting a book called "Darwin and God" by Nick Spencer, which aims to rescue Darwin from the culture war between secularists and Christians. This sentiment was expressed by Steve Jones on the recent BBC Radio 4 5-part series on Darwin, who wanted to retrieve Darwin the scientist from the ideology. Yet the culture war continues, and in mono-media Britain, where the BBC has 87% of the broadcasting market, the liberal secularists will fill the space with their own interpretation of Darwin's legacy.

The current celebration of Darwin by the BBC is part of this trend. Darwin is part of liberal hagiography. Darwinism is a kind of state cult, connected closely to the quasi-Bacchic cult of revolutionary overthrow, where worshippers revel at the destruction of an old way of ordering the world at the hands of a new revolutionary idea or political force.

The question still remains for Christianity, even Catholic Christianity, of how to accommodate Darwinism to Christian revelation, which is channelled partly through scripture. Newman's thesis about the development of Christian doctrine must be part of it. I suspect also that some of Darwin's thought can be decoupled from the prevailing materialist assumptions of the age; it is just that we are too trapped inside this perspective to be able to do it.