by Julian Mann, The Daily Sceptic
While Canterbury Cathedral makes an exhibition of itself with “disruptive” graffiti expressing the religious doubts of members of “marginalised communities”, a highly intelligent conservative in the Church of England was too afraid to be named.
This anonymous letter, headed ‘Unite the Kingdom march and Christian symbols’, appeared in the October 3rd edition of the Church Times (7th letter down):
Madam, – I feel compelled to respond to your various articles about the Unite the Kingdom march in London. My son encountered the march on his way through London and commented on how ordered it was and the diversity of participants. The few incidents of violence are lamentable, but it was a tiny fraction of the whole: hardly the “far-Right” fracas so readily seized upon by your contributors.
Much is made by the Church’s liberal consensus of the Christian injunction to welcome the stranger; the Levitical Law and Christ’s teaching are clear. Neither the Law nor Christ’s parables, however, offer an unlimited provision. Even a parable such as that of the friend at midnight, ending as it does with “the whole meal if necessary”, implies a limit: the limit of the meal.
Far from hijacking Christian symbols, perhaps the march participants simply sought to reclaim a genuinely Christian perspective — that of mutual responsibilities over unlimited rights: genuine “old-school” liberalism?
But your contributors saw no need to engage, unlike the late Charlie Kirk. The failure of the liberal consensus isn’t simply to appreciate that there may be an alternative view; their failure is not accepting that hard decisions about rights have to be made. Cohesive societies are not built on rights: they are built on mutual responsibilities within the rule of law.
As a reader of the Church Times for about a quarter of a century, I wrote the following letter to the paper which it did not publish:
Why was the writer of one of the best letters (Unite the Kingdom march and Christian symbols) I have read in the Church Times in around 25 years anonymous? Was it because he or she is a licensed clergy person or lay reader and was afraid of the repercussions of such an intelligent challenge to the leftist consensus that prevails in the Church of England’s hierarchy? It is, of course, impossible to know the writer’s motivation for anonymity.
Being an unlicensed ex-vicar, I have no qualms in putting my name to wholehearted agreement that “the failure of the liberal consensus isn’t simply to appreciate that there may be an alternative view; their failure is not accepting that hard decisions about rights have to be made. Cohesive societies are not built on rights: they are built on mutual responsibilities within the rule of law”.
I hope if I were still on the payroll I would be willing to put my hand up, but in the current political climate perhaps it would be arrogant to be too categorical about that.
The Dean of Canterbury, David Monteith, had no hesitation in putting his head above the parapet to defend the graffiti on the Cathedral’s walls and pillars. He told the media: