The Archbishop of Canterbury has delivered his New Year’s message to the nation in which he praises the responses of what he calls “communities” to last year’s terrorist atrocities and to the Grenfell fire. Actually, “communities” is not a helpful word, Mr Welby if your aim is to promote social cohesion. There is one community and we are all part of it, whereas “communities” connotes ghettos – that failed multicultural experiment which encouraged the separate development of the different races and creeds. Most of the immigrants who have settled in Britain over the centuries have integrated into the general population – into the community, in fact. Only in recent years there has arisen an exception: Muslims who so dislike our British community that they segregate themselves in a form of apartheid. How inconsistent and odd of lefties such as Welby to have condemned apartheid when it took place in South Africa, but to applaud it here in their use of that divisive word “communities.” What we have in Tower Hamlets, Dewsbury, Walsall, Oldham and a score other of our cities and towns is not Muslim “communities,” Mr Welby but Muslim ghettos.
In his message, which was broadcast on the BBC, the Archbishop said he also wanted to highlight the suffering of people “struggling to find work or relying on food banks” and “those who are bereaved or coping with poor mental health or physical illness.”
He added: “Their suffering will never make the news.”
Really? Does Welby live anywhere near a television set or a wireless? Does he ever read a newspaper? If he did, he would discover that, far from “never making the news,” the topics of unemployment, food banks – many organised by the Church of which Welby is titular leader – and mental health are never out of the news. These subjects are of great public concern and so it’s right that they should feature prominently in the news.
It is entirely right that the Archbishop should express his thanks to the emergency services for their courageous presence during terrorist attacks and at terrible public disasters such as Grenfell. Likewise, his concern for the poor and the sick is something required of him by the faith which he professes. I just wish he would profess the Christian faith rather more than he does. Christian morality is derived from Christian doctrine. And the most fundamental Christian doctrine is that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but we can take comfort and hope from the fact that Jesus Christ died to save us from our sins. So, if we repent and turn to Christ, we shall be saved,
Not a word about this from Welby. As if a chemist were to talk about chemistry while avoiding all reference to chemicals, or England’s opening batsman should walk out to bat – only without his bat.
Surely, the turn of the year is the time for looking back and repenting of our sins, negligences and ignorances and for looking forward in hope and confidence in the saving work of Jesus Christ?
The social gospel is a very fine thing. But the social gospel without the gospel is just sentimental socialism.
Thank you Peter Mullen for that reminder of what undergirds Christian theology. The C of E might do itself and the nation a bit of good if it took a good long look at the 39 Articles, then the Bible to which they point, which includes 2 Chronicles 7:14, and lastly to the Book of Common Prayer where, among other things, will be found the General Confession and the ancient Creeds. That would be a good start to the long trek back to the point of departure.
“…the social gospel without the gospel is just sentimental socialism.”
…as I concluded in my undergraduate thesis submitted to my very fair supervisor concerning his monograph:
https://www.library.yorku.ca/find/Record/27776
…and who was probably one of the last liberals in my personal experience who actually accepted the theoretical concept of civilized disagreement.
And he still hasn’t apologised for his treatment of the late Bishop George Bell, nor has he properly acknowledged the outcome of the Carlisle report that he himself commissioned. He should step down as he is not fit for the office.
Indeed John B, and Peter Hitchens said it very well recently when he wrote:
“Archbishop Welby had a chance to stand for moral courage against the easy, popular thing. And he did the easy, popular thing. George Bell, facing much sterner tests in much tougher times, repeatedly chose moral courage over popularity. And that is why Justin Welby is not fit to lace up George Bell’s shoes, and why his pretensions to be a moral leader of this country are taken less and less seriously by thinking people.”
There will be no redemption for repugnant Welby, as he shall discover when the time comes for him to meet his Maker.
How I wish that I could be a fly on the wall at that time.
Do they have flies where Welby is going?
Flame-retardant ones!
Convinced of its own moral superiority over lesser mortals, the British “elite” abandoned ordinary Britons decades ago.
Maintaining the beam in his own eye, this [ Eton and Cambridge educated ] Arcbishop bemoans Grammar School education for the more intelligent children as being “contrary to the notion of the common good”. The idea that bright children might deserve an appropriate education is divisive and therefore morally inferior.
The elites have decided that normal relationships between the sexes have become obsolescent and have taken to gay marriage, transgenderism, transsexualism and so on. Anyone who demurs is sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and so on, and therefore morally inferior.
The elites have decided that the solution to violence, poverty, and corruption in the Third World, is to introduce violence, poverty, and corruption to the First World. Anybody who questions the wisdom of this policy is, of course, both racist and Islamophobic and therefore, doubly morally inferior.
The Church of England having cleaved to the elites, and abandoned the people of Britain, the people have reciprocated. The average age of a communicant in the Church is now 63 years. The average age of the practising Muslim will be closer to 20.
It is time to give the Church of England a decent burial, so that the few remaining mourners can move on with their lives.