The city council of Camden, a London borough, tells a Catholic parish it can’t use faith-based vocabulary to advertise talks on God and climate change :
St Francis is a saint normally associated with peaceful, eremetic living and an overwhelming empathy for the animal kingdom. He is invoked in matters to do with stewardship, climate change and all things green. But an innocuous St Francis weekend organised by a London Catholic church has turned into an interfaith battle over what is and is not deemed to be politically correct.As we report, Camden council is reconsidering whether to allow its libraries and social centres to display a poster advertising a weekend of climate change events organised by the local Roman Catholic parish church, Our Lady Help of Christians. However, the council did ban the poster. The council does not advertise anything of a religious nature, for fear of offending religious sensibilities. The St Francis poster was deemed to be in breach of these rules, even though the Muslims who own the corner shop frequented by one of the organisers have happily put the posters up there.
The line about not “offending religious sensibilites” is rich. Who exactly is offended? Not Christians or, it appears, Muslims. I suspect most Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and other groups—including open-minded agnostics—aren’t offended by a poster that promotes a “pet blessing” and says that “Climate Change is a Christian Issue.” The only people who are offended are the secularists—those who believe that religion (or at least religions other than secularism) must be banned from the public square. These secularists, of course, may even share a secondary faith such as Christianity or Judaism—as long as it is strictly a private affair between them and whatever God they believe can never meet them in public.
This weekend I spent some time with many young evangelicals who think that if Christians would only be more nuanced in our use of language, the world would be more open to our message. If so, then why hasn’t it worked? There are few issues as politically-correct as climate change. Yet by mixing the issue with religion—in as innocuous a manner as possible—it becomes a toxic substance that must be banned from public consumption.
This is the type of well-meaning, conciliatory nonsense that every generation of Christians wishes were true. Eventually, though, we have to face the fact that we can either defend our faith and religious pluralism in the public square or allow secularism to become the de facto established religion.
(Via: Craig Carter )
