Christians and foxes: further notes on Britain's culture war.

• Author: Colebatch Hal G.P.
• Pages: 45(9)

To attack the culture is to attack the country, but it is to attack it from within. It comes from the sort of culture that has already contrived to get inside another culture, the sort unpleasantly suggested by bacteria-culture. Anyone who loves a national tradition would rather it were attacked from without than eaten away from within.

--G. K. Chesterton

Despite British Prime Minister Tony Blair's own high-profile Church attendance and declarations of piety, Christianity is not the least of targets in the present on-going culture war against British traditions and the core-values of British society.

The following instances give some indication of what is happening:

The Lottery Fund, giving grants to Gypsy, Tamil, American Indian, Irish and Congolese cultural activities, refused a relatively small application from the "Windsor Churches Coming Together Group" towards staging a presentation of Pentacost at a Whitsun service on the grounds that it "promoted Christianity."

In 1998 the Labour-run City of Birmingham council renamed Christmas "Winterval" so holiday celebrations would not be contaminated by Christian associations. This innovation was dropped after protests, but in October 2000 it was reported the same council planned to scrap school holidays for Easter, the most sacred festival of Christianity.

At Christmas 1998 local authorities granted permission for the congregation of a parish church to sing Christmas carols at the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield, then rescinded the permission after deciding that the event was too religious and Christian. When it transpired that the permission could not in fact be withdrawn the authorities moved the time of the event to 7 p.m., when the centre was virtually closed, and advised members of the church not to preach anything about Christianity between the hymns.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority was asked to prevent the B.B.C. using the terms "B.C." and "A.D." for the same reason. The Government introduced an official "naming ceremony" to replace "Christening," with "supporting adults" instead of "godparents." Why anyone would bother with such a ceremony, except as an anti-Christian exercise, remained mysterious. The ceremony could be conducted by registrars anywhere "suitably dignified". After the head of religious broadcasting at the B.B.C., a Presbyterian Minister, resigned in December 2000, on the grounds that religion was being sidelined, the B.B.C. renamed the department Religion and Ethics and appointed an agnostic to head it.

The Bishop of Lincoln claimed that other churches had virtually abandoned the countryside and rural England would quickly return to paganism if the Church of England withdrew from those country parishes where it still retained a presence. (1) In The Guardian, Polly Toynbee claimed Christian church schools were "socially divisive anyway, a haven for the middle-classes". In January 2001, a church in Stockport was charged by the local council for advertising when it displayed a three-foot illuminated cross above the entrance. (2)

Hostility to Christianity hardly needed nomenklatura promotion. In 1997 there were 462 physical attacks on Christian clergymen, and some churches were sending clergymen on self-defence courses. Seventy per cent of London clergymen had been either assaulted or threatened with violence. With capitalism's prompt response to a perceived demand, a business in Bishop's Stortford took to making and marketing crucifixes for clergymen which carried personal alarms, flashing and making a screeching noise if grabbed by or waved at an assailant. (3) One in three churches would suffer from arson, theft or vandalism every year, and the closed church, like the closed village pub, is becoming an increasingly common feature of the English landscape.

Some American Franciscan friars in habits and sandals set up a small monastery ministering to people on a council estate in Canning Town, East London. Their leader, Father Richard, said: "Everyone here seems so angry, compared to New York. It's much worse in some ways. We have had rocks thrown at us but generally the welcome has been friendly enough. Kids look up at us in the street and say `Are you Jesus?' and our standard response is, `No, we're just working for him'." (4)

A survey by media buying agency MediaCom T.M.B., of 1,200...