God Save The . . . Caliphate?

Next to the Church of the Holy Sephulcre, the most famous Church in the world is the Hagia Sophia built about 532 A.D.. Except that it is not a church. Now a museum, it was captured by the Ottomans when they overran Byzantium in 1453. The Ottomans tore out the crosses, painted over the iconic images, added several minarets, and made it into a Mosque to the glory and ascendancy of Islam. Much the same thing is happening in the UK today, though at the invitation of the secular left – no need for any force or coercion.

Since the forced dechristianization of France by Robespierre, and later, the condemnation of religion as the opiate of the masses by Marx, the socialist left has been a determined foe of Christianity. They have succeeded in gutting Christianity in Britain and across Europe. This, coupled with the insane immigration policies and multiculturalism of the left have led to the suicidal but inexorable march towards the ceding of their lands, laws and traditions to those who still devoutly believe in a religion – Islam. According to the latest estimates, the religion of Islam will dominate in the land of King Richard within thirty years.
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This from the Church of England Church newspaper.

If recent reports of trends in religious observance prove to be correct, then in some 30 years the mosque will be able to claim that, religiously speaking, the UK is an Islamic nation, and therefore needs a share in any religious establishment to reflect this. The progress of conservative Islam in the UK has been amazing, and it has come at a time of prolonged decline in church attendance that seems likely to continue.

This progress has been enthusiastically assisted by this government in particular with its hard-line multi-cultural dogma and willingness to concede to virtually every demand made by Muslims. Perhaps most importantly the government has chosen to allow hard-liners to act as representing all Muslims, and more liberal Muslims have almost completely failed to produce any leadership voices to compete, leading many Britons to wonder if there are indeed many liberal Muslims at all, surely a mistake.

At all levels of national life Islam has gained state funding, protection from any criticism, and the insertion of advisors and experts in government departs national and local. A Muslim Home Office adviser, for example, was responsible for Baroness Scotland’s aborting of the legislation against honour killings, arguing that informal methods would be better. In the police we hear of girls under police protection having the addresses of their safe houses disclosed to their parents by Muslim officers who think they are doing their religious duty.

. . . The point is that Islam is being institutionalised, incarnated, into national structures amazingly fast, at the same time as demography is showing very high birthrates. Charles Taylor’s new and classic work on the Secular Age charts the rise of the secular mindset and what he calls the ‘excarnation’ of Christianity as it is levered out of state policy and structures. Christianity is now regarded as bad news, the liberal elite’s attack developed in the 1960s took root in the educationalist empire, and to some extent even in areas of the church.

Today the Christian story is fading from public imagination, while Islam grows apace. There needs to be some fresh thinking in this area where the claims of Christ are sensitively explained. Our church leaders must develop ways of explaining this, as our feature on mission and evangelism this week demonstrates.

Read the entire article. (H/T LGF). God help Britian and the West. The socialist utopia of Marx has turned into a British nightmare with the determined and suicidal policies of the left. One wonders how they will fare under Sharia law. Or will they just move elsewhere in the EU and leave the working class to sort it out?

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Of Terrorist Motivation & British Papers

Denis MacShane, a Labour MP, opines in the UK's far left newpaper The Observer that the cause of Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with the Iraq or Afghanistan Wars, nor anything else in the foreign policy of Britain or, by extension, the US. His argument is based on the litany of barbarous acts of Islamic terrorism that occurred prior to 9-11, such as the gutting and beheading of fifty Swiss tourists in Egypt during 1997. It is a good article that you can find here.

The fact is that the underlying ideology that gives rise to Islamic terrorism, the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia that has infected everything it has touched (arguably even Khomeinist Shia'ism), is incredibly triumphalist and expansionist. Just as there could be no way short of capitulation of peacefully setteling with Hitler, so there is no possible way of setteling with Islamic terrorists. Any act which is perceived as preventing Islamists from reestablishing a caliphate over all lands now or once under Muslim rule would suffice as justification for attacks on the West. Indeed, the list of potential justifications goes much farther and deeper than just that. Omar Bakir justified the 9-11 attacks on the basis of the 13th century Crusades. And Osama bin Laden, in 2002 prior to the Iraq war, provided seven preconditions for peace with the "Islamic Nation," the first of which was that we convert to Islam. And one former jihadi has described how he and his friends would laugh whenever they heard a useful idiot stand and claim that the reason for terrorism was the war in Iraq or the foreign policy of the UK.

Whether we defend our values aggressively, or demurely bury our heads in the sand, there will be a clear winner and a clear loser as regards Islam and the West. If the West wins, then Western values will prevail, and Muslims who choose to practice their religion peacefully in Western countries will be free to do so. If the Wahhabi ideology wins, then this world will become a medieval kingdom, and the chattering classes of the left will find themselves in their worst nightmare. Our soldiers fighting and dying on foreign soil today, should they succeed, will be saving the far left from the extreme consequences of their own actions.

The thing that amazes me about Mr. MacShane's essay is that he is a member of Britain's left wing party and that the essay appears in the most left wing of Britain's newspapers. That shows a degree of tolerance and maturity on the part of Britain's political parties that goes beyond what we see here. The last time a left wing Democrat spoke such heresy - Joe Lieberman - he was drummed out of the Democratic Party. And my hats off to the Observer and the Guardian for three reasons. One, their factual reporting is usually balanced and first rate - something clearly cannot be said for today's most liberal major newspaper in America, the New York Times. Two, while the Guardian and Observer do give the majority of their editorial space to the far - and sometimes very far - left (there was an essay the other day bemoaning the fall of communism), they also give a fair amount of space to people of all sides to express their opinion. Lastly, their comment policy and set-up is exceptional, leading to very public and robust debate that often sees hundreds of comments posted for any one editorial. I may be fairly conservative, but I do read the Guardian and the Observer daily.

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