Challenging Times

Forty two percent of people in Britain believe that religion is harmful, according to one recent survey. One in four Christians in the UK believe they are discriminated against at work because of their faith, and there’s growing evidence that the BBC is biased against Christianity. These figures could be mirrored in other parts of the ‘liberal, democratic’ Western world.

‘Facing the Challenge of a Hostile World’ is a new course from Focus to help us understand how we’re meant to respond to the increasingly hostile culture we live in.

Based on the first letter of Peter, this new course is for home groups and cell groups, Christian Unions and Adult Sunday Schools, churches and individuals.

A lot of the video material from our DVD ‘Jesus and The Da Vinci Code’ is now available online, courtesy of Youtube. You can find these clips on our web site by choosing the ‘Contemporary Culture / Films / The Da Vinci Code’ menu and then following ‘The People’ or ‘The Places.’

A High Court judge in Northern Ireland has struck down part of the Government’s Sexual Orientation Regulations in a judgement passed down on 12th September.

Mr Justice Weatherup quashed harassment clauses in the Northern Ireland regulations, which would have resulted in Christians or churches there being sued for condemning homosexual practice. He said that they infringed the Human Rights Act 1998, namely freedom of expression and freedom of religious belief.

The Christian Institute, a Christian pressure group, campaigned against the regulations. Director Colin Hart said the judgement meant “freedom of speech [had been] preserved.”

The decision in the case only extends to the harassment clauses in the Sexual Orientation Regulations. It remains illegal for providers of goods, services, education or public functions to discriminate on the grounds of a recipient’s sexual orientation. The High Court judge also said that future litigation should give thought to a Canadian case where it was held that a Christian printer was not obliged to print material that went against his core beliefs but had to be willing to print other material for homosexual customers, for example letterheads.

The Northern Ireland ruling has widespread implications in the rest of the UK. Although the Sexual Orientation Regulations in England, Wales and Scotland do not contain harassment clauses, the Government intends to introduce harassment laws into the rest of the UK in the Single Equality Bill.

The Church of England has warned that such proposals could lead to lawsuits if the church expresses the Biblical teaching that homosexual sex is immoral, whilst the Lawyer’s Christian Fellowship suggests that homosexuals could sue if they heard a sermon that condemned homosexuality.

This now seems doubtful since the Northern Ireland court has ruled against harassment clauses, but although the scope of the Sexual Orientation Regulations has narrowed there will still be cases where Christians face opposition for adhering to Biblical truths in this area.

More information:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=BAIKIFZSSB4MTQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/09/07/ngay107.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/12/nharass112.xml
http://www.christian.org.uk/pressreleases/2007/march_07_2007.htm
http://www.christian.org.uk/soregs/sornewsletter_apr07.pdf
http://www.christian.org.uk/soregs/niresult_11sept07.htm
http://www.christianconcernforournation.co.uk/sor/index.php

A couple of days ago, I wrote about a survey which found that nearly half the people in the UK think religion is harmful. A new survey reported today found that 62% of people think that religion is important in guiding the nation’s morals.

Confused? So am I.

The new survey, for the BBC1 show ‘The Big Questions’ (Sunday 9th September, 10 pm) found that

• People between 16 and 24 are more likely than older people to think that religion has a key role
• 29% of people disagreed that faith has a role to play
• More than 80% of people think that the nation is in a moral decline.

Is Reality television harmless fun or dangerous and destructive? A new article on this web site argues that it is harmful because of its unreality, over-simplification, and moral emptiness.

Forty two percent of people in Britain think that religion has a harmful effect, according to a recent survey

Eddie Arthur wrote a blog entry about the implications of this for the Church, and I thought what he says is important enough to turn into a page on this web site. For example, he says:

What you might see as an attractive presentation of the Gospel could easily be understood as an invitation to become a narrow minded religious bigot – not so attractive after all. The challenge of presenting the Gospel in the UK is huge.

And:

The negative view of religion in Britain means that we need to take a long hard look at what we are doing, and to divest being a disciple of Jesus of much of its traditional and religious baggage.