Christians are being persecuted, says former archbishop of Canterbury
Source: Guardian
Christians are being "persecuted" and "driven underground" while the courts fail to protect their religious values, a former archbishop of Canterbury has claimed.
Lord Carey said Christians were excluded from many sectors of employment because of their beliefs, "vilified by state bodies" and left in fear of arrest for expressing their views.
The former archbishop's claims are part of a written submission to the European court of human rights, seen by the Daily Telegraph, before a landmark case on religious freedom.
The hearing will deal with the cases of two workers forced out of their jobs after wearing visible crosses, a Relate therapist sacked for saying he was not comfortable giving sex counselling to gay couples, and a Christian registrar who refused to conduct civil partnership ceremonies.
The British Airways worker Nadia Eweida, a Pentecostal Christian, received widespread publicity when she was sent home in 2006 after refusing to remove a necklace with a cross or hide it from sight.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/14/christians-persecuted-archbishop-canterbury-carey?CMP=twt_fd
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Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)And companies can regulate the appearance of workers on the clock.
rayofreason
(2,259 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)a public ban isn't necessary and is too restrictive on personal expression.
rayofreason
(2,259 posts)..what someone does off the clock is no one's business.
I also agree with your statement
"And companies can regulate the appearance of workers on the clock."
Companies should be free to regulate employee appearance in order to further the aims of the business. So a weight loss clinic should be free to hire only slim people to work reception, for example. And if a company wants to ban the display of religious symbols in the workplace because they think that there might be some clients who take offense at the display of such symbols, that is the right of the employer.
whathehell
(30,468 posts)Check out the record on "honor killings" some time.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)they're a cultural thing...and will probably die out on their own.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)until these cultures decide to get civilized? Or are we just being colonialists for mentioning how abhorant and loathsome they and the cultures that practice and support them are?
The Magistrate
(96,043 posts)The fact that they occur, however, has no bearing on the fact that any claim Christians are subject to persecution in England, or for that matter in the United States, is delusional nonesense.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)I was responding to a specific post about honor killings.
P.S. I'm a woman
The Magistrate
(96,043 posts)A Christian clergyman made the ludicrous claim that Christians are persecuted in England, and a Christian apologist here trotted up to endorse this claim, offering as proof a claim that people on this forum do not attack Moslems for honor killings. You waded in in support of his claim.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)that brought it up. That wasn't me. But to say that Islam doesn't get a pass on this board is putting your head in the sand.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,201 posts)I'd like you to show me examples of it, please. There's criticism, for instance, here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/121820489
in which some Muslims, embodied by Mohammed, are called hypocritical when attacking science one moment, and embracing it the next when they think it would suit their prejudices.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)You've been here a long time - almost as long as I have. If I hear one more claim about cultural relativism or how we have no right to impose our belief system as we are imperialists, I just may scream (and have on many threads). If you haven't seen it, you haven't been looking for it or are dismissive of it. It gets complained about (certainly by women) plenty. Their stance on science is the least of it.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,201 posts)So what's you problem? We complain about it.
No, we can't impose a belief system - because that requires force. That's what's "imposing" is about. You yourself have denied wanting to use force, so "we can't impose a belief system" is your attitude as well.
The Magistrate
(96,043 posts)Not for nothing has it been said 'The willingness to see violence done is the test of sincerity in human affairs."
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's more about what is done in the name of changing bad things within other cultures. What you are running into is a deep well of fully justified suspicion about this country taking up the "We have a civilizing mission" mindset. That mindset always puts us on a slippery slope to imperial conquest.
Also, if you remember early 20th Century European countries, you would recognize that "honor killings" are the equivalent to the way that rhetoric about the alleged bayonetting of Belgian infants by Imperial German troops was used to whip up fervor for British and then U.S. involvement in World War One.
Every demagogue in American politics that wants even bloodier U.S. involvement in Iran and other Middle East countries references honor killings to get people baying for blood.
And again, honor killings have nothing to do with Islam. They have appeared in cultures around the world(including the cultures of some "Christian" nations-and they predate the arrival of Islam in what is now the "Islamic" world, which means they were happening when those countries were Christian(that was the majority religion in most Near East countries at one point)and that the Christian authorities in those countries must have done nothing to even try to stop the practice.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And the United States has no moral standing to change any other culture by force anyway. To even try to do so would automatically be reactionary. We never just do good things after an invasion and leave it at that. Our leaders always end up exacting a price.
Only the people in those cultures can legitimately change them. People from "the West" can support those people and encourage them in their work, but we can't impose those changes on a culture that doesn't want them. To do that is to guarantee that everyone within those cultures will resist us.
It's about boundaries, and avoiding self-righteous arrogance. And it's about recognizing what this country is and is NOT entitled to do in this world. If you cease to recognize that, if you buy into the "civilizing mission" bullshit, you cannot avoid ending up in Bush/Cheney territory, and once you've gone there...you no longer have any humanity.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)saying anything about using force so your whole strawman argument is nothing but a waste of time and space.
The Magistrate
(96,043 posts)On reading this " So should we just wait until these cultures decide to get civilized? Or are we just being colonialists for mentioning how abhorant and loathsome they and the cultures that practice and support them are?" many people would reasonably feel they were in the presence of a call for action, which did not necessarily scruple at violence....
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)No - you don't get away with that claim. It was in no way a call for violence - merely for speaking out when we see things that are wrong. If you interpret that any other way, the problem is yours.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,201 posts)and no-one is going to court to try to make them do so; so I can't see why you bring them up.
The Magistrate
(96,043 posts)He can pose as an opponent of bigotry, while at the same time invoking bigotry....
Permanut
(8,390 posts)This clown is sort of like the thumpers on this side of the pond, and argues that he, and all other persons who pass his litmus test of beliefs, can stick their stuff in my face, and if I don't like that, then I'm interfering with their rights - "persecuting" them. Okay, got it.
You'd think someone that far up in the heirarchy would be able to distinguish between beliefs and behavior.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)Thumpers aren't all that common here but we do have a few and he's become one of them in his old age.
Moostache
(11,171 posts)Now we see the violence inherent in the system!!!
bluedigger
(17,437 posts)
How long did they expect for the lions to leave them alone?
msongs
(73,752 posts)AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)They can't wear their crosses at work....in a very few instances...
But there's a church on every other street corner.
They get fired for not doing their jobs.
That never happens to anybody else!
Poor, poor, put upon Christians!
Joe Bacon
(5,167 posts)Yesiree, Onward, Christian Soldiers!
Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)The Magistrate
(96,043 posts)These people are so used to a playing field tilted in their favor that they perceive a level one as being tilted against them.
siligut
(12,272 posts)He is a bigot plain and simple.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)
kwassa
(23,340 posts)The Church of England is really in need of a good leader; the current ABC Rowan Williams isn't it, either, and he is retiring, fortunately.
sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)whathehell
(30,468 posts)Nah...I didn't think so.
sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)
dmallind
(10,437 posts)I'm sure Christian persecution is quite real in some places too. England however is not one of them.
Persecution is a bit more than being stopped from oppressing, bullying and demeaning others, which SLIGHTLY reduced opportunity in the last decade or two is the sole reason for this priest's turbulence.
NoodleyAppendage
(4,625 posts)It's high time that the tide shifted back towards the Enlightenment. It's personal freedom to believe in fairyland stuff, but don't expect to do well in a global economy where Dark Ages thought is anachronistic.
J
Response to NoodleyAppendage (Reply #14)
Post removed
sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)nanabugg
(2,198 posts)
Ruby the Liberal
(26,664 posts)persecuted for their beliefs, not this crap this dude is peddling, and I say this as a Christian.
philosopherdog
(3 posts)All worshipers of the One True God need not fret about what the secular world thinks or does about how or why they (we) worship. The problem is that to be an honest and sincere believer, one must first realize that God is within and so we must look inward to find God. The unbelievers will always feel threatened by the believers and this has been ongoing since the beginning of time I can only imagine, however, to put some light on the subject, God worship is to be subordinate and lowly, humble and divine. We are to "pray" for the leaders and not "contend" with policy, or try to control how the world works.
All believers work better as underground operatives stepping out into the frey only to snatch an innocent victim from being the means to someone else's end. We knock them out and drag them back underground with us and show them what it really and truly means to be a human. When they are strong enough we set them free by showing them the way back to society where we leave them with a warning not to expose themselves to evil or to them who practice evil things.
The end is always near to them who practice vile things but eternity is always with them who pray.
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 16, 2012, 06:39 PM - Edit history (1)
The unbelievers will always feel threatened by the believers and this has been ongoing since the beginning of time...While there was a time where it was commonplace to be burned at the stake for being an unbeliever, establishing good cause to feel threatened, for the most part we unbelievers are free to go about our unbelieving ways.
I can only imagine, however, to put some light on the subject, God worship is to be subordinate and lowly, humble and divine. We are to "pray" for the leaders and not "contend" with policy, or try to control how the world works.
Good idea, keep far away from Government. We agree on that point at least.
This really knocked my socks off though....
All believers work better as underground operatives stepping out into the frey only to snatch an innocent victim from being the means to someone else's end. We knock them out and drag them back underground with us and show them what it really and truly means to be a human. When they are strong enough we set them free by showing them the way back to society where we leave them with a warning not to expose themselves to evil or to them who practice evil things.
Astounding! You abduct people, hold them captive until they see things your way and then you set them free when they are conditioned enough to avoid what you teach them is evil. Wow!
And you show them what it "really and truly means to be human"?? So if someone doesn't believe as you do, does that make them sub-human or what?
"The end is always near to them who practice vile things but eternity is always with them who pray."
Interesting, reading this post from you has felt rather like an eternity.
Julie
LeftishBrit
(41,453 posts)He was appointed Archbishop by Thatcher, and is currently into promoting the right-wing viewpoint, e.g.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091331/Welfare-reform-Ex-Archbishop-Canterbury-Lord-Carey-blasts-clerics-oppose-benefits-cap.html#ixzz1kYRVlL7d
There were very few people involved in the legal cases quoted here. Though I do think that the demands on people to remove crosses are examples of 'jobsworth'-ism run mad, they were in the context of forbidding any jewellery or pendants. As regards the registrar: surely it's a registrar's job to conduct any marriage/partnership ceremony - and as I doubt that she was also refusing to conduct second marriages of divorced people, for example, it sounds as though she was targeting gays specifically, rather than all ceremonies that went against strict Biblical principles.
muriel_volestrangler
(106,201 posts)I wrote him an email saying a speech he made was scare-mongering, when he misrepresented the bill to allow churches that wanted to to perform civil partnerships (he claimed it would force all churches to, when it explicitly said it was up to each church); and his reply was both dismissive and rude. Not what I'd expected from a clergyman, especially a senior one.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)wealthiest, most powerful religious group on earth bring more disrespect to the memory of the brave followers of Christ who were tortured and killed en masse in the first two centuries than any non believer ever could.
treestar
(82,383 posts)She is free to practice her religion.
These people never realize that what they are saying is that the most important part of their religion is something like this. She can go to church, be active in the church, pray, etc., but it's all nothing if she can't wear that cross with her work uniform.
It's like those who melt down over the idea of taking "In God We Trust" off of US money. You can still go to church, be active, pray, proselytize, but darn if your country's money doesn't refer to God, you are persecuted!
It's admitting to us that their religion is shallow.
crunch60
(1,412 posts)it was hidden under my t-shirt. I am still the same spiritual person regardless
of where my cross is on my body. Still free to practice my beliefs. I did not feel persecuted in any way obeying the dress code of the company.
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)..