Only Christian faith will save Europe, Anglican bishop says after Paris attacks [ChristianExaminer]

Only Christian faith will save Europe, Anglican bishop says after Paris attacks

by Gregory Tomlin | 19 November, 2015



(Oxford Center for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue)

NEW YORK (Christian Examiner) – A retired Anglican bishop who now works on behalf of persecuted Christians worldwide has a message for those who believe the answer to preventing more Islamic terrorism is promoting secular values:

Only Christianity can save Europe from the radical Islamists threatening it.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, who is originally from Pakistan, writes at The Catholic Herald that there are points of similarity between the secular states of Europe today and the fractured Roman Empire when it was sacked by barbarians in the fifth century.

Though many historians have blamed Christianity for the fall of Rome because it challenged its secularism (which the historians say was a unifying force), Nazir-Ali contends Rome was never secular – it had "religions of the family, tribe, city or empire." All of these systems had different ideals and values.

The invasions, however, occurred at a time where Christianity was beginning to unify the empire around shared ideals about life and faith and so, he writes, it was Christianity that saved western civilization in the Dark Ages following the destruction.

"We have the same decadent and dilettante popular culture, where anything goes and 'bread and circuses' keep the population quiescent with a never-ending round of sports, entertainment and games of chance," Nazir-Ali writes. These things naturally lead to a cynical view of faith.

The answer, however, is faith – the Christian faith, he writes.

"It is quite astonishing that some, instead of seeing Christianity as part of the answer to Europe's predicament, are taking this opportunity to smear all religion by association, whatever the facts of history," Nazir-Ali writes.

"The truth of the matter is that Europe needs to recover its grand narrative by which to live, by which to determine what is true, good and beneficial for its people. The nostrums of Marxism and Fascism have brought frightful suffering for its people. Now another totalitarian ideology threatens. A truly plural space can only be guaranteed by intrinsically Christian ideas of the dignity of the human person, respect for conscience, equality of persons and freedom not only to believe but to manifest our beliefs in the public space, without discrimination against or violence to those who do not share them," Nazir-Ali writes.

"Instant self-gratification and endless entertainment will no more contribute to contemporary European survival than they did to ancient Roman. What is needed is an ethic of service, selflessness and sacrifice for the sake of the common good. Many will recognise this as the teaching of the Galilean Master, not of any paganism, ancient or modern, nor of any ideology, secular or religious."


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Another wise man from the east!

 

He is exactly right. The West has to remember it's true values and moral character in order to survive. It is awash in nihilism and post-mo Marxism. Our wealth, power, and success has brought us to a point of extravagance and comfort unknown in history. Many think all the benefits of society are simply due to them existing and don't think of the work that it took, and takes, to keep civilization alive. It didn't come from nowhere- the West is successful because of it's values, education, virtues and Christian culture. As those fade, so will the West and Islam is flooding into Europe because of our weakness.

 

"The celebrated jurist, Blackstone, had the curiosity, early in the reign of George III., to go from church to church to hear every clergyman of note in London. He assures us that he heard not a single "discourse" which had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero ; and that it would have been impossible for him to discover, from what he heard, whether the preacher was a follower of Confucius, of Mohammed, or of Christ," taken from "Methodism in the 18th century &etc" by Abel Stevens.

In the 18th century the tyranny of godlessness was perceived to arise from within, from the ignorance and laziness of the political classes. Has Michael Nazir-Ali got it right when he rails against the external threat of Islam? Is the purpose of Christianity to save "Europe" or to save the individual? When Christianity is spoken of in these terms, it seems to come across as a cultural or political ideology comparable with Islam. Yet did God save Sodom on account of Lot, or did he save Jerusalem in AD70 on account of the Christians therein? God will destroy culture whenever it suits him. The "totalitarian ideology" that threatens is not Islam but inbred apostasy that raised Islam from the abyss of being seen as an infidel religion in days gone by, and has brought down Christianity to the level of political ideology. It is homegrown.

Michael Nazir-Ali underestimates the severity of the problem. A letter of Legh Richmond's mother to his son at Cambridge in the 18th century just after the French Revolution said "I hope that my dear son does not, in the midst of his literary studies, forget those that pertain to religion. I cannot help trembling for my country, in these days of infidel democracy."

The supremacy of democracy is itself a tolalitarian ideology that deems the "will of the majority" as superior to the designs of God. Islam feeds off corrupt societies. Christianity needs first to save the British and the individual from the corruption brought about by the abuse of democracy. Only when it succeeds in its primary goals will it be taken seriously on a political level.