Simon Webb: Christianity and homogeneity

 

Emma Webb and The New Culture Forum

 

At one point in the discussion, Peter Kiszely said, with reference to the use and misuse of the word 'safe,' 'We all know you can see it in the language.' Whatever good sense and sensitivity the host and guests showed when discussing the mistakes of the woke, their actions as well as the language they use so often, was nowhere to be found when it came to discussing the 'flag and the swastika' episode. On the evidence available, it seems that Hampshire Police blundered - a comical act with serious, even sinister overtones. But when Emma Webb gave her own interpretation, it was very disturbing, conniving in hideous misuse of language, and those highly accomplished bullshit detectors Rafe Heydel-Mankoo and Philip Kiszely seemed to find nothing wrong. Their minds, or their nostrils, perhaps, failed them, it seems.

 

Peter Whittle, the founder of the New Culture Forum, declares that he isn't 'a religious man' but adds, 'That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the extraordinary works that churches do.' His comments appear on the Website of 'Premier Christian News,'

 

 https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/peter-whittle-i-m-amazed-by-the-work-of-churches-in-london  

 

His comment is bland, almost formulaic, but is completely understandable, given the circumstances. The issue of the Churches and their contribution, not just their contribution now but in past centuries - the New Culture Forum has quite a developed historical sense - merits a much closer examination.   I can't possibly give an adequate examination here but I think this outline should provide, not unexpected insights but material that contradicts any naive view of the 'wonderful work that churches do.' Peter Whittle may well be unaware that many, many Christians won't have nearly as favourable view of him as he has of the Churches. Here, I discuss not 'churches' in general but particular versions of christian faith. Their differences are often very significant.  

 

 It would be impossible to do more than touch upon the ridiculousness and harmful effects of Roman Catholicism over the years, over the centuries, which I would claim exceed the ridiculousness and harmful effects of 'woke' views, and not by a small margin. For the record, I've been and still am an opponent of 'woke' views, an energetic opponent, I could claim, but I can't possibly provide much evidence here. This comment is long enough as it is. All I can do is give a few snippets of information but I'll include comments on the ridiculousness and harmful effects of evangelical and other protestant views, a few comments on the Anglican Church's very substantial contribution (as the Established Church for centuries, it has had plenty of practice). I'll begin, though, with the Roman Catholic Church.

 

 The Roman Catholic Church has few rivals, or no rivals, for ridiculousness but as a source of harm, it's far from being one of the worst perpetrators. Nazism and Stalinism have been vastly worse. I don't in the least claim that individual Roman Catholics and other Christians are always negligible people, quite the opposite. There are many, many Roman Catholics and other Christians known to me with substantial strengths - massive strengths. The teaching of 'Saint' Thomas Aquinas, the 'Doctor Angelicus' ('Angelic Doctor') of the Roman Catholic Church: 'With regard to heretics,' the Angelic Doctor writes, 'two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death.' The burning alive of heretics and execution by other means constitutes a hideous episode of Roman Catholic history.

 

 A well known example: Giordano Bruno, who denied such Catholic doctrines as eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary and transubstantiation. He was found guilty and burned at the stake in 1600.

 

 Protestants have also dealt with failures to conform to Protestant orthodoxy by methods far in excess of any used by 'woke' people. To give just one, well-known example, Michael Servetus rejected the doctrine and other Roman Catholic doctrines. He was condemned by the Catholic Church in France and fled to Calvinist Geneva. He was denounced by Calvin and burned at the stake for heresy in 1553, by the order of the governing council of Geneva.

 

The pretence that British history has been overwhelmingly or almost always a a force for good is is contradicted by many, many events.

 

I'd include in the ong list of exceptions this, the execution of Thomas Aikenhead for blasphemy, but this execution was as long ago as 1697. So far as I'm aware, the much more recent phenomenon of 'wokeism,' for all its harmful effects, has never executed anyone. Censoring of books has been an established, official practice of the R.C Church. The 'Index Librorum Prohibitorum' ('List of Prohibited Books') contained books which Catholics were forbidden to read. It included books deemed heretical or contrary to morals.

 

Books placed on the prohibited list included Kant's monumental 'Critique of Pure Reason,' Pascal's ' Penseés' (with notes by Voltaire), Spinoza's 'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' Locke's 'An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,' John Stuart Mill's 'Principles of Political Economy,' Edward Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' Flaubert's 'Madame Bovary' - and all the works of the philosopher David Hume, all the works of Zola and all the works of Sartre.  

 

Here, in its zealous pursuit of 'error,' wokeism comes close to the hideous record of the Roman Catholic Church or even surpasses it in some ways. The penalties for offending may be severe, if nowhere near as severe as execution. Over the centuries, Roman Catholics have persecuted orthodox protestants and orthodox protestants have persecuted Roman Catholics, often forcing them into hiding and often executing them when discovered.   Well into the 19th century, members of Oxford and Cambridge University were required to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine articles of the Church of England, the statement of faith and practice which amongst much else articulated the doctrine of the Trinity and doctrines of sin and salvation which have hideous implications - I touch upon this briefly below. The universities were far from being havens of sanity and unfettered debate before the advent of 'wokeism.'  

 

It would take a long time to give a summary of the ridiculous aspects and harmful effects associated with one Roman Catholic doctrine alone, baptism. Here, Protestant views are surely less ridiculous, less harmful (but, as I explain later, Protestant doctrines of salvation and redemption are very often much more ridiculous and harmful than Roman Catholic doctrines: the contrast between salvation by faith and salvation by works.  

 

As in other parts of this comment, I must be brief, in full awareness that this collection of brief comments is adding up to a very long comment as things usually go in You Tube comment sections.   Roman Catholic doctrines of the sacraments are markedly different from Protestant doctrines. The sacrament of baptism has very often been thought essential for salvation in the Roman Catholic Church.   Augustine (the Augustine of Hippo, North Africa, not the Augustine of Canterbury) seems to have changed his views on baptism. In one sermon of his, he claimed that only people who had received baptism could be saved, a belief shared by many early Christians. A passage in 'City of God' may possibly indicate a belief that children born of Christian parents who died unbaptized were not necessarily doomed to hell. The Roman Catholic Church has in general shown the utmost reluctance to concede that unbaptized children could be admitted to heaven, hence the extension of doctrine to include the state of 'Limbo' for unbaptized babies, neither heaven nor hell. I'd say that 'woke' beliefs in general don't quite reach the ridiculousness of all this.   Modern Catholic discussions of baptism equal or surpass in ridiculousness 'woke' views. A short extract from an article on the site

 

 https://angelusnews.com/faith/emergencies-and-baptism-will-soda-water-do/

 

  with a title which reflects the Website address, 'Emergencies and baptism: will soda water do?'   'A red pickup truck was overturned by the side of the road. The driver lay on the grass, thrown clear of the vehicle, crumpled, bleeding and unresponsive. A young man pulled his car off the road and sprinted to the side of the dying man.  He called 911, then rushed back to his car and grabbed the waxed cup from a fast-food restaurant that was in the cup holder of his car. It held some melting ice and water, left over from a soda he’d drank earlier in the day. He poured the water from the melted ice over the man’s forehead with the words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” The man died a few minutes before the ambulance arrived.    'The next day, the young man posted the question on a Catholic Q&A site: “I’m just wondering — was it a valid baptism?”   The helpful advice offered in the article included this, 'For a valid baptism of an adult, the Church requires an unbaptized person and pure water.' It gives this quotation from the 'Catholic Encyclopedia:'   Water derived from melted ice, snow, or hail is ... valid. … As to a mixture of water and some other material, it is held as proper matter, provided the water certainly predominates and the mixture would still be called water. Invalid matter is every liquid that is not usually designated true water. Such are oil, saliva, wine, tears, milk, sweat, beer, soup, the juice of fruits and any mixture containing water which men would no longer call water.'  

 

As for doctrines of salvation, redemption, orthodox evangelical views are unsurpassed for their hideous implications, but are widely shared by other Christians. 'Saint' Paul taught that the eternal destiny of a person is decided by faith or lack of faith in Jesus Christ as 'personal lord and saviour.' There are countless statements of Christian faith which present this bleak view. This is from a page of the Christian Police Association with the title 'Faith.'   'We Believe ... that 'those who have died having believed and received forgiveness will be raised, and together with those believers who are still alive, will be taken to live with Christ forever. Those who have refused to believe will be condemned from God’s presence forever.'  

 

The Oakes Holiday Centre in Sheffield, which tries to mix fun with Christianity, can find no fun in this 'Statement of Belief' on their Website: 'The Lord Jesus Christ will return in person, to judge everyone, to execute God's just condemnation on those who have not repented and to receive the redeemed to eternal glory.'  

 

These are some implications of these statements and similar statements from Christian Churches all over the country, all over the world. The list could be extended indefinitely. According to this doctrine of redemption, commonplace in Christian circles:

 

 All police officers are doomed to spend eternity in hell, except for the minority of police officers who have accepted Jesus Christ as personal lord and saviour, including police officers killed in action. 

 

 All the troops who liberated the concentration camps and extermination camps are consigned to hell, except for the minority of Jesus Christ accepters.   All the people executed by the Nazis for saving the lives of Jews are consigned to hell, except for that minority.  

 

Time to mention the case of one person, Ernst Biberstein, who studied theology and became a pastor. During the Second World War, he was the commanding officer of Einsatktommando 6, which executed thousands of people. The Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of the Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads, who exterminated Jews and others in the territories captured by the German forces as they advanced Eastwards. After the war, he was tried and sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted. He was released in 1958 and returned to the clergy.  

 

There seems reason to believe that he was a committed Christian and qualified for salvation according to the orthodox Christian view, or one view of the orthodox Christian view. There's every reason to believe that virtually all the people massacred by his execution squads and the other Einsatzgruppen were not qualified for salvation according to the orthodox Christian view, every reason to believe that virtually all the people killed in the Nazi gas chambers were unqualified for salvation, according to this deranged doctrine. There may well have been some Christian converts amongst them, but the victims were overwhelmingly Jews, without a belief in Christ as Lord and Saviour.  

 

Loving mothers and fathers, loving mothers and fathers who have looked after disabled children, are all consigned to hell, unless they belong to that minority of believers. And what of the fate of the disabled children themselves - are they saved or damned? The Bible gives no information about an age above which young people qualify for damnation. I know of no Christian discussions of the issue, although there must surely be some.  

 

And this: all supporters of the New Culture Forum are consigned to hell according to these doctrines, unless, again, they belong that minority of believers. Peter Whittle, who says that he isn't a religious man, is certainly destined for hellfire, according to orthodox evangelical belief and not just evangelical belief - unless he changes his mind, perhaps as a result of a miraculous conversion. Many, many Christians pray for that kind of thing.  

 

The belief that all composers go to hell is yet another consequence. So, to give just one example, Dmitri Shostakovich: hell. Johann Sebastian Bach, heaven.   All the working people who have done backbreaking and dangerous work - or backbreaking and dangerous work - are damned, including ones killed in pit disasters, in industrial accidents, all doomed - apart from the believing minority. The Christian Police Association also has this belief: 'We Believe that the Bible, as originally given, is the inspired Word of God without error and is the only complete authority in all matters of faith and doctrine.'  

On to other matters in this brisk tour of Christian theological artefacts.

 

A fascinating/ridiculous page   https://anglican.ink/2022/05/21/growth-decline-and-extinction-of-uk-churches/

 

  

gives 'Estimated Extinction Dates for UK Churches.'   'The Church of England and Catholics should last until the second half of the century. However, they need to take urgent action now. Stemming losses is not enough. None of us can prevent ageing! Whatever their current denominational emphases, they should put all aside to encourage members to make new disciples who can replicate themselves. Praying for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit would not go amiss either.