Since February 24, the day President Putin invaded Ukraine, spontaneous prayer erupted across the world. The heart-cry of every compassionate human on the planet has become co-ordinated global prayer led by Christian organisations such as World Vision, Operation Mobilisation, our own more modest Watchman Prayer Ministry International and many others.

Practical action swiftly followed. International aid, support and solidarity in the face of bombs, bullets and Russian military advances in the East, South and North of Ukraine. The diplomatic initiatives quickly took the form of a renewed Western Alliance between the United States of America, the European Union, Great Britain and other NATO States. Military aid, equipment, weapons, expertise and high-powered intelligence and advice from seasoned Generals. Aggressive international sanctions were finally agreed after some delays as each nation considered its own economic interests.

So far, no direct military action on the part of nations outside Ukraine has been officially agreed or implemented. The fear of the war spilling over into neighbouring Eastern European states as well as participation from the classical West, remains strong. Ceasefires have been broken and the civilian evacuation from Ukraine severely hampered. The talk is of war crimes and retaliation, but the hero is the Ukraine resistance movement led by Ukrainian President, Vlododymyr Zelenski who declared, “We will fight in the forests and on the streets.”

The situation remains critical as the world faces the threat of an all-out European War, and perhaps a World War. Whatever happens next, history will be sure to reveal the emergence of a realigned Europe, a redefined axis between what we call the East and the West. This was not supposed to happen. The 21st Century was intended to bring in a post Cold War world in which we were all united in our common love of peace, humanity and the global ability to just get on with our lives. I suggest that is what we all want, especially the nations of Middle Europe, not to mention the general Russian population. But the hard lesson is that 21st Century passivity cannot easily eradicate 20th Century history and the categories of thought that still pervade the corridors of Eastern and Western power. Those patterns contributed in no small measure to the making of a man like Putin.

Continued prayer, divine intervention, international cooperation and wise diplomacy may yet produce a sane and equitable solution but this seems unlikely without increased military pressure on Putin. May God help us all.

The post PUTIN TURNED TO WAR AND THE WORLD TURNED TO PRAYER appeared first on Colin Dye.

JESUS & POLITICS

This one of the most controversial of all topics. There are those who think that the Christian faith only involves private spiritual matters and should have nothing to do with politics. There are others who think that Christianity is purely a matter of politics and social justice and it should control everything in society.

Should religion be kept out of politics?

Many people in the minority, Western World would say, “Yes”. They are usually influenced by a certain understanding of individualism, secularism and democratic freedom.

Some time ago I was interviewing some young people in Brazil for a TV discussion programme. When I posed the question, “Do you think religion has a place in politics?”, most replied with an emphatic, “No!” Doubtless they were thinking about the powerful Catholic and Evangelical lobbies at work in Brazilian politics and resisting such unwelcome interference. But my follow up questions were, “Do you think politicians in power should, love and care for the people they represent? Should they be honest, truthful and not look for personal gain? Would you like to see corruption rooted out of politics?” The answer to those questions was nearly always, “Yes!”

I pointed out that these values are not merely political. They are human questions and, in a real sense, they are also spiritual. It seems then that politics could benefit from many values traditionally associated with religion and spirituality.

The Modern, Secular State is a fairly recent phenomenon. Two main ideas lie behind this concept:

• Freedom of belief

The state should not attach itself any one religion and should not promote one religion above another. The government must not dictate the religious beliefs of the people. They should be free to believe, to disbelieve and to change what they believe. There should be no coercion, no forcing people to believe this religion or that religion.

• Religion is a matter of private opinion not public fact

This thinking is philosophically biased. It adopts an idea called, ‘materialism’. All that exists, all that we can know or be sure about, is the physical world. The existence of the spiritual realm or non-material forces is only a matter of opinion and therefore such ideas can have no real place in the public realm, and certainly not in how we organise ourselves politically.

The first idea, to my mind, is a good one. We should be free to choose our religious beliefs, or choose to have none. But the second idea, that religion or faith is entirely a private not a public matter, seems to me to be going too far. It means that religious faith or religious values should have no place in public life at all. One of the roles of religion in society is to inform people’s conscience, to remind society of moral duties and the higher values of life and living.

Religion should not dictate, but it can inform peoples’ conscience. For example, many people in British political history achieved remarkably enlightened goals because they had faith in God and a spiritual conscience. Their  Christian faith gave them a deep sense of responsibility to their fellow members of the human family. We see this with the great Evangelical social reformers of 19th Century Britain. William Wilberforce (1759-1833) helped end transatlantic slavery. The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885) was involved in the abolition of the slave trade, as well as improving conditions for the mentally ill, child labourers, factory workers, boy chimney sweepers, and the suppression of the opium trade.

The State cannot do everything. It certainly should not determine what its citizens believe in matters of conscience. In extreme forms of secularism, the State has become all powerful, and tends towards totalitarianism, a strange form of religious-type control. Perhaps there should be an understanding between these two bodies. One which is based on collaboration, not antagonism and a mutual calling to account.

When we ask the question, “Should religion be kept out of politics?” We could answer, in some respects, “Yes”, but in other ways “No”. Religion can have a part to play, provided it does not control people’s consciences or dictate their beliefs. But, there is another important question.

Should politics be kept out of religion?

For much of world history, religion and government or politics, were virtually one and the same thing. There was a union of religion and state or, at least, religion was given a prominent role in the state. This is still a dominant idea in many nations around the world today.

Politics itself is often driven by ideologies, many of which are not objectively proven and have totally failed to deliver. The problem really has to do with freedom. Freedom to think, freedom to discover, freedom to choose, freedom not to be dictated to by the state.

An example of a modern secular state is frace France/ “La laicité” reigns supreme. France is governed by the people, the lay people, not the curates or the religious people.

At one time we were looking to get permission in Paris to have a church building. We found insurmountable resistance from the authorities. Finally, we suggested that it might be a matter of freedom of religion. The official replied, “No monsieur. Here in France we have freedom of thought, not freedom of religion!”

In seems to me that in this case, the State has become not just bureaucratic or autocratic but quasi-theocratic in nature, bordering on seeing itself as all-powerful. A theocracy is when the state and religion are one. The rules of the government are the same as the rules of the religion, supposedly on behalf of God.

This was the situation in ancient times and in much of mediaeval history. In the Hebrew kingdoms, the people lived under a theocracy. The nation was controlled by religious law. The Laws of God were also the laws of the land. Religion controlled the whole of life. It enveloped national life, civil life, military life, family life and jurisprudence. The Law of Moses dictated what you could or could not eat, what kind of clothing you should wear, religious rituals, national religious festivals, local worship, moral provisions and all civil matters.

This idea of the ‘union of religion and state’ was also the general view of many of the great world empires of history. The Persian empire, the Roman Empire, the Christian Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic Empire, all had more or less the same view – One God, one people, one empire, one government under the rule of One Religion that was said to represent him on the earth.

All this was long before the emergence of the modern democratic state that upheld individual rights, and freedom for all. This explains why in those days, and in some cases today:

• That people engaged in religious wars – they were not only defending or advancing their country, or their territory – 5 they were also defending or advancing the cause of their God, their religion. This is still the motive behind many acts of violence and efforts of the “holy wars” of today.
• That people were tried and condemned to death for blasphemy, adultery, sodomy as well as perjury or theft. This is still happening today in certain parts of the world.

As a Christian I am obviously interested to know what does Jesus think about all of this. What did he teach? When I look into it, I find myself more drawn to him than ever.

What did Jesus have to say about politics?

Jesus was revolutionary for his time in that he taught a separation of powers, a separation of religion and state. Whether church, mosque, synagogue or temple. We find this in the Gospel story of the denarius, “Give to Cesar what is Cesar’s and give to God what is God’s.” Jesus gives this rapid and astute response to a trick question about taxation, in Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 22 and Verses 15–22.

His response introduced a revolutionary change in attitude to the ‘one state, one religion’ approach of the Old Testament. When asked by a delegation of Pharisees and Herodians (who were usually arch enemies) whether the Jews should pay taxes to Caesar or not, Jesus’ reply was monumental and introduced the new principle of separating the church, or religion, from the state. He also dealt with the trap they had set for him.

If he had said ‘Yes’, he would have been sanctioning Caesar’s authority and, by implication, Caesar’s religion. If he had said ‘No’, he would have been obeying the Mosaic law which decreed, “You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother” (Deuteronomy Chapter 17 Verses 14–15). He would have been in serious difficulty with the Roman Government of his day.

The denarius Jesus used to illustrate his teaching was an idolatrous and blasphemous coin. Denarii from both the period of Augustus and Tiberius ascribed glory to the emperor. During the time of Emperor Tiberius, a denarius had on the obverse an image of the emperor with the inscription, ‘Tiberius Caesar Augustus, Son of the Divine Augustus’. And on the opposite side of the coin, the reverse, was inscribed the words ‘Pontifex Maximus’, which mean, ‘the highest priest’.

The denarius, therefore, claimed that the emperor had religious, even divine status. As ever, Jesus showed that his personal authority was greater than the Law of Moses, and perhaps for the first time in history, the claims of state and religion wdere separated, “Give to Caesar what is Ceasar’s and give to God what is God’s”.

In other words, Jesus was saying that his followers should give civil obedience and respect to the king, but the king had no right to prescribe religious beliefs to his subjects. Instead of speaking about ‘one state, one religion’, Jesus instructed people to abide by the distinctive authorities of Caesar and God in their parallel, but distinctive, realms. He was not asking us to carve our lives into two sections, one a ‘spiritual life’ and the other a ‘secular life’. Rather, he was telling us to live one godly life, and to learn to distinguish, and obey, two different but overlapping, areas of authority over our ‘one’ life.

Jesus was also asking people to remember the One who is above all earthly rulers and authorities, the One to whom all kings and governors must give account, the God who created us all in his image. Just as that coin bore the image of Cesar, so your life bears the image of God. So, give to God what belongs to God.

This is the real challenge of the Christian faith. It’s not about what political party you favour, or which system of government you prefer. It’s about the claims of God over your whole life. The God who created you is the God who loves you, and wants to draw you to himself into a way of living that is not only a good life, but also brings glory to him.

The government of God

When we talk about Jesus and politics, sooner or later we have to consider what Jesus said about the ‘Government of God’. What is the government of God?

A record of Jesus’ trial before the Roman Governor, Ponitius Pilate is found in John’s Gospel Chapter 18 verses 28-37. Verses 33-37 read,

Then Pilate went back into his headquarters and called for Jesus to be brought to him. “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked him. 36 Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.” 37 Pilate said, “So you are a king?” Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”

New Living Translation ®

The key part in what Jesus says here, is that his kingdom is not of this world. It means God’s government, his rule over our lives, does not come through earthly, human-based initiatives or governmental control. It is supernatural. It comes from above, from God. The conversation between Jesus and Pilate reveals a total confusion of issues on the part of the Jewish and Roman leaders.

The religious leaders were envious of Jesus’ popularity. They contrived to have him executed for insurrection because he claimed to be ‘king of the Jews’, a political title. This was the cynical use of politics by religious people. But Jesus’ kingdom is not political one, in the usual sense of the word. I has to do with the rule of God welcomed into people’s hearts. Pilate’s decision to condemn Jesus to death was to appease the religious people. No wonder people say religion and politics do not mix!

Religion and politics are different. They should never become one and the same. Politics is responsible for civil matters and religion has to do with spiritual matters. Political governors should uphold freedom of religion and freedom of belief for all. Religious leaders should be prepared to challenge the moral conscience and the policies of any government on spiritual grounds. And civil leaders should also call religious people to account as citizens.

The post JESUS & RELIGION (Part Three) appeared first on Colin Dye.

Religion worldwide is growing. 84% of the world is religious. Even in secular societies various forms of religion are thriving. But isn’t this harmful? Isn’t religion basically a toxic force for evil? Surprisingly you might get that idea from Jesus himself who spoke passionately against the corrupt religion of his day. He taught another way – a clearly non-religious way of approaching God.

JESUS AND RELIGION

A Religious World and a World of Religions

Our contemporary world is undeniably religious. According to a 2018 article in the British Newspaper The Guardian, 84% of people in the world identify with a religious faith. And the world is getting more religious as we speak. High birth rates and high conversion rates in the majority world mean that religious belief is growing at a daily rate of hundreds of thousands.

From a historical point of view, the world has always been religious. As far as we can tell, every society in history has had some form of religious belief in the supernatural world, belief in a God or gods.

The secularism of the modern Western world is an exception. This is virtually the only time in history when a society is led to believe that we are merely the product of material forces, there is no divine plan, no purpose and no life-after-death destiny. But even in the West, the Judaeo-Christian influence is still strong. We rely on this sacred tradition to inform our consciences on such matters as moral and social justice, dignity of human life, the value of the individual, and much more. Note: birth rate is low, but some religions are growing even in the West

Most people recognise that religion has been a force for good and a force for evil.

The “New Atheists” of our day, the so-called ‘Four Horsemen’ (Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett & Sam Harris) have only one thing to say, “Religion is evil!” It’s all about hegemonic power and control. The ideas of religion, all religions, are toxic, harmful and must be eradicated.

Released in 1971, the song, Imagine became an iconic statement of the 1960’s revolution of freedom. Religion is perceived as the problem. It’s the cause of fear, conflict and division. John Lennon imagined an utopian world without religion.

Lennon and Lennox

Imagine by John Lennon

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard 971to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

John Lennon, got the symptoms right, but was he right about the cause?

Let me introduce to you another John. This time John Lennox, the Christian apologist, philosopher and mathematician. In his book, Gunning for God he wrote in response to Lennon’s Imagine:

“I am not John Lennon. I happen to be John Lennox, and I would like you to imagine a world with no atheism. No Stalin, no Mao, no Pol Pot, just to name the heads of the three officially atheistic states that were responsible for some of the worst mass crimes of the 20^th Century. Just imagine a world with no Gulag, no Cultural Revolution, no Killing Fields, no removal of children from their parents because the parents were teaching them about their beliefs, no refusal of higher education to believers in God, no discrimination against believers in the workplace, no pillaging, destruction, and burning of places of worship. Would not that be a world worth imagining too?

(Gunning for God p 83).

The evil of totalitarian religion and ideology

It seems to me that any totalitarian belief, whether religious or non-religious, tends towards evil. These systems have a number of things in common:

1. They all believe that their understanding of truth is absolute and must be accepted without question
2. These systems are inexorably tied to power. Through domination or coercion, their beliefs are to be imposed on society. They are ready to use whatever means they can – political power, military force or ideological indoctrination. We see this crop up in many different forms The Christian crusades, the Jesuit inquisition, the Islamic Jihadists, Daesh or ISIS, Hitler’s concentration camps and Communist crimes against humanity
3. These ideologies take the dangerous moral high ground. Because they are right, absolutely right, the end justifies the means. After all, so they believe, they are acting for the good of humanity.

Not all religion is bad

Research from the USA Heritage Foundation, shows that:

1. Religious practice appears to have enormous potential for addressing our social problems
2. Religious practice can improve:
   1. Health
   1. Learning
   1. Economic well-being
   1. Self-control
   1. Self-esteem
   1. Empathy

Jesus’ attitude to religion

While Jesus must described as a religious man, a man of faith, his attitude to the religious leaders and the corrupt institutional religious system of his day, is startling. Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 23 and verses 1-36 records Jesus’ confrontation of the religious authorities:

They [the religious leaders] crush people with impossible religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden. “Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra-long tassels. And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honour in the synagogues. They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Teacher’.

(verses 4-7)

Don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher’, for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters.

(verse 8)

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.

(verse 13)

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell you yourselves are!

(verse 15)

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things. Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel! What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too. What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.

(verses 23-28)

Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?

(verse 33)

Holy Bible, New Living Translation ®, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

The context of Jesus’ condemnation of religious leaders is important.

Jesus was confronting the corrupt religious institutions of his day. This is not an anti-semitic interpretation of the gospel after the time of Jesus. Matthew’s Gospel is the most semitic of all the 4 Gospels. Matthew shows that the was himself Jewish and faithful to the Jewish laws and traditions of his day. He was against the corruption of the Jewish religion, not authentic faith and practice.

Jesus’ world view is entirely Jewish. He believed in the God of the Jewish Scriptures. He had a supernatural world view.

Jesus was fearless and outspoken. This is rooted in his own sense of authority and consciousness of his unique relationship with God. So unique that Christians feel justified in referring to him as “the son of God.”

I believe we are justified in applying what Jesus says to all corrupt religious institutions. At least in principle. Corrupt, merciless, inhumane, controlling and self-serving religious teaching and practice are wrong in any context.

But there is something even deeper than this to grasp about Jesus’ attitude to religion.

Jesus’ way versus the religious way

Religion as commonly understood and practiced is a way of qualifying yourself in the eyes of God. What you have to do to get God to accept you. Every religion I know teaches that except the religion of Jesus. This includes the corruption of the ‘Christian religion’ which teaches that our relationship with God is based on a quasi-legal interpretation of what God requires of us.

But Jesus’ way, is not the regular religious way. Jesus does not teach that we have to reach up to God, and do things to impress him so that he will accept us. Rather, he teaches that God has down in his own Person, the Person of Christ, becoming human, just like us, demonstrating who God is, and accomplishing on our behalf everything that God requires of us. Central to this, is giving his own life as a sacrifice for our sin. He teaches us that through trusting him alone, trusting what he has done for us, we can have a personal relationship with God. Through Christ we can know God as our ever-present, all-loving and totally affirming, heavenly Father.

Simply put – it’s not so much a matter of religion but having a personal and intimate relationship with God, through Jesus.

The post JESUS & RELIGION (Part One) appeared first on Colin Dye.

Ken Livingstone-I will make London a beacon of Islam

The post Letter to Ken Livingstone- and his answer appeared first on Colin Dye.

David Cameron and Ken Livingstone

As London just elected its Mayor and the nation has voted for the National Local Council elections, I ask the following question: “What happens when politicians cross the line?” Indeed, elected to carry out civil responsibilities, they have no right either to promote specific religions or to undermine them. What should Christians do when these things begin to happen?

Some Christians naively pray that one day we might have a Christian Prime Minister, thinking it would be an opportunity for the nation to hear the gospel.

There is no doubt that Britain needs the gospel and a truly godly Prime Minister would be good for the country, but we must be clear about what the role of politicians really is. It is not the job of the Prime Minister, members of Parliament or indeed the Mayor of London, to preach or promote any one religion above another.

Jesus made it abundantly clear that what we call the “state” should not dictate the religious beliefs of its people, or favour the beliefs of any one group. When he said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17), he clearly limited the role of the state. State rulers are supposed to govern in civil, not religious matters. They have no authority either to promote or suppress religious beliefs. This is not only the clear teaching of Jesus, but it is also plain common sense. Jesus made it clear that the state should not dictate the religious beliefs of its people.

I can think of two glaring examples from current politics where this common sense has gone completely out of the window.

One is Mayoral Candidate, Ken Livingstone’s recent pledge to make London a beacon for Islamic values, and the other is Prime Minister David Cameron’s insistence on changing the fundamental nature of marriage in British society.

At a recent meeting in Finsbury Park Mosque Ken Livingstone stated that he was stunned to read the words of Muhammad, “no Arab is superior to a non-Arab, no white man is superior to a black man”. Ken Livingstone went on to say that he wanted to “educate the massive numbers who have no understanding of Islam apart from what they read in the worst of our newspapers and that will help to cement our city as a beacon to demonstrate the words of the prophet?”

At last year’s Conservative Party Conference the Prime Minister announced his government’s plans to consult on legalising gay marriage. The consultation seems to have taken second place to determined plans to change the law no matter what. For David Cameron it is a matter of principle. He said, “Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. So I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative.” Personally, I think both these men hold their respective political views with conviction. However, I remind myself that politicians need votes to be in office. Ken Livingstone is looking to be re-elected as London Mayor and is clearly courting the “Muslim vote”. David Cameron’s sudden and surprising push for gay marriage, despite the existing provisions for civil partnership, has been seen as an attempt to re-brand the Conservative Party as modern, progressive and more appealing.

State rulers govern in civil, not religious matters. They have no authority either to promote or suppress religious beliefs.

But what is really happening here? What is the background to this apparent political flirting with religion on the one hand and, on the other hand, trampling on the religious heritage of the vast majority of the British people? What is wrong with Ken Livingstone extolling some select statements from Islam that appear to support his secular values in order to win votes from the Muslims? For their part, is the government justified in the belief that marriage is a state-owned institution that can be changed at will in order to achieve political objectives? Christians need to be absolutely clear about these questions. We must have our wits about us and understand what is happening to our society. At first sight it seems confusing, but when we grasp what is really going on, not only can we make sense of what motivates politicians across the political spectrum, but also understand what we as Christians can do about it.

What unites Ken Livingstone and David Cameron? They hold entirely different political beliefs and have vastly different views on a number of policy issues. Their views on religion are also different. Ken Livingstone is an avowed atheist; David Cameron is not. But they have one underlying common belief that has caused them equally to cross the line when it comes to their role in public life – they are both influenced by secularism.

As a Christian, I believe in a form of secularism. The State has no moral authority to dictate the religion of its people. In separating the roles of “church” and “state”, Jesus radically transformed the way religion up to that point was organised. The New Testament presents Church and State working together in different, yet complementary roles.

Christians are to support the State, pray for their leaders and be good citizens. But we are also called to oppose the State when it begins to try to control what we believe. We must speak out when our leaders begin to flirt with religion (as Ken Livingstone is doing with Islam) and when they attempt to undermine our religious values (as David Cameron is doing with marriage).

The kind of secularism I oppose is the secularism which is motivating both Ken Livingstone and David Cameron. It is a modern invention which sets itself up as the standard for all things and is leading our society into fragmentation and despair. It promotes the politics of cynicism and rejects Christian values in the name of sweet reasonableness.

The reasoning goes like this: this world (the things we can see and touch) is the real world. It is all that we can be really sure about. And, in this real world, the only sure guide is our reason. Anything outside these two things (tangible experience and reason) is a matter of opinion. So, anything to do with religion is clearly merely a matter of personal opinion. Morality is also a matter of personal preference since it, like religion, cannot be proved by reason or tangible experience.

Secularism is the thinking that influences many politicians today, whatever their particular brand of politics.

In a single stroke those that hold to this form of secularism have separated religion from fact and values from truth – leaving the field wide open to treat religious and moral issues in any way they so choose.

Some politicians play (what one Christian philosopher calls) the “good cop” and others play the “bad cop”. The good cops say, “You can hold your religious views and embrace your values; we’ll even applaud you for having them – just as long as you realise your private and personal religious views have no real place in public life.” The bad cop secularists say, “You have no right to hold such invalid opinions; they are backward and harmful. We will do all that we can do to eradicate them from society.”

Both ways, the prospects are bleak. Secularism is the thinking that influences many politicians today, whatever their particular brand of politics. Ken Livingstone feels free to cherry-pick statements from Islamic teaching and extol them as examples of the values he believes in. He does this despite the fact that his secular interpretation of them is entirely false. Muhammad was speaking as a Muslim to Muslims. There is no way you can use his words to support the secular agenda Ken Livingstone has for London.

Extract from Ken Livingstone’s speech at Finsbury Park Mosque, Friday 16th March 2012

The mayor’s job is a platform. What the mayor says is reported. The mayor can be an educator.

And I was amazed last year because for the first time in my life I read the last sermon of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), and I was stunned. This was something that could be written for today and seemed to be an agenda for all humanity. And the sentences that stuck in my mind as I read that were the lines that say no Arab is superior to a non-Arab, no white man is superior to a black man. And it went on to say that God created you in tribes and nations so that you would get to understand one another. And you will not terrorise or convert or oppress but that you should get to know one another. That is a creed for all of us. It is what underpins our lives in this city. And I want to as mayor in the next four years to make sure every non-Muslim knows and understands the words and the message of that sermon. Because it will stop the demonization of Islam that is daily spewed out by poisonous newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. So as well as doing things to help make your lives easier financially, it’s what I can do to educate the massive numbers who have no understanding of Islam apart from what they read in the worst of our newspapers and that will help to cement our city as a beacon to demonstrate the words of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) and that amazing sermon he gave in his life. ‘Assalamu alaikum

Extract from David Cameron’s Conservative Party Conference speech, 5th October 2011

I once stood before a Conservative conference and said it shouldn’t matter whether commitment was between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and another man. You applauded me for that. Five years on, we’re consulting on legalising gay marriage. And to anyone who has reservations, I say: Yes, it’s about equality, but it’s also about something else: commitment. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. So I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative.

In the sermon that so impressed Ken Livingstone, Muhammad upholds Islam as the only true religion and imposes Sharia as the only path for society which must come under submission to Allah. Does Ken Livingstone believe that? In all likelihood, he does not. But when politicians cross the line and flirt with religion, they open the door to misunderstanding what they are actually promoting.

Frankly, Muslims ought to be outraged. I know I would be angry if Ken Livingstone came to KT and praised some words of Jesus taken out of context or imposed a secular interpretation, for example, on the Sermon on the Mount – especially if he was doing it in order to win our votes. Christians must speak out when our leaders begin to flirt with religion and when they attempt to undermine our religious values.

What of David Cameron’s secularism? For Christians, marriage is a sacred institution given by God for the covenantal union of a man and woman. Civil partnership already exists as a safeguard for the rights of same-sex couples. The fact that there was not a universal Christian outcry against that legislation shows that current opposition to gay marriage is not altogether rooted in bigotry. Christian tolerance is astonishing and secularists should be paying more attention to the strong opposition to changing the law on marriage coming from virtually every branch of the Christian religion in Britain.

But it looks increasingly unlikely that the government itself will back down. After all, their proposals are in line with the secularism championed by the Prime Minister. Quite simply, he has crossed the line and it cannot be remedied by promises that churches will not be forced to marry gay couples. If the argument is equality, then pressure groups will be increasingly intolerant of the “inequality” that will exist in the churches that refuse to accept the new secular version of marriage.

The European Court of Human Rights has recently ruled that same-sex marriage is not a human right but, if gay couples were allowed to marry by law, any church that offers weddings will be guilty of discrimination if it refuses to marry same-sex couples. All this calls both for urgent action and long-term engagement on the part of Christians. In the long term, we must win the intellectual debate concerning what is truth and what are standards by which we asses right and wrong. These are not just matters of opinion. There is such a thing as religious truth. Morality rests on something more stable than the shifting sands of human opinion. Christianity is not just an idea; it is backed up by both reason and evidence.

In the immediate, we must let the Government know that we will not allow them to cross the line and dictate to us what we must believe and how we must behave in matters of Christian conscience. We must also send the message to Ken Livingstone that we do not accept his religious manifesto for the next four years. He may win the Muslim vote but he will alienate the 1.2 million Christian in London who regularly go to church as well as millions more who value our Christian heritage.

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