Wednesday 24 February 2010

Are Government and Ekklesia using the law to bully faith communities?

As if allegations against bullying in No.10 aren't bad enough, it might be seen that faith communities are now being bullied by an over bearing government machine, with vocal support from Ekklesia.

Of course bullying of all forms is wrong, faith communities understand that. But Jonathan Bartley of Ekklesia launches an attack on faith schools, in an attempt to strengthen the law, that itself looks like bullying. Why they should attack their Christian brethren in this way is beyond me, they appear to me to have a liberalising social agenda that seeks to deconstruct and undermine Christian institutions and appear to have little belief in God's transforming love and grace for individuals and society. But Ed Balls makes the most telling statement where the only prescription about morality is to be from government dictat - the word of government is becoming god to us.

Balls writes "All schools will be required to cover in their teaching of personal, social and health education the full range of content prescribed in the statutory programme of study for secondary schools and in the relevant parts of the new primary curriculum."

While respect for those we disagree with is important, Labour is really advocating the secularisation of schools, which will ultimately lead to post-modern relativism in ethics because it is really treating religious beliefs in a pluralistic manner. Sadly, such relativism will only lead to tyranny in the long run because it destroys any objective basis for value (that was also Popper's argument against relativism in his book The Open Society and its Enemies). I would suggest that faith communities have a better understanding of morality than the secularising Labaour administration that is constantly undermining people's freedom to believe.

Of course there are claims and counter claims about what the new law will mean with the Daily Mail reporting a victory for faith schools in an amendment Victory for faith schools as Labour's new sex education laws are 'watered down'. However, I think that there will only be increased confusion.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well done and well said. I do not hear much desire to be obedient to Christ and his word when I listen to the spokesman from Ekklesia. He seems to be driven by a desire to fit in with the world, rather than to the Word. rom 12:1-2. I wish Premier would not have him on, as he will mislead new or weaker christians.

Anthea

Dissenters said...

Thanks

‘Induction over the history of science suggests that the best theories we have today will prove more or less untrue at the latest by tomorrow afternoon.’ Fodor, J. ‘Why Pigs don’t have wings,’ London Review of Books, 18th Oct 2007