When the Prime Minister described the UK as a Christian country, the resultant objection from the nihilistic left was both worrying and surprising. Where to begin?
Queen Elizabeth II has been our monarch now since 1952. Throughout that time, she has remained the head of the Church of England and upholder of the Faith. The last time I looked, nothing had changed.
As I write, the UK has just enjoyed the Easter holiday. Easter by definition is the pinnacle of the Christian year. Even the normally deserted churches boast healthy congregations on Easter Sunday. This holiday does not appear to be declined by non-Christians bringing as it does the opportunity of some valuable family time to millions of Britons. Other faiths have their own religious festivals in addition to the time granted for Easter and Christmas. I don't begrudge them their own festivals. I respect all religions and the customs to which they adhere.
That said, the UK remains a Christian country. Oh that the society would seek to try and follow the Christian doctrine with a little more vigour. Perhaps if some more of the 60% who professed a Christian faith at the last census were to actually attend church, some more of the basic Christian message might become more widely applied. In our free society which our forebears sought, I have to respect the prerogative of any man to profess his faith without conforming through his attendance at church. If more people started to consider the welfare of their fellow man, the fabric of our modern society would not look so forlorn. The age of nihilism so eloquently predicted by Nietzsche looks here to stay. It pains me to write that but I am honest enough to face reality. For all that, the Prime Minister is correct to tell it how it is. We have never stopped being a Christian country and barring a constitutional crisis, that looks set to continue.
The movement of the atheists so beloved of Richard Dawkins are entitled to their views but so too are the 60% who profess a Christian faith. As much as I loathe the idea of trying to quantify support for Christianity, those people professed their faith of their own volition in the last census. We must all respect that even if the idea is difficult to reconcile.
Nihilism has come to predominate our society in more ways than one. I saw with horror today the intention of our biggest Teaching Union to exercise their right to strike. There can be no doubt that the days of teaching as a vocation are long gone. Without much surprise to myself, the reasons they give for such drastic action are the holy trinity of pay, pensions and working conditions. To a lesser extent, I have some sympathy with them over the latter. On pay and pensions I believe the entire public sector in the UK have some serious waking up to do.
Since the "You've never had it so good" days of Macmillan, successive generations of public sector workers have come to expect generous pay rises and unsustainable pension models as a passage of right. If pay rises have been restricted in recent years, there is a valid reason for that. The UK has undergone a radical transformation since 2010 in the way it is run. I am the first to acknowledge the unfairness which still exists with respect to the bankers and our democratically elected MPs. In the main though, the pay and pensions of our public services are now far more accountable than they have ever been - and people don't like it because it does not square up with their expectations. That those expectations are based on unsustainable economics appears irrelevant to them.
If having such a pay rise is so important to them, I have a solution but I fear they won't like it. I propose that for annual pay rises in excess of what the country can afford, they should have their final salary pension schemes transferred to money purchase schemes. Now that really would be fair on the millions of private sector workers who could never dream of such riches and on the Government whose inherited finances preclude such imprudence.
Where I live, the Chief Executive of our local council is set to be granted a pay rise which would see him earning in excess of the Prime Minister. Am I the only one to recognise the absurdity of such a proposition? It does demonstrate one thing though. We are in grave danger of losing the plot in the UK. We are not a bottomless pit of public finance and nor do we need a Local Government in it's current boated format. If we're really serious about being a Christian country - and 60% say we are - we need to be getting back to the basics of community and neighbours. We don't need Local Government to do this for us - this is just the myth which they love to perpetuate. We all have the skills to embrace and become involved in our local community. Whether we really wear the Christian badge or whether we actually want to is entirely up to us. We have talked the talk in the last census. Maybe now it's time for us all to start translating those words in to deeds. Contrary to popular belief, we are not in the main destitute in the UK today. The "cost of living crisis" is also fast becoming a nonsense. When I think of the cost of living, the key word is living. Have you enough income to fulfil the basic Maslowian hierarchy of food, shelter and clothing. Very few in the UK today could lay such claims legitimately.
So is our identity in the UK really under fire or is this just yet more hyperbole and nonsense? At best, the subject of our national faith is a bit of a non-story. What is relevant is the extent to which we enact our professed Christianity. Words are easy, deeds less so.
Queen Elizabeth II has been our monarch now since 1952. Throughout that time, she has remained the head of the Church of England and upholder of the Faith. The last time I looked, nothing had changed.
As I write, the UK has just enjoyed the Easter holiday. Easter by definition is the pinnacle of the Christian year. Even the normally deserted churches boast healthy congregations on Easter Sunday. This holiday does not appear to be declined by non-Christians bringing as it does the opportunity of some valuable family time to millions of Britons. Other faiths have their own religious festivals in addition to the time granted for Easter and Christmas. I don't begrudge them their own festivals. I respect all religions and the customs to which they adhere.
That said, the UK remains a Christian country. Oh that the society would seek to try and follow the Christian doctrine with a little more vigour. Perhaps if some more of the 60% who professed a Christian faith at the last census were to actually attend church, some more of the basic Christian message might become more widely applied. In our free society which our forebears sought, I have to respect the prerogative of any man to profess his faith without conforming through his attendance at church. If more people started to consider the welfare of their fellow man, the fabric of our modern society would not look so forlorn. The age of nihilism so eloquently predicted by Nietzsche looks here to stay. It pains me to write that but I am honest enough to face reality. For all that, the Prime Minister is correct to tell it how it is. We have never stopped being a Christian country and barring a constitutional crisis, that looks set to continue.
The movement of the atheists so beloved of Richard Dawkins are entitled to their views but so too are the 60% who profess a Christian faith. As much as I loathe the idea of trying to quantify support for Christianity, those people professed their faith of their own volition in the last census. We must all respect that even if the idea is difficult to reconcile.
Nihilism has come to predominate our society in more ways than one. I saw with horror today the intention of our biggest Teaching Union to exercise their right to strike. There can be no doubt that the days of teaching as a vocation are long gone. Without much surprise to myself, the reasons they give for such drastic action are the holy trinity of pay, pensions and working conditions. To a lesser extent, I have some sympathy with them over the latter. On pay and pensions I believe the entire public sector in the UK have some serious waking up to do.
Since the "You've never had it so good" days of Macmillan, successive generations of public sector workers have come to expect generous pay rises and unsustainable pension models as a passage of right. If pay rises have been restricted in recent years, there is a valid reason for that. The UK has undergone a radical transformation since 2010 in the way it is run. I am the first to acknowledge the unfairness which still exists with respect to the bankers and our democratically elected MPs. In the main though, the pay and pensions of our public services are now far more accountable than they have ever been - and people don't like it because it does not square up with their expectations. That those expectations are based on unsustainable economics appears irrelevant to them.
If having such a pay rise is so important to them, I have a solution but I fear they won't like it. I propose that for annual pay rises in excess of what the country can afford, they should have their final salary pension schemes transferred to money purchase schemes. Now that really would be fair on the millions of private sector workers who could never dream of such riches and on the Government whose inherited finances preclude such imprudence.
Where I live, the Chief Executive of our local council is set to be granted a pay rise which would see him earning in excess of the Prime Minister. Am I the only one to recognise the absurdity of such a proposition? It does demonstrate one thing though. We are in grave danger of losing the plot in the UK. We are not a bottomless pit of public finance and nor do we need a Local Government in it's current boated format. If we're really serious about being a Christian country - and 60% say we are - we need to be getting back to the basics of community and neighbours. We don't need Local Government to do this for us - this is just the myth which they love to perpetuate. We all have the skills to embrace and become involved in our local community. Whether we really wear the Christian badge or whether we actually want to is entirely up to us. We have talked the talk in the last census. Maybe now it's time for us all to start translating those words in to deeds. Contrary to popular belief, we are not in the main destitute in the UK today. The "cost of living crisis" is also fast becoming a nonsense. When I think of the cost of living, the key word is living. Have you enough income to fulfil the basic Maslowian hierarchy of food, shelter and clothing. Very few in the UK today could lay such claims legitimately.
So is our identity in the UK really under fire or is this just yet more hyperbole and nonsense? At best, the subject of our national faith is a bit of a non-story. What is relevant is the extent to which we enact our professed Christianity. Words are easy, deeds less so.
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