BBC: Britain left with ‘moral vacuum’

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Writing in the first edition of the current affairs magazine, Standpoint, Dr Nazir-Ali said the decline of Christianity produced a lack of "transcendental principles" which has left the door open for the "comprehensive" claims of radical Islam.

The bishop, who was born in Pakistan of Christian parents, said Christianity had knitted together a "rabble of mutually hostile tribes" to create British identity.

But Dr Nazir-Ali said the loss of what he called the Christian consensus had led to the breakdown of the family, abuse of drugs and alcohol, and a loss of respect for other people.

He said the marginalisation of Christianity had happened just as large numbers of people of other faiths arrived in Britain.

Read it all as well as Bishop Nazir-Ali's whole article linked in the first sentence above.





Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

6 Comments
Posted May 31, 2008 at 2:57 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Alice Linsley wrote:

“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.” – Benjamin Rush, signatory to the Declaration of Independence, physician, writer, educator, and humanitarian

May 31, 6:13 pm | [comment link]
2. Jeffersonian wrote:

+Nazir-Ali gets it.  In spades.  Oh, to have such a clear-eyed man in Canterbury!

May 31, 7:48 pm | [comment link]
3. GSP98 wrote:

Thank you, Mrs. [Miss?] Linsley. To that I would add this enlightening quote from James Madison: “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

May 31, 9:55 pm | [comment link]
4. Br. Michael wrote:

Ms. Linsley, you may have laid down your orders, but you stand in the shoes of Junia.  Pax et bonum.

May 31, 9:59 pm | [comment link]
5. GSP98 wrote:

Having said that, it is true that this quote is disputed as to its actual origen. However, Madisons comrade in arms, John Adams, said something remarkably similar: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 
Sad to say, but I think that we are starting to see that whale poke his nose through the net about now.

May 31, 10:04 pm | [comment link]
6. Larry Morse wrote:

Britain is not the only one suffering from a moral vacuum. American has become the land of the moral Electrolux. And the message the others have said is so clear: Learn self-discipline or perish. T here is no other choice. And the church’s message must: The Law is real and permanent. To keep it requires self-discipline. Those who wish to keep it, join us. Those who don’t, goodbye. if we do this, we will get our identity back; if we don’t, we will get the biggest plasma TV. Jus t think how many there are who will choose the TV!  Larry

June 1, 6:31 pm | [comment link]
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