How the BNP tried to butter up Evangelicals
Guardian Unlimited: God is the God of all
Dr Giles Fraser (vicar of Putney and Oxford philosophy lecturer) on how the BNP tried to build up an alliance with evangelical Christians, but balked at the idea of all humans being descended from Adam and Eve (peace be upon them):
Despite all their talk of supporting "traditional Christians" - an increasingly transparent euphemism for fundamentalists - the idea that all human beings share a common parentage was a tradition too far for the BNP. Racists have always found it easier to warp the theory of evolution, arguing, as Edwards recently did, "that white people are more highly evolved than blacks". Within weeks of setting up the Christian Council of Britain, the alliance was in tatters. "If you don't believe in Darwinian evolution then you are even dafter than you appear," the BNP told the national director of Christian Voice, Stephen Green. The love affair was over.
For the BNP, Christian is just another word for white, just as Islamic has become another word for Asian. ...
But what is so utterly ridiculous about the BNP's desire to defend "Christian culture" is that the vast majority of Christians in the world are not white. The average Anglican, for instance is a black woman living in Africa. Moreover, if Jesus were ever to walk this green and pleasant land, the BNP would be committed to his repatriation. Even their great love of St George is a joke: George was either Turkish or Palestinian, and his legend migrated to this country from the Middle East.
Of course, George would not have been Turkish; he may have come from Asia Minor, in which the Turks arrived many, many centuries later.
Update: PhobeWatch has a quote from Christian Voice regarding the Islamic position on salvation: "no Muslim has any assurance of salvation, except as a Jihadist, and it is this belief that physical fighting in the cause of Allah is the highest calling that makes Islam so dangerous and implacable". This is simply untrue: the real Muslim belief is that dying with faith is itself a guarantee of entry into Paradise even if one has to be punished first; the idea advanced by certain Christian polemicists that "God might be having a bad day" on the Day of Judgement and send everyone to Hell is a false one. A person who genuinely dies a martyr (note that a substantial body of scholarly opinion rejects suicide bombing as a method of achieving martyrdom) is admitted into Paradise immediately.
Comments
While visiting my parents in Yorkshire recently I noticed they had an interesting paper on their coffee table, entitled "BNP Briefing Paper - A Church Response Revised for the May 2006 Local Elections". You can download the document from the Churches Regional Commission website. See: http://www.crc-online.org.uk/downloads/BNP%20Paper%20May%202006.pdf
Posted by: Tim Bowes | May 3, 2006 12:30 PM
Not directly on topic Yusuf, but how are things with the BNP in your area?
They have won 13 seats on the 'Barking & Dagenham Council', and I think its only a matter of time before other 'deprived' or 'marginalised' areas in London and elsewhere follow suit. Given Cameron's admirable reluctance to even mention immigration, the BNP probably looks like the only viable vote for many old-school Tories.
Posted by: Abu Abdur Rahman
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May 5, 2006 10:14 PM
AAR: down here in Kingston, they are non-existent or very nearly so. They did not have a single candidate in the recent elections in my ward. I don't know about elsewhere in south London (although historically they were very active in south-east London; they had their "bookshop" in Eltham and that area has a history of racist attacks).
Posted by: Yusuf Smith
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May 6, 2006 2:16 PM