Tuesday, 18 April 2017

PM to take over as archbishop?

Politicians usually make a mess of things when they try to 'do religion' which is why Tony Blair, himself a practising christian, very sensibly avoided such things. Sadly our present leader has not learned the lesson and her Easter message was the usual mix of platitudes and rubbish as she sought to play the archbishop's role.

She sees a 'coming together' after Brexit. No, Theresa, there is no coming together. We are implacably opposed to it as ever and no amount of posturing by you will make it any different. It might help if you did something to 'bring us together' but that is simply not in your nature, it seems.

It was understandable that you wanted to talk about Easter after the idiotic fuss about the National Trust/Cadburys Easter egg hunt: grab any message to to take people's eyes off the really important things of life but do your homework next time. The campaign did use the 'E' word.

But avoid religion if you can.

By talking about 'Christian values' you not only play the nostalgia card but hack off a large proportion of the nation who either follow some other religion or have no faith in a god: unsurprising given the way some of his followers are behaving at the moment.

The other reason to avoid religion is that you are likely to get a sermon in return. Can I remind you that Christianity is meant to be about caring for the poor, meek and least well off in society; about bringing people together not pushing them apart; about persuasion not coercion. It was the rich man who had difficulty getting into heaven, I recall.

Indeed, the main message of Christianity seems to be about loving one's neighbour as oneself, not shutting them out in the cold. If anything, it is about being open, tolerant and united. And not the 'united' that stifles dissent.

Unless, of course, you prefer the other version of Christianity in which the poor are happy with their downtrodden lot because their reward will be in heaven.