Okay, fine, and no one has insisted that you should. But it does mean that you haven’t fully considered what has entered into mainstream politics (however temporarily one hopes).
Well, so that everyone knows what we’re talking about, Walker’s link describes complaints by the Church of England that the government is “focusing intently on minority beliefs while neglecting the Anglican faith.” In reply, “British Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has defended the Labour Government’s policy on religion” and said it is “common sense” for the government to spend “more money and effort…on Islam than Christianity because of the threat from extremism and homegrown terrorism.” By contrast, The Church of England’s report "echoes claims made by the Bishop of Rochester, the Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, last week that the decline of Christian values is destroying Britishness and has created a moral vacuum which radical Islam is filling." [emphasis added]
Well, what your link convinces me of is that the Church of England would like more money from the government and that some of their clerics think that “the decline of Christian values is destroying Britishness.”
Do you agree?
And do you think there’s any need for the Church of England to get more recognition from the government?
Now I do agree that some people might read this (especially given the way the story is being spun) and, yes, it might make them think they need to run into the arms of the BNP. But such people, I think, would be ignorant. And while it’s important to do what’s necessary to help to give them a clue, I don’t think the government should shape its policies on religion or any other matter wholly to placate an Islamophobic element among the British electorate; and still less because “the decline of Christian values is destroying Britishness”
No, I don’t and said that quite clearly a couple of pages ago…
I don’t necessarily disagree but in judging what “equal” means doesn’t it matter that the contexts we’re comparing are a minority religion and the Church of England? It’s a complicated issue and perhaps worth starting a different thread on in Great Debates: the question at stake is how a secular democracy should deal with minority religions in a situation that entails a problem with rising religious extremism among Muslims–this being a world problem as well as a British problem.
So, I do recognize the complexity but, no, I don’t think the answer is more government funding for or attention to the Church of England or for Christianity more generally. I think British Christians, whether Anglican or not, are entirely capable of taking care of themselves.
As far as what I was trying to get you to see about your previous post, I do think you’ve misunderstood. What you noticed was that electoral support for the BNP had been motivated by 1) economic anxiety and 2) political disaffection. Yet what you concluded was that the main recourse should be dealing with Islamic extremism (whatever that might mean).
My point is that no amount of increase in attention to Islamic extremism is going to allay anyone’s economic anxiety and (since there is already plenty of attention to Islamic extremism) it’s not necessarily going to cure political disaffection either.
So I think you’re mistaken in pointing your finger at “Islamofascism” (a term I really dislike) as what’s behind the BNP’s recent success. And insofar as those voters might name Islam as what motivated their rightwing vote they are being led to scapegoat immigrants–the great majority of whom are not religious extremists–for anxieties that are in large part economic and have to do with the effects of globalization and neoliberalism.
Does that make sense?
<= in case there was any doubt.