Conservative Anglican bishop steps down

Michael Nazir-Ali, a Pakistani by birth, and, it seems, virtually the only bishop in the Church of England who has stood up for Christianity and Britain against the Islamic onslaught, has resigned. Melanie Phillips laments:

Although most people may no longer be churchgoers, Christianity infuses all this country’s institutions, traditions and values.

These have been systematically attacked by a secular culture of unlimited self-indulgence and self-destructive behaviour, resulting in the collapse of the married family, rising crime, drug and alcohol abuse and a grievous erosion of the sanctity of human life.

With the church refusing to assert itself, this vacuum has allowed radical Islam to promote itself as an influential force in public life. Indeed it is rubbing its hands at the opportunity. And in the longer term that risks destroying our basic values of individual freedom and equality—and with them the identity of Britain itself.

Dr Nazir-Ali understands this very clearly. This might be thought all the more remarkable since he was born not in Britain but in Pakistan. But that is precisely why he does understand what is at stake. [Italics added.]

Is Phillips saying that only a person who comes from a Muslim country can understand the nature of Islam and the threat it poses to non-Muslims? If that were the case, then we Westerners would be truly finished, because it would mean that we are not capable of understanding Islam, and we are not capable of defending ourselves from it.

Nazir-Ali is admirable for the stands he had taken. But is he the only man in Britain who can guard Britain from its enemies? I say enough with this cult of the “conservative minority”—the notion that Western nations can only be defended and represented by nonwhite minorities, and lack the ability and the moral legitimacy to defend themselves.

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April 1

Ben W. writes:

I’m wondering if Richard Dawkins has spent as much time criticizing Islam as he has done Christianity (“religion”) in Great Britain? Or is it only Christianity that sticks in his craw…

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 31, 2009 09:53 PM | Send