Phil Willis on Faith and Science
Posted by jonathanfryer on Monday, 1st February, 2010
Alastair Campbell famously reined in Tony Blair once by saying ‘We don’t do God!’ Subsequently, of course, it became clear that whatever Number 10′s Spinmeister wished, Blair did God in a big way — and thus had even more to talk about with his pal George W Bush. Together, they were indeed on a sort of Crusade, not just to get rid of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but to defend what they considered to be good, wholesome Christian values. Campbell’s warning reflected the fact that Britain — in common with most of the rest of Western Europe — has largely become a secular society; only a small percentage of the nation’s Christians could be described as ‘practising’ in any true sense of the word. Nonetheless, within all political parties there is a nucleus of ‘believers’, whether they are Christian Socialists, Conservative CofE or Liberal Democrat Non-Conformists.
Indeed, the Non-Conformist tradition in the old Liberal Party was very strong and there are more than a few remnants today. Methodists, in particular, are well represented among party members, but so too adherents to smaller denominations or sects, such as the Quakers. After the merger with the SDP, at least some of that tradition survived and is well represented by the LibDem Christian Forum (LDCF), whicb notably runs breakfast events during autumn federal party conferences, when many less conscientious delegates are asleep or nursing a hangover. The LDCF has also instituted an annual lecture, named in memory of William Gladstone (who had no qualms about involving God in politics). Alan Beith, MP, gave the first lecture last year and tonight, at the National Liberal Club, the honour fell to the retiring MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, Phil Willis. The former headmaster gave a thoughtful reflection (devoid of his usual stock of jokes) on Faith and Science, arguing that scientists, politicians and theologians are all researchers into truth and act largely out of a desire to serve humanity’s best interest. As Phil said, Gladstone avoided locking horns directly with his contemporary Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution rumbled through the second half of the 19th century until breaking as a great storm in the 20th. Some people blame Darwin for the decline of religious faith, others the horrors of War. And in a sense, Nick Clegg is a product of our secular age. But one hopes that all liberally-minded people – whether of great, little or no faith — can unite round the values being promoted by the party: of tolerance of diversity and the championing of fairness as a basis for society.
Link: www.ldcf.net
Matthew Huntbach said
Blair did God in a big way — and thus had even more to talk about with his pal George W Bush. Together, they were indeed on a sort of Crusade, not just to get rid of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but to defend what they considered to be good, wholesome Christian values.
I think this is unfair. It’s playing to the gallery where anti-Christian opinion is strong in the UK so kicking Christianity won’t do you any harm, but where there is a stream in the Islamic/Trotskyist alliance which wants to portray what happened in Iraq as an attack on Islam.
If they want to identify “Islam” as being shown most perfectly by a secularist and very nasty dictator, so an attack on that dictator is an attack on their religion, well that’s up to them but it doesn’t put the religion in a good light. It’s actually Muslims being hauled in to play the Trotskyist game – politics is “find out what the USA is doing, and take the opposite line”. For all their “neither Washington nor Moscow” claim, they still acted as if they were paid by Moscow gold, and do so to this day even though there isn’t any to pay them (Moscow gold is doing things like buying up our newspapers and gas supplies, much more effective than funding minor political parties, don’t you think?).
Well, Jonathan, it may help you win your seat by portraying the world as Christians v. Muslims, but if you were a more honest man you’d be careful to put what you wrote in a way that couldn’t be interpreted that way. Maybe you might just have noted for example, that the leader of the world’s biggest Christian denomination was an fierce opponent of the war?
My take on Blair is that he really did think a quick bit of military action would topple Saddam, a reasonable government would quickly arise (as it did when Communism crumbled in eastern Europe), and any trickery used to get there would be forgotten. He may have been very foolish to have thought that way and not to have listened to intelligence that told him it wouldn’t work out like that, but I do not think he was evil. I certainly do not think he thought of this as some sort of Christian crusade against Islam.
You ought NOT from where you are do anything which stirs up that sort of thinking. Not even if it’s just a cynical pandering to win votes. I thought we had history on that locally we were trying to turn away from.
Ian said
George W Bush did in fact on one occasion use the word crusade.
With the end of the cold war and no more reds under the bed there has been a switch to a much older “shadow of Islam” as a fear factor.
Matthew Huntbach said
Although Bush used the word “crusade”, it is a word that is in common casual use, so that does not prove he meant it as some sort of Christian v. Muslim thing. Those who make out he did are doing it to whip up religious hatred.
I was tough on Jonathan because I feel that the wording he so casually used, even though he only meant it as a bit of political knockabout is VERY VERY dangerous.
We should make ABSOLUTELY sure we give no ammunition to those who want to fan up the flames of hatred by suggesting there is some Christian v. Muslim conflict here.
If Bush and Blair really had – as a great many people not least in the constituency where Jonathan is PPC go about claiming in order to benefit from the hatred and division such claims cause – intended to go to war against Islam, is Saddam’s Iraq where they would choose to strike? It was quite clear that knocking out a secularist leader in a place with a large Christian minority and a tradition of tolerance, but with extremist pseudo-Muslims looking for an avenue to power, would do what it has – immensely help the sort of pseudo-Muslim for whom the religion is all “death to this, death to that” and immensely damage what was left of Christianity in its historical homeland.
I happened to be in Kuwait a while back, after Saddam’s invasion and withdrawal, before the US/UK invasion of Iraq, so I saw the strong feelings there on Saddam. Is it to be said that Saddam is what Islam is all about and the Kuwaitis are not true Muslims because they wanted Saddam brought down and had been helped by the USA to get rid of him from their country?
Anyone who looked at Iraq and the evil behaviour of Saddam before the invasion would have thought “Why can’t he just be knocked out?”. An intelligent person could give all sorts of practical reasons why not. However, just because Tony Blair was very stupid and could not see those reasons does not mean he was an evil man with evil intentions either against Islam or delighting to see the deaths and destruction the invasion caused.
Why can’t this very obvious point I am making never get heard anywhere? Why do even good people like Jonathan Fryer insist on using overblown language which just stirs up religious hatred, because it suits their politics to attack Blair and the Labour party in that way?
Ian said
I was also in Kuwait but before the Iraqi invasion and at that time Saddam was very popular in Kuwait as he was and still is in other parts of the Middle East(eg Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon)
Indeed during 1980s Saddam was our man i.e. supported by the US and other western countries.
The Ba’ath Party was a secular party that stood for Unity,Socialism and Freedom.Freedom of course meant freedom from the West.