Beyond the veil

Photo: Philip Hollis/Telegraph

"Muslim migrants 'threw Christians overboard during row on boat from Libya to Italy', say police"- The Independent

"Muslim women should be allowed to wear the veil in court, top judge suggests" - The Telegraph

Two headlines from yesterday's newspapers. Intolerance protected by tolerance. How very British, sowing the seeds of our own destruction through kindness which is not reciprocated. That is not turning the other cheek, it is turning a blind eye. The veil may or may not be a sign of oppression depending on your point of view but it has become a symbol which enables some Muslims to thumb their noses at the rest of us while they continue to press for the implementation of Sharia after being welcomed to the United Kingdom.

International lobbyist on human rights and refugee issues, Jacqueline Pascarl lived as a Muslim woman from the age of 17 until she was 22 after marrying a Malaysian prince. She explains here that it is "rubbish" that Muslim women mostly wear the burqa to express their religious devotion. Burqas, she says "reveal more about men than women".

Nevertheless, the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, claims that judges should allow Muslim women to appear in court wearing a full-face veil. It was "crucial that courts and judges show, and be seen to show respect towards different customs". - Even if that involves tossing fellow refugees over the side for being Christians, killing at random, destroying churches and razing ancient settlements while committing "genocide of Christians in the Middle East"? That is increasingly becoming their custom towards minorities in Islamic states.

Lord Neuberger made his remarks in an address to the Criminal Justice Alliance because a judge had ruled that Muslim women wearing a veil over their face must remove it to give evidence in court although women will be allowed to wear a veil when standing trial. The ruling came after the Prime Minister’s office expressed support for allowing schools to ban students from wearing veils. A YouGov poll in 2013 showed that "61% of British adults agreed with the statement, "the burka should be banned in Britain", while about a third (32%) disagreed.

This is where it starts, learning by heart, in Arabic, the words copied by supporters of an illiterate man who claimed they had been delivered to him from God.

The results are all too obvious, among the latest in Australia where five teenagers aged 18 and 19 have been arrested in a series of raids in Melbourne for allegedly planning "atrociousdanquot; ISIS-inspired attacks on police and the public next week events in Australia on Anzac Day. Nothing it seems is sacred in Islam, except Islam.

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Level playing field?

Church of the Virgin Mary in Tal Nasri, Syria and a Mosque in Peterborough

Two reports have caught my attention today, from the BBC's Newsbeat,What you can be flogged for in Saudi Arabia, and from ITV News,'Anti-Muslim hate is normal': research reveals impact of Islamophobic attacks.

According to the BBC report, British pensioner Karl Andree, 74, has spent more than a year in prison since being arrested by Saudi religious police. His family say they were led to believe he would avoid his punishment of 360 lashes because of his age but that is now in doubt. They believe the punishment would kill him. Mr Andree is asthmatic, has gout (a type of arthritis causing joint pain) and has survived cancer three times. His crime? He  was caught with homemade wine in Saudi Arabia. Alcohol is illegal in Saudi Arabia.  Mr Andree's daughter said her father was transporting homemade wine in his car in August 2014 when he was pulled over and arrested (here).

Some would argue that people residing in Saudi Arabia should abide by Saudi law, a strict interpretation of Sharia, where "It is illegal to evangelise Muslims; conversion to another religion is punishable by death. There are no church buildings and house churches are raided; Christians risk arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation and sometimes torture" (here).

It is different for Muslims in the United Kingdom. They enjoy freedom of worship along with special privileges, examples here andhere. Polygamous marriages with multiple wives are allowed for benefit purposes even though bigamy is a criminal offence in the UK.

The ITV report alleges that "Anti-Muslim hate is normal" while associating hate with "Islamophobic attacks". This is an erroneous and dangerous association designed to portray Muslims as victims and put Islamic excesses beyond criticism. There is nothing irrational about a distaste for Islamic notions of justice or of fearing Islamic attacks on innocent victims.

From the Telegraph's reportThree 'Isil-inspired jihadists planned Remembrance Day beheading in Britain': ...The men had been inspired by the ?Truly chilling? Fatwa issued by Al Adnani, a spokesman for Isil (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) - also known as Islamic State and Isis.

It called for the beheadings of the ?Crusaders? And to ?Strike their police, security and intelligence members? And to ?Slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him from a high place, or choke him or poison him?.

Such actions should be regarded as abominable by any rational human being of whatever religion or none. This is what motivates the rejection of Islam but it does not follow that all Muslims are rejected.

There is a world of difference between 'Anti-Muslim hate' and what is deemed to be Islamophobia, a construct to deflect any questioning of Islam while other religions are persecuted by Muslims. According to a Guardian report here the British Prime Minister is in danger of confusing Anti-Islam with Anti-Muslim. While reassuring Muslims that they are safe in Britian he would do well to reflect on the safety of Christians and their churches in Muslim countries.

David Cameron talking to young Muslim women at Jamia Masjid mosque in Manchester in 2013. Cameron has invited key Muslim figures

 to join a new community engagement lembaga. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/REX Shutterstock/Andrew Parsons/REX_Shutterstock. Credit: Guardian

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Respect!

On the right is a picture of Her Majesty the Queen,  Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England covering her head as a mark of respect as she visited a 15th century mosque on her state visit to Turkey.

On the left is a picture Rebekah Dawson showing no respect for The Queen's justice.

The Independent asks what happened after Rebekah Dawson refused to take her niqab off in court. Read the shocking storyhere.

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Wars of the world

Battle of Vienna on 12 September 1683

From the Guardian: The terrifying rise of Isis: $2bn in loot, online killings and an army on the run

They're too extreme for al-Qaida, they boast of their brutality and they have forced the Iraqi government on to the defensive. How did the insurgent group rise to such terrifying power?

Talking with IranVienna 2014

At last governments seem to have woken up to the threat posed by Islamists, even to Islamist governments by other Islamists who want their own merk of Islam imposed on the world. So grave is the threat that talks with Iran, ironically in Vienna, may be used to work out a strategy to counter the threat. It is as though planet Earth were under attack by Martians in the War of the Worlds.

While the threat by ISIS dominates the headlines other Islamist atrocities continue around the world. "At least 48 people have died after al-Qaeda-linked militants attacked hotels and a police station in a Kenyan coastal town" (here). "Gunmen killed at least 22 people at a village market in remote northeast Nigeria, a security official said on Monday, in what was likely the latest attack by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram" (here). Looking at 'Wars in the World' (here) the results are chilling. Not all conflict is Islamist based but 'religious' fanaticism is a real problem.

A list of some of the major Islamic terrorist attacks from 1990 to Sept 2013 can be found here. The response of the British government has been to dismiss the Islamist threat as the work of fanatics who do not represent the majority of Muslims. Perhaps not but they all have in common a religious ideology in which ALL should be subject to Sharia laws which permit death by stoning, amputations and public floggings. Whether achieved by armed jihad or cultural jihad the result is the same.

Will the nettle be grasped at last ?

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Women's ministry: laughing all the way to the top

The newly announced Archdeacon of Bangor will be among the story-tellers

at an event in St Asaph Cathedral to celebrate 21 years of women priests

 in the Church in Wales.    Source: CinW Press release

There is to be another celebration of women using the church for 21 years to further their careers at the expense of others when they meet in St Asaph Cathedral to recount stories of "uncertainty, inspiration and creativity".

The occasion is being organised by MAECymru, a self-promoting class of people who claim to have a vision of the Church in Wales as "a community of God?S people where, regardless of gender, justice and equality prevail". It is a vision of a church which misrepresents any opposition with spurious claims of prejudice, misogyny and inequality.

No wonder they are offering a 50% discount to entice new members to their gang.

"Welcome !  to  MAECymru"                                                                                  Source: MAECymru

The newly announced Archdeacon of Bangor will be among the story-tellers. Her contribution to the debate on women bishops in the Church in Wales can be found in an essay following her trip to the US where she saw a woman celebrant wearing a pointy hat. That convinced her that she was right about women's ministry and the vast majority of Christians were wrong in their belief that the ordination of women to the priesthood was contrary to scripture and tradition.

The new Archdeacon has much to say about "women's ministry" but she completely misses the point. Women's ministry has become a process for the self-advancement for women in the church. Not ordinary women who worship quietly as they keep the church running but the minority of women who shout the loudest and are content to use the church for political gain at the expense of others.

Compare what she  has to say about ministry with this extract fromA Noble Task by Bishop David Thomas who was asked to reflect on his experience of ministry as Provincial Assistant Bishop and how it might change if the episcopate in Wales  were opened to women:

"Another  dangerous misconception concerns the nature of the objection to the ordination  of women as priests. People sometimes assume that the real problem has to do  with the ministry of women in the Church. This is not the case. The assumption  arises from a failure to differentiate clearly between ministry in general and  ordained ministry in particular. Perhaps I can illustrate the point from my  liturgical responsibilities. Sometimes, for instance when a document is being  prepared for Governing Body, I have to spend hours poring over the minutiae of  a revised liturgical text. This was how I spotted that, in the ‘gold book’  Eucharist, the heading of Preface 23 (for use at ordinations, institutions,  etc.) was ‘Ministry’. The heading has been corrected in the 2004 equivalent  (no. 30) to ‘Ordained Ministry’. This contemporary, very common, tendency  unconsciously to allow ordained ministry to get submerged in the much wider  concept of ministry, leads to all sorts of mistaken perceptions. All I can say  by way of comment is that the wisest (and toughest!) spiritual adviser I’ve  ever had so far was a woman; I benefited enormously from working in my last  parish alongside a woman deacon; I made it my business to increase the number  of female eucharistic assistants in my last parish, and I worked very happily  there with a quite outstanding woman churchwarden – added to which, I am well  aware that there are some situations, perhaps many, where a woman will be  better qualified to give pastoral care than any man. I have very good reasons  for accepting, affirming, valuing and rejoicing in the ministry of women in the  Church. The difficulty for me, as for others including many women, has to do  with that distinctive aspect of presbyteral ministry which we call eucharistic  presidency."

Bishop David Thomas was the first Provincial Assistant Bishop (PAB) appointed to provide acceptable sacramental and pastoral ministry to those who, in conscience, were unable to receive the ministry of women priests. He also proved to be the last PAB after Abp Barry Morgan and his bench sitters reneged on the agreement which eased the path to women's ordination in the Church in Wales.

The bench had achieved their objective and that was that despite the overwhelming desire expressed at Diocesan meetings for similar pastoral and sacramental provision to be restored.

MAECymru shares the duplicity of the bench of bishops. They have a vision for a Church in Wales in which justice and equality prevail but it is a cloak under which secularisation has taken hold, advancing minority causes.

They couldn't care less for the countless women and men who find their church has left them.

Justice and equality for those left with no church will be quietly forgotten as the story-tellers relate their sob stories.

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'The Hour' has come

?The Hour? Previewed here was broadcast last night on 16 April, not 14 April as stated in the diocesan Press Release.

Joanna Penberthy?S contribution was worse than I feared, aligning the church with a political movement rather than the Kingdom of God. She was unbalanced, dishonest in her claims and blatantly sexist. I doubt that she brought anyone to Christ.

No wonder Barry Morgan thought she was the best person to be a bishop in the Church in Wales.

There was no mention of the genuine theological problems experienced by the majority of Christians, including women, who are unable to accept the validity of the ordination of women. Just a one-sided bleat about perceived injustice.

Not recognising the validity of her orders may be "water off a duck's backdanquot; for the bishop but it is a deluge that has ruined the spiritual lives of the male priests she referred to as unable to accept her sacramental ministry and many more lay people who are unable to accept a minority innovation that benefits the few at the expense of many.

Readers who are able to access the BBC?S iPlayer can watch the programme. It was about women ? ?A hundred years since some of us got the vote, are women still discriminated against in today?S Wales or has Feminism gone too far??

After discussing politics the presenter moved to “an even older institution, the church” (position 25.50). There was a short film designed to illustrate the so-called prejudice experienced  by the woman who 'will go down in history as Wales’ first ever women bishop. “It’s not about being a victim”, Penberthy asserted, "if you can be prejudiced in the soft institution of the church, what does that say about your attitude to women?”

That is why, she said, in the first interview after her consecration she was talking about the fact that two women a week are killed by their partners. Until that stops "we have a job on our handsdanquot;. It was not clear if that comes before or after her campaign to welcome LGBT people despite their disproportionate presence in the church.

The former Ass Bishop of Llandaff claimed that ‘the ordination of women would rid the world of homophobia, misogyny, brutalisation of women in all situations including those in war zones’. The Church in Wales now has women priests and bishops but the claims continue with the same false accusations of  homophobia and misogyny.

Penberthy emphasised the point that she chose to pursue the brutalisation of women theme in her first interview after her enthronement rather than the core Christian message, the proclamation of the coming of the kingdom of God.

Later in the  discussion the presenter returned  to the bishop to ask about the future. What could be changed for the better? “Women need to be valued” was the bishop’s response as though women are not valued already. She was also given the last word on 'the most important thing' she had heard in the debate. Once again it was that two women a week are killed by their partners. Until "we get passed that and women are safe in their own homes then we haven’t really made any progress", she said.

The 'soft institution of the church' to use Penberthy's words has been used by feminists to advance their own cause at the expense of the church, trampling on the faithful in the process. An unsigned (therefore unpublished) comment on another thread suggested the we misogynists should "look beyond your own ecclesiastical communities and see how women continue to be exploited and mistreated".

How mistreating and exploiting the church for political ends is supposed to make a difference is not explained. It would help if the infiltrators did something at the sharp end rather than seek a comfortable living while destroying the church which had enriched the lives of many more women then those who claim to be discriminated against.

The hour has come. Bishops have responsibilities as bridge builders but their attitude is take it or leave. Many have left the church enabling Penberthy to claim that only a few do not accept her sacramental role.

Feminism has gone too far. Often the most vehement opposition to the ordination of women comes from women but that is not mentioned. There is discrimination in the church. It is most obvious at the top. It must stop.

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