Anorak

Anorak News | Christian Soldiers

Christian Soldiers

by | 13th, November 2006

“LET very ill newborns die, declares Church,” says the Mail’s headline.

It’s the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, and he says that financial costs should form part of the discussion when it comes to deciding whether or not a desperately ill baby should be kept alive.

The headline is more severe than the Bishop’s considered words – “For a Christian, death is not the end, and is not to be avoided at all costs.”

The Bishop’s view draws attention to the ethical debate about patient care, modern medicine, technology and the right to life. Such are the moral dilemmas created by scientific advance.

This could be the big debate. But taking precedence in the Mail is another religious matter. Pray silence for Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York. Again this primate’s words can be distilled into a handy headline: “Muslim women shouldn’t wear veils in public, says Archbishop.”

The Mail has interviewed the eminent Christian and managed to distil the entire interview into an easy headline.

For those who want to get the fuller sermon, there’s the double-page interview with the “VERY UNORTHODOX BISHOP”. He’s the man “brave enough to challenge the ‘chattering classes’ and their contempt for Britain’s Christian values”.

It has fallen to a Ugandan-born man educated by Christian missionaries to “take up the sword” writes the Mail.

While we work out how well Christian values sit with a sword, Dr Sentamu talks of Muslims and anti-Christian BBC bias.

“We get more knocks,” says the Archbishop. “They can do to us what they dare not do to the Muslims. We are fair game because they can get away with it. We don’t go down there and say: ‘We are going to bomb your place.’ It’s not within our nature.”

Christians can put away their trusty swords, for now.

Although some Christian fundamentalists, notably in the United States, may like to keep a bomb handy for the Bishop of Southwark should he refute their “pro-life” message…



Posted: 13th, November 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink