Britain's War on Christianity: America's Future Fight?

CBN News (Link) - Dale Hurd (August 5, 2009)

At her coronation, Queen Elizabeth, like British monarchs before her, promised to "maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the gospel." But today, Britain is at war with the gospel, and with itself.

British Christians who take their faith into the workplace risk being demoted or fired. The government continues to push an aggressive gay rights agenda, while threatening to criminalize Christian speech and practice.

Politician and head of the Christian party, George Hargreaves told CBN News he received a complaint for his billboard advertisement.

"Yesterday I got a letter from the advertising standards authority over complaints saying that my billboard that says Britain is a Christian country is offensive to atheists and other religions and it incites hatred against them. What nonsense," he said.

Hargreaves said Britain is constituted as a Christian country.

"Daily prayers are said in parliament whether atheists like it or not," he added. "The queen is head of the Church of England and therefore has to acknowledge God for her sovereignty over the nation. These things are written, not just into our culture and our heritage, but into our constitution."

At one time, Britain was the missionary base for the entire world, even sending missionaries to the new American colonies. But today, the cases of anti-Christian bigotry and discrimination have risen sharply.

In response, Christian legal centers like Christian Concern for Our Nation have mobilized.

Director Andrea Minichiello-Williams warns that if British Christians don't step up now, the nation is on a path to eventually criminalize the practice of Christianity in public.

"There's been a massive move by the secularist lobby to privatize religion," she said. "You can have faith so long as it doesn't affect you in the work place. So long as you don't bring it into the workplace. 'Just make it private. It can't be public. It can't affect what you do in the public square.'"

Christian Kwabena Peat was forced to attend homosexual sensitivity training at work, administered by a lesbian.

"One of things that she said was, she asked the question, 'What makes you think that to be heterosexual is natural?' At which point, I walked out," Peat said.

Then Peat wrote a letter to the sensitivity trainer, explaining the Bible's position on homosexuality, and that God loved her and Peat loved her. He was suspended.

"They said that by me telling them about the Word of God, it constituted harassment and intimidation," Peat said.

Peat was just recently reinstated. But cases like his are repeated over and over. Doctors, Nurses, adoptive parents, deemed unfit because of their Christian beliefs. Christians are told not to speak about God in the workplace or they could be punished for offending homosexuals or Muslims.

And now the British government wants to pass a new equality bill that would force churches to hire practicing homosexuals or transsexuals.

Christian lawyer Paul Diamond has been very successful in defending discrimination cases against Christians in the courts.

"In the United Kingdom the homosexual agenda is militant," he said. "The power shift began in about 2000, and they've been arresting Christians, jailing Christians for hate crimes, shutting off grants, constant litigation with the government, constant aggression.

Diamond said there is no "live and let live."

"Your Christian values are wicked and evil, and that's what they want everybody to believe," he added.

A BBC program called Bone Kickers, showed a violent Christian beheading a Muslim. Britain's government TV has also put a Muslim in charge of all of its religious programming.

Islam continues to advance in the UK in large part because the government and media give it almost a protected status, while essentially persecuting its own state religion, Christianity.

Many believe the architect of Britain's new anti-Christian culture was former Prime Minister Tony Blair, a professed Christian who championed gay rights.

Both Minichiello-Williams and Diamond offered the same warning to American Christians: that any anti-life or hate crimes legislation that emerges under the Obama administration will erode America's Christian base.

"This is all coming to America," Minichiello-Williams said. "If you liberalize the laws as President Obama has done."

"Do you know who Obama reminds every British person of? Tony Blair," Diamond said. "Charming, persuasive, convincing, the appearance of moderation, and then he shoved all the Judeo-Christian values down while saying he was a Christian."

Diamond said the British know what is going to happen in America.

"We know what's going to happen to your 40 percent church attendance," he added. "It's not going to 40 percent. It's going to be 20 percent, when the Federal and state government start saying that if you criticize homosexuality, the hate crimes laws will apply to you Christians."

By some estimates it only took about 10 years for the state to almost completely undermine Britain's Christian heritage. Barring a sudden move of God, it is likely to take far longer to restore it.