I have written here more than once about the threat from violent, imperialistic Islam. But Britain – all Europe indeed – faces an equal and opposite danger: aggressive, intolerant secularism.
I have written here more than once about the threat from violent, imperialistic Islam. But Britain – all Europe indeed – faces an equal and opposite danger: aggressive, intolerant secularism. Christianity, the religion of Europe, what used to be known as Christendom, is being wilfully abandoned while Islam, an alien ideology is taking its place. It is not use imagining that secular – really atheistic – values will enable us to resist the massive and increasing Muslim takeover. For most of the press, and especially such as The Guardian and the BBC endemic, constantly appease the adherents of Islam and apologise for them. Every time there is a terrorist attack by Muslims, the newspapers rush to deny that it has “anything to do with Islam.” For decades Muslim men have been raping and sexually abusing underage white girls in a score of British towns and cities. When finally a few convictions were secured in Northumbria, the whole panel of four “experts” on the BBC’s Newsnight programme were unanimous in declaring this had nothing to do with the Muslim religion.
The secular values – often called British values – which have replaced our respect for the Ten Commandments and moral teachings of Jesus – are only sham values. Equality, Diversity and Multiculturalism are not ethical doctrines but only a social experiment foisted upon a frequently unwilling people by successive governments which have expelled Christianity from public life. Transgress any these new secular shibboleths and you will lose your livelihood, as the Irish bakers did; or you will be obliged to resign from any public role, as Tim Farron was obliged. For, despite the soothing clichés of our political leaders, we do not live in a nice, friendly, tolerant, liberal society, but in a punitive, totalitarian secularism. And there are no opt-outs for Christians.
It’s time for me to put some flesh on the bones of the hypothesis which I have just outlined. How deeply into its decline and disappearance is our once Christian Britain and how successful is Islam in its declared purpose of taking over? According to the 2011 census, there were 2.7million Muslims in Britain, forming the second largest section of society. Now there are over 4million and the number of Muslim children has doubled in less than a decade. This is the main reason for the overcrowding in our schools. Muslims generally are much younger than the rest of the population. And, as Malthus told us, populations increase exponentially, leading to the likelihood that the number of Muslims will stand at more than 8million in ten years’ time. Meanwhile, the white indigenous population is aging and declining, so we are fast approaching a demographic tipping point beyond which the Muslim minority will become conspicuously more numerous – and, increasingly demanding of their sectional “rights” – as indeed they are at present.
Between 2008 and 2013, Anglicans closed 324 churches, Baptists lost 76, Independent 112 and Methodists a catastrophic 813. Reliable figures for congregational numbers – all churches – are not available for the years since 2010. In that year 11% of the population attended church “regularly or occasionally” – a fall of 6% from 2005. In 1961 there were 7 registered mosques in Britain. In 2015 there were 1750 with 439 in London alone – more than in any city in Europe outside Turkey.
Numerous commentators, including Bishop Michael Nazir Ali, have warned that there are Muslim no-go areas in many cities and towns in Britain. They move in, establish their fiefdom and intimidate the locals until their lives become intolerable and they leave. My barber in the City of London, a traditional Cockney boy, left the East End where he had live all his life and went to live out in Essex: “Because my wife and daughters couldn’t stand the verbal and sexual abuse any longer.” Given the certain rapid increase in the number of Muslims in the next decade, this problem will only get worse.
Secular values will not save us. People think that we can ditch Christianity and all the good things that were produced by it will remain. But, as T.S. Eliot said, “Such modest attainments as you can boast in the way of polite society will hardly survive the faith to which they owe their significance.”
If Christianity goes, all that we cherish will go with it. Eliot again:
“I do not believe that the culture of Europe could survive the complete disappearance of the Christian Faith. And I am convinced of that not merely because I am a Christian myself, but as a student of social biology. If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. Then you must start painfully again, and you cannot put on a new culture ready-made. You must wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made. You must pass through many centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see the new culture, nor would our great-great-great grandchildren: and if we did, not one of us would be happy in it.”
Reprinted with the author’s permission from the British Church Newspaper.
