God Save the Queen

Having been raised in the cultural center of the universe-Liverpool, England-and having taught among the Gauls for 18 years in the South of France, I keep my eye on Europe.
In the UK, a new Government education policy requires the teaching of "multiculturalism" in every subject. Multiculturalism takes many forms. Christians in the UK, as in Canada, are fighting a battle we may one day face in the USA. Parliament has proposed "Sexual Orientation Regulations" to prevent discrimination against gays. Christian ministers would be sued for refusing to bless same-sex civil partnerships, and Christian adoption agencies would be fined for refusing to place babies with homosexual couples: £500 to £1,000 for a first offence, up to £25,000 for subsequent offenses.
In the UK two views of culture clash. A petition from the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship calls on the Queen, the putative "Defender of the Faith," to uphold her coronation oath and denounce the "Rules." But the "Rules" come from the Government that keeps her in "Buck House" and legislates this triumphant program of multicultural relativism. Why? To the statement in a recent poll, "Religion is very important to me in my daily life," only 24% of the British responded positively - the next-to-lowest rate in the world. It turns out there is hardly any faith for the Queen to defend. Easy job, great pay!
The lowest response came from the French at 23%. Most "religious" Frenchmen call themselves "Catholic," but only 52% of Catholics believe there is a God! Of those who do, around 80% believe that God is a "force" or "energy." And France has another pressing problem: no French babies. The "Nation" is not reproducing itself. Is there a relationship between physical reproduction and religious commitment?
Into this spiritual and demographic "multicultural" void gallops militant Islam-armed with both faith and babies.
The highest response (96%) came from Egyptians. This figure is typical for Muslims, who also have the highest birth rates in Europe. Mohammed is the most popular name for new-born boys in Brussels, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam. By 2025, one third of all European children will be Muslim. Then we shall talk of Eurabia, because young Muslims are increasingly radicalized. While only 17% of British Muslims over 55 said they would prefer to live under sharia law in the land of the Magna Carta, 40% of their children under 24 want sharia to rule.
For French writer, Jean Raspail, the present social crisis is a clash between two definitions of France: "the Nation" (with its long history, biological identity and "Christian" religion) and "the Republic" (a political notion based on the secular "values" of democratic utopianism). A comparable clash occurs in Germany between the children of Luther and Bach (who produced the secular pluralistic state of Modern Germany, but are no longer making little Luthers or Bachs) and the recent Turkish immigrants (many of whom do not speak and do not wish to speak German, but who produce numerous little Turks).
A similar crisis is brewing in the USA, where two notions of America are in tension. One is "America the free" (freedom of speech and religion, which has become the natural domain of pluralistic secularism). The other is "America under God" (the belief that the American experiment depends on a constant appeal to "the Creator" and to the ethics of the Bible). The spiritual domain has always been tacitly granted to Christianity, exercising, as if by divine right, though without a Queen, a sort of spiritual custodianship of the culture. All that has changed! The tension has become a clash. Christianity has been weakened by the power of secularism and by rising religious paganism that demands equal spiritual custodianship of the nation and free political expression of its views. (We still await the arrival in force of Islam, though a congressman was recently sworn into office, hand on the Koran).
Secularism, paganism and Islam all have their sights on a this-worldly social victory. Christians have a more complicated stance, with one foot in the kingdom of this world, and one in the kingdom of Christ. This dual-citizenship frees them in this world to stand for truth and justice, have babies, build churches as signs of the coming kingdom of the transformed universe, and live for Christ, whatever the cost, like the black pastors and churchgoers in London who have made it known that they will go to jail rather than accept the "new rules." One day Christians may be jailed in the brave new world of once "Christian" Albion-with no help from the Queen. But eventually, they will live free forever in the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic Kingdom of Christ, with those from every nation and tongue who honor Jesus as Lord of lords and King of kings.
Peter JonesChristian Witness to a Pagan Planet