Hi Lionel, some of your old friends at St Michael’s prayed for the UK election this morning at our monthly parish prayer meeting.

Thanks for the classic cultural critique contained in your observation about people thinking reading KJV in an American accent is so funny. Very telling about UK.

Thanks for the link to the concerns about ethical issues - the paper in the link gives some helpful thoughts about thinking biblically about various social and electoral issues.

Never having been, but reading fairly widely though my various newsfeeds, it strikes me that the UK gives Australians a glimpse of our possible future in regards to the erosion of religious freedoms.

Off the top of my head (and I could link to the stories in each case, if I had time), I can think of the following in the UK:
* Christian civil celebrant in trouble for refusing to bless same sex unions;
* Christian pastor interrogated by police for handing out invitations to a church service because of a complaint that this was homophobic (although the occasion was something like Easter and had nothing to do with that particular ethical issue);
* street preacher fined for saying homosexuality was wrong;
* both an airline steward and a nurse refused permission to wear a cross around their necks in their workplace;
* Christian counsellor told by courts he had no right to refuse to offer sex therapy to a same sex couple, which had led to his sacking.

This Daily Mail article details the latter case and briefly mentions most of the earlier cases referred to above.

We often say we don’t get much formal persecution in Australia, but perhaps the UK shows how this could change.

What do you think now you live there?

Hi Sandy,

Good on everyone for praying! Your list is pretty representative - and the stories you mentioned aren’t just media beat-ups. The issue of homosexuality really is very significant in the UK; nobody wants to be seen to be opposing the majority opinion of the “cultured” elite in this regard (especially the politicians, amongst whom I would include many church of England bishops!) There seems to be a general popular view in the UK that assumes a polarisation between two types of people: on the one hand there is the rational, culturally sensitive, peace-loving nice majority who accept homosexual behaviour completely and who are the only hope for the long-term prosperity and stability of the UK; on the other hand there are “those” bigoted, dangerous, archaic, fringe-dwelling, Bible-reading, hate-filled people who really should be locked up.

I reckon that one thing that Aussie Christians can and should do is to work against this stereotype so it doesn’t become more entrenched. We need to hold fast to the Bible’s teaching on this issue (and other issues); but while we do it we need to show genuine love to people who struggle with homosexual desires, avoiding name-calling, and insisting that we are all sinners in need of forgiving and transforming grace. In other words, we need to keep the big concerns of the Bible, with its richness and depth and breadth, central in all we do.

Lionel, you’re quite right. The mother country has reached a sorry pass, and things can only get worse before they get better.

Meanwhile, I bet no one would dare read the Qur’an in a fake Pakistani accent to take the mickey out of it. Not on the BBC, anyway!

I agree with Sandy, though. The anniversary is a great opportunity.

Ha! Ha! David, I used to work with Lionel and I know how hard it is to out-pedant him!

Lionel, I was reflecting on you bemoaning the American accent, and then giving this Bible its American name.

But I admit that I also capitulated many years ago!

How much of a pedant are you? I think that a real pedant cringes when people say “you and I” where it is appropriate to say “you and me.”

Ninety-nine per cent of the population no longer know the difference. [Peter O’Brien is an exception.]

Hi David, when I’m picking up the toddler from pre-school, and the teacher has written a possessive singular impersonal pronoun on the whiteboard WITH AN APOSTROPHE, and I feel an irresistible urge to rub out the apostrophe when nobody’s looking… Very sad, I know.