From February 18, 2016
I try to stay abreast of world events, but I pay particular attention to Canada and Britain. Canada, of course, is right next door. But why Britain? Because, like many Americans, I feel affection and affinity for the Mother Country: we are, as Churchill once said, two countries divided by a common language. But it also seems to me that the ills which affect Britain are common to all the Western countries, including my own; and that things that happen in Britain and Canada wind up happening here, too.
I have never been to England. I watch a great deal of British TV and movies, just about every day. I read a great deal of fiction by British writers, past and present. And I happen to think you can learn a lot about a nation by becoming familiar with its popular culture.
So I fear for the state of Christianity in Britain. What else am I to think, when episode after episode, in show after show, depicts Christians as at best irrelevant, at worst backward, evil, and dangerous? When actors like Hugh Laurie (atheist) and David Suchet (Christian) both say, in interviews, that Christianity in Britain isn’t what it used to be? Why should they lie about it?
As a Christian, I cannot think any good can come to a nation that turns away from Jesus Christ–especially a nation that’s been Christian for some 1,400 years.
Do I take TV shows and crime novels as literal truth? Of course not. Do I believe every article I read in British newspapers online? No, despite what you may have heard. And I do stay in touch with email friends in Britain and Canada.
From all these different sources, I’m getting the same message: Britain is rejecting her Christian heritage, and–like our own–her culture is coarsening, largely as the result of self-destructive leadership.
Of course, if you’re a fan of “gay marriage,” growth of government, multiculturalism, political correctness, speech codes, and all the rest–well, you’re getting it. In all the Western countries you’re getting all that stuff, and then some.
And so I fear for Britain, as I fear for my own country, and for the same reasons. We as nations have sinned, and we need to repent. Instead, our leaders draft and pursue policies which seem to be based on the principle that evil is good, and good is evil; and the people seem content to have it so.
But not all of us.
No, not all of us.
