Dear Friends,

I think they are taking 'Big Brother' off the air.  Now, depending on your point of view, that could be good news or bad; a hole in your compulsive viewing or else your viewing just got a whole lot better... 

A different sort of announcement last month will also have been greeted, I think, with widely varying responses: the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who has been Bishop of Rochester since 1999 (and was widely tipped to become Archbishop of Canterbury, but didn't) has retired early in order to work with persecuted Christians around the world.  He has spoken out consistently as a sort of evangelical conscience against the more liberal elements of the Church (as he sees them), and I guess that, like my own conscience, I have not always wanted to heed what he had to say.

I have frequently disagreed with his pronouncements on Church matters, but his parting shot was slightly different and I would like to share some of it with you.

He said that the established religion must speak out more to preserve the country's Christian heritage and offer moral guidance to the masses.  But he also said that the Church of England, which is used to working with society, should speak up more often to defend the country's customs and institutions, most of which are based on Christian teaching:  "I think it will need to be more visible and take more of a stand on moral and spiritual issues".

"What is our basis for thinking that people are equal ?  It's the Judeo-Christian tradition that has provided us with these resources and we will continue to need it".  He said that the Church should defend the traditional two-parent family and Christian festivals, which are opposed not by followers of other faiths but by secularists who want to remove religion from the public square - this is something that many people should have heard me saying over the last fifteen years too, because it is true.

Bishop Nazir-Ali also said that he thinks there is a double jeopardy - on the one hand an aggressive secularism that seeks to undermine the traditional principles because it has its own project to foster, and on the other hand an extremist ideology of radical Islam, which moderate Muslims are also concerned about.  "This", he said, "is why there must be a clear recognition of where Britain has come from, what the basis is for our society and how that can contribute to the common good".

There is a fairly widespread feeling in England (and I do say 'England' deliberately) that we have lost our sense of identity as a nation.  That is a vacuum that something will fill.  We need to be waking up to the possibilities before it is too late.