In early December, North Yorkshire Police started a “hate crime” investigation against Christian apologist Ben John in Britain, and a few days later the shadow government’s religion minister, Janet Daby, resigned. The two events are not directly related, but expose the same trend.
So, first things first.
The Church of England has published a video online – a trailer for its official “Living in Love and Faith” project – in which Anglican leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, promote the LGBT agenda. The video shows a man saying that he is a Christian and gay and that he is happy to find a church that accepts him for who he is. Also shown is a couple consisting of two women, one of whom is transgender and considers herself male, and is also a minister of the United Reformed Church (a Protestant congregation that is not united with the Anglicans). At the end of the video, Welby states: “We do not impose our views, but listen to different theological and biblical perspectives. We’re learning to live with each other. My deepest prayer is that as we live together in love and faith, we will demonstrate the same love for one another that God demonstrates for us.”
But back to Ben John being accused of a “hate crime.” So what brought him to the attention of the police? He recorded a video, in which he said about the couple shown in an official video of a Reformed church minister and another woman: “In reality, if transgenderism is a false ideology (and it is), what we actually see before us is a lesbian couple. The man is not really a man. She is a woman.” In addition, Ben John quoted from the Book of Common Prayer, a seminal Anglican text from the 16th century, which states that marriage is designed to have children and avoid sin, and quotes the Apostle Paul that marriage is like the relationship of Christ and the Church. And then Ben John said that while we should love every person, we should not therefore accept all views, and reject those that contradict the word of God.
It was this clip that became the “composition of the crime.” A Reformed transgender minister, offended by Ben John’s claim that gender reassignment is impossible, filed a police report. A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police confirmed that a hate crime (!) investigation is underway.
Let’s think about the absurdity of what’s going on. People who pride themselves on “not imposing their views but listening to different theological and biblical perspectives” are not willing to listen to those views on marriage theology and biblical sexual ethics that have been common to all Christians for nearly two thousand years. And they’re ready to impose their views with the help of the police! Ironically, by the very fact of denouncing Ben John, they acknowledged that he was right: not all views should be accepted. Except that in the place that the Word of God holds for Ben John, they have LGBT ideology. They do not believe that God can judge those who reject His law, and do not hesitate to bring to trial anyone who denies their newly elevated ideology. How could we not recall the words of the great Russian poet (who, by the way, is of Scottish descent), so familiar to us from our childhood: “But there is also the judgment of God, the thieves of debauchery?”
And what about Janet Daby, who until recently was Minister for Religious Affairs, in the shadow government of the opposition Labour party? Did she really allow herself to seriously quote the Bible too? No, of course not! She simply said that she believes that people whose job duties include registering marriages should be able, if their religious beliefs do not allow them to register same-sex “marriages”, to not participate personally, but to delegate that part of the job to colleagues. Ms. Daby allowed herself to be so “apolitical” on Friday; but on Monday she already had to apologize on Twitter, to make clear she fully supports same-sex “marriage”… and resign from the shadow government! Apparently the Minister for Religious Affairs, as perceived by modern British Labour, exists not to protect the interests of believers, but to infringe on freedom of conscience.
What do these two stories that happened in the UK earlier this month have in common? Both point to the same thing as the persecution of a Christian politician in Finland that IFN Russia recently wrote about: it is not enough for members of the “LGBT community” not to be prevented from living their lives as they wish. Their goal is to suppress freedom of speech and freedom of conscience for anyone who even dares criticize their way of life. And when they say that they oppose discrimination against minorities, we can look at those countries where they have been able to go furthest and realize clearly: by going down this path, we will gradually, without noticing it, give up freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and the result will be discrimination against the majority and criminal prosecution of those who will not obediently keep silent.
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