“We British Muslims, who enjoy full freedom of faith, should remember that Islam obliges us to be good neighbours and respect others. Rather than dismissing objections as either racist or intolerant, we should listen to local opinion. And if the Muslims of Camberley are still determined to build their “traditional” mosque, they should seek an alternative site. More importantly, they should jettison reactionary ideology and adopt a progressive Islam that is part of the British mainstream.”

Taj Hargey

Professional photographer Andy Craddock caused a furore by taking photographs of semi-naked models at St Michael Penkivel Church in Cornwall. One photograph showed a model reclining on an altar.  The Diocese of Truro threatened to launch a legal action against him for trespass and not having permission to take photographs, as it was perfectly entitled to do.  Sensibly, the Church has decided not to press the matter any further.

Mr Craddock apparently takes erotic fetish snaps during secret photo shoots at churches across the United Kingdom. He ignored the Diocese's solicitor’s letter before action, claiming that they were powerless to stop him, defending his photographs as “art”.  He admits that his photographs could cause offence, but only to a minority of people.

It is implausible that Mr Craddock could have been unaware that had he informed the church authorities of his proposed photo shoot and the nature of that shoot, he would not have been granted permission. He trespassed upon property the sole purpose of which was for worship.  He must also have known that the compositions he arranged would universally offend the people who would frequent such an establishment. To them, “a sacred place was profaned”.  For Mr Craddock, the pursuit of Art trumps all.

In my book, it all comes down to a lack of respect for others and their beliefs.

Sky News    The Daily Mail   Run that past me again

“A publicly funded exhibition is encouraging people to deface the Bible in the name of art — and visitors have responded with abuse and obscenity”

reported The Times on 23rd July 2009.

 The exhibition, Made in God’s Image, at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, is part of the Sh(out) project, which we are told, aims to celebrate and raise awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.  The work Untitled 2009, by the Rev Jane Clarke of the Metropolitan Community Church, a Church that celebrates “racial, cultural, linguistic, sexual, gender and theological diversity”, urged the public to “write themselves in” to the Bible if they felt excluded.  Perhaps predictably considering the target audience of the exhibition, some of the comments written into the Bible were not entirely thought provoking or uplifting.

Rev Clarke made it plain that she regretted the insults that had appeared.  This has not prevented Mark O’Neill, the Director of Art and Museums at Culture and Sport Glasgow, lambasting critics of the Bible exhibit as being motivated by an opposition to homosexuality and “[trying] to divert attention from the issue that the artwork aims to highlight: how religion marginalises homosexuals.”  Adds Mr O’Neill,

“If they want to condemn homosexuals, that’s up to them but using the Gallery of Modern Art as a vehicle for that condemnation, I don’t think is legitimate.”

Or perhaps Christians just don’t like their holy book being so deliberately and provocatively defaced no matter who is the perpetrator, Mr O’Neill.

 The Sunday Times

During a recent dialogue concerning whether the United Kingdom should adopt a pluralistic legal system, Sheikh Faiz Siddiqi, founder of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal said,

“in a jurisdiction where rights are afforded to many mistresses and there is recognition of same-sex marriages, the idea of polygamy should not be so alien or distant.”

He is right, isn’t he?

Challenging debates remain on Islam and English law

To quote The Guardian,

“Dr Williams is right when he argues that other religions - and not just the established Anglican faith - are allowed to police their own laws. Orthodox Jews have a beth din (a rabbinical court); there is evidence of informal arrangements in other faith communities. But what the archbishop really wants is a tolerance for the role of religion in public affairs that succeeds only in highlighting why it would be better entirely excluded.”

I'll give a religious court (of whichever persuasion) a miss, if you don't mind

“For almost two decades we’ve allowed the message of political Islam to breed unchallenged within the British Muslim community, preaching separation and confrontation. The blame for that must rest solely with Muslims…”

Shiraz Maher - The Sunday Times

“We are a talkative and opinionated society and not always good at listening.  The discourse of politics, media and academe is essentially adversarial.  While this is undoubtedly important in a democracy, it can mean that people are not really receptive to an opposing viewpoint.  It is often apparent during a parliamentary debate or a panel discussion on television that while their opponents are speaking, participants are simply thinking up the next clever thing that they are going to say.”

Karen Armstrong, The Bible - The Biography 

"Are my fellow Muslims so weak in their faith that they think God needs their violence to defend His eternal truth? I believe that their weakness and ignorance of Islam is the reason that they fear honest debate."

Yahya Merchant

“The tragedy of the episode is that the Pope was arguing against the idea that violence can be justified in any religion. He was making the case for the compatibility of reason with religion at a time when fundamentalism is gaining terrifying ground across the religious spectrum.

The irony is that the Islamic response illustrates how desperately the world needs to hear his message.”

Ruth Gledhill

The sight of violent Muslim-hothead reaction to the ill-chosen words of the Pope is galvanising further anti-Islamic sentiment in the West.  It is time for moderate Islam to make its voice heard.

It had to happen of course, as night follows day.  Terrorist elements amongst the Animal Rights fraternity have shown already that harassing and threatening opponents is an effective means of controlling and forcing them to submit to its will.  The tactic is catching on amongst other single issue groups, the most recent example being  anti abortionists, as is reported today by Sandra Laville.  As yet, our home grown hard-line anti abortionists have yet to blow up an abortion clinic as happened in the United States but, no doubt, from now on we can expect little acts of harassment and intimidation here and there against anyone who is seen or suspected to support, legal abortion.

In the case reported today in The Guardian, the miscreant anti abortion group is UK Life League which is run by a James Dowson.  Like Animal Rights groups, it also appears to rely upon doctored photographic evidence as part of its case in drumming up support and finance.

"Life League, which is a registered company, raises money through donations, and stalls on streets across England and Scotland, a tactic successfully employed by animal rights groups."

Remember that name and next time you pass a Life League stall in the high street, please give it a wide berth.

It is curious that as academic interpretations of various tracts of the Bible are corrected, updated and improved, often and more usually the new or refined explanations seem never to be widely disseminated amongst the wider populace.

I had always understood from the Book of  Genesis, that God had struck down Onan, the second son of Judah, for "spilling his seed" (either by masturbating or by engaging in coitus interruptus.)  Onan, you might recall, sought to avoid making his wife, his deceased brother's widow pregnant by indulging in one of those solitary or self-centred practises whereby his seed went everywhere, save where it was supposed to. Had he not acted thus, by Ancient Custom the resulting first-born child would have been deemed to be that of his deceased brother. The medieval Roman Catholic Church went on (logically, upon the basis of the original interpretation) to argue that thereby contraception was against God's Will.

It appears that scholars of a theological vent, by putting these tracts from Genesis in their historical and cultural context, have decided that the story of Onan was much more likely to have been a warning against the breaking of the aforementioned Levirate marriage custom.  This 'new view' has been probably in the public domain for years but only recently, have I heard of it.  Well, there you go!  Yet another biblical tract taken out of context by the early Church and used to support dogma which has brought inadvertently distress to millions of people.

A moral argument might still be put forward reasonably to the effect that contraception is wrong but it should no longer be on the basis of the story of Onan. In consequence the theological argument against contraception (or masturbation or coitus interruptus) cannot have such weight, as had been formally the case.  On the evidence of what is said in Genesis with its modern interpretation, to use a Scottish legal turn of phrase, the case against contraception is 'not proven'.