Rising Tides

"Two Kingdoms" Will Always End as Only One

Peter Jones
Director, Truth Exchange

One Ring to rule them all

One Ring to find them

One Ring to bring them all

And in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie

J R R Tolkien

Having been rasied in the cultural centre of the universe--Liverpool, England--and having taught among the Gauls for 18 years in the South of France, I keep my eyes upon Europe.

In the UK, a new Government education policy require the teaching of "multiculturalism" is every subject. Multiculturalism takes many forms. . . . To the statement in a recent poll, "Religion is very important to me in my daily life," only 24% of the British responded positively--the next-to-lowest rate in the world. It turns out that there is hardly any faith for the Queen to defend. Easy job, great pay!

The lowest response came from the French at 23%. Most "religious" Frenchmen call themselves "Catholic", but only 52% of Catholics believe there is a God! Of those who do, around 80% believe that God is a "force" or "energy". And France has another pressing problem: no French babies. The "Nation" is not reproducing itself. Is there a relationship between physical reproduction and religious commitment?

Into this spiritual and demographic multicultural void gallops militant Islam--armed with both faith and babies.

The highest response (to the question about the importance of religion in daily life) came from the Egyptians (96%). This figure is very typical for Muslims, who also have the highest birth rate in Europe. Mohammed is the most popular name for new-born boys in Brussels, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam (and in the UK). By 2025, one third of all European children will be Muslim. Then we shall talk of Eurabia, because young Muslims are increasingly radicalised. While only 17% of British Muslims over 55 said they would prefer to live under sharia law in the land of the Magna Carta, 40% of their children under 24 want sharia to rule.

For French writer, Jean Raspail, the present social crisis is a clash between two definitions of France: "the Nation" (with its long history, biological identity and "Christian" religion) and "the Republic" (a political notion based on the secular "values" of democratic utopianism). A comparable clash occurs in Germany between the children of Luther and Bach (who produced the secular pluralistic state of modern Germany, but are no longer making little Luthers or Bachs) and the recent Turkish immigrants (many of who do not speak and do not with to speak German, but who produce little Turks).

A similar crisis is brewing in the USA, bwere two nations of America are in tension. One is "America the free" (freedom of speech and religion, which has become the natural domain of pluralistic secularism). The other is "America under God" (the belief that the American experiment depends on a constant appeal to "the Creator" and to the ethics of the Bible). The spiritual domain hs always been tacitly granted to Christianity, exercising, as if by divine right, though without a Queen, a sort of spiritual custodianship of the culture.

All that has changed! The tension has become a clash. Christianity has been weakened by the power of secularism and by rising religious paganism that demands equal spiritual custodianship of the nation and free political expression of its view. (We still await the arrival in force of Islam, though a congressman was recently sworn into office, hand on the Koran.)

Secularism, paganism and Islam all have their sights on a this-worldly social victory. Christians have a more complicated stance, with one foot in the kingdom of this world, and one in the kingdom of Christ. This dual-citizenship frees them in this world to stand for truth and justice, have babies, build churches as signs of the coming kingdom of the transformed universe, and live for Christ, whatever the cost . . . .

One day Christians may be jailed in the brave new world of once "Christian" Albion--with no help from the Queen. But eventually they will live free forever in the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic Kingdom of Christ, with those from every nation and tongue who honour Jesus as Lord of lords and King of kings.