The censorious self-righteousness of Imam Qari Asim MBE
Imam Qari Asim MBE (for services to inter-faith relations and the community in Leeds) was sacked last week by Michael Gove as a Government advisor on Islamophobia. The principal reason…
Muslims
The Salman Rushdie fatwa is reflected in every banned book and no-platforming
The fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie in 1989 was a death sentence. His crime, according to Ayatollah Khomeini, was to insult Mohammed and mock Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses. And for this alleged blasphemy, the Ayatollah called on…
‘The Lady of Heaven’ is Islam’s ‘Life of Brian’ moment
'The Lady of Heaven' is currently being pulled from cinema chains because it is considered 'blasphemous' by certain Muslims. They have a perfect right to protest, of course: this is…
Negative media about the Church outweighs the good news
A Christian PR agency has been weighing the media, and found it wanting. They have discovered that, on average, the Church attracts 150 pieces of negative media coverage every month…
Lord Pearson condemned as Islamophobic – for discussing the fear of Islam
"New: The @MuslimCouncil have criticised Lord Pearson's remarks during the debate on Afghanistan in the House of Lords yesterday, saying he has consistently used his privileged position to 'promote divisive…
3,462 Nigerian Christians hacked to death by jihadists — don’t these black lives matter?
When one black man was killed in the US, the cry of "I can't breathe" reverberated round the world – or at least the Western world – and 'taking the…
Khalid Mahmood MP: Labour has been captured by “woke social media warriors”
Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, actually resigned from the Opposition Front Bench a few weeks ago, though nobody noticed until he launched an astonishing broadside against his…
David Lammy and the anti-Empire racism of religious illiteracy
When it transpired recently that thousands of black and Asian soldiers who died fighting for the British Empire had been 'unequally' commemorated in death, the absence of headstones and other…
Sharia certainties and woke certitude cry out for reformation
This is a guest post by Mike Stallard, who has been in education all his life, and is now retired. Reza Aslan is an Iranian who lives in USA.…
Guardian ‘reveals’ Amy Coney Barrett is Roman Catholic (and takes her faith seriously)
The Guardian has revealed that Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, is Roman Catholic. Quite why they have only just cottoned on to this is something…
BBC censors Sikh history in case it offends Muslims
Lord (Indarjit) Singh has been almost as permanent a fixture on BBC Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day' as the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines. The BBC likes a certain…
Islamophobia definition creates a backdoor blasphemy law: it will be used to outlaw all criticism of Islam
Published below is an open letter to the Home Secretary Sajid Javid concerning the definition of 'Islamophobia' which has been proposed by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims.…
Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the transgender-inculcated person
'Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man' is a Jesuit maxim attributed to Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society…
Christophobia: Met Police arrest street preacher and confiscate his Bible
Over the weekend a Christian street preacher was arrested outside Southgate tube station, London N14. It is reported that he was being 'Islamophobic', but what preceded the encounter with the…
Pope Francis: God willed the Reformation and the Church of England
Pope Francis went to Abu Dhabi this week to meet the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, which is good and pleasant. No doubt the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church…
Rev’d Jonathan Aitken calls the nation to pray for Parliament
From The Times' 'Credo' column yesterday, by the Rev'd Jonathan Aitken, reproduced here with permission: After a seismic week of political and constitutional upheavals at Westminster, might this be a…
Four-day week: mandatory indolence or an interfaith ‘sacred weekend’?
When Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell mooted imposing a four-day week on the British economy (that is, a four-day working week; Labour has no plans to re-calibrate or 'modernise' the solar…
Trump to Europe: “You are losing your culture”
While the media pore over Donald Trump's interview with the Sun, focusing on the possibility a post-(soft) Brexit US/UK trade deal ("..it will probably kill the deal") and Boris Johnson…
Iftar in the Cathedral is exactly what the Queen (and Jesus) would want
If it had been called 'Tea & Chapatis' no-one would have batted an eyelid. But the meal had an upper-case Islamic name – Iftar – and it involved Arabic food:…
Met Police confirm that criticism of Islam constitutes ‘Islamophobia’
The Metropolitan Police Service report 'Hate Crimes against London's Muslim Communities' was published five years ago, and it outlines the everyday nature of Islamophobic incidents: The Islamophobic incidents reported to…