I detest the policies of the BNP. ‘Scum’ might just about be the word. Believing in a God who loves all peoples, who sent his Son to bring redemption to all, a Son in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek nor any other distinction, I have no doubt that the BNP’s message is fundamentally anti-Christian. Just when I didn’t think they could be any worse, they had the gall to identify themselves with Jesus as unfair recipients of persecution in recent advertising.
So you can imagine I was as horrified as many others yesterday to read that they had won two seats in the European Parliament. It has to be one of the worst days in modern British public life. And I understand why thousands, if not millions, have raised their voices, sharing a similar horror at this outcome.
But I am worried, too, by the patronising tone of some criticism. There is a decidedly middle class lecturing slant to some of it. We presume to tell those who voted for this evil party what they should and should not do. And one thing we ought to know by now is that lecturing is an unwelcome stance in British politics. You want to harden an opponent in their beliefs? Go ahead and lecture them. Don’t bother to examine their fears, however unfounded you might consider them to be. Because unless you deal with the fears in some way, they will take upon themselves the ‘persecuted’ label that the BNP sought for itself in its propaganda.
I think I saw my anxieties best described by Bishop Pete Broadbent in this quote on Twitter:
What happens with protest votes is that they go to the most likely opponent. Working class whites do BNP; others do Green/UKIP
What can we do to listen to the fears of working class people who have been driven into the arms of the BNP by mainstream parties whom they clearly feel do not represent them? The middle classes will doubtless argue it is not fair to compare their fleeting affairs with UKIP or the Greens with the BNP, because they are more ‘moral’ parties. Is there a touch of superiority complex going on?
You certainly notice smugness in other comments on yesterday’s results. I’ve lost touch of how many Labour Party representatives put the drastic collapse in their vote just down to their supporters staying at home. Of course, they couldn’t imagine voting for anyone else, could they?
Can we set an agenda in response to yesterday that adopts a tone of humility? Is there still any chance of that in British politics? I know Gordon Brown admitted to some mistakes when he spoke to the Parliamentary Labour Party yesterday evening, but even then you have to wonder whether those were the words of a master political fighter pulling every trick to hang onto his job.
Or are things less bad than I think? What say you?
Big Circumstance 
Well, ‘scum’ is it? ‘Evil Party”?
Would you use these words for Afro-centric or third world nationalist parties in Britain?
Many Whites love our race and prefer our children to remain White. While, believe it or not, bearing no ill-will or hatred for non-whites, in fact wishing them well.
We simply don’t want to be disenfranchised, ‘ethnically cleansed’ (driven from our homes through violence), and racially ‘disappeared’. And, you are correct, we do not wish to be lectured to by hypocrites.
I won’t bother to stand on a soap box and proclaim my Christianity, but since you brought it up, yes, I do accept Jesus as my Lord, and strive to do the right thing first.
But I fail to see what is right about Whites being persecuted.
I support the BNP.
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Esteban,
I deplore racism in all its forms. And I stand by my judgment about the BNP. The Gospel proclaims that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female in Christ. The Cross of Jesus brings reconciliation not only between individuals and and God, but also between parties.
I don’t mind anybody loving their culture, but in any case who or what is white? How far do you go back in someone’s family tree? What happens if you trace yourself back down the centuries and your ancestors came from a European nation that invaded these shores?
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Mr. Faulkner,
Thank you for responding.
I do not call you ‘scum’ nor ‘evil’ because we may not agree on how to bring peace and prosperity to our society.
I see you fall back to the ‘what is white?’ argument which I find quite silly. You have a beautiful family, if I may say so, and I would have no difficulty finding you and yours among a crowd in Calcutta or Zimbabwe.
Sadly, you remind me of people I met who lived in the Rocky Mountains of the United States, surrounded by snow-covered peaks who never noticed the beauty around them, simply taking it for granted.
Finally, whose shores are being invaded these days, and by whom?
God bless you, and may He help us all.
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Esteban,
Thank you for your response. I believe, nevertheless, that the BNP’s policies are based on fear and hatred, and for that reason as well as the verse from Galatians I quoted in my earlier response, I find them deeply unChristian.
Forgive me, but I do not understand your Rocky Mountains comparison. Please feel free to comment again to expand on it.
God bless you.
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When people fear, you could ask yourself if the fear is warranted. It is a survival mechanism after all. Why should people (whites, or anyone) be driven from their homes simply on account of race? When your friends, family, or neighbors are attacked by race haters, fear is not an unreasonable reaction.
When you, and your family and/or friends suffer from loss of employment and diminished opportunities because of some discrimatory ‘affirmative action’ scheme it’s not unreasonable to feel resentful. Perhaps even to join a party such as the BNP!
When your nation’s sustainability and ecology, it’s charm and cultural uniqueness, is threatened by countless uninvited immigrants is it ‘hateful’ to feel alarm?
Now hatred of course is counterproductive, and sinful. But please reserve some of your criticism for non-white haters and racists, of which there are plenty.
And perhaps you should examine your heart to see if those are vestiges of hate that led you to call BNP supporters ‘scum’.
I’m sure you are a good and honest man, that’s why I’m not angry with you, just dismayed.
The reference to the mountains means simply – I don’t think you know how fortunate you are, or what you stand to lose. You wouldn’t love your family any less if they were not white, and you may not love your country any less if it resembled Zimbabwe, but something very fine would have been lost.
Certainly we are called to be brothers to all, and love our neighbors as ourselves. Maybe Jesus will come to us as a black man, or an old Indian widow, but I don’t think He will take our homes from us, create ‘no-go’ areas, harm our children or take our livelihood away and disenfranchise us.
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Esteban,
I am not an advocate of affirmative action, for the record. Furthermore, in the first two sentences of my post I make it clear that I attach the word ‘scum’ to the policies of the BNP.
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Tibetans want to preserve everything Tibetan. No doubt that’s OK with Dave Faulkner. Some Brits want to preserve everything British, and that make them scum, according to Dave’s racist anti-white philosophy.
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Ridiculous, Ralph. I have no problem with valuing British culture. I have every problem with that being used as a violent battering ram against those of a different culture. All cultures have good and bad in them. We should celebrate the good and weed out the bad of all cultures.
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Dave Faulkner. Husband. Dad. Methodist Minister. Pseudo-geek. Music lover. Bigot.
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Since when is it bigoted to care about people other than from your own background?
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When you condemn people you don’t know and have never met, by callimg them ‘scum’.
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I repeat: I didn’t call people scum, I called the BNP’s policies scum.
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An interesting article, and one that exposes a lack of imagination in the lower middle classes that oppose voices such as the BNP. (By lower-middle classes, I mean those who serve as a negotiating class between “elite” figure-heads and the working and lower classes— such as those who are non-business class, the ministers, teachers, social workers, health care workers who “inform people of what their values should be,” etc.) It’s interesting to see someone from that social/economic class —this author— grapple with a fissure in the basic premise he’s been told to teach the public (we are equal in the eyes of God, something many would agree with), and then the fact that his church is not going to “save souls,” but rather exclude those who see some other reality, (rather than take the tack of Jesus, and seek to understand). In reality, non-Christian forces are gaining hegemony, and are using the ‘equal before the eyes of God’ idea to do so—and the minister is caught in the conundrum (besides which, he’s paid by the “Powers that Be,” not Jesus, lol, so in order to provide he’ll say what he’s told to do, one imagines). Overseas, the developments in Britain, and the funny grappling with it among those who seem not very politically savvy is interesting to watch. The BNP is, at least, onto the idea that factions other than Christians USE basic beliefs to undermine their targets. The ministers, generally, seem very limited in understanding. If they are being undermined —even if cherished beliefs are used to do it— and the end game will be the dismantling of Christian values, more broadly (and the secularization of them for various other agendas), should the church go along? At what point, if any, does the secular-power structures agenda necessarily collide with the church? The Episcopals got cooked this way, and simply are ceasing to exist.
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Anna,
An interesting response. Some brief responses:
1. Where do you get the idea I am grappling with the fact that [my] church is not going to “save souls”? On the contrary, please re-read the beginning of my third sentence in the post.
2. In what sense am I paid by the “Powers that Be,” not Jesus? That is factually untrue. My stipend comes from the giving of my congregations, not from any State body.
3. Are you sure that the tack of Jesus was to seek to understand? I suggest he understood already. Furthermore, when he confronted evil, he didn’t say, “Let me just try to understand you.”
4. Where I agree with you is about the advance of non-Christian philosophies. I would suggest that equality and that contemporary buzz word, ‘inclusion’, are sometimes used in discriminatory ways against Christians. Yet however much people who oppose my beliefs do that and distort a Gospel value, that should not stop me trying to hold that belief in as faithful and authentic way as I can muster with the help of the Holy Spirit.
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oh boy…..
Dave……I really feel for you on this topic…..
Now, I’ve only gone so far as to visit the BNP site and read their immigration policies as stated there.
My wife and I often talked about this sort of thing…..it has always seemed to us that one can readily tell when a topic is not approached from a perspective of “God is in charge”. I have to agree with you that their radical policies regarding immigration are fear-based, and an argument for hatred could be made also. As Christians, we are in fact called to accept all, and to treat all equally. I truly cannot see how the BNP immigration policy fits into this. (I’m only commenting on that part because that’s all I’ve read so far.)
If one truly believes that God is sovereign, and that all races are equal in his eyes, then the BNP’s view of immigrants is definitely anti-Christian.
I’m not qualified to speak much more on the distinctly British aspects of this topic, as I have never lived there. But I can’t help but agree your basic premise in your post.
Run the race with perseverance, Dave.
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Thanks for the encouragement, Owen. I understand that some people are driven by fear, but that is a dangerous motive for a Christian (‘perfect love drives out all fear’), and certainly hatred has to be out of bounds, even if we are the wronged party (and I think the BNP and their ilk can be selective on that one).
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Dave, I applaud your efforts to share your convictions, while doing your best to live up to your calling. The “be in the world but not of the world” we are called to do as Christians is difficult most times, but especially when speaking out about an issue such as this.
It’s so frustrating to me that those who are not Christians (and some who are, which is more baffling) seem so concerned with things of this world, such the BNP, who is concerned that the “indigenous British” will become an “ethnic minority”. I don’t understand why the people who adopt this mentality cannot just be grateful that people still exist (that we all haven’t been exterminated!), and try to help others in more productive and substantial ways. The color of a person’s skin and their ethnicity really should not matter, ever. It is a fact of life that sometime in the future, whites will be a minority. Big deal. No one race is better than any other. Given the tenor of their policies, I share your belief that this group is anti-Christian, and it’s concerning that anyone who professes to be a Christian would subscribe to such beliefs. To do so is clearly divisive, and against what we are called to do and be by Jesus.
God Bless you as you continue to fight the good fight!
~Eileen
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Eileen,
Thank you for your kind words. Despite what some of my critics above may think, I have lived in a variety of places during my life. Although I currently reside in a largely white, middle class area, I have spent more than half of my life in urban and/or inner city areas with high ethnic minority populations and some of the social tensions the BNP tries to exploit. I nevertheless reject their approach wholeheartedly. I recall as a child seeing my father, whose lifelong politics have been right of centre but who has always abhorred racism in all its forms, tear down fly posters for the National Front, an earlier racist party. He commented that we had fought a world war to conquer those views.
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David, I am unconvinced by your protestations of innocence, as the tern ‘scum’ is commonly used by the unwashed Antifascist rent-a-mob and the gutter press to describe BNP personnel not BNP policies. However I’ll let that pass. What concerns me more is your lack of knowledge of the real reasons why people are voting for the BNP,
Contrary to what you state in your original post, it’s not because they feel mainstream parties do not represent them. It’s much more complex than that. Here are just a few I can think of off the top of my head:
Having to exist and live your daily life in one of the multicultural cess-pits that some of our inner cities have become. (I don’t know which leafy suburb you inhabit – but I bet you only hear the sound of church bells, not the yowling from the loudspeakers on the local mosque at all hours of the day and night, and I bet you don’t have to endure the stink of curry every day either).
Seeing your hard-earned money taken off you and used to keep ‘asylum seekers’ and other spongers in idle luxury.(When I was doing social surveys for various Government departments I spoke to a family of asylum seekers. They had a colour tv, phone, and computer,all free. The kids even had a Playstation! By all means give them food and shelter, but do we have to provide them with luxuries that British families have to scrimp and scrape to provide for themselves?)
Having to endure a workplace environment in which you have to watch every move you make for fear of offending one of your ethnic minority colleagues, and seeing those same colleagues promoted above you to conform to ‘quotas’,and if they are not promoted, suing for discrimination, and indeed playing the race card at every opportunity.
Watching your local council lavish money on Asian areas of the town; sandblasting and renovating properties, relaying pavements, installing new street lighting and even hanging baskets, whilst the White areas of the town fall into neglect, with people stumbling over broken pavements, and rat-infested boarded-up houses being set on fire by vandals. (The cause of the Burnley riots – and yes, I was there).
Realising that the main reason people who are persecuted in their own countries travel thousands of miles across safe countries to seek asylum in the UK is to reap the benefits of our over-generous welfare system and to live on the backs of the British taxpayer.
(Actually not all asylum-seekers are freeloaders. I spoke to one man who had a job offer but was not allowed to have a work permit. Crazy or what?)
Watching criminals go free, or enjoy life in the lap of luxury in holiday camp prisons, thanks to their so-called ‘human rights’ whilst victims seem to have no rights whatsoever. (I interveiwed an ex-prisoner, not long released fom jail, who told me: ‘I’m going to do a blag and get sent down for Christmas. we have a great time inside, they put shows on and a full Xmas dinner!).
Sometimes I wonder if all this is designed to get people’s backs up. More likely the powers that be are so bound up in their own red tape, hamstrung by their own ‘race’ and ‘hate’ laws and the ‘Human Rights Act’, but whatever the situation, the ordinary man in he street is getting fed up, and is looking for somone or some organistation with the guts to stand up and address some of the problems that are affecting his daily life,and equally important, his pocket, and the main parties don’t even admit there is a problem.
At the end of the day, Christian charity and compassion for the persecuted is all very well, but given the fact that the number of taxpayers (whose money it is that pays for everything these people get) is dwindling at an alarming rate, isn’t it time to call a halt?
I’m willing to bet that you have had a sound education which has equipped you with the capacity to fully appreciate the joys of differing cultures and the wherewithal to live as far away from them as possible. That’s why you don’t understand what other people have to put up with, and why they are turning to the BNP scum. Thankfully, scum always rises to the top.
I don’t think people like you know what’s happening to this country – but maybe when all the church bells are silent, and the only call to prayer is from the mosques on every street corner then, only then, might you just think that maybe the BNP was right after all. But of course then it will be too late.
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As I said in reply to someone else, I have spent more than half my life in urban or inner city areas, even if at present I don’t. I grew up in urban multi-racial London, in an area now known colloquially as ‘Skank Town’. I have also lived in inner city Manchester and the Medway Towns in Kent, which is predominantly (including where we lived) pretty rough.
I don’t deny there are problems with the welfare system and so on, but let’s suppose there is anti-white discrimination. Certainly it does occur in places; that much I agree with you. However, I can’t accept that the reverse as a solution is equally acceptable. Also, while there are some of the abuses of the asylum system that you describe and these should be addressed, there is another side to that, too, where legitimate asylum seekers are being sent back to countries where they will face persecution and death.
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But you haven’t answered my question. With the economy in freefall, unemployment rising daily, and Brown-the-Clown having bankrupted the country,
who is going to pay to keep all these asylum-seekers – genuine or not? And how is your church going to halt the insidious spread of Islam? Are you just going to roll over and capitulate like our spineless government who watches them abusing our homecoming soldiers and does nothing?
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So we should just send people back to face torture and death, or for that matter, anyone of a particular ethnic origin, in order to save money? Yes, we have difficult economic decisions to make, and I don’t happen to agree with the idea of recklessly spending in order to get out of trouble, which – as far as I can understand – seems to be what Brown and Darling have done. I would seek cuts in other areas of public spending.
And no, I don’t believe the church should roll over and capitulate as some religious people do, who take what is crudely called the ‘all religions lead to God’ approach. However, I don’t see the church as some kind of religious police force, which is what your question might be taken to imply. Our rôle is to promote the Christian Gospel, believing (however unpopular this might be) that Jesus Christ is the only way to God, through his atoning death on the Cross. That’s something we rightly can only promote, not force on people.
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Mr Faulkner, why I respect your opinion I must ask, which of the BNP’s policies are “scum”?
I support the BNP because they are the only political group who looks out for the indigneous British population. Under Labour we have seen taxes rise, British traditions criminalised, an influx of immigration, a rise in crime, the NHS struggling to cope, a rise in unemployment and British cities turning into little more than 3rd world slums in parts.
Can you honestly say multi-culturism has worked?
Ethnic minorities make up a small percentage of the population and yet commit a large percentage of crimes. Areas in Britain that have large numbers of immigrants move in have a rise in unemployment and a rise in crime levels. Can you honestly say that immigration is not linked to this?
How about the foreign aid budget, is the BNP’s policies on the foreign aid budget as you put it “scum”? As in getting rid of the foreign aid budget, stop wasting money by sending it to third world countries and instead putting it into British needs such as the armed forces and the NHS.
How about the BNP’s policies in supporting the British troops? Our troops are living in squalor whilst illegela immigrants and terrorist symphasisors live in excellant accomodation.
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Yuffie,
Before I respond directly to you, let me say how curious I find the pattern of comments on this post. I published this on 9th June. Suddenly in the last week, after there being no comments whatsoever, it comes alive, mostly with a succession of BNP sympathisers. It’s hard to avoid the thought that what is happening here is less about genuine debate and more about an orchestrated campaign.
Now in direct response, firstly do not assume I am a Labour Party supporter. I am not. I am happy to declare my hand as a floating voter. I agree and disagree with Labour on a variety of issues. In fairness, I think I should take some of your specific examples and say that crime has risen under various administrations. Unemployment increased, and – arguably – the NHS was under strain during the last Conservative government.
We have to ask why crime is higher in certain locations. Historically, immigrant groups have tended to gather first in poorer areas, usually out of economic necessity. Look at the history of east London as a prime example. However, such areas have historically been locations of higher crime rates anyway. Some (although obviously by no means all) of that depends on what you criminalise in law, given that some have argued that laws are stacked in favour of the rich. Furthermore, some of those crimes constitute the violence and harassment directed at ethnic minorities. Having said that, yes, of course some immigrants are criminals too, and yes I am aware that some have been known to go around in gangs. I witnessed some eastern Europeans doing that when I lived in inner city Kent before moving here. Without in any way condoning that – it is absolutely wrong – we also should remember the existence too of white gangs, and the fact that our legal system already provides for foreign nationals to be deported after conviction and sentence.
As for slashing the foreign aid budget, absolutely not, when there are millions elsewhere in the world living in far worse conditions, not least the extraordinary percentage of the world’s population that lives without access to proper sanitation and safe water, to take one example. I believe a society can be judged on how it treats the poorest and most vulnerable, and in a global village everyone is our neighbour. Yes, there is a genuine problem with how that aid is directed, to keep money out of the hands of the corrupt, and it could and should be targetted better to agencies that could prevent that evil. Yet white westerners can hardly be held up as paragons of virtue in contrast. I just need to raise the issue of the banking crisis and of figures like Bernie Madoff to make my point.
I do agree that some of our troops live in dreadful conditions, and that is a national scandal. Addressing that is hardly unique to the BNP, though. However, while there may be isolated cases where illegal immigrants and terrorist sympathisers live in excellent accommodation, you know that isn’t the whole picture. Not when asylum seekers are prevented from working or claiming benefits.
I would make cuts elsewhere. There are areas of the NHS where I believe it provides services that cannot be justified under the general provision of health. Without getting into the whole debate, I am profoundly opposed to abortion in the vast majority of cases, for example. I would also slash our nuclear weapons arsenal, since I believe they contradict the principles of the Just War. Doubtless there are other areas where I would rein back Government spending if I had the power to do so (!), but those two areas are the first that occur to me.
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David,
I am not a BNP sympathiser. The party leader is a rogue, and the party itself is disorganised and beset by constant fallouts and conflict. Having said that, I will defend the BNP against unwarranted attack, for we need the BNP (much as your church needs the Devil) as a warning to the bunch of self-serving chancers who occupy Westminster at present. Their cartel is at last under threat, and unless they stop lining their own pockets and start serving the people who elected them they are in for a rude awakening.
I can never understand the mentality of people who will step over the homeless person in the street to go into Oxfam and donate to the welfare of someone 3000 miles away. Doesn’t charity begin at home? Don’t you ever think about the British pensioners who die from hypothermia every Winter ? If we ever put our own house in order THEN we can start to worry about the rest of the World.
Agreed, we should look after genuine asylum seekers, but a genuine asylum seeker is someone who escapes from persecution to the nearest safe country – not someone who treks for thousands of miles to sponge off the British taxpayer.
So you don’t have a problem with Islam then? Strange. Surely the Islamic stance on homosexuality qualifies for the word ‘scum’ or dare you not criticise our cuddly Moslem chums for fear of retribution?
Choose the BNP instead – an easy target – after all they can’t come after you on the back of race or hate laws can they?
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I’m interested in charity to whoever needs it, wherever they are. Charity begins with those in need, full stop.
I never said I had no problem with Islam. I fundamentally disagree with their account of who God is, what salvation is, and how to put the world right. For the record, I believe homosexual practice is wrong in the sight of God, but at the same time I deplore violence against gay people.
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Thank you David for engaging in civil debate. Goodbye, and may your God go with you.
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God bless you too, Anglegrinder. I am always happy if this blog has passionate but civil debate.
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Pastor Faulkner,
Let me say I do appreciate the tenor of this discussion. Respectful and good points made all around. Makes a person think. But this surprises me –
“…let me say how curious I find the pattern of comments on this post. I published this on 9th June. Suddenly in the last week, after there being no comments whatsoever, it comes alive, mostly with a succession of BNP sympathisers.”
How can you find it curious? You speak out on a controversial topic, then use words like “scum” and “evil”. Of course people are going to be talking about it.
And I don’t want to beat you around about but… how can a policy be “scum”? That doesn’t seem like a proper use of the language. (noted, my own imperfections!) Maybe you were just unthinkingly using words for shock effect?
People don’t want to be dismissed and marginalized, their opinions disregarded because you consider them ‘racist’. Can you even give me a definition of ‘racist’?
You sort of hinted that ‘race’ doesn’t exist (that old dodge!) when in fact it is very obvious.
I agree that supremacism and hate are bad things, but is it so terribly ‘evil’ for someone to wish their children to marry ‘white’, to wish for grandchildren that look like ‘English’ children and not Ugandans or Aborigines? Is that ‘racist’?
Is it ‘evil’ to resist Islamification and dhimmitude? Is it ‘evil’ to support limited immigration and sustainability?
I agree with you that “we are all one in Christ”. I hope I would be a good Samaritan and even “love my neighbor as myself”.
But this does not mean to me that I should let 100 immigrants into my home and have my wife and children reviled and kicked out into the street.
Surely there is a better way. Help us find it!
Pastor Dave! Think things through!
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Dear Esteban,
Thank you for this response. I would not have been surprised at the level of debate, had it occurred around the time I posted this article. It seems strange for it to explode so many weeks after I wrote it. That is unusual in the world of blogging.
I called the BNP’s policies ‘scum’ as a measure of my revulsion at those policies. There may be an argument about using a better or different word, but that is what I meant to communicate.
I do not deny the existence of race. It plainly exists. But I would not use it to resist who I would want my daughter or son to marry when either is old enough. My prime concern would be that both my children become committed Christians, and that they also marry Christians, because I believe it is essential to share common values in a marriage. If they married a Christian from a different race or culture, I would not be horrified. This is not to minimise the fact that when people of different races or cultures marry, they should carefully explore before marriage the varying cultural values they bring to the relationship.
As for Islamification and dhimmitude, I agree there is a problem with the different ways in which Moslems interpret ‘dhimmi’ status. Sometimes it is interpreted graciously, but on other occasions brutally. Even at its best it is a concept that (insofar as I understand it) I would reject and denounce.
As for ‘limited immigration’, most of the major parties support this. But the BNP does not: if you read their policy on immigration you will see they want to ‘Stop all new immigration except for exceptional cases’. They would also ‘Offer generous grants to those of foreign descent resident here who wish to leave permanently’. Furthermore, ‘We will also clamp down on the flood of ‘asylum seekers’, all of whom are either bogus or can find refuge much nearer their home countries’, which makes it sound like they would not accept any asylum seekers here.
As for 100 immigrants in your home, kicking your family out, isn’t that a considerable overstatement? I expect you have a sense of fear, but please don’t overstate your case. It doesn’t help you.
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Esteban, when you write “is it so terribly ‘evil’ for someone to wish their children to marry ‘white’, to wish for grandchildren that look like ‘English’ children and not Ugandans or Aborigines? Is that ‘racist’?” try substituting “Aryan” for “English” and “Jewish” for “Ugandans or Aborigines”, and ask yourself what that looks like.
I have been to the BNP website. I have read some of their pulications. I have listened to some of their speakers. Yes, I can see how they touch on the real fears of poor white communities, and how they deliberately pick up and play upon dissatisfactions about Europe – I do understand how attractive they may be to some, and how they appear to represent those who feel alienated by the main political parties. But I also recognise the underlying ideology as Nazism. I have read extensively in the history of the Third Reich, including the relationship of the churches to the regime: most Chrisians felt Hitler was a good thing, and supported him, because he made similar promises to them to those made by the BNP to alienated and threatened white English people. There are differences, because the conext has changed since 1930s Germany, but there are too many similiarities – and there really is no difference between the BNP ideology of racism, nationalism and superiority, and that of Hitler’s party. I fail to see how any Christian can support that kind of evil.
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Mr. Buglass,
You must read my words as written, I could rearrange and change yours also to make a point – but that would prove nothing one way or the other.
I think you are projecting your anxieties and fears, and thereby blinded.
I reviewed the BNP website once again – I see nothing there of ‘superiority’ and any ‘racism’ you perceive is quite dependent on your own personal definition of ‘racism’. As we know, many people shout ‘racist’ or ‘nazi’ to simply and cheaply discredit someone they disagree with, instead of actually thinking over the facts of the matter.
A tactic indicative of a closed and small mind. I would expect more of you.
I fail to see that ‘nationalism’ is necessarily bad in itself – certainly no more than the well-documented excesses of ‘internationalism’.
Rather than nazism, I believe in self-determination for all (including whites – shocking!) – and democracy, which had it prevailed many of the current problems in the UK would never have happened in the first place.
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Dave,
“As for 100 immigrants in your home, kicking your family out, isn’t that a considerable overstatement? I expect you have a sense of fear, but please don’t overstate your case. It doesn’t help you.”
Could you tell me at what point you would support an end, or a drastic reduction, in immigration from the third world?
If you cannot give me a number or a percentage, then what I wrote is not an overstatement.
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I can’t give you a number or percentage, because I’m not a professional demographer. But what worries me about your latest statement is that you refer to ‘an end, or a drastic reduction, in immigration from the third world‘ (emphasis mine). Why the third world? Why not Europe?
Which brings me to the fact that I overlooked in my last response to reply to your request for a definition of racism. Here it is from the Collins Concise English Dictionary:
‘1. The belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority. 2. Abusive or aggressive behaviour towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief.’
Does this definition connect with your concern only to end or drastically reduce third world immigration?
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“You must read my words as written”
You miss the point. It is not what you say that counts, but what people hear. Ask any preacher.
“I reviewed the BNP website once again”
Yes, so did I. It’s a very nice ‘front window’ isn’t it? Addressing the issues people want to see addressed, in nice words which touch the urgency of their fears but hide the ideological background. I’ve heard plenty of clips of Griffin and company, they’ve been around for a long time – I remember nasty anti-Semitic comments, arguments that England is only for the Anglo-Saxons and Celtic races (if that isn’t ‘master race’ ideology, I don’t know what is); some of the current leadership, including one of the new MEPs, were part of the leadership of the National Front, no matter how much they want to distance themselves from that and pretend to be reasonable now. It’s a smokescreen.
“I fail to see that ‘nationalism’ is necessarily bad in itself ”
Justify it from the New Testament. And account for it in terms of Gal.3:28 – “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek”; and the parable of the good samaritan – Jesus answered the question about neighbour by setting up every barrier of language, race, nation, and religion, and saying they don’t count. Sorry, pal, but this will simply not do: the Christian gospel will not support nationalism, but tends to internationalism – not ‘lowest common denominator” uniformity, or whatever you have in mind as “excesses”, but the richness of our diversity living together in harmony in Christ.
“A tactic indicative of a closed and small mind.”
You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. Such ad hominem demeans you, and suggests that you’ve already lost the argument. I’m disappointed in that. Please address the actual issues, rather than shooting at the one who raises them, and does so from many years of experience and study, or reducing them to caricatures – such as ” 100 immigrants in your home, kicking your family out”.
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My dear, dear Mr. Buglass,
I must really thank you for your response, it encourages me to think more deeply, and it is not always one has the pleasure of being so challenged and seeing things from another’s perspective. It’s really not an ‘argument’, is it? That sounds so nasty.
If I offended you with my comment about a ‘small and closed mind’, please forgive me, I really meant no disrespect. I was offended by your words as well, what were they – ‘racist’, ‘nazism’?
I don’t understand why nationalism upsets you so. Isn’t it true that ‘internationalists’ such as Lenin, Mao tse Tung, and Josef Stalin are responsible for more deaths than any number of ‘nationalists’? Deaths, intentional famine, forced migration, political prisons, persecution of religion, these are the ‘excesses’ I speak of.
Nationalists have also failed, just as we all have, due to our imperfections.
But always,the forms of our earthly government are much less important than what is in our hearts.
We know, you and I and Pastor Faulkner, what is needed in this sad world is Christ in our hearts, which leads to love and compassion toward others.
Which I find lacking not only in myself but in you also. I just can’t understand why you feel you must vilify and demonize the good people in the BNP. These are honest people with voices that need to be heard and valid concerns that need to be addressed. Do you not understand they want also to create a better world for all, only differing from you in the means they think are best? If they have failings, do you not? Will you complain of their poor vision when it may be that you yourself are blind? ‘Evil’, ‘superiority’, ‘nazi’, comparing the BNP to Hitler’s Third Reich,…. are these not hateful words which encourage violence against BNP members? Is this your “…richness of our diversity living together in harmony..”? Speak up, disagree – and be vilified, ridiculed, marginalized, perhaps murdered?
I’ve known true racists and haters, count yourself lucky the BNP are so civil and polite.
Now I take no pleasure in argument for it’s own sake, nor do I enjoy as many do comparing Bible verses in order to validate cherished opinions and preconceptions. But you ask me to justify my statement re: nationalism by demanding “Justify it from the New Testament”.
Personally I would be a poor choice to do so, maybe the best I can do right now is to refer you here http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/1026.htm.
‘Living together in harmony with Christ” as you put it, would certainly require us to respect boundaries – personal and political. It does not mean I allow my family and nation to be disposessed and harmed. Nor does it give me the right to harm others. What right would I have to literally take anothers livelihood and homeland from them? What gives them the right to take mine? Peace requires justice. Who voted for allowing millions of immigrants into Britain? Why does it continue during such difficult times, when jobs are scarce and social services are failing?
Finally (thankfully?), I must take my leave. I never wanted to monopolize this discussion, and I’m finding it really is a test of my humility. I am not a spokesperson for the BNP, and not really good at it. I had intended to stop posting, yet here I am again! It’s a tiresome and dreary task for me. Let others speak for and against as they may.
And Mr. Buglass, may God’s peace be upon you – there is no anger in my heart whatsoever towards you. I am sorry if I did offend you. I just had to speak out – all voices must be heard.
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Well, before you go, Esteban, consider the words of George Santayana – those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I used words like nazi because what is happening with the BNP is precisely what happened in Germany in the 1930s. Good ordinary people, including many Christians, sought remedies for the serious problems besetting their lands. They were hoodwinked and hijacked by the national socialialists, who like the BNP offered what appeared on the surface to be reasonable solutions but without revealing the ideological substructure on which they built. The rest is history. The lessons to be learned include the challenge to the prevailing middle-class view that religion and politics can be kept separate.
As for Stalin and company being ‘internationalists’ – well, no. They were totalitarian tyrants, using an ideology for their own ends. Soviet Russia was never truly socialist – indeed, Karl Marx himself would have rejected a great deal of what was done in his name. If you follow left-wing communism and right-wing fascism off into their extremes, you find they both go round the back of the circle and meet at the back to become indistinguishable. There was practically no difference between the power-structures of Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany, and Stalin was responsible for the deaths of far more people than Hitler. But that was an issue of power, not ideology, and certainly nothing to do with internationalism.
“We know, you and I and Pastor Faulkner, what is needed in this sad world is Christ in our hearts, which leads to love and compassion toward others.
Which I find lacking not only in myself but in you also.”
As I said before, you know nothing about me. I have been a Christian for 38 years, and was ordained 27 years ago. My life and ministry would give sufficient evidence of my love and compassion, including towards those who do not share my faith. It does not mean I have to accept that everything is acceptable because others believe it. My Bible includes prophets like Amos, who had very hard words indeed to say to those who did not live the way God’s people should. My Jesus was not always meek and mild, but could be very hard on those who hid behind an ideological or religious smokescreen. He makes me very uncomfortable sometimes! But I follow him, and try to be faithful to what he wants. Which means I can never accept any dehumanising ideology, of left or right.
Vaya con Dios, Esteban. Go where he leads – into light, peace and truth.
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