Someone once quipped ‘Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use’. As the terror in Iraq continues tonight with the murder of 34 children at the water treatment plant in Baghdad, it is fast becoming a cliché to expect people in the free world always to unite on a common resolve of never giving in to terrorism – no matter the cost. I read the full text of Tony Blair’s speech yesterday. It wasn’t his proposed 10 point plan that warmed me to his party, nor his comical dismissal of the Lib Dems, nor his reminder that we as a nation have undoubtedly enjoyed material changes under the Labour government. No, it was his candour and his insightful summation that the world faces a new, deeply rooted phenomenon – global terrorism, executed based on the perversion of the peaceful and honourable faith of Islam.
Yet last night, in the salubrious surroundings of a dining hall in Holborn, our very own Archbishop of Canterbury addressed a congregation of Alpha graduates, and praised them for taking risks, in the way they have re-branded and marketed Christianity to bring lost or confused souls back to God. I don’t pretend to fully understand the Alpha programme, but I am certain of this: all too often we blame religion (the lack or abundance of it) for the attrocities committed by those who have long swapped faith for guns, idealism for explosives, and forgotten when and why they had done so. And now, instead of WMD, we appear to be peddling WMC – weapons of mass communication. We need a logo/marketing plan like we need a bullet in the head!
Religion should always be personal, and never thrusted on anyone.
