In case you were wondering...

Sometimes, you have to spend several hours digging through different sources to piece things together. Sometimes, the BCSE just hand it to you on a plate.

Here is Roger Stanyard, the founder, de facto leader, and official spokesman, of the "British Centre for Science Education", posting over at RichardDawkins.Net and making a few things quite clear for us. Note that Stanyard is posting in his official capacity, beginning his post with "We at the British Centre for Science Education" and finishing with the tag-line, "Roger Stanyard, British Centre for Science Education". Read it through for yourself:

We at the British Centre for Science Education have done some estimates of the proportion of Christians in the UK who are fundamentalist (extremist if you like). A rough definition of extremism is that the accept Sola Scriptura as extended into all public domains. In English that means into science - creationism if you like.

On a head count of churches it is somewhere between 5% and 10% of all churches. In terms of individual believers it seems to be around 400,000 out of a regular church going population of 3.5-4 million.

However, it ain't no good asking people if they are fundamentalists. No matter how much they foam at the mouth about creationism and hell fire and brimstone, most of them will deny it.

Sadly, in any society there are a lot of authoritarian extremists. Seems to me that you only have to scratch a fundamentalist slightly and underneath they are all the same as hardline fascists, BNPers, white supremicists, Abu Hamza fans, Marxists, racists, homophobes, Trotskyites, Leninists, Maoists, Northern Ireland paramilitaries, KKKers - all birds of a feather.

They all have a 'worldview' that they want to impose on others without consent.

It is silly, though, to suggest all religious believers are of that ilk or that religion is the platform off of which extremism rides. It is like saying that communism is the natural outcome of the beliefs of people who are in the Labour Party or fascism of those in the Conservative Party. The overwhelming majority in both parties believe in liberal democracy, are pragmatic and not prone to authoritarian extremes. Same with religiou believers.

Roger Stanyard, British Centre for Science Education

(http://richarddawkins.net/articleCom...insnet,page1#82332)

Some pertinent questions and observations, for anyone who hasn't yet worked out what the BCSE are really about:

1. How is it that a purported centre for "Science Education" which pretends to operate independently of religious questions, is taking surveys to work out what percentage of Christians are "extremist"? Which branch of science, exactly, is this part of?
   
   
2. Why is the spokesman for a body which presents itself to its lobbying targets as a bona fide scientific institution with expertise in biological origins doing offering us definitions of religious extremism? What branch of biology is this from, please? Or have I missed something - maybe Mr. Stanyard has had his work published in a scientific journal somewhere? Because it looks to me like Stanyard's "science" is nothing other than his atheistic philosophy in a not-very-cunning disguise. My point is not that science and philosophy are separable fields; my point is that Mr. Stanyard's purports to have a scientific viewpoint which is free of all philosophical bias, which is clearly not the case.
   
   
3. Notice too how extremely broad Stanyard's definition of an extremist is - it includes 100% of classical Protestants, being defined by acceptance of the defining Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura - i.e. the belief that the Bible is the highest, unrivaled, authority - the belief that God exercises his own authority through speaking to us in the Bible. The phrase "Sola Scriptura" was coined at the time of the "Protestant" Reformation, to "protest" against the teaching that church, or the Pope, had an equivalent or greater authority than the Bible. According to Stanyard, though, this doctrine is the sina qua non of religious extremism. Has it occurred to Stanyard that whether or not a viewpoint is "extreme" or not also depends on where you are viewing it from? i.e., why is Mr. Stanyard so blind to his own anti-supernatural extremism?
   
   
4. Does not the comment "They [i.e. all classical Protestants] all have a 'worldview' that they want to impose on others without consent." indicate a severe personal antagonism against Christianity, which is the real driving force behind Mr. Stanyard's quest to pass himself off as a legitimate spokesman on science education? (Mr. Stanyard is a life long business consultant who has never been involved in science education or research at any level).
   
   This comment itself is self-contradictory; how can someone accept a view of the world without consenting to it? What does that mean? Or is Mr. Stanyard really saying that the Bible-based Christianity is really a brain-washing and mind-control program in a poor disguise? That Christian preachers are really would-be hypnotists? (Watch out - on this blog I'm not really trying to persuade you with rational arguments in these lines - my real aim is to reprogram your mind using pychadelic images which pop up when you're not expecting them! Wu-ha-ha!) It seems pretty clear that Mr. Stanyard has spent a long time drinking at the Dawkins fountain, because to him all efforts to persuade someone of a religious idea amount to brain-washing.
   
   
5. The BCSE's purported objectives are to prevent any criticism of Darwinism (which they believe is irrefutable truth) in 100% of public schools - even though the percentage of the public who pay for those schools and who share their certainty is very small. How, exactly, is this campaign of theirs different from "imposing a worldview without consent"? Is not the very raison d'etre of the BCSE to ensure that their own view is unchallenged, contrary to the beliefs of the public at large? Does the word "hypocrisy" figure in Mr. Stanyard's lexicon?
   
   
6. Does not the same comment also indicate a severe misunderstanding of Christianity? It is a "fundamental" belief with Christians that becoming a Christian is a supernatural event - the Holy Spirit applies truths to the mind and changes the heart. The method is through supernatural persuasion, as Christian truths are proclaimed. The idea of externally "imposing" on someone "without consent" is foreign to this way of thinking, and is effectively a denial of essential Christian truth claims - the claim that Christian conversion is a real, supernatural phenomena that involves all the immaterial faculties of the person - the rational mind included. That is why Christians like me blog, and author presentations - to persuade.
   
   
7. In other words, do not Mr. Stanyard's words provide more solid evidence for the case that "BCSE Revealed" has been making - that the BCSE is really a badly-disguised atheist/anti-supernaturalist crusade, run by people not with scientific or educational standing, but driven on by their own personal grudges? Mr. Stanyard has such a deep hatred of Biblical Christianity, that his prejudice prevents him from even describing it accurately - all he knows is that he hates it and wants you to do so too!
   
   
8. Notice, as we have continually pointed out on "BCSE Revealed", that Mr. Stanyard's chosen vocabulary is the standard vocabulary of campaigning anti-theists, such as Richard Dawkins. Stanyard poses some conspiracy or mystery as to why those who he calls "fundamentalists" do not themselves accept the label. The real reason is quite simple; the term "fundamentalist" has only two normal usages; in the religious world, it is used one to identify the sub-segment of American Baptists who hold to a number of particular beliefs who developed in the late 19th and early 20th century (distinctive beliefs which Mr. Stanyard's targets do not generally share), and the other is the usage by Dawkins et. al. to try to posit an equivalence between any consistent belief in supernaturalism and the maddest excesses of militant Islam.
   
   
9. Notice too, that Stanyard follows that second course - the Dawkins line. The "fundamentalists" are really "hardline fascists, BNPers, white supremicists, Abu Hamza fans, Marxists, racists, homophobes, Trotskyites, Leninists, Maoists, Northern Ireland paramilitaries, KKKers" in a poor disguise. Mr. Stanyard has forgotten to index for us the scientific paper which has the proof for all this laid out... either that, or he's again confused about the difference between actual science and his own metaphysical prejudices.
   
   
10. Mr. Stanyard is firstly apparently stumped at why someone convinced that God has spoken in the Bible would not want to accept the label "fundamentalist", and then secondly explains that a "fundamentalist" is basically the same thing as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, etcetera. Does Mr. Stanyard not possess enough grey matter to work out the answer to his own question?
    
    
11. Is there any science at all in Mr. Stanyard's screed? Do not Mr. Stanyard's comments rather bear out the thesis of many of us on the Internet that one of the major problems in the science concerning human origins (Darwinism, origin of life, etcetera), today, is that there are just too many dogmatists like Mr. Stanyard who start with the assumption that their own philosophy is correct and then seek to drown out any other voices?
    

Mr. Stanyard pretends on the BCSE's website that his organisation is religiously neutral. When he's doing something other than authoring that website, he tells us what he really things - that people who believe that God has spoken are all murdering mullahs at heart, and that the goal of scientific organisations it to oppose them. That's what the BCSE's there for - and that's what I'm here to reveal.

David Anderson

Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail (bcse-blog at dw-perspective dot org dot uk). Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Theocracy: Giving The Game Away

When the BCSE's founders were holding their pre-launch discussions, there was one thing they kept saying. The BCSE's ultimate aim is to save the UK from the threat of a theocracy.

But no, by that they don't mean Islamic Jihadists, or the like. They mean, those people from the local evangelical church. According to the BCSE, the real reason why people disagree with naturalism in its various forms is that it's part of a master-plan to abolish democracy...

In my mind, a somewhat surreal future scene floats before me. It is the year 2156, and the month is October. The people of the UK are gathering together to mark "Roger Stanyard day". They gather round busts of the BCSE's first leader in their town squares. Speeches are given. Toasts are made. The whole country is remembering that momentous day 150 years earlier, when the BCSE launched - and saved democracy! At the time, nobody realised that freedom was under such severe threat. But happily, a few alert Internet atheists spotted the danger - and saved our country! Here in the year 2007 we may presently be remembering evangelical Christian William Wilberforce, and his efforts to abolish the slave trade. But in future years, the world will toast Mr. Roger Stanyard - rabidly anti-evangelical, the saviour of democracy!

OK. That's just a bit ridiculous. But that's the point, isn't it? If the BCSE really are the guardians of our democracy...

Where We've Been

I've shown you plenty of quotes documenting this immense silliness. Here are a couple of reminders. BCSE committee member Timothy Chase:

As for their dishonesty, it runs very deep. When you consider what they are after -- indoctrinating students in science classes with a religio-political ideology intended to establish a theocracy ... well, I don't know what other word to use, I can only describe it as evil. [BlackShadow 1273]

and Chase again, suggesting an alternative name for the BCSE before it had picked its present title:

Science Education Coalition United Regarding Evolution

SECURE

... because we are defending education against the threat posed by creationism and creationist ideology, and both the UK and democracy against the threat of theocracy. The name would draw attention to the threat posed by what it is we are against. [BlackShadow 1506]

The front page of the BCSE's website presently carries words written by Mr. Roger Stanyard, committee member and de facto BCSE leader:

Moreover, the [creationist] movement includes extreme political objectives, one of which is the replacement of democracy with a theocracy based on its extreme religious opinions.

I have been documenting the BCSE's position on these issues - and the fairly obvious contradictions between such political/religious statements and the BCSE's statements that it is a non-political and non-religious organisation! For most people, statements like the ones above will be quite sufficient to mark the BCSE out as belonging to the Dawkinsian lunatic fringe of Internet atheism. That's why I blog - to point out who they really are.

Theocracy?

Most of my previous articles on this theme have arisen from a challenge I made to the BCSE - and their attempt to meet it. If those questioning Darwinism in the UK really are aiming for "the replacement of democracy with a theocracy" - if the BCSE isn't telling enormous falsehoods - then why don't they document it for us? Why not show us the evidence? Those listed on the BCSE's "Who is Who" page have produced a great number of books, tapes, leaflets, etc. between them. Please show us we can find this political program reflected!

In response, the BCSE put up a page on its website entitled "Theocracy". In the BCSE forum, its author, Dr. Brian Jordan, confirmed that it was a response to my challenge.

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3210#3210

I then proceeded to analyse the page, quote-by-quote. The main thing that came out was this: the BCSE have no evidence ffor its allegations. In case after case, we found that Dr. Jordan hadn't produced quotes that said anything about the replacement of democracy. He had produced quotes which in some way or other stated the truthfulness of Christianity - or disagreed with secular humanism.

The application to the political sphere, and the inference that therefore Christians ought to rise up against democracy, existed only in Dr. Jordan's head. It provided more evidence again that the main driving force of the BCSE's ideology isn't science, or education - it's to oppose the expression of authentic Christianity.

What's New?

The point of today's article is to point out that the BCSE have now taken a step which gives the game away.

After my series of articles on their "Theocracy" page had ended, they took a significant step. They re-named the page. It is now called: "The Theocratic Tendency".

http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/Theocracy

In that change, we see two significant concessions:

1. They have no evidence
   
   The front page of the BCSE's website continues to allege that the creationist movement in the UK is aiming for "the replacement of democracy with a theocracy".
   
   But where's the evidence? All the BCSE is now offering us is a few quotes in which Christians affirm Christianity - but say precious little about how this affects their political outlook, and nothing at all about any desire for a different system of government.
   
   So - we're back where we started. We have all these allegations from the BCSE - but nothing to back it up.
   
   Or in other words - the BCSE have again been caught out in making vacuous claims. And on issues which are their the reason for their very existence!
   
   
   
2. It Is About Christianity After All
   
   The BCSE now have a web-page (linked from every single page of their site) entitled "The Theocratic Tendency", containing quotes in which Christians affirm various tennets of historic Christianity - the supremacy of God, our duty to worship him, the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and Christ's return as judge at the end of the present age. This is what their page details: Christian doctrine.
   
   The BCSE have now implicitly admitted that these quotes do not explicitly advocate the replacement of democracy. They say next to nothing about politics. But now they have taken a new position - these quotes contain a "theocratic tendency".
   
   Or in other words - orthodox Christianity must be opposed, because its doctrines have theocratic "tendencies".
   
   The problem with evangelical Christianity, according to the BCSE, as that it isn't secular humanism. It doesn't agree that man is self-sufficient. It doesn't agree that man should act independently of God. It doesn't agree that whatever God there may be should be ignored, and all of public life should be carried out on stricitly non-religious principles. It tends towards the idea that man should bow the knee to his maker. Well, blow me down!
   
   To this charge, guv'nor, I, as a Christian must plead "guilty as charged". The Christian faith is indeed, not secular humanism. It has a tremendous amount to say about God, his rule, and our duty to him. All the following are statements which I believe to be true, and fundamental to a right view of the universe and ourselves. And I would love to debate them with anyone - providing that they're willing to admit what they're really debating about, and not do it under the pretence of being scientists or educators. Here are some key assertions of Christianity:
   
   
   • God is indeed God. He rules. Everything is under his authority.
     
     
   • Because God made us, that includes us. We live under his sovereign rule.
     
     
   • Because God made us, we owe him total obedience. The idea of human "freedom" to behave as we please, such that even God cannot forbid us, is atheistic bunk.
     
     
   • God has given everybody a conscience, as a testimony to the truth of these facts. We are unavoidably moral beings. Even atheists, when promoting atheism, usually do so by borrowing the tools of theism, and arguing that this or that religion is morally defective. Try as we might, we cannot get away from the centrality of moral law in the universe which God has made.
     
     Naturalism cannot explain this phenomena. We all act and behave as if morality is an undeniable fact - and when we do that, we testify that God is.
     
     
   • God could have damned us all for our wrong-doing... but instead, he has in mercy set up a kingdom of love - through Jesus Christ. Instead of sending his Son to condemn us, he sent his Son to save. God has now established the kingdom which will never end. This kingdom is the one which is ruled by God's Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is Lord, and rightful ruler of the entire cosmos.
     
     
   • Jesus Christ will one day judge both the living and the dead. God has proven this fact by raising him from the dead. (Yes, I know that in the news today a film-maker claims to have proved this false ... but please take the time to notice the contradictions between this year's new conspiracy theory and last year's... they can't both be true... and if this year's is true, next year's, which will also be contradictory, isn't...). Those who refuse God's offer of mercy and determine instead to continue in rebellion against their maker and against his Son's rule can only hope for eternal justice - which means eternal damnation.
     
     
   • The final rule of Jesus Christ is not yet established. It is established in principle - he is at the right hand of God. It is being established in practice gradually and inwardly, as people are persuaded to receive his gracious offer of free and full forgiveness for all of our wrong-doing and rebellion - and as their lives are changed into lives of love by his Holy Spirit.
     
     
   • The final outward form of Jesus' kingdom will indeed be outward, and total. It will be a theocracy! But that final outward form is explicitly not to be established by his followers using politics or any other outward means. It is not to be established until Christ himself returns and establishes it by his own power - not ours. Only prayer and persuasion - and these only - are our legitimate tools today. Christianity is radically different from Islam. Over 3,000 years ago the Israelite prophets prophesied that the nations of the world would come to worship the God of Israel, because of the coming Messiah. Today, the Christian message is spreading throughout the world, and people out of all countries are worshipping the God who first revealed himself to Israel - because of Jesus Christ. Coincedence? I think not!
     

Doesn't that sound like a "theocratic tendency" to you? Of course. Because God rules, whether we let him or not. Newsflash: Christianity is not secular humanism! For a time, God allows us to rebel - but he has set limits on that time. During that time, he opens wide his arms, and lovingly offers us a totally free pardon. What love! What kindness! He has been offended - but offers us grace. He, 2000 years ago, gave his own Son to the death of the cross, to bear the sentence the offence deserved, so that we can go free. We deserve damnation - but are offered freedom. But make no mistake - if we determine not to go free, his rule will remain.

This is orthodox Christianity. This is what you will find if you read the words of Jesus in the Bible. This is what you will find taught by the apostles in the New Testament. This is the consistent perspective of the Bible. This is what is affirmed in the historic creeds and confessions of the Christian church. This is Christianity. It is true. Millions of true Christians have relied upon it, and found Jesus Christ to be a wonderful friend - and a mighty Saviour.

The BCSE don't like it. It's not the secular humanism which they arrogantly insist everyone must conform to. They call it "the theocratic tendency".

But now they do that full-well knowing that their problem is not about "the replacement of democracy". Now, they do it full-well knowing that it is about their own resistance Jesus Christ. They oppose Christianity, because its tendency to teach that man is not the ultimate ruler - God is. They oppose Christianity, because it teaches that humanism is a false religious system that leads to misery and damnation. They oppose Christianity, because it teaches that however much we rebel against him, God still rules.

The mask has come off... the game has been given away.

I hope that the BCSE will be honest enough to stop pretending that their problem is with science. Their problem is with the claims of Jesus Christ. When they've stopped pretending - we can have a proper discussion. I'm all up for it.

David Anderson


I presume that none of my readers imagine that I think the above belongs in state school science lessons. I have to say that, because the BCSE's web-site is full of the following non-sequitor: 1) Mr. X makes scientific criticisms of Darwinism 2) Mr. X also believes certain religious doctrines 3) Therefore, Mr. X thinks that his religious doctrines should be taught in science lessons. Err, no.

BlackShadow posts have been pulled by the BCSE from the Internet. I am able to provide a copy to researchers - e-mail me.

Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Cognitive Dissonance

"Cognitive dissonance" is when you believe or proclaim two mutually exclusive things at once.

I suffer from cognitive dissonance when I arrange to do two different things on Tuesday evening, and don't spot the clash until too late. All through the day, I'm looking forward to one or the other... and never quite twig until the evening comes that I can't do both.

There is a high degree of cognitive dissonance in the BCSE's proclamations. Let's take a look.


Science - Nothing Else!

Sometimes, the BCSE is especially keen to make sure we know that it is absolutely, definitely not anything other than a purely scientific organisation.

This line gets trotted out when the suspicion is thought to be entertained that they are motivated by religion. Take a look at what it says on the BCSE front page (emphasis mine):

"What BCSE is not

BSCE has no other agenda that the single issue stated above ["The British Centre for Science Education is a single issue pressure group dedicated solely to keeping creationism and intelligent design out of the science classroom in publicly-funded schools in the United Kingdom."]. There is no hidden agenda. We are not here to back any one political movement or any one view on religion. It is not part or [sic] any larger organisation or movement pushing specific religious or any-religious positions or any political party or any broad political movement or outlook.

We do not object to or support religion or atheism. We do not object to the teaching of creationism or intelligent design outside of the science lesson or as non-scientific subjects.

We do not promote any religious or atheistic viewpoint."

Note that carefully. The BCSE:

• Is concerned with science, not politics. It is "not part or (of) any ... broad political movement or outlook."



• It has no opinions either way on things religious - either positive or negative. They have no objections to what the religious teach about origins outside of school science.



• Wish you to know that that's all there is to it - "no other agenda ... no hidden agenda"



• And the most sweeping statement of all: "We do not promote any religious or atheistic viewpoint."

But on the other hand...

Or sometimes, if they're suffering from a bit of cognitive dissonance...

"the [creationist] movement includes extreme political objectives, one of which is the replacement of democracy with a theocracy based on its extreme religious opinions." - Roger Stanyard, BCSE committee member and de facto leader, writing on the same BCSE homepage, a little further down.

"It is a political fight. The fundies want a theocracy, and are trying very hard to get it. So this is a fight between everyone who wants a fundamentalist theocracy and everyone who doesn't." - Lenny Flank, discussing the setting up of the BCSE, 25th June 2006. [BlackShadow 1024]

"I agree with everything you say Lenny" - Alan Belliss, BCSE founder and committee member, replying to the above, 25th June 2006. [BlackShadow 1030]

"we are defending education against the threat posed by creationism and creationist ideology, and both the UK and democracy against the threat of theocracy." - Timothy Chase, BCSE committee member, 11th July 2006. [BlackShadow 1506]

"This fight really isn't about science -- it's about political power." - Lenny Flank, 11th July 2006. [BlackShadow 1498]

"My advice? Don't focus on the "science". No one cares about it, and no one understands it anyway. And it's not what this fight is about. This is a POLITICAL fight, not a scientific one." - Lenny Flank, quoted approvingly by BCSE committee member Roger Stanyard, 30th October 2006 (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1417#1417).

"... one could easily argue that the science isn't our primary objective, either, that since what we are trying to stop is an extremist ideology which threatens society we should just focus on their political objectives." - Timothy Chase, BCSE committee member, 6th November 2006 (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1810#1810).


So, let me see if I've got this straight...

The BCSE is a purely scientific organisation. Whose primary aim is political.

It has no political or religious aims. Its reason for existing is to save Britain from the threat of theocracy.

They have no interest at all in what dissenters from Darwinism do outside of school science lessons. Their aim is to protect society at large from religious dictators.

I'm glad that's clear! Do you think even they really know what they mean?

David Anderson


BlackShadow posts have been removed by the BCSE from the Internet. You may obtain a copy of the posts above by verification from me on request.

Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Weekend Pot-Pourri

During this last week, we completed* two series:

• "Theocracy" - documenting the sheer vacuousness of the BCSE's anti-Christian propaganda about how critics of Darwinism are plotting to do away with democracy. Part one, part two, part three, part four. Moreover, we documented the hypocrisy of the author of the BCSE's "Theocracy" page, by showing the evidence of his own political activities aimed at suppressing others' freedom of religion.
  
  
• "We're Not Anti-Religion, But..." - a series of articles in which we further exposed the BCSE's "we have no religious agenda!" claim, by showing the damning contents hidden behind a now secret page on the BCSE's website. Part one, part two, part three.
  

(* Maybe I'll say a bit more, but most of what I wanted to show is there now).

Now for a few "bits and pieces" that don't deserve a whole post.

Not Giving Up : The BCSE Smear Campaign

Long-time readers may have thought that the BCSE had embarassed itself enough with its attempts to discredit me - remember the backfiring copyright saga (one, two, three), or the "computer misuse" debacle (one, two, three, four).

It is worth recalling the latter matter. In December 2006, the BCSE posted a permanent item on its forum, claiming that they had evidence that I had been hacking into their website, and that they had received legal advice that I ought to be reported to the police.

I called this stuff and nonsense, and asked them why they didn't go ahead and report me immediately? In the end, to call their bluff, I offered to report myself to the police in order to show how vacuous this claim was. Shortly afterwards, that forum item was no longer visible.

Roger Stanyard, though, is now trying to fabricate a new yarn - according to which I "screamed and raged" and threatened to report him to the police for libel. And he boasts that the fact that he hasn't been arrested is obvious proof that I'm a bag of hot air! (As well as being nasty for using such threats, and a bit dim for not knowing that libel is a civil, rather than police, matter in the UK).

What is Mr. Stanyard's proof of this? Answer: he posts the letter from my original blog post, in which I neither mention libel, nor threaten to report anyone other than myself to the police - for alleged computer misuse, not libel.

If any of my readers are not yet convinced that Mr. Stanyard - who has written almost all of the BCSE's research on its website - isn't the world's most reliable researcher, then I invite them to compare my original posts with the doggy's breakfast that Mr. Stanyard manages to make out of it: (If you want to see the response to the copyright claims, see the links above).

• My original posts:one, two, three, four
  
  
• Roger Stanyard's blog post with his own interpretation: http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-679QwMkib6enGIsUE2Z09ARZQczZ?p=95
  

I am curious as to why this piece appeared on Mr. Stanyard's blog as opposed to the BCSE website. I wonder if it was run past the other BCSE members beforehand, and was too much even for some of them to stomach - and they vetoed it.

I don't normally pay much attention to this kind of crude ad-hominem as in general I think it speaks for itself (and so I won't bother to catalogue all the factual errors in the blog post - you can always e-mail me if you're curious), but as one of "BCSE Revealed"'s purposes is to draw attention to the quality of the BCSE's research, this seemed like another revealing piece of evidence.

One final thing to say on that. Stanyard says that the BCSE have seen "no further attempts at hacking" and that this is the reason why they haven't called the police. Well, for the record, I haven't modified my behaviour at all. If I was "hacking" before, then I'm still doing it, and I confess to it. Please, just call the police - if I have committed a crime, then I do not wish to remain free. Just get on with it! All that time writing blog articles when you could be removing criminals from the streets - hurry up with it!

Next Item Please!

OK. Here's just a tiny thing that made me chuckle. (Which probably indicates I've been doing this for too long). For the context to this, see my previous "alien" articles (one, two).

Here's what it said on the page for Philip Bell before 21st January:



And afterwards:



Unfortunately this BCSE page doesn't supply its sources... so we are not able to know just which doctor has now returned Mr. Bell's certificate of sanity to him. Still, I'm sure that he'll be glad about it.

And Finally...

A few interesting links from around the web.

• http://www.pearceyreport.com/archives/2006/02/darwinian_meltd.php
  An old link (11 months), but relevant. It says what I was saying earlier this week - that the BCSE / Dawkins style of campaigning is a fast road to intellectual defeat.
  
  
• http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=10570 - "Why Intelligent Design Will Win"
  Even older, and with some American political stuff which I don't care for, but makes some good points.
  
  
• http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2007/01/25/title_17
  From this week! A very well written piece. "Irreducible Complicity: Disappointing Darwin". Pointing out one of the glaring inconsistency of Darwinists who pump millions of pounds into the search for aliens, using the very same philosophical premise which they deny the legitimacy of when it comes to the examination of cell biology.
  
  
• http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4758/
  "The Christian foundations of the rule of law in the West: a legacy of liberty and resistance against tyranny". Militant secularists are, and for a long time, have been pushing fantasy ideas which are thoroughly disproved by the actual events of history. Historical ignorance is the number one friend of militant secularism. This article makes a good complement to some of the information in our "theocracy" series, providing a lot more background on the Christian approach to law and state, and how this has worked out over human history.
  

God bless your weekend. All being well, I will be continuing with the series found here.

David Anderson


Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Theocracy: Part 4

In this series, we have been reviewing the BCSE's "Theocracy" page. That page was put up in response to my highlighting of the BCSE's allegations on the subject and my challenge to them to prove it. We've been plodding through, as researchers are meant to do!

Previous parts are here and should be read for background: one, two, three. In summary, we've seen that the BCSE have an extremely poor understanding of Christian theology, and a proneness to read their own prejudices even into statements which point in the opposite direction.

We've seen too that somewhat hypocritically, the author of the BCSE's "Theocracy" page (Dr. Brian Jordan), has been doing some political lobbying of his own. Dr. Jordan has been petitioning the Prime Minister - to make it illegal for children to have anything other than a secularist upbringing:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to [m]ake it illegal to indoctrinate or define children by religion before the age of 16.

In order to encourage free thinking, children should not be subjected to any regular religious teaching ... based on the views of their parents or guardians.

Current signatories:

...
Ian Lowe
...
Brian Jordan
...

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/freethinking?showall=1

Since Dr. Jordan apparently does know what an attempt to force your own views upon others using the arm of the state looks like, his failure (so far) to document any such activity by those named on the BCSE website is all the more blameworthy.

Let's continue down the "Theocracy" article. As we've made a lot of our basic points in the previous installments, we'll pick up the pace. Let's see just how good Dr. Jordan's evidence is that those wicked non-Darwinists are plotting to replace our democracy.

Quote #4

"Though our own land is not so riddled with atheism, we need to wake up to the deep crisis that threatens Western cultures — the cancer of postmodernism, a materialism with no values. We must resist the scourge of unbelief, and repent of the sin that so often rejects God’s clear testimony concerning creation. The Lord told the churches in Revelation that he would remove their lamps if they did not repent." - Andy McIntosh, Evangelical Times 2004

A few obvious points by way of critique:

• There's no suggestion of political action in this quote.
  
  
• Rather, the suggestion is that Christians ("the churches") should "repent".
  
  
• The alternative posited is that churches will lose divine blessing.
  
  
• The entity opposed in this quote is not democracy, but postmodernism.
  

We scratch our heads, trying to wonder just how Dr. Jordan considers this quote as some kind of evidence that Christians want to abolish democracy. Huh?

Quote #5

"Secularism claims to provide the political and educational settings in which all are free to choose their own life, where no view is imposed, and where the state and school are neutral between competing worldviews. In reality, secularism is one more totalitarian option for private and public life which is an enemy of the Gospel of Christ. Only the continuing faith in science hides its nakedness. And again it is worth remembering that all the main political parties play to this secularist tune." - Arthur Jones, writing in "New Directions".

It is hard to evaluate this quote without the context. The wording of the first sentence implies that Dr. Jones believes that the brand of secularism he is critiquing is making a deceptive claim - claiming to provide a kind of neutrality when in fact its true agenda is to do something else (presumably, to go far beyond neutrality and into denying the truth value of any and all religious claims). It is not clear to me whether Dr. Jones believes that there is an alternative approach which would provide such a neutral setting.

My guess is that Dr. Jones is saying that there is a secularist agenda to remove all mentions of religion from public life, under the pretence of a kind of religious neutrality. Such an agenda is not neutrality at all - it represents the imposition of atheism by decree. True religious freedom is not found by the silencing of all religions. And with that point I can heartily agree.

But the main point for our investigation is that again, there is nothing here about any plans or schemes for replacing democracy in the UK. That only exists when Dr. Jordan reads in between the lines.

I find it telling that the only evidence for theocratic plans that is being provided by the BCSE comes from such reading in between the lines. Given the wealth of material available from those prominent in criticising Darwinism (books, articles, recordings, etc.), it ought to be possible to produce something more than this. Given that it apparently isn't possible, I'd say that here we have a case where the silence is significant. On-topic, to-the-point quotes in which Darwin-questionning Christians advocate political revolution aren't forthcoming.... because they don't exist.


Quote #6 - "Education Is Religion"

"So is Christianity & the Bible true - historically, scientifically and objectively or is atheistic, humanistic, materialism true? One's allegiance to either requires a certain leap of faith." - Stephen Layfield

I am really struggling to work out two things here: Firstly what the connection between the heading ("Education is Religion") and the quote is, and secondly what the connection between the quote and the subject of a theocracy is.

I agree with Layfield - materialistic atheism must make some quite spectacular leaps of faith. For example, the atheist must believe that the universe has no ultimate cause. Matter, space, time - they all came out of literally nothing, by themselves. Life began spontaneously out of non-life; and not just any old "life", but life with the capability to self-reproduce and to evolve into all the variety now visible in the world. All this must be believed, without it being possible to demonstrate that it is true. Frankly, if that's not a leap of faith, I don't know what is.

So as I say, I agree with Layfield - both being a Christian and being an atheist requires a certain amount of faith in things which cannot be observed. But what has this to do with theocracies?

My take on this is that it is again the BCSE showing their true colours. To the BCSE, atheism is the default, privileged position - anything else comes under their censure. Again, we see the BCSE arguing not scientifically, but philosophically. It is not theocracy which they are opposing - it is Christianity.

Quote #7

"In a similar way to the Christian Institute, we wish to present a clear alternative to the atheistic humanism rampant through most of our schools today." - Andy McIntosh

Does Dr. Jordan have the intelligence to be able to tell the difference between presenting an intellectual argument, and trying to replace democracy? Being able to make a case in an atmosphere free of illegal ideas and forbidden thoughts is part of the essence of democracy.

Presumably Dr. Jordan has quoted this quote because he disagrees with it. Or in other words, because he desires atheistic humanism to be given free reign, unchallenged. But that would contradict the BCSE's "we're religiously neutral" stance... so just what does Dr. Jordan want?

Quote #8

"Organise a Creation/Evolution debate in the sixth form. Such an event, when properly and fairly planned, represents a good opportunity for interested third parties (together with those who may have been previously disinterested and/or unconcerned) to gauge how well the available data fits the respective world views of the Creationist/Evolutionist. It is the conviction (and happy experience) of this writer that much prejudice and ignorance can be undermined by conducting oneself with both charity and rigour and by making full use of such an opportunity. (We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. [2 Corinthians 10:5])" - Stephen Layfield

Stephen Layfield suggests a debate in which both sides can present their evidence and allow it to be weighed up. Why would Dr. Jordan object to that? If the evidence for evolution is so strong, what's the problem? Layfield seems rather confident (and indeed appeals to his experience) that when such debates happen and people are presented with both sides of the argument, then many have change their minds. Is that why Dr. Jordan doesn't want such debates to happen?

If free and fair debates are the essence of theocracy, then I think that the word has lost all its meaning. Again, I can only infer that Dr. Jordan doesn't have a real agenda to promote the kind of discussion and toleration of dissent which is essential to true scientific inquiry - he has an agenda to oppose anything that doesn't fit in with his own atheistic worldview.

Summing Up

At this point I think it is probably unnecessary to continue examining the rest of the quotes on the page one by one - that would be over-kill. We've seen the gist.

The gist is that Dr. Brian Jordan has very little sympathy for non-atheistic views of the world. Any discussion or toleration of them, in his mind, amounts to support for a theocracy. Dr. Jordan though doesn't seem to realise how "theocratic" his own ideas seem to those who aren't atheists - or rather, "atheocratic".

The BCSE ought to look into a mirror... it's not the BCSE's opponents who are opposing free or open debate. It is not the BCSE's opponents who are petitioning the Prime Minister to have all approaches to child-rearing other than their own made illegal. It is not the BCSE's opponents who are suggesting that their world-view should be imposed on others who don't share their beliefs. It is the BCSE themselves.

And that's the same old story once again.

David Anderson


Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Theocracy: Part 3

Introduction
In parts one and two, we have introduced and begun reviewing the BCSE's claims that the true motives of those questionning Darwinism in the UK is to bring in a theocracy.

In the meantime, though, we turned up something relevant. Dr. Brian Jordan, one of the BCSE's managing committee and author of the BCSE's "Theocracy" page has not managed to turn up any evidence that those he opposes have any theocratic political activity at all. However, Dr. Jordan is himself petitioning the government to make religious education illegal for under 16s. Ho hum! Just who is it who has coercive political-religious aims, again? (See here).

"Theocracy" Review, Continued

Still, let us press on. Maybe we will discover some evidence for the creationists theocratic plans further down the page. Let's look at the next quote. Here it is (emphasis Dr. Jordan's):

"The public realm is not religiously neutral. All states in their public affairs worship some god or gods. All schools are religious schools. We are called to the re-discovery and re-establishment of Christian community and culture - i.e., to a real Christian distinctiveness in a pagan world. But that is a hard task - a life and wallet commitment. When we pray for revival, we must remember what it will entail!"

Here, the individual quoted (Dr. Arthur Jones, a member of the Institute of Biology and holds a PhD from Birmingham University for research on the diversification of cichlid fish - a fact I mention merely for comparison with the BCSE leadership's lack of such qualifications), states as a fact that all of life is religious - religious neutrality does not exist.

And as with the previous quote, it's one that I'd be happy to affirm in its entirety. But do I want a theocracy? Absolutely not, as I've already explained.

What, then, do I mean? Simply, this:

• Because God is the creator and ruler of everything, he deserves to be honoured in everything.
  
  
• That includes our thoughts, our plans and intentions, our words, and our deeds.
  
  
• And in fact, the Bible teaches us: "And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment." (Mark 12:30)
  
  
• Our duty in every part of life is to work out what that commandment will mean - and do it. Or as the sublime first answer to the Westminster Shorter Catechsim of 1647 puts it: "The chief end (purpose) of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever".

As such, true Christianity is a system of "total truth". It is a world-view, a way of thinking. It is not just something for Sunday - an unreal bit of fluff before we get back to reality the other six days of the week. If Jesus Christ died for my sins, then I belong to him and want to please him - every day.

Exactly what this glorifying of God will mean in any one part of life will vary. It certainly does not mean that every human activity must be ended and turned into one long Sunday service. No - God made work, made recreation, made everything else - and the right way to glorify him in them is not to turn them into church services, but to do them honestly, diligently, unselfishly, and so on.

Now you might completely disagree with that. Am I going to kill you or make your views illegal? No... I'm going to try to persuade you, if you'll let me.

In the public sphere of life administered by the state, glorifying God will mean that public morality is upheld and public wickedness is punished. The justice system should seek to restrain evil in society, and to promote what is good. The state must not treat morality as a matter of personal opinion, and become lazy in its task, or neglect its task in favour of the personal projects of the rulers.

The fact is that the way a state goes about its business implies a lot about the country's view of religious truth. When the government decides that marriage is whatever it pleases parliament to say marriage is, the government is denying certain religious claims and affirming others. When the government encourages gambling as a worthwhile industry, it is again making certain implicit claims about what is good and what is evil. When the government starts to view judicial sentences as only being about helping the offender, and no longer to do with the administration of righteousness in punishment, it again is implying distinctly religious theories about man and his place in the universe.

And it is clear that this is what Dr. Jones is saying. Dr. Jones says that all states do worship some or other gods (secular or otherwise). Obviously, in the sense of a theocratic setup where it mandates certain religious rituals or requiring its subjects to agree with its religious opinions, this would be false - in the UK people can (rightly) freely choose their own - and so clearly Dr. Jones does not mean it in that sense. Dr. Jones is talking about the underlying assumptions.

The laws of the UK were historically, as a matter of fact, based in Christian thinking in which God had revealed the main principles of morality in the Ten Commandments. Today, as a matter of fact, they are more and more based upon the thinking of secular humanism in which man is a law unto himself.

The problem, though, is that in fact Dr. Jordan has a problem with the underlying assumptions of Christianity. It's not that Christians are planning to set up a theocracy - it's that Christians are planning to live out and attempt to persuade others of Christianity. That's what Dr. Jordan doesn't like. Beneath the surface protestations that the BCSE is "religiously neutral", lies the reality that its opposition to the Christian worldview runs very deep.

Theocracy?

And if Dr. Jordan read the quote a little more carefully, it would be obvious to him that Dr. Jones did not have in mind the kind of campaign Jordan alleges to get rid of democratic rule. How so?

1. Dr. Jones is talking to Christians. He says, "We are called to the re-discovery and re-establishment of Christian community and culture - i.e., to a real Christian distinctiveness in a pagan world." Dr. Jones didn't say "unbelievers must be forced to rediscover...", he said "we must re-discover". Dr. Jones didn't say "we must make paganism illegal" - he said, "we must live as Christians in the midst of it".
   
   The fact that the quote comes from a Christian magazine for a Christian readership ought to have flagged this up.
   
   
2. Notice too the means which Dr. Jones proposes using - prayer. Not politics; not the long arm of the law (as Dr. Jordan would like to see used against Christianity) - prayer. Those who don't accept Christian claims are to be persuaded. And if they remain unpersuaded, then we shall just continue as we are. The laws of the country shall only be changed to ones that better reflect a Christian morality when the country is persuaded that it wants to.
   
   If that's Dr. Jordan's definition of a theocracy... then in his head democracy and theocracy must presumably be the same thing.
   

Scraping The Barrel

It is only because Jordan has no quotations in which any Christian proposes a political theocracy that he has to produce ones such as this instead.

Either Dr. Jordan is too ignorant of Christianity to be able to interpret the quote properly, or he is attempting a deliberate deception, hoping that his readers will be. Choose your poison. Either way, Dr. Jordan ought not to be representing himself to the public as any kind of credible authority on the things he writes about.

Just why are we having this discussion anyway? If the BCSE are, as they claim, a religiously neutral organisation, then it's pretty odd that their website is so full of this kind of material. If they are, as they claim a "Centre for Science Education", then it's more than a little curious that it devotes so much energy to opposing Christianity and so little to talking about science.

So, dear reader - just what do you think the BCSE are really about?

David Anderson


Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Freedom, Pluralism and Deception (II)

In two articles so far (one, two) , we have been looking at the BCSE's discovery of the secret Theocratic Masterplan being pursued by British Christians. So far, we have learnt a lot about the BCSE and its religious views, but not a great deal about these purported plans. Ho hum.

The BCSE's "Theocracy" page was written by Dr. Brian Jordan, one of the BCSE's leaders (one, two).

Seeing as Dr. Jordan has raised this subject, today we will have a little look at Dr. Jordan's own views on the use of the law to enforce religious views.

Let's get a little background. Maybe you remember this quote from the front page of the BCSE's website:

BCSE believes in the tools for everyone to think for themselves - Science, Education and Reason - and the outcome – Democracy, Pluralism, Freedom and Righteousness.

We have already had opportunity to remark on the BCSE's somewhat unconventional definitions of pluralism and freedom (one, two), and righteousness (here)... now let's have another look.

Background

In late 2006, an individual called Jamie Wallis created a petition on the Prime Minister's website.

There were already a few other existing petitions calling for new coercive policies from the government to enforce secular thinking. However, these were apparently not extreme enough for Mr. Wallis, so he decided to start his own. In this new petition, he called upon the Prime Minister to make all regular religious instruction of children illegal.

According to Mr. Wallis, "free thinking" is incompatible with religious instruction, and the only way to protect our children is to ensure that the first 16 years of their life are approached from an atheistic point of view, where all regular religious instruction is disallowed.

Here is Mr. Wallis' motion in his own words:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Make it illegal to indoctrinate or define children by religion before the age of 16. In order to encourage free thinking, children should not be subjected to any regular religious teaching or be allowed to be defined as belonging to a particular religious group based on the views of their parents or guardians. At the age of 16, as with other laws, they would then be considered old enough and educated enough to form their own opinion and follow any particular religion (or none at all) through free thought.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/freethinking

Subtle, it isn't. Mr. Wallis doesn't specify exactly what penalties should be inflicted upon parents who refuse to follow his secular way of life. I suppose though, if the parents don't repent of their wicked ways, then they shall eventually have to have their children taken away. And those children will have to end up in the much safer and more beneficial environment of the council children's home, away from their dangerous and crazed non-secularist parents.

Ah, what a utopia that would be! Just as long as every person who takes religion seriously changes their mind and conforms to Mr. Wallis' way of thinking, that is.

(The other part of Wallis' idea, that children shouldn't be "labelled" I don't care to discuss. As a Christian, I do not care for labels - I care for the reality of a relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't give that to your children or to anyone else by applying a label to them).

Richard Dawkins... Surprise!

You may not be completely surprised to learn which was one of the first signatures to go down on this petition. Yes, it's Britain's most famous atheist activist:


Not only that, but Dawkins put up a prominent link on the front-page of his website at http://richarddawkins.net/home, encouraging others to do likewise.

However, a little later, the mad professor claimed that he hadn't read the petition properly, and that signing it had been a mistake. He contacted the administrator of the petition, and asked to have his name removed. We wonder what all of the minions at richarddawkins.net who had dutifully followed their master and added their names made of that?

Apparently, though it was a good exercise in (to use Dawkins' words), "consciousness raising".

I don't know about you, but my consciousness of what an intolerant and foolish bunch Dawkins and his cohorts can be didn't need a great deal of raising. But I suppose it's brought it onto someone's radar somewhere.

Get On With It, Anderson!

Where was I? Oh yes. The relevance of all this is that the petition seeks state enforcement of a particular view of religion. Mr. Wallis' aim is to have all children raised in a secular manner. The first 16 years of every little one's life must be carried out under the presumption that there is no god who requires them to learn anything about him until they are adults. This isn't just Mr. Wallis' preference for his own children - he'd like it enshrined in law for every family throughout the nation.

As I have remarked before, Mr. Wallis is behaving like a consistent atheist. Whilst a Christian like myself can believe that God has made us as rational beings, and that God is active in the world to restrain evil and promote good, and that in particular the power of the Holy Spirit is at work to advance the cause of truth - the atheist can believe none of that. The idea of using persuasion with prayer means nothing to him. The tool that the atheist commonly resorts to in his thinking is coercion - the long arm of the law, and criminal penalties for disobedience.

Plenty of Historical Precedent

The track record of those who have thought like Wallis isn't, um, great. The 20th century saw anti-religious and statist coercion attempted on a scale never tried before. Albania under dictator Enver Hoxha, the USSR under Stalin, China under Mao Tsetung, Cambodia under Pol Pot - they all tried to create better societies by removing religion. And butchered millions in the process.

Dawkins and his supporters devote long sections of their writings to arguing that the atheism and evolutionary beliefs of such dictators was merely incidental to the abysmal regimes that resulted. And then they merrily set to work in petitioning the government to re-create them.

If this is rational and scientific thought, then I'd prefer something else.

A Winning World-View?

If atheism is the view backed by reason and science, as some of its proponents claim, then I wonder why the only way that it can apparently find for its views to win out is for the state to make others illegal. If the arguments are so strong - then why do we need to ban the alternatives? Why can't atheism just win by strength of argument?

And Now...

I suppose you know where this is going. Guess who else signed the petition?

That's right, it's that noted opponent of theocracies, Dr. Brian Jordan...

(http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/freethinking/?showall=1)

Apparently, the only reason why Dr. Jordan opposes theocracies... is because he himself is campaigning for an a-theocracy!

What's Wrong With This Picture?

So, let me see if I've got this straight. Because there are non-Darwinists who want the evidence against as well as for Darwinism to be presented in state schools, Dr. Jordan and the BCSE start losing their heads and talking about theocracy and "fundamentalists in politics". Despite not having a scrap of evidence for any such thing.

On the other hand, though, Jordan himself is petitioning the prime minister to pass new laws to make non-secularist upbringings illegal.

Well, I suppose we can say that Jordan ought to know religious bigotry and plans for religious coercion when he sees them.

But blow me down - whose name is that on the petition just three up from Jordan? Yes - it is! It's Ian "Calamity" Lowe!

If there is any opportunity available to make the BCSE look bigotted, incompetent, deceitful or just plain daft then Lowe normally ends up being involved somewhere (one, two, three). And here the fellow is again! Sometimes I wonder if Lowe is an anti-Darwinist stooge on a mission to make sure that nobody takes the BCSE too seriously.

So, How Do You Explain That?

The BCSE claim officially that they are opposed to religious coercion and the use of the state's resources to enforce one religious view.

On the other hand, though, two of the BCSE's committee are publicly campaigning for just the opposite.

Maybe there are two Brian Jordans, and two Ian Lowes? Or maybe they each have advanced schizophrenia? One does wonder how one can be both opposed to the idea of religious coercion, and on the other hand petitioning the PM for it.

I can well understand how anti-Darwinists can both oppose Darwinism and at the same time not wish religion to be taught in science lessons. The criticisms of Darwinism with its missing fossil evidence and the like can be made quite simply without any appeals to religion. Evidence of intelligence and design in nature which can't be explained by natural selection can be presented without bringing in the question of who any designer might be. As such, I find the BCSE's criticisms of groups such as Truth in Science for wanting state schools to handle this debate fairly quite incoherent. Whether or not any of Truth in Science's backers have religious motives, there is no evidence of any agenda from anti-Darwinists to use coercion or any other tool than proper scientific debate to advance their case.

On the other hand, the BCSE are simply hypocritical. Their leaders are both anti-religious, and they are using political campaigning to advance their anti-religious agenda - whilst at the same time wrongly condemning others for just that.

Conclusion

Let's once again remember that quote from the BCSE's front page:

BCSE believes in the tools for everyone to think for themselves - Science, Education and Reason - and the outcome - Democracy, Pluralism, Freedom and Righteousness.

It's just not true, is it? Unless "pluralism" and "freedom" now mean the same thing as "making religion that we don't agree with illegal". This is taking cognitive disonance to whole new levels.

The BCSE believe in pluralism and freedom... ...apart from the committee who run it, who believe in exactly the opposite. Confused? You will be... until you work out what's actually going on.

David Anderson


Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.

Theocracy: Part 2

Introduction

In part one, we introduced the subject of theocracy.

According to the BCSE, the real motivation driving non-Darwinists is their desire to replace our country's system of government with a totalitarian religious dictatorship. It's nothing to do with science - it's politics.

In our introduction, we drew attention to the web page on which the BCSE have taken up the challenge to document these allegations. Today, we will begin looking at it in more detail.

The Challenge

Remember just what it is that the BCSE have set out to document. In the words of BCSE leader Roger Stanyard, on the BCSE's own front page, under the heading "Creationist Ideological Objectives in Education and Politics":

Moreover, the movement includes extreme political objectives, one of which is the replacement of democracy with a theocracy based on its extreme religious opinions.

Do the BCSE document this? Or something close to this? Let's see. As we do so, we'll out of necessity have to do more explaining of Christian ideas than we've done before. Now, as I'm a Christian and a pastor, I'm all for that. But I hope your thinking circuits are switched on!

Opening Statement

The page opens with a summary statement from the BCSE that I will pass over. If I tried to describe to my wife what child-birth is like, I imagine that there would be so many levels of intertwined wrong-ness that she wouldn't even know where to start in putting me right. And neither do I know where to start putting Brian Jordan right on this paragraph. It is as if I was reading somebody discussing whether I had stopped beating my children with a baseball bat, or only stopped beating them with a frying pan.

Dr. Jordan wrote in another place "Theists are the deluded victims of centuries of conspiracy" (Yahoo BlackShadow message 1766). If Jordan actually wants to persuade any theist of this, he's going to need to represent what he's arguing against with more accuracy. So rather than attempting a response, I will just point my readers to a fair summary of the Christian faith, written by someone without an agenda to make Christians look like moon-bats.

Let's move on to the quotes. This is the meat of the matter. Today we deal with just one - but a very revealing one, both in terms of the BCSE's competence and its agenda.

1. The Rule of God

Under this heading, Jordan quotes the following, naming the author as "Howard Ahmanson":

"My purpose is total integration of biblical law into our lives."

Now, I imagine that you're saying - "Howard Ahmanson - who on earth is he?". And that's precisely what I said earlier this year when his name first came up in the BCSE's discussions.

The reason why you're thinking that is because Howard Ahmanson is an American and has no profile in the UK. Has he ever done anything in the UK? I don't know - and neither do the BCSE. So what does he have to do with the activity of UK Christians?

The BCSE list the following as "Creationist organisations to which he belongs or is associated with: Discovery Institute, Chalcedon Foundation, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies".

The Discovery Institute and the Chalcedon Foundation, however, have no representatives or operations in the United Kingdom. They are purely American organisations. Moreover, the Discovery Institute is not a creationist organisation, but promotes intelligent design. This isn't a great start if you're meant to be documenting how creationists in the UK want to set up a theocracy.

What about the "Oxford Centre for Mission Studies" (OCMS)? Unfortunately, even the BCSE really have no idea either as to whether Ahmanson is really a "member" or "associated" with this body, or indeed whether or not it is even involved at all in creationist activity. All they know is that Howard Ahmanson has a lot of money, professes Christian faith, and has given money to an American body which itself once gave some money to the OCMS. The BCSE omit to mention it in their article, but seeing as in this rare case they list their source, I was able to read that source myself and discover that the amount of money given to the OCMS was only $7,000 (worth about £3,600 at present exchange rates). The BCSE's articles on both are masterpieces of in the art of constructing masterful conspiracy theories which simultaneously confess that there's no supporting evidence... Read and see: http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/HowardAhmanson and http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/OxfordConnections

In the minds of the BCSE, though, this lack of evidence merely goes to show what a secretive lot the creationists are, and what a twisted conspiracy it is that they have constructed. Are they silent about their connections to Howard Ahmanson? Do they say "Who?" when you mention his name? It's all just more evidence of how misinformed, wicked and/or deceitful they really are!

A Diversion - The Chalcedon Foundation

It is instructive at this point to compare the BCSE's page on the Chalcedon Foundation with the Chalcedon Foundation's own website. This is again off-topic as the CF is an American organisation (and I can't say I'm very familiar with its position), but it's a bit more data on the quality of the BCSE's research:

BCSE: "The purpose of the Chalcedon Foundation was to further the concept of reconstructionism. It particular, this involves the creation of a theocracy (called a theonomy by Rushdoony) ruled by the literal interpretation of the bible." (http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/RousasRushdoony).

The Chalcedon Foundation's own website: "Misconception 2: Political Dominion Because we believe that the Bible should apply to all of life, including the state; and because we believe that the Christian state should enforce Biblical civil law; and finally, because we believe that the responsibility of Christians is to exercise dominion in the earth for God's glory, it is sometimes assumed that we believe that capturing state apparatus and enforcing Biblical law on a pervasively unbelieving populace is one of our hidden objectives. Our critics sometimes imply or state outright that we are engaged in a subtle, covert attempt to capture conservative, right-wing politics in order to gain political power, which we will then use to "spring" Biblical law on our nation. This is flatly false. We do not believe that politics or the state are a chief sphere of dominion." (http://www.chalcedon.edu/credo.php)

And again, from the Chalcedon Foundation's own website: "No government in any form can make men Christians or truly obedient; this is the work of God's sovereign grace. Much less should civil government try to impose Biblical law on an unbelieving society. Biblical law cannot be imposed; it must be embraced." (http://www.chalcedon.edu/vision.php)

The Chalcedon Foundation's own page of misconceptions of its teaching quite interesting - it's almost as if the BCSE "researcher" read it first and decided to use it as a guide to what they do teach... http://www.chalcedon.edu/credo.php ... this reminds me of the BCSE's alien debacle.

Back To The Story - Check Your Sources

But still, let's leave aside the fellow and the Chalcedon Foundation and look at the quote. First, where does it come from? According to the BCSE: "Quoted in Christian Reconstructionism, March/June 1994, Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence by Frederick Clarkson, Part 3".

If the BCSE had a competent understanding of the Christian world, then they would know that Reconstructionism and Dominionism are movements which exist only on the fringes of American evangelicalism, and are basically non-existent in the UK. The BCSE will likely not be able to name a single UK creationist listed on its website who promotes these movements (I can't).

I suspect, though, that the BCSE already know this - as they are not the kind of movement that they would have come across without considerable effort. That the BCSE has to stoop to trawling the publications of such fringe foreign movements (and then mispresenting them!) in order to misrepresent UK creationists tells us more about the BCSE's mode of operations than anything else. Not a great way to convince anyone who's not already convinced.

What Does The Quote Actually Say?



Now, without the context I can't know what Howard Ahmanson meant by this quote. But at the outset I'd like to say that my purpose is also the total integration of biblical law into our lives. That's because I'm a Christian, and especially as I'm a pastor.

But if you were to say, "So you want a political theocracy, then?" then I'd look at you as if you were a bit funny, and then I'd reply "of course not - why ever did you think that?".

From a Christian point of view, attempts to set up political theocracies are wrong for two important reasons. Firstly, God already rules. He is already completely sovereign over all the affairs of men - and his power does not depend on what the MPs in Westminster get up to. Politics is just not as important as people today think it is. Secondly, God's plan in the present age is to call people to himself through faith in Jesus Christ, through loving persuasion - and only to put down all opposition to himself once the present age has ended, in the new heavens and new earth. For a Christian to try to set up a theocracy would be to usurp the prerogative of God to and to deny God's ability to do these things himself - as if he needed us to do it for him! God's present will is quite different - people are to bow the knee to him because they want to, not because they are given no other option.

So what do I mean when I say that I'd like to see the "total integration of biblical law into our lives"? I mean that I'd like to see everyone honouring God from their hearts in everything that they do - willingly, gladly, joyfully, by their own free choice choosing what is right, because they are persuaded that there is nothing more delightful than to obey God.

Is there a biblical law telling us to revolt against our rulers and set up a theocracy instead? Absolutely not - in fact, quite the opposite. The Bible tells Christians that they must submit to their present earthly rulers and wherever possible obey the laws that they pass. They are not to despise rulers merely because they are not Christians, but must recognise that God himself has instituted human government. So, total obedience to Biblical law in this matter will mean: no theocracy!

What The Bible Says

Paul explains this in part of his letter to the church at Rome. At the time, their ruler was the anti-Christian tyrant Nero. If there was ever a regime that Christians might have felt justifying in trying to replace, it was his. But Paul forbade it:

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no authority except from God: the authorities that exist are ordained by God. Whosoever therefore resists the authority, resists the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves condemnation.

For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Will you not then be afraid of the authority? Do that which is good, and you shall have praise of the same: For he is the servant of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain: for he is the servant of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that does evil. (Continues - see the whole chapter Romans 13 for the full picture).

Seeing as biblical law requires us to recognise the present system of human government as God's will, no Christian ought to be found agitating for theocratic revolution.

What To Make Of The BCSE

My take on this is that the BCSE are displaying a common trait of those ignorant of Christianity - especially hard-line atheists. The ideas of the power of God's Spirit, or of the influence of Christian love, are alien to them. The only kind of "law" they can conceive of is secular law, and the only kind of way to influence society they can imagine is through politics. However, the Bible utterly denies this way of thinking on almost every page. It teaches Christians that if they want to influence the world for good, then they should do it by (through God's grace) being the best husbands and wives, the best fathers and mothers, the best neighbours, the best work colleagues. And over and above all of this, they should love God with all their hearts, and trustingly rely on him to work through them. i.e., we should love God and love fellow man with the totality of our lives - all that we are. This is the Biblical law. These are the weapons of Christian "warfare". They cannot be measured or counted like money or votes; but the Bible tells us that they will work far more effectively than either of those as we employ them in dependence upon God.

And as a Christian myself, I'd say that history proves the Bible right. The Roman Empire that Paul wrote under is long gone - along with a whole catalogue of anti-Christian rulers and regimes. But the true Christian church continues to survive and to advance around the world. In the 1960s "cultural revolution", atheist China banned Christianity - and today, China has the fastest growing church of the last decades, with an estimated 50 to 100 million genuine converts. Today, despite the efforts of governments and religions the world over, a majority of the human race (according to the Guinness Book of Records) would assent to the Christian proposition "Jesus is Lord". So either the Bible just made a lucky guess (if you're an atheist!), or it really is the word of God and completely reliable.

Concluding: What's Really Going On Here?

The quote on the BCSE web page is no evidence that UK creationists are fighting for a theocracy. It is made by an American who is not known to have ever done anything creationism-related in the UK. More tellingly, neither does it state that democracy ought to be replaced - and the foundation which the BCSE link the author with explicitly state that this is a misunderstanding of their teaching. Of course, without the context, I don't know precisely what Mr. Ahmanson meant by it - but my point is that it is a statement which any and every Christian ought to be completely happy with. The negation of it is that "there are areas of life in which God ought to be disobeyed" - a statement I'm sure that I can't conceive of any theist making!

Christianity is a system of "total truth" - it makes claims which relate to every part of life. It is my opinion that this is what the BCSE author is really opposed to. His problem is not that anybody is advocating a theocracy - his problem is that some people (whether creationists or not) are advocating Christianity. His problem isn't that anybody is going to make him pretend to be a Christian by law - his problem is that he just doesn't want to be troubled by the ideas of Christianity at all.

That is a theme which I believe we will see again and again as we go down the BCSE's "Theocracy" web page. The problem is not theocracy - it is Jesus Christ.

And that brings us once again to the point I've made continually. The BCSE is not an organisation whose engine is being driven by science - but by views on religion: anti-Christian, atheist religion.

David Anderson


Non-anonymous factual corrections welcomed by e-mail. Comments are moderated - please read my comments policy.