Stop Bashing Christians!: An Intelligence Squared Debate November 3, 2010

STOP BASHING CHRISTIANS! BRITAIN HAS BECOME AN ANTI-CHRISTIAN COUNTRY

If you're a Sikh in Britain you don't have to wear a motorcycle helmet. If you're a Muslim woman at work, no one objects if you wrap your head in a scarf. But woe betide you if you dare assert your faith or customs as a Christian. You can't display a small crucifix around your neck if you work for British Airways; you can't run an adoption agency on Christian principles because insisting that your charges be placed with heterosexual couples is now against the law; you can't make use of the hallowed principle of free speech to publicly express a Christian disapproval of homosexual unions without being cautioned or prosecuted. What we are witnessing is not just the death of the Christian culture which until but recently defined our history and way of life, but a positively hateful animus towards it on the part of officialdom and the bien pensants.

Or so many Christians like to claim. But do they not protest too much? Why make such a fuss about the occasional tensions that seem unavoidable when you have a secular state and a multi-faith society? Surely the laws they love to lament are laws that apply to everyone? Could it be that the carping Christians have an agenda of their own and are demanding special treatment? Or are they right in saying that they already receive special treatment – an especially horrible one?

Speakers include:

For the motion:
Peter Hitchens - Author and columnist whose latest book is The Rage Against God: Why Faith is the Foundation of Civilisation.

Howard Jacobson - Novelist and journalist; in the Channel 4 series “The Bible: A History” he wrote and presented the first part called “Creation”.

Lord Carey - Former Archbishop of Canterbury (1991-2002).

Against the motion:
Matthew Parris - Columnist on The Times and the Spectator, author and broadcaster.

Claire Rayner - Writer, agony aunt and Vice-President of the British Humanist Association.

Dom Antony Sutch - Benedictine monk and former headmaster of Downside School.

Chair:
Jonathan Freedland - Guardian columnist, author and broadcaster.

Doors open at 6:00 pm. The debate starts at 6:45 pm and finishes at 8:30 pm

Official Website: http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/stop-bashing-christians