Sawing off the branch...

I like Nicky Campbell. He is one of an increasingly rare number of BBC journalists who seems able to deal with issues reasonably objectively. Nicky Campbell, like us all, has his biases which emerge at times - but he at least seems to try to interrogate all views with some vigour - rather than the soft-soap deference of so many of his colleagues to their liberal-secular fellows.

This morning (14th Sept 2012) NC was interviewing a spokesman from the Muslim Brotherhood over the violent reaction of many in the Arab World to a video that mocks the Prophet Mohammed. In doing so NC asked some very penetrating questions - all the more penetrating, I would suggest, because the premise of many of them was based on an essentially Christian world-view rather than on a liberal-secular one (e.g. doing good & loving others being at the heart of expressing true faith, and the issue of leaving judgement to God).

However, there was one assertion by NC that, as a Christian, I would want to challenge. It arose in response to the interviewee stating that The West was inconsistent in objecting to the Muslim reaction when some its governments imprison people for denying the Holocaust. In other words Western Governments are hypocritical in denying free speech when they feel offended while telling Muslims just to put up being offended elsewhere (a point many Christians will have some sympathy with).

In response NC stated that the difference was that 'religion was a matter of conjecture' while the Holocaust was a matter of 'historical fact'. That is, while the former is just subjective opinion the latter is objective truth.

It is a premise that underpins liberal-secular thinking (albeit there is the self-refuting irony of even talking about 'objective' right and wrong in a godless universe where any moral standard could never be more than just human opinion). But it's a premise that won't stand in the face of Christianity.

Why? Because Christianity is founded upon historical events. The New Testament is at pains to stress it's eyewitness sources and reliability (Luke 1:1-4). The life, claims and actions of Jesus are attested by historical documents written by those alive at the time. The authenticity of the New Testament accounts of Jesus stand up equally to that of any historical records of the period. Christians do not base their beliefs about Jesus on 'conjecture' but on historical evidence.

Now, the reason many reject that evidence is not because the records aren't historical but simply because they refuse to believe their contents. Holocaust-deniers refuse to accept documentary or eyewitness evidence about the Holocaust, not because the documents or witnesses don't exist, but because they simply refuse to believe what they say. Many refuse to believe that men went to the moon - not because evidence is lacking, but they just don't think it could have been possible and therefore the evidence, in their minds, can't be reliable.

The reason Christians don't (shouldn't) react with violence or hostility to their faith being ridiculed (as it is incessantly on the BBC and elsewhere), is not that their beliefs and sensibilities are inferior or less credible than those of liberal-secularists or other religions - but because Jesus taught His followers to 'turn the other cheek', do good to those that harm you, and leave judgement to God.

The problem with liberal-secularism is that it wants Christian behaviour while denying the basis on which it rests.