Scruton has the last word

Tax. Immigration. EU. Sewage (or should that be the sewage that is the EU). Climate change. Kate or Meghan. Fish cutlery. Marmite. I’m prepared for disagreements with friends (and not-so-friends) on most things, but not what hit me between the eyes last Tuesday evening.

Ah, Tuesday evenings. Friends and family know not to phone or message on Tuesday evenings, not if they want a coherent response before Wednesday afternoon. Hubby knows that Tuesday means frozen pizza for supper, after which he has to lock himself in his study until it’s safe to come out. Tuesday evening is a sanity check, when I meet with my neighbour H for wine, conversation, putting the world to rights, and more wine. Nirvana. We agree on most things, but not all. We say what we shouldn’t, sometimes for the sheer hell of it, to imagine how the congenitally perpetually outraged and offended would react. The only Way Is Essex Tuesday eveningS (TWITS). 

Yet last Tuesday, I was taken by surprise. At first it all went swimmingly as usual. H and I agreed to differ on Trump – she doesn’t like or trust him. Neither do I, but I like/trust Biden, Harris, Obama and Starmer even less. And Trump has several redeeming features: he’s philanthropic; he’s funny (even when he doesn’t mean to be); he’s not Biden, Harris, Obama or Starmer; he shows up Starmer as an idiotic despot (not difficult); and he riles the congenitally perpetually outraged and offended – it’s fun to watch.

The Palestine conflict is always a bit more difficult to circumnavigate. Again, I’m less critical of Netanyahu and the IDF than is H. Too much (not all) ‘damning’ evidence against the Israelis I find to be fabricated, exaggerated, unjustifiable, unverifiable or suspiciously incomplete. I evidenced in my previous blog that the starvation of Palestinians was being mis-reported. Since then, the Israelis have killed five journalists, one of whom celebrated the October 7th massacre. The other four journos were probably only with their evil mate and allowed into Gaza by evil Hamas because they too cheered while women were raped and babies were butchered.

One of the things H and I agree on re the conflict is the question, why won’t other Muslim states take Palestinian refugees? So far, no member of the congenitally perpetually outraged echo chamber has provided an answer.

What upset the applecart last Tuesday was, surprisingly, Christianity. I said something totally benign (so I thought) but H seized on it and accused me of being immoral. My crime? Occasionally taking Communion despite not believing in God or that Jesus was the Son of God or that he rose from the dead. My initial defence was pretty basic: I’m Confirmed and break no statutory or ecclesiastical law, rule or convention by toddling up to the altar rail for bread and wine. But that didn’t satisfy H. I think she used the word hypocrisy. I explained that while I wasn’t a Christian per se, I support the moral teachings of the Bible, as I interpret them, and my Communion is a symbolic affirmation of that support. 

I was unable to defend myself further that evening, because the topic and disagreement took me by surprise, and my brain was wine-impaired. We moved on to more light-hearted discussions: modular nuclear reactors followed by the need for the West Cumbrian coal mine.

Over the next few days I re-examined my professing my Protestant propriety, starting with more basics. As well as not breaking any rules, my Communion didn’t harm anyone and didn’t prevent anyone else from partaking. Further, I pay for the privilege. I always donate to a church, whether I’m ‘worshipping’ or visiting as a tourist.

Next I thought about motives and outcomes – what do I achieve by taking Communion? It depends. Sometimes I feel comforted. Sometimes it’s to demonstrate support for the place of worship or the priest. Sometimes it’s a show of camaraderie or solidarity with the congregation. I used to take Communion with Mum and Dad in their later years, to show them when and where to go up and queue, and their way back to our pew. A big motive for me is that I consider Communion to be an act of patriotism, Christianity being the bedrock of British values. Patriotism in this context means that I hold Britain’s and Britons’ values, culture, traditions and interests in higher esteem than those of, say, Palestine and Pakistan. That probably offends the congenitally perpetually outraged and offended, which is strange because, if a white British male treated his wives (plural) and daughters as (being polite) second-class or (being accurate) slaves, the outraged would be the first to take to their soap boxes and (being polite) wag their fingers or (being rude) wave their d!cks.

While I’ve convinced myself that it is not improper for me to take Communion, even though I don’t believe in the literal Bible texts, I’m not sure this will satisfy H. Fortunately, Sis-in-Law is a vicar so I’ll chew the cud with her next time we’re imbibing. She’s my kind of vicar.

Having said all that, I’m now anticipating questions along the lines of, isn’t it hypocritical to take Communion and support Christian teachings while refusing to condemn Trump’s cosying up to Putin, Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza, and demonstrating tacit or even overt Islamophobia. 

Starting with Trump, I have no idea what he’s negotiating with Putin or Zelensky and, even if I did, I wouldn’t know if it were good or bad and how it might compare with the eventual outcomes if Trump didn’t take the lead. I refuse to rush to judgement under these circumstances. I’d say that was pretty Christian of me. Further, Peter Hitchens writing for the Mail on Sunday, reminds us that the West, including the USA, ignored lessons from recent history and is partly to blame for the conflict. He also points out that Trump, whom he dislikes, wants to end the ‘pointless killing’ and, if he has to hold his nose and treat Putin as an equal, “then he will not be the first democratic leader to do such a thing. JFK met the dubious Khrushchev, Nixon met the ghastly mass murderer Mao Zedong, Churchill drank brandy, deep into the night, with the unspeakable despot Stalin.” Hitchens might have snuck in reference to other butchers like Adams and McGuiness. He concludes: “You and I may not like this, but millions of us have lived peaceful prosperous lives because of squalid, despicable deals made by men of power.”

Moving on to Israel, as fast as the UN, BBC, Al Jazeera and Twitter report on an atrocity perpetrated against Palestinian civilians, evidence surfaces to at least seriously water down the claims or put them in a wider context. If I were to condemn Israel because of unresearched headlines and blindly regurgitated tweets, then I’d be doing so knowingly on a foundation of untruths and unknowns. This would not be Christian of me. I yearn for Israel to stop attacking Palestine, but only if I were sure that doing so would not lead to more atrocities committed by Hamas. I really want to show support for Palestinian innocents, but every avenue seems to embolden Hamas. The Christian solution is to neutralise Hamas without killing innocents and somehow prevent Hamas-reborn rearing its ugly head down the line. They are such devil-worshippers that any course of action that doesn’t permanently destroy them is The End of Days. I don’t know what the solution is. No one does. I can’t, in Christian conscience, rebuke anyone for trying to destroy Hamas, however distasteful it might seem.

Finally, my supposed Islamophobia. Before Rayner wraps the definition of the word in layers of distasteful, self-serving political malice, Collins dictionary says it means ‘hatred or fear of Muslims or of their politics or culture’, which isn’t a judgmental or moralising statement. My view is that it’s not wrong to hate certain aspects of the way Islam is perpetrated – the abuse of women and girls, for example – as long as that hatred doesn’t extend to all individual Muslims. I mean, there’s a world of difference between Abu Hamza and Zia Yusuf. Similarly, I hate aspects of socialism and how it’s enacted – especially by this horrific Government – but not all socialists.

Funny how those who screech ‘Islamophobic’ the loudest are themselves antisemitic, i.e. ‘Jewphobic’. They want to ‘Free Palestine’ from Israel’s military grip but not, it appears, from being starved and used as human shields by Hamas; nor do they care for the Israeli hostages. Neither can I find any tangible outcry against the Taliban’s über-draconian treatment of its enslaved women in Afghanistan. Militant Islamist group Boko Haram is guilty of horrendous crimes against the Nigerian people and “hundreds of thousands of children” face starvation. I read that in the Telegraph. Wouldn’t have known otherwise. Houthis in Yemen are equally as brutal, yet it was Israel that was lambasted when they attacked the Houthis in a pre-emptive strike in self-defence. When was the last time the congenitally perpetually outraged and offended wagged their fingers en masse at anyone other than the Israelis and those who don’t condemn them? So, I assert that failure to voice concern for humanitarian catastrophes that don’t involve Israel is antisemitism / Jewphobia / racism / morally reprehensible and has no place in a Christian or, in my case, pseudo-Christian life.

In conclusion, I believe that I’ve reasonably justified my taking Communion and support for Christian teachings and that it’s not at odds with my political standpoints. I’ve also highlighted some hypocritical shortcomings of the congenitally perpetually outraged and offended. When it comes to this lot, as the late, great Roger Scruton said, “Whatever these people are for, I’m against.”