Religion & Society

     The attacks in London on Saturday are the latest in a series of terror strikes that have led to the deaths of over 30 civilians of various nationalities. British PM Theresa May has expressed the outrage of most British people, declaring that “we cannot allow this ideology the safe space that it needs to breathe” and calling for the regulation of cyberspace to prevent the internet being used so effectively by terrorist groups to disseminate their poisonous ideology. These declarations by the British prime minister conceal a scandal. The signs of Britain’s current predicament were visible decades earlier, and successive prime ministers and cabinets proved incapable of anticipating the extent of the threat from Islamist terrorism.         A harbinger of Britain’s present problems was evident almost thirty years ago. In 1989, Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of British author Salman Rus...

( Vision Radio )   A Christian academic says the targeting of young people in the fatal terror attack in Manchester shows the terrorists’ intent to inflict the greatest possible offence against their opponents.    The Manchester attack killed 22 people and injured 59 others after a pop concert at Manchester Arena.    Professor Peter Riddell, a Professorial Research Associate in History at the University of London, has told our newsroom, while he believes the targeting of young people was deliberate, the extremists operate from an ‘us and them’ mentality – whereby they see the lives of any non-Muslims as being of lesser value.    He says while there are Koranic verses that talk about the value of human life, there are references in both Koran and associated literature that prioritise the support, defence, and advancement of Muslims.    Professor Riddell says the extremists use such parts of their religious texts to justify their attacks, a...

Some things will never change in New Zealand. The spectacular scenery in the South Island, so graphically captured in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy of films, will remain for the benefit of future generations, as will the more subtle but equally appealing beauty of the country’s North Island. Similarly, but less desirable, the country’s location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, will remain for posterity. Rapid change However, society is changing rapidly and with it the religious identity of New Zealand. Census statistics are useful in painting a portrait of that change. Between the censuses of 2006 and 2013, the proportion of New Zealanders declaring themselves as Christian dropped from 51.7% to 44.9%. The greatest challenge to Christian identity in this rapidly secularising nation comes from those who declare themselves to be without religion: 32.2% in 2006 and 38.5% in 2013. It is quite possible that the proportion of those without f...

Just over ten years ago I published a report on the Secular Islam Summit held in Florida, USA, on 4-5 March 2007. The report appeared in The Church Times (Issue 7516, 30 March 2007, p.12), and was cross-posted at various internet sites, including here . A decade has elapsed but the issues raised by this Summit remain as pertinent and as urgent as was the case in 2007. A slightly edited version of my original article appears below.  Speeches from the Summit can be viewed here . ========== In a striking example of self-analysis, about 500 delegates, including both practising and nominal Muslims, attended an inaugural “Secular Islam Summit” in March [2007] in St Petersburg, Florida. The summit culminated in a declaration, which can be read here . The declaration was signed by such luminaries as Ibn Warraq, a widely published author, who writes on such taboo subjects as the text of the Qur’an and apostasy; and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who fled to Holland in the 1990s from her native...

You would expect Malaysia to be a test case for pluralism but for more than 30 years there’s a been a really substantial program of Islamisation in Malaysia pushed by its government. Read on and listen to the interview on Vision Radio Twenty20   here .

Malaysia is a country in ferment. The abduction of protestant Pastor Raymond Koh missing since 13 February after being snatched from a street in Petaling Jaya near the capital Kuala Lumpur, comes against a background of pressure against non-Muslims. The growing demand for Islamic criminal punishment codes, known as hadd or hudud (plural Arabic for 'prohibitions'), which set Pakistan on the road to ruin, is worrying . Hudud crimes warrant severe corporal punishments, including stoning for adultery, and death for apostasy.  Though limited by rules of evidence, their implementation on any statute book creates consternation, and at worst, as in Pakistan, mob rule. Yet demand for and implementation of such penalties are creeping in from conservative fringe states in Malaysia. Emerging Malaysia is described by the CIA as ‘a middle-income country [that] has transformed itself since the 1970s from a producer of raw materials into an emerging multi-sector economy’, so the ...