The pattern is now fully established: public figure says homosexual acts are sinful and public figure is forced to resign. Tim Farron was not able both to lead the Liberal Democrat Party and hold to traditional Christian teaching, and the latest casualty is Richard Smith, lately mayor of Ferryhill, Co Durham, who on his private Facebook page apparently shared social media posts which criticised homosexual activity as a sin. That is now the secular equivalent, it would seem, of the sin against the Holy Ghost.
The storm that followed was made up of intolerance, ignorance and the usual indifference to public opinion. Although the first and the last of these are worrying it is the second which should most concern Christians. Whatever assurances (and there were several) that ministers gave every time a piece of legislation promoting rights for homosexuals was before Parliament, there is now no effective protection for Christians. The list of those who have suffered for their beliefs grows longer without any sign of Parliament giving tuppence for their plight.
As for indifference to public opinion, it speaks volumes that in this case a local newspaper conducted a poll as to whether the mayor should resign, but desisted from publishing it when it became clear that a majority favoured his staying. Similarly, much was made of a petition signed by 400 people calling on Mr Smith to resign, but one with four times that number wanting him to stay was ignored.
Indeed, the Prime Minister herself is now pressing ahead with transgender legislation despite having the support of only 18 per cent of the populace.
However, it is, as I say, the ignorance which should trouble us most. Once we all understood the concept of sin; understood that, some saints apart, we all sin all day long; that every flash of jealousy, every rush of irritation, every moment of idleness was sin.
Similarly we understood that Christ died for everyone and paid the price for all sin great and small. We grasped that because we all learnt Scripture at school and because the syllabus for O-level religious education was based heavily on the Gospels. The Good Samaritan, Doubting Thomas, whited sepulchres and “thou shalt not steal” were part of the nation’s lexicon. Believers and unbelievers alike knew the basic tenets of the Christian faith and recognised quotations from the Bible, The Book of Common Prayer and Hymns Ancient and Modern.
Now that is so far from the case that forgiveness itself raises eyebrows and, according to surveys, a large proportion of the population does not know what Good Friday commemorates. So when Richard Smith talks of sin, people think that he is talking of something uniquely bad and that he is predicting hellfire and eternal damnation. Nor can they grasp that Christian teaching is to love sinners.
Therefore when Richard Smith says, “As a Christian and a minister of the church [he is the pastor of a free church], anyone regardless of faith, culture, race, gender or sexuality is welcome to my support,” critics cannot square it with their preconception of sin and that ignorance is now so embedded that it will be difficult to counter for a long time to come.
Indeed the word “evil” is now so casually tossed about in common parlance that it has lost its meaning. Any dissenting view is called “pure evil”, as is any criminal. The association of evil with the Devil is to be found only in horror films.
Ignorance is always more difficult to fight than informed opposition. I suspect that nearly all of those who have risen to condemn Richard Smith will have precious little understanding of what he is saying.
Politicians, of course, face a continual battle with ignorance as voters absorb, or worse, half-absorb, information put out by the press and media or fall victim to what is now known as “fake news”. People are variously too busy or too indifferent to bother with close analysis. They understand well that which they have absorbed through life experience or formal education and the rest falls on deaf ears, because it does not mean enough to them to justify the mental effort of attention and comprehension.
With Christianity abandoned in the education system and no longer an active part of life among large swathes of the population, people absorb its principles neither through life nor education. A church is as foreign to them as a betting shop would be to the Pope.
In short, the country needs re-evangelising and, barring the arrival of a latter-day St Paul, ordinary Christians need to get cracking. Nobody is going to understand what Christ taught unless we tell them. It is not somebody else’s job: it is ours.
Ann Widdecombe is a novelist, broadcaster and former prisons minister
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