Many people will be aware of the furore over the Scottish cathedral that allowed a Muslim speaker to make a Koran recitation during a Christian religious service. The passage of the Koran that the Muslim recited was one that denied key tenets of the Christian faith and there has been some serious fallout from the cathedral’s naïve decision to put a Muslim supremacist speaker into their pulpit. Those churchmen who have criticised the actions of the cathedral have been removed from their jobs by the church establishment. who said that they felt criticism of this Koran reading in church was ‘controversial’. One of the clerics who publicly criticised the cathedral’s decision to put on this Koranic reading, and who has lost his position over this row, was one of the Chaplains to the Queen. Other clerics tried to stop him complaining about the Koranic reading and forced him to resign his position.

But pro-Islam idiocy and naivety is not confined to cathedrals in Glasgow. It seems that another of Britain’s ancient cathedrals, this time Gloucester cathedral, has been taken over by clerics aligned to the ‘nice but dim’ interfaith crowd. The cathedral allowed a Muslim cleric from a Gloucester mosque to make the Islamic call to prayer in the cathedral. This has shocked and repulsed some of those who heard about this incident and the response of the ecclesiastical authorities at the cathedral has been to delete the Facebook article on the presence of an Islamic cleric at the cathedral. The cathedral authorities, in an effort to reduce the impact of the flak that they have been getting, have described that criticism of the cathedral as ‘coming mainly from America’ and said that the citizens of Gloucester are fully behind the cathedral’s multicultural activities.

However, the anger at Gloucester cathedral being expressed over this particular project, which includes a multicultural exhibition at the cathedral, is not going to go away. There are questions that the cathedral needs to answer. Primarily the cathedral needs to answer some questions about the moral probity of inviting an Imam to shout out the Islamic call to prayer in a cathedral? This is especially relevant as we are in a time when Christians are being ethnically cleansed and subjected to mass murder in the Middle East, at the hands of those who answer the same Islamic call to prayer.

Those at the cathedral who put this event on, seem to be shockingly lacking in awareness of either the plight of their co-religionists living under the yoke of Islam, or the true nature of Islam itself. The way the cathedral authorities are behaving, by inviting Imams to give the Islamic call to prayer in the cathedral, is either shockingly naïve or astoundingly dishonest. If they don’t know why they should not have allowed this Imam to appear, then they should find out. If they did know about the plight of Christians under Islam and how Islam by its nature, spreads by violence, but still went ahead with this Imam, then they are lying about Islam, in order to promote their own version of the word ‘unity’ and the political cult of multiculturalism.

The ‘Gloucestershire Live’ website has an article on this event and the criticisms that it has developed, written by Daniel Chipperfield (@danchipperfield) a staffer of the Gloucester Citizen newspaper. I’ve reproduced the article below, along with some comments. As is usual policy for this blog the original text from Gloucestershire Live is in italics whereas this blog’s comments are in plain text.

Gloucestershire Live said:

The idea to launch a new multi-cultural exhibition at Gloucester Cathedral with the Islamic faith’s call to prayer has gone down a storm in the city – but has also caused some division.

I get the impression that it is more than ‘some’ division that this event has caused. Coming so soon after the furore about a Koran passage that insulted Christian beliefs being read in Glasgow’s Episcopal Cathedral, I don’t think that anger about this particular event is going to go away that soon. The action taken to deal with the criticism of the cathedral and those running this project has been merely to delete the Facebook post, in order to make the dissenting opinions go away. The organisers of this multicultural project seem to be extremely naïve and startlingly unaware why having the Muslim call to prayer in a cathedral would be troubling for many people.

Imam Hassan of Masjid-e-Noor Mosque in Ryecroft Street held the call at the launch of the Faith exhibition, organised by acclaimed Gloucester artist Russell Haines.

Now, onto these two names. For the moment I’m going to assume for the purposes of this article that Imam Hassan is a reasonable man who cares about others and would be horrified at the idea of giving offence to others. If that is the case then why on earth did he choose the call to prayer as a demonstration text of Islam? It’s certainly something that would give offence to many Christians. It is a call that places Allah as the one but declares that Mohammed is the final prophet and thereby denying the Christian claim of a divine Jesus. Making this statement in a Cathedral is something that would severely piss off any committed Christian, especially ones with even a modicum of theological knowledge.

If there is one thing that should not be done in any sort of interfaith work, that’s to annoy or offend one’s hosts. The use of this Islamic call to prayer would annoy or offend many Christians and they are right to speak out.

If you are quoting your own religious texts in an environment that is the space of another religious belief, then you have to pick the texts you choose very carefully indeed. If I as a Jew, were invited to jump into the pulpit of my local church and read something from Tanakh as part of an interfaith event, then I most certainly would not choose something with which my audience may have a problem. For example I would not quote the Sh’ema, in such a setting, as the prayer explicitly lays out that the divine is One and indivisible ( Heb. Shema Yisrael Hashem elokeinu Hashem echad) as this may be considered as attacking my hosts’ Christian belief in a deity that is one but is also three. Therefore I would choose something fluffy, uniting but thought-provoking, something about justice or having honest measuring scales or undertaking acts of charity. I would not choose something which could cause offence and neither should this Imam have done so. Because the Islamic call to prayer attacks the belief systems of the Imam’s hosts, he should not have used it and those running this project should have been aware about why it would be considered as problematical to believing Christians.

Now we move on to one of the driving forces behind all this naïve interfaith fluffery, a local artist called Russell Haines. Haines, who came to art later in life, is a pretty talented portraitist and has previously had his portraiture work funded by the Arts Council. However his exhibition ‘Faith’ exploring 35 different individuals and their relationship to faith, seems to have inspired a whole lot of the ‘nice but dim’ interfaith crowd to back his project politically and get it exhibited at Gloucester Cathedral. Neither the art nor the exhibition is a matter of concern to me and I don’t think this guy’s art would bother many other people either. What is causing concern is some of the interfaith stuff connected with the exhibition, that is going on with the connivance of the Hippy section of the Church of England. As Mr Haines is an avowed Atheist, he probably isn’t aware that shouting out ‘Allah hu akbar’ or Allah is the Greatest, a phrase that is most often heard before Islamic atrocities, in a cathedral is going to stir up anger and resentment. But it would have been nice if Mr Haines could have been more aware that having the representative of an ideology that is currently murdering Christians in their hundreds saying that his god is the greatest was probably not the best of ideas.

The event, which was seen by about 1,000 people at the iconic building, triggered hundreds of compliments from people around the city on social media.

Probably the positive comments were from the same interfaith crowd who attended the event.

But it also provoked criticism in some quarters, with some calling it inappropriate and even questioning why a “different God” should be allowed to be worshiped there.

I’m really not surprised that this provoked criticism. Christians are correct to ask why their place of worship is being used to promote other faiths during a church service? The local Imam should also not have been allowed or encouraged to shout out ‘my god’s better than your god’ in the cathedral, which is in effect what has happened.

Gloucester Cathedral also took the step of deleting a Facebook post on the call to prayer after the comments got heated.

It sounds very much like the Cathedral had expected the public’s comments to concur with what they perceive being the case inside their happy clappy interfaith bubble. The cathedral authorities have been hit in the face with the cold wet fish of reality. They have found out that a great many people do not like Islam for cogent and explainable reasons and are horrified to see Islam being promoted in a church.

The ecclesiastical authorities have decided to ‘shoot the messenger’ by removing this post but I’m afraid that such actions are not going to make the criticism go away, not for Gloucester cathedral and not for any non-Muslim religious organisation who decides to pander to Islam in this sort of way.
On another post on the cathedral’s Facebook page, commenter Isabel Farmer said: “It’s wonderful to be multicultural, but faith is set apart.

“We are never to worship other Gods in a house built for our savior.

“My ancestors built this cathedral and to allow a practising Muslim pray to another God is insanely naive.

“What did you think it would do? Encourage them to convert?

“This is why England is on the down slide. Culture and Race have nothing to do with the first commandment as God made all races and he cares about souls only.

“Stand firm Christians. Bring people to the faith by telling them the truth. God is the same yesterday, today, forever, so stop with the multicultural appeal and open a history book and a Bible for yourself.”

It appears that the actions of the cathedral in playing the happy clappy interfaith kumbayah game is winding up a lot of people. As one of the commentators said, those at the cathedral who’ve organised this are ‘insanely naïve’.

But Russell said the beginning of the event went “extremely well”.

“It went better than we expected. It was lovely to see people of all faiths learning and getting together and having a good time,” he said.

“The whole point in doing it is to show people human side of everybody and that we all can get on.
“Unfortunately there’s an element people follow in every single religion that is intolerant of others, which is a massive shame.

“I believe a lot of the ‘anti’ people were from America but people from Gloucester were all for it which is interesting.”

The exhibition, which runs until Sunday, February 26, was launched with the help of numerous groups.

I get the distinct impression that Mr Haines didn’t get the 100% positive response that he was expecting, which is why he’s emphasising the beginning of the event. I’ve no disagreement with Mr Haines when he says that we are all human whatever our belief system, but I have to disagree with his statement on intolerance. He appears to be blaming the Christians who objected to the Imam’s presence for ‘intolerance’ but he seems to be monstrously unaware that Islam itself is an ideology based on an often violent intolerance for those outside of Islam. He also seems unaware that Islam the so called ‘religion of peace’, was started by a desert dwelling, 7^th century, illiterate, bloodthirsty Jew and Christian murdering paedophile called ‘Mohammed’. Nice guy – NOT.
As well as Buddhist chanting, there was Rasta drumming and story-telling, Hindu dancing, a Jewish Klezmer band as well as a Gospel choir and Pagan rock band – not to mention a fire eating vicar.

How very ‘interfaith’ it all sounds. Still I suppose it looked good to the audience, even if it will not prevent one Muslim beheading one Christian in the Middle East or prevent one Jew from being hounded out their home by Muslims in the UK.

In the next few weeks the public will be able to see 37 large portraits as well as unique video interviews filmed by University of Gloucestershire students around the theme of promoting unity

I bet these students are on courses that are achingly left wing. I wonder what they are studying? ‘Feminist glaciology’? Media studies? Or more frighteningly, are they tomorrow’s social workers or politicians?

Each subject portrays an individual from a different religion, faith or belief system and includes Zoroastrians, Druids, Witches, Pagans and Baha’i as well as all more well-known religions.

It’s a form of ethnography really this project isn’t it? It’s classifying by representation in visual images members of different groups. This isn’t new, this is something that’s been done by a multitude of artists and photographers for many decades. It may be good art but is it saying anything new or relevant? Probably not, would be my guess.
It includes the first portrait of the Bishop of Gloucester, The Right Reverend Rachel Treweek who is the first female Bishop to sit in the House of Lords. The painting has now been sold and is on loan to the exhibition.

The Rt Rev Treweek is a cleric very much from the mould of the liberal/left of the Church of England. She champions ‘equality’ in all its forms, and seems really eager to ‘connect with the wider community’. Judging by the fact that she’s spent time at an Islamic girls’ school in her Diocese and sees this as vital to her ‘connecting with the wider community’, I don’t think we can look to the Rt Rev Treweek to step out of the lefty/multiculti bubble to learn the nasty truth about Islam and understand why many non-Muslims despise Islam. One day the Rt Rev Treweek may learn that people dislike Islam for valid reasons and also dislike, for equally good reasons, clerics from their own faith appearing to give Islam an even break.

Reverend Ruth Fitter, vicar of St Paul and Stephen Church who help arrange the exhibition said she thanked people for the debate caused by the launch.

She also described the Imam’s call to prayer as “absolutely beautiful”.

I’m just gobsmacked by the Reverend Fitter’s words. I’ve never heard such naïve guff for a long time and especially not from a Vicar. It’s so incredibly and stunningly naïve a thing to say. Does not the Reverend Fitter understand that there are parts of the world where the sound of the Islamic call to prayer does not arouse feelings of beauty, but instead feelings of terror? The Islamic call to prayer is the calling to prayer of those who follow a faith that routinely puts Christians to the sword.

How on earth can any educated and sane person state that the Islamic call to prayer is ‘beautiful’? This is especially so when the statement about the Islamic call to prayer’s ‘beauty’ is coming from someone like the Reverend Fitter. She, as a theologian, should be very aware of the situation for Christians living in Islamic lands and the reasons for the subjugation of these Christians. and should understand why it’s inappropriate for the Islamic call to prayer to be uttered in a church.
“We live in a world that is becoming more and more polarised by people who claim to have the truth. No one has any proof of God – that’s what faith is about,” she said.

But it’s what you have faith in and how you express that faith that matters. I follow a God who led the people who chose The Eternal One across the sea of reeds and out of Egyptian captivity, the Christians follow someone who, as I see it, was essentially a follower of the Rabbinical school of Hillel but who they, the Christians, see as divine. These are two radically different religious and theological paths but they are both at heart, paths of peace and justice. Islam on the other hand is not. Islam’s difference matters and the Reverend Fitter should know that and not fall back into the lazy simplistic thinking of ‘it’s all the same god really’. Islam’s creator was a man far more practised in evil, and violence in the pursuit of plunder, than either Jesus or Moses could ever conceivably be said to be.

It’s a fantasy to say that Islam’s god is the same as the god of the Christians and the Jews because of the difference in Islam’s theology, its religious rules, its attitude to violence and its supremacism. The difference is so great that I find I cannot honestly classify Islam as an Abrahamic faith. As far as I’m concerned, there are two Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Christianity but I do not include Islam.

To conclude this piece, the cathedral authorities have played the multiculti card in an effort to make themselves appear ‘relevant’ to the general public. In this they have failed badly. Not only have they got the shock of their lives, to find that not everybody shares their slightly creepy and very authoritarian idea of ‘unity’, and been told forthrightly by Christians that they are disgusted with the inclusion of the Imam and the Islamic call to prayer, but they have also been shown as weak appeasers of Islam. If the Bishop of Gloucester wishes her Diocese to be ‘relevant’ then, rather than indulge in this sort of fantasy multicultural agit-prop, she could try speaking out for persecuted Christians and indeed members of other faiths who live under the oppressive burden of Islam in Muslim-dominated countries. If she stood up for her faith and for those whose faces are continually pushed into the dirt of dhimminitude by the jackboot of Islam, then she would have made herself and her Diocese far more relevant than a lifetime of pointless ‘bhajis and bagels’ interfaith activity like this.