As a Protestant Christian I protest for free speech and against control freakery.
It was Protestant Christianity with its insistence on protest that gave freedom of speech to the British Isles. It is a lack of Christianity that it is taking it away and substituting political correctness in its place, for those who will bow down to its mantras.
Closing down Christian talk in public and in private is not only an affront to freedom of speech but it is cutting off the very branch which bore freedom of speech. Welcome to the Orwellian world we now inhabit.
When I was young, it used to be said that you should not speak about religion, politics and sex in polite company. This has now been curtailed to ‘religion and politics’, because sex is everywhere. The current backlash against the sexual revolution of the 1960s still has some distance to run.
Religion and politics pervade the whole of life, in spite of the mantra that ‘religion and politics don’t mix’, and it is more or less impossible to avoid them in open discussion. In effect, this mantra not to discuss religion and politics in polite company has led to the decline of Christianity in Britain and it has left a vacuum in public debate into which secularism and now islam has stepped. They have done so using our unequal equalities legislation, which puts Christianity at the bottom of its list of ‘competiting equalities’. Canadian clinical psychologist Professor Jordan Peterson explains not only the folly but the danger of seeking equality of outcomes on HARDtalk yesterday. Equality of opportunity is a different subject.
Voltaire admired the freedom of speech in Christian Britain. However, Freemasonry banned the discussion of religion in its lodges. Aggressive secularists continue taking away free speech on religion as they lock down discussion of Christian principles and exclude them from public debate.
I protest for the restoration of freedom of speech, and I look forward to the day when Christianity will be reintroduced to public debate in Britain. That would put the cat among the pigeons. It is more important than the debate whether to reintroduce the wolf to Scotland. To change the metaphor once more, you won’t miss the water till the well runs dry.
Update:
13 Aug 2018: Boris Johnson and the letter box burka debate has become a freedom of speech issue.
13 Feb 2020: freedom of speech is under threat by letting Ofcom police the internet. Faceless censors will be able to shut down potential harm speech! This is contrary to an important decision already made by the UK Supreme Court. Lady Hale, now retired as from being President of the Supreme Court, has already judged that potential harm is an inadequate principle in law.
The madness of secular religion with its heresy hunting and Thought Police: hate speech > harm speech > potential harm speech. What next?
14 Feb 2020: over-the-top policing described as “disproportionate interference” in the right to freedom of expression. Also, is public humiliation part of police procedure?
10 Oct 2020: others are interpreting the modern secular religion as a return to mediaeval practices – excommunication (no platforming), iconoclasm (statues pulled down), witchhunts on social media, indulgences (carbon credits), alchemy (fiat money creation in quantitative easing).
Donald's Thoughts 
“PRAYER CHANGES THINGS” When god’s people once again believe this and act upon it things will have to change, but sometimes God has to wait until His people really do mean business. It is our lack of meaningful prayer, tat hunders God;s responce. Sometimes He needs us to get really desperate before he answers . Also if we regard sin in our hearts then He will not hear us.
As a nation we have sinned grieviously in God’s sight =, as we try to be like all the other nations. and allow abortions and rampart sexual sin into our lives. the Lord will not answer prayer until He sees we are repentant for all we have done against Him. I often wonder how many Christian leaders and great men, have had their lives terminated by abortion.
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Agreed Joan.
Two additional thoughts.
1. Faith without works is dead Jam 2:20,26 and I suggest that prayer without action is dead also. Saul of Tarsus prayed: ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’
2. ‘And therefore will the LORD wait, that He may be gracious to you’ Isa 30:18. I preached on this several times.
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I’m sorry Dr Boyd but the comments by Mr Boris Johnson MP regarding women wearing the burka is down right wrong. Next we’ll hear that Sikh men should be banned from wearing turbans and it goes on and on. Why not live and let live? We have shop owners who are asian one shop owner’s father wears a turban and I for one would NEVER dream of going up to him in the street and say to him “why don’t you take that thing off your head”!
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Hello David,
I don’t know what you are sorry about. I never commented on Boris Johnson’s comment but on its becoming a freedom of speech issue with a link to some comment about it. Did you watch it? The topic of the blogpost is freedom of speech and more and more people are seeing that our society is inhibiting freedom of speech. This is just another example.
However, to interact with your comment: 1. a turban on one’s head is not the same as covering your face. In this context, Ruth Davidson’s equating of a burka with a cross only manifests her inability to appreciate the issue and demonstrates her willingness to submit to political correctness. 2. who suggested asking people to take off turbans? So why introduce it?
The problem is that aggressive sections of our society are not ‘living and let live’, and they want to control the thinking of others in order to endorse their opinions. This is secular repentance.
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Hello Dr Boyd. My point is if people are offended with females wearing Burkas or veils over their faces, whats to stop them being offended with Sikh males who wear turbans? Or other religious minorities being offended against. When eg we are out waiting to be picked up on a Sab, we get plenty of folk coming up to us and wondering if our “taxi” is late in coming? When we tell them where we are going they just scoff.
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in answer to your question I DID see the news item, and thought what he said was uncalled for. In some middle eastern countries women are NOT allowed to be seen in public without their face covered. That should NOT allow individuals to make fun of them. On a personal note when I am out, I get loads of individuals staring at me and then turning round to their parents and asking “why’s that man in a chair?
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Hello David,
You mention offence. This is only one aspect of the topic of wearing the burka in public in Britain, which includes many issues: freedom of speech, intimidation, domestic abuse and security. These factors are not involved in wearing crosses and turbans.
I am not Boris Johnson’s apologist and the topic of this blogpost is not what he said but freedom of speech.
I did not ask if you had read his article but if you had watched the video to which I linked, which will explain my comment that the subject has moved on to freedom of speech. I did not say whether this was a good or a bad thing. It was simply a statement. Read it again.
On the subject of offence:
1. at a recent meeting in Inverness I made the following comment publicly: “As a Christian I am offended twenty times a day by swearing, blasphemy, filthy and sexual jokes. As a Christian I know how to tolerate this offence. It was Protestant Christianity that gave freedom of speech to the British Isles with its insistence on protest. It is a lack of Christianity that it is taking it away and substituting political correctness in its place, for those who will bow down to its mantras. Closing down Christian talk is not only an affront to freedom of speech but it is cutting off the very branch which bore freedom of speech. Welcome to the Orwellian world we now inhabit.” The essence of this found its way into this blogpost – see above.
2. I have addressed the subject of offence in a previous blogpost about the modern interpretation of this doctrine in the Macpherson Report.
I hope this helps.
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The etymology of “Protestant” is useful. Pro testare, meaning, “for the truth.”
Given this judgement allows us to tell the truth (men can only ever be men, women can only ever be women) it is a true out-working of our Protestant Constitution.
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