In the UK our government appears more interested in spending £8million a day housing illegal immigrants than helping homeless citizens, even veterans. Farmers across Europe, the people who produce the food on our tables, are treated as environmental vandals and forced out of business. In the US the woke military regards white working-class Southerners, the social group which has traditionally produced soldiers for its armies, as problematic. This process if pursued will eventually produce a society in which the scorned masses live in fragmentation and isolation, while a disconnected elite directs everything.

The Complicit Church

That this is concerning is obvious to those not blinded by progressivism. What is even more concerning is that the very force which can and which should hold things together and point to a better way has bought into the whole destructive movement. At a time when its own figures show that attendance at the Church of England has 'nosedived' and that at this rate it will vanish around about 2060 or 2070, the Church demonstrates its priorities, and they aren't the gospel.Dioceses in the West Midlands have advertised for an 'Anti-Racism Practice Officer (Deconstructing Whiteness), Regional Racial Justice'. The successful applicant will lead a team of eleven whose purpose is to make white Anglicans ashamed of their past and reconstruct their present.

Last year the CofE Church Commissioners published a report calling for a fund of £100million to be earmarked for reparations to atone for historic slavery. For a church which is failing to keep its buildings open, amalgamating parishes and cannot supply clergy to run its remaining parishes, this was a huge investment. But apparently not huge enough. The oversight group for the Church Commissioners recently issued a new report: 'Community engagement confirmed the view that £100million will be insufficient for this purpose. The Church Commissioners have therefore embraced a target of £1billion for a broader healing, repair and justice initiative with the fund at its centre.' The Commissioners expect the extra £900million to be coughed up by charities, businesses and 'wealthy individuals'.

Rejecting The Gospel

Whilst this has been the centre of media attention, a more telling matter has been allowed to slide by largely unnoticed. The report also calls for the CofE to apologise for 'seeking to destroy diverse African traditional religious belief systems' and replace them with Christianity. As well as a repudiation of the many faithful CofE missionaries who spent their lives and sometimes died in the service of the gospel in Africa, it is a repudiation of the gospel itself.

The Church Commissioners have 'welcomed' the Oversight Group's report. In doing so they have in effect called upon the Church of England to repent for having preached the gospel. When Paul wrote 'For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes', (Romans 1:16) he outlined the basic commitment for the life of the church. By welcoming this report the Church of England has declared itself ashamed of the gospel and has embraced apostacy.

Each year, thousands of Nigerian Christians are murdered by groups such as Boko Haram and Fulani tribesmen for a faith that the report apparently believes the church should apologise for spreading. Is it any wonder that the centre of the Christian faith is moving from the West to Africa? Christianity is now the most persecuted religion in the world, but you'd never think it to hear the silence of the Anglican bishops or Presbyterian Moderators.

Widespread Decline

The CofE is not alone in its addiction to a combination of abject grovelling about yesterday's errors and preening itself on today's rectitude in accepting whatever the world considers the latest good. The prophets of fragmentation are in every church. In 2022 the Church of Scotland apologised to witches persecuted under the Witchcraft Act of 1583 in order to be seen as 'standing in solidarity with the innocents who suffered'.

England's Methodist Church has issued an Inclusive Language Guide. In warning of 'hurtful' terms to be avoided, it says 'The words "parent," "partner", and "child" are a good place to start.' Methodists should take care how they address other Christians: 'Language such as "brothers and sisters", while intended to be inclusive and friendly, doesn't take into account our non-binary friends.' This is more than an attempt to encourage politeness: it is an attempt to restructure how we see and think of others.

Mere Christians If the Christian faith is to have a future in the West, and we are not promised that it will, it is going to be because 'mere' Christians act. Those who fill the pews and carry the faith are going to become increasingly aware of what is going on and revolt against the 'wokier than thou' who infest the upper echelons of the church. Only if we refuse to listen to the false prophets of progressivism, and stop subsidising their efforts to replace Scripture with critical race theory and open-ended tolerance of everything but traditional Christianity, will the church and society stand a chance of recovering.

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