The Telegraph front page for Friday, June 6, has a photo of Cyril Ager, a 89 year old veteran who took part in the D-Day landings in Normandy, 70 years ago, visiting Gold Beach, with thousands of Union Jacks containing thank you messages in front of him and the English Channel behind him. The Queen, Prime Minister David Cameron, President Obama and other Allied leaders (including Vladimir Putin) are commemorating the 70th anniversary of D-Day. What message does that operation have for us today? The Allies had to mount a rescue effort to liberate Europe from a Nazi tyranny. They had to take action at the loss of many lives to save Europe from highly cultured barbarians who had reverted from their national Christian faith and instead had embraced paganism. Is there a parallel here for today? Is a D-Day necessary today in order to rescue our culture from highly educated secular pagans who are reducing human beings to that status of animals.

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and other anti-Christian, pseudo-scientific books is reported to be complaining about parents teaching their children lies in the form of Santa Claus or anything supernatural. Speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival, the evolutionary biologist said that parents should be wary of filling young minds with pernicious fantasies about wizards, princesses and Father Christmas. Instead we should be “fostering a spirit of scepticism. There's a very interesting reason why a prince could not turn into a frog; it's statistically improbable.” Jemima Lewis in her column in The Telegraph entitled, Fiction Can Be a Great Way to Tell the Truth, Mr Dawkins, takes him on. She compares him with fundamentalists who cannot understand the value of metaphor in the Bible. “And like all fundamentalists, he misses the point about fiction: it is a brilliantly effective vehicle for the truth. The line between truth and fiction is especially porous in children, who have an instinctive understanding of metaphor. They know that the Frog Prince is not really a story about shape-shifting amphibians, but about the importance of keeping your promises.” She goes on to relate how her father kept her entertained as child with a “constant stream of fibs [lies].... He spun elaborate fantasies about our suburban friends and neighbours... Gradually, I came to realise that there was not a grain of truth in these stories. But I demanded to hear them again and again, wrapping myself up in a cosy tapestry of family jokes and fables. She goes on to acknowledge that her belief in Santa Claus was not the result of a lie, but that it was an act of love from her parents.
Secular humanists like Dawkins are so infected by the virus of scepticism that they cannot appreciate truths that are conveyed through analogy, metaphor, miracles, the imagination, the supernatural and acts of love.

Another form of fundamentalism that threatens Europe is to be found in Muslim extremists. As we drove through Bradford we passed many Muslims on their way to Friday prayers in the mosques that have sprung up to serve the Pakistani community. This part of England was strongly Methodist in the 19th century. Today it is strongly Muslim. Where Christianity has declined in its zeal and support it has been replaced by Islam. Women, clad in burquas and men in Pakistani dress, walk along the streets. The mosques are filled with Muslim men for Friday prayers and the churches are struggling to keep their doors open. The headlines in the national news concerns complaints that Muslim extremists were trying to take over some public schools in Birmingham by having Muslim speakers in assemblies, separating the sexes, and the refusal of Muslim governors to treat female teachers as equals. The Muslim community responded by asserting that they have a right to raise their children in their conservative version of Islam. The government replied that they have the responsibility to provide an education that respects British values. It is interesting to see a debate over values in school education. We have the same debate in the USA. The question becomes one of what constitutes American values? School boards are faced with this sort of issue from time to time and some minorities complain that they are being compelled to comply. Where there is dispute there needs to be the freedom to opt out. The Muslim message is that of law, legalism, and the subjugation of women. Where that is taught in the schools the result will be a Muslim culture. The secular message is that religion has no place in public education. No wonder we have a problem with moral values, sexual promiscuity, greed, materialism, anxiety, addiction and violence.

What has happened to the leadership of the churches in the United Kingdom? The clergy are probably overwhelmed with their parochial duties as chaplains to the community. They are at the beck and call of everybody and respond to the urgent needs rather than the important priorities of preaching the Gospel. They are custodians of buildings which are ancient and a turn off to the young. I saw a sign in front of a modern commercial building yesterday that advertised a Family Life Church meeting there. It looked attractive and appealing in contrast to the blackened stone churches in the urban areas with no place for parking and poor facilities. I wonder what sort of an impact a clergyman can have in this environment where the popular religion is football.

Why is there such indifference to the faith of Christ, to spiritual realities? Why is the church such an object of historical importance alone and seen to be irrelevant to lives today? Is there no fear of God before their eyes? Is there no sense of a coming reckoning? Is there little desire for finding meaning and purpose in life, in eternal things? Is life only a matter of survival, of material advancement, of escape from the anxieties of the present and the terror of the future? We saw in the window of a dress shop a lovely green scarf designed by famous fashion brand Alexander McQueen. It was very expensive – about $500.00. I pointed out to my wife, who was admiring it, that the black border was decorated with skulls! Something beautiful was spoiled by the shock factor of death – unappealing to us but apparently attractive to those who want to dress to impress in a unique way. Perhaps that is a metaphor of the pagan culture that is prevalent. We are told that we are mere mortals, skeletons clothed in flesh and blood that have no enduring value. To the contrary, the Gospel tells us that we are designed by our Creator for the purpose of living to his glory. That raises our sights above the material and beyond the temporal. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, and hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.... Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” (John 5:25-29)

On Sunday, June 8, I attended 8.00 a.m. Holy Communion at All Saints Church, Helmsley which was next door to our hotel. There were no greeters at the door. There was a stack of Prayer Books on the table with an announcement sheet inserted in each one. I picked one up and chose a pew near the front. The sheet announced a walk to raise funds for a charity. The parish is a wealthy one, which had recently received a substantial bequest for building additions and repairs. However it was having difficulty in funding its annual budget and was some $8,000 behind for the year. The service had not changed since I attended in my childhood. It was straight from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, Caroline English and all. The celebrant was a woman who stuck to her script with nary a deviation. No greeting, no homily, nothing personal intruded. She did it all on her own, with no lay reader or anyone to assist her in serving communion. And it was Pentecost Sunday!!!!! She read the account of the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 with as little emotion as was possible. How come that this theme of the Christian calendar, this festival of the birth of the Christian church could be reduced to such a recital? Having been raised in this tradition I was not surprised but am amazed that it still continues. The famous upper class English reserve does not do the Gospel message very well. There is plenty of emotion in England, but it is more likely to be found at football matches than in the church. No wonder the church is losing ground with the public. I received communion with the eleven other communicants, prayed for Christ to be real to me and others, and gave thanks for my salvation. I was one of the last to leave the church. No one spoke to me. What would Jesus say?

We drove into York where we intended to worship at historic York Minster, one of the largest Gothic edifices in Europe. But services had been cancelled (and this on the Feast of Pentecost – could you imagine cancelling services on Easter?) because they were preparing for a special service in the afternoon. The service, I found out, was the inauguration of a new diocese out of the merger of four older dioceses: Bradford, Ripon, Leeds and Wakefield. They cancelled Sunday worship for an organizational ceremony for a shrunken administration!!!!! We went next door to St. Michael-le-Belfry Church where there were about 150 present, mainly students, and the preacher was giving a Powerpoint presentation on Pentecost from his Apple computer – what a contrast from the earlier service I attended! He was quite good with illustrations and concluded with a prayer of commitment to Christ. His presentation would be more effective if he could learn to eliminate the “ums” between each sentence. Afterwards there was a testimony from a student who was to be baptized in an inflatable pool outside the front door of the church. We could not understand a word he said because of his diction. The church building itself is ancient and in need of gutting and redecorating. The pews crowd it and need removing. Aesthetically it is a monstrosity with memorials to famous deceased worthies crowding the walls. Some churches have had the courage to completely redesign their sanctuaries with much profit, e.g. St. Nicholas, Durham under George Carey’s leadership, St. Aldates, Oxford under Michael Green and All Souls, Langham Place, London under John Stott. This church is reaching the students in the city of York but it probably doesn't have the money to spend on renovations. Nevertheless they must have thousands of former members from the days when David Watson took over as Rector in the late 60’s who could contribute if they were asked.

We passed St. Wilfrid's Catholic Church, on the other side of York Minster and I peeked in. It was crowded with people standing at the back and in the aisles. What are they doing to attract such large numbers? Apparently they are staffed by priests from the Order of the Oratory, followers of St. Philip Neri, who are great evangelists and exercise a team ministry. The interior of the church was bright and colorful (in contrast to the dreary interiors of many Anglican churches) with the priests colorfully robed. On enquiry of an Anglican minister I was told that their attraction was that they were traditional – they stood for the unpopular views of traditional orthodox Christianity. The Anglican Church tries to be too polite and accommodating to the culture. It is not that they use traditional language, but that they see themselves as standing in the apostolic tradition and as called to communicate the apostolic Gospel with all the fervor they can muster. The Feast of Pentecost was being re-enacted in that liturgy as representatives of many ethnic groups were present, especially from Eastern Europe.

I returned from England determined to be more evangelistic and to provide more Gospel material and opportunities for visitors to learn about their need and Christ’s provision for them.

The Rev. Ted Schroder, pastors a church on Amelia Island, Florida. He was an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Texas.