DEPUTY Prime Minister Angela Rayner is reported to be planning a 16-person ‘Islamophobia Council’, the aim of which will be to deal with anti-Muslim discrimination in the UK. As a Christian minister and open-air preacher, I find this a matter of grave concern.
Part of the problem is the existing definition of Islamophobia issued in November 2018 by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims. It states: ‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’. This statement has been formally adopted by the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, the SNP, the Scottish Conservatives and Plaid Cymru. A total of 52 local councils in England have embraced the statement, as have 22.7 per cent of Welsh councils.
This appalling definition inspired by multicultural wokery ignores the glaringly obvious fact that Islam is not a race, but a religion. What we are witnessing here is the employment of the universal fear of being branded as ‘racist’ engendered by the leftist-liberal establishment in recent decades in order to prohibit any legitimate rebuttal of Islam, especially by those who believe the Christian Scriptures.
This fear of being branded as racist has of course led to the failure to deal with the rape-gang crisis afflicting so many of our towns over many years. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was established by the Home Secretary in September 2014. It issued its final report in October 2022. In February of that year one of the Inquiry’s reports spoke of ‘extensive failures by local authorities and police forces’ to deal in any effective way with the grooming gangs. The Secretary to the Inquiry said: ‘We need to break the culture where people are worried that they might be accused of being racist just because they record factual information.’
As an open-air preacher, I frequently have to critique Islam, not because Muslims are my particular focus – I am preaching to every person I see in the high street – but because Muslims approach me and directly challenge my Christian beliefs. Furthermore, they do not hesitate to tell me exactly what they think about the falsehood of the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity.
May I give some examples. My Islamic friends (and I am pleased that they approach me) often say: ‘Your Bible is corrupted. There are numerous versions; it is completely untrustworthy, and has been hopelessly altered.’ Now since the Bible is the word of God, this constitutes an assault upon the integrity of the Christian revelation, and even upon the nature of the Trinitarian God, for it is the Holy Spirit who has breathed out the Scriptures.
I well remember a time in a high street in a town not far from my church in South Buckinghamshire when a passing Muslim lady shouted out as I was preaching, ‘The Bible is a lie!’ She did so without any hesitation or fear of a possible adverse response. Her comment of course did not lead to the police rushing to the scene.
Muslims frequently come up to me and say, ‘Jesus is not God’ and ‘How can God have a Son? It is impossible’. Again this represents a denial of the most cherished beliefs of Christians. Muslims claim that God is one, and reject the trinitarian truth that God manifests Himself to the world in the three Persons of the one Godhead. So they openly repudiate the wonder of the incarnation. They also deny that Jesus died on the Cross, which in Christian theology is the only basis for anyone to be saved from their sins. In other words, our Muslim friends publicly deny all that is basic and non-negotiable in the Christian Gospel.
When a follower of Muhammad tells me that Jesus is not God’s Son, it is a blasphemous statement as far as I am concerned. I find it offensive and repugnant. To deny who Christ really is to deny God the Father also, as we see in John 5:23. This verse, among many others, is plain evidence that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God (though many compromised and woke churches will claim that they do). Indeed, the Bible teaches that all religions which deny the deity of Christ and teach salvation other than by His sacrificial death cannot by definition be true, and must therefore be rejected. The Christian has a duty before God not to conceal the truth, and so his rejection of other faiths must mean publicly as well as privately in one’s conscience.
The critical point, however, is this: I actually support the freedom of Muslims to say that Jesus is not God’s Son, and to denounce the Christian Scriptures, even though it offends and grieves me. In contrast to what Islam teaches, religious truth can never be maintained by the State trying to compel a person’s conscience, a grave mistake which many have tragically made in church history (and which is one of the reasons why I am a nonconformist). However, this liberty granted to Muslims in the UK to publicly repudiate devoutly held Christian beliefs must be reciprocated by Islam and the Left, when it comes to Christians critiquing Islam.
What if a Christian speaks publicly of the real and frightening danger which converts to Christianity from Islam often face in majority-Muslim contexts around the world, and even in the UK? What if a Christian minister publicly asserts, as he must, that Jesus Christ is the only way to God, and that there is no mercy and salvation to be received through any prophet of any other religion? If he then names those other religions, and Islam is one of them, will he suddenly become a criminal whom the State must silence?
In fact, the Christian is demonstrating his love for his Muslim neighbour when he tells him that Jesus Christ is God’s Son and the only way to be eternally saved and reach heaven (John 14:6). However, by faithfully preaching Christ crucified for sinners, every true preacher is effectively denying the validity of all other faiths, including Islam. What wickedness it would be to stigmatise him as a criminal who is motivated by base, racial bigotry.
Finally, if Islamophobia and racism are such serious problems in the UK, why is it that so many followers of Islam from around the world have chosen to come and live here and are still endeavouring to do so?
