Christians From The United Kingdom

"I wholeheartedly believe that same-sex couples have as valid a relationship with their partner as do heterosexuals. I also believe that in the eyes of the state we all deserve to be treated equally"

"The two men who lived there were father & son – that his name was Maretts [perhaps Maritz] ... We gave him some tracts which he received with great pleasure – observing this we asked if he had a bible, he feelingly answered no, and that when he was last in the Cape about two years ago he was about purchasing a bible, but he found he had not as many dollars with him as would pay for it. Mr. Moffat immediate brought his octavo bible from which he preached and presented it to him. He hugged the bible in his arms with the apparent affection as if it has been his own child. I mentioned that it would show him the way to heaven, which he said he believed it would do. Nothing which I witnessed on the journey delighted me more than the manner in which the father and son acted towards this copy of the scriptures. After the evening worship was over they carried the treasure in triumph to their home."

"[The] flak from Mary Whitehouse...was quite unwarranted. I think the kind of person who would have been upset by Doctor Who would have been upset by anything."

"I was far from happy too about the way in which the programme handled Mrs Mary Whitehouse on the occasion of the publication of her book Cleaning Up TV. This was done by [[w:Bernard Braden|[Bernard] Braden]] telling his audience what he thought Mrs Whitehouse's creed was — "I thought she was against violence ... I thought she was for censorship" — and then by cutting to Mrs Whitehouse herself and getting a short edited quote which contradicted his assumption. Thus when Mrs Whitehouse declared she was against censorship we were not told that according to her own book she is for it if it were “the only way of preventing the gradual erosion of our Christian values and the character of the nation". ... And Judging by the evidence of her book she feels that we are getting perilously close to that state. In other words, by her own standards, we are not very far away from the need for the very censorship Mrs Whitehouse claims she is against."

"She'll be sadly missed, I imagine, but not by me."

"Let us take inspiration from that admirable woman, Mary Whitehouse. I do not accept all her ideas, she will not accept all mine. Yet we can see in her a shining example of what one person can do single-handedly when inspired by faith and compassion. An unknown middle-aged woman, a schoolteacher in the Midlands, set out to protect adolescents against the permissiveness of our time. Look at the scale of the opposing forces. On the one side, the whole of the new establishment, with their sharp words and sneers poised. Against them stood this one middle-aged woman. Today, her name is a household word, made famous by the very assaults on her by her enemies. She has mobilised and given fresh hearts to many who see where this current fashion is leading. Her book, Who Does She Think She Is? took its title from the outraged cry of an acolyte of the new hierarchy, who asked how an unknown woman dare speak up against the BBC, the educators and false shepherds. We too can take courage from her, and dedicate ourselves to fighting back on issues which will decide the nation's future far more than economics, however important it remains."

"She was in some obvious senses narrow-minded. She believed with passion that she was promoting virtue and righteousness; but her overriding puritanism determined that her main focus was on sex, followed by bad language and violence. Odd: if she had reversed the order, she might have been more effective."

"I always felt that Mary Whitehouse thought of Doctor Who as a children's programme, for little children, and it wasn't... so she was really coming at the show from the wrong starting-point."

"[I]t is because one is aware that many psychiatrists do believe homosexuality to be an illness that one is so against the proselytising of the young which is so large a part of the work of the organised homosexuals."

"Scientific research shows that the human brain is formed at the age of three months of foetal life and that from that time on there is a continuous learning process at work — everything heard from them then on will be stored in the memory and will have its effect. [E. J.] Kallmann maintains that the primary homosexual is entirely precipitated by abnormal (in terms of moral as well as physical norms) sexual behaviour of parents during pregnancy or just after."

"The natural repugnance which most people feel when homosexuality and lesbianism is mentioned can result in a harshness of attitude and thinking which is, at least, unhelpful and certainly as unchristian as the perverse practices which are condemned. But to go to the other extreme and elevate people suffering from such abnormalities into a norm for society not only threatens society but is dangerous to the individuals themselves, since it excludes them from the consideration of treatment."

"Dr Who: "Contains some of the sickest, most horrible material""

"Jackanory: "Completely irresponsible""

"Till Death Us Do Part: "I doubt if many people would use 121 bloodies in half-an-hour." "Bad language coarsens the whole quality of our life. It normalises harsh, often indecent language, which despoils our communication.""

"[Television] may teach self-interest rather than philanthropy, violence rather than gentleness, a disregard for human dignity rather than a respect for it. It may not always teach the truth but teach it does, and it is more than time that responsible people both within and outside the broadcasting professions said boldly what is so obvious in commonsense terms — we cannot understand what is happening in international, cultural, economic, political and social affairs without coming to grips with the way in which television influences virtually all our behavioural and thought processes."

"It is a deliberate affront to the people to whom it gave so much offence by its near pornography and calculated bias. It would seem the BBC are out to test whether they have managed to condition people into accepting now what they rebelled against last year."

"Hey you, Whitehouse / Ha ha, charade you are ... You're trying to keep our feelings off the street ... Mary, you're nearly a treat / But you're really a cry"

"The BBC seems determined to do everything in its power to present promiscuity as normal. What I found most hypocritical was that ostensibly the abortion scenes were meant to show its horror: but there was no attempt to point out that normal clean living would obviate such a fearful thing."

"Think'st thou there are no serpents in the world But those who slide along the grassy sod, And sting the luckless foot that presses them? There are who in the path of social life Do bask their spotted skins in Fortune's sun, And sting the soul."

"But woman's grief is like a summer storm, Short as it violent is."

"Some men are born to feast, and not to fight; Whose sluggish minds, e'en in fair honor's field, Still on their dinner turn— Let such pot-boiling varlets stay at home, And wield a flesh-hook rather than a sword."

"The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational; But he, whose noble soul its fear subdues, And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from."

"The hushed winds wail with feeble moan Like infant charity."

"The tyrant now Trusts not to men: nightly within his chamber The watch-dog guards his couch, the only friend He now dare trust."

"Oh, swiftly glides the bonnie boat, Just parted from the shore, And to the fisher's chorus-note, Soft moves the dipping oar!"

"Sweet sleep be with us, one and all! And if upon its stillness fall The visions of a busy brain, We'll have our pleasure o'er again, To warm the heart, to charm the sight, Gay dreams to all! good night, good night."

"A willing heart adds feather to the heel, And makes the clown a winged Mercury."

"Words of affection, howsoe'er express'd, The latest spoken still are deem'd the best."

"Just like the moon, I'll step aside, and let your sun shine while I follow behind..."

"Cuz I have so much love, for you, do with it what you will; and I have nothing more to prove, do with it what you will, say it again; say it again."

"In Christianity and History...[t]here were the same objections to the "stiffnecked" who "goad" man to "greater wickedness" than they would otherwise commit. There was the same objection to the "superficiality" of the "idealists" and the "spiritual impoverishment" of the "self-styled prophets" of the last generation, along with the same claim that "we create tragedy after tragedy for ourselves" if we adopt the "lazy, unexamined doctrine of man" which rests on the "recent" and "very disastrous heresy" that one should "have faith in human nature"... It was argued that the past was not a fight of "the pure and righteous" against the "diabolically wicked" but a manifestation of the fact that "human nature is imperfect generally". It was added that the historian "must join hands with the theologian" in "tearing the mask from human nature", and that the point in doing this was to show that all human actions, souls, and systems were under judgement, that they were all doomed to decay, and that humanism, liberalism, and secular idealism were as transitory as any others."

"About the scientific revolution: it “outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes”."

"It is like the Bishop who said that if we totally disarmed he had too high an opinion of human nature to think that anybody would attack us. There might be great virtue in disarming and consenting to be made martyrs for the sake of the good cause; but to promise that we should not have to endure martyrdom in that situation, or to rely on such a supposition, is against both theology and history. It is essential not to have faith in human nature. Such faith is a recent heresy and a very disastrous one."

"The hardest strokes of heaven fall in history upon those who imagine that they can control things in a sovereign manner, as though they were kings of the earth, playing Providence not only for themselves but for the far future—reaching out into the future with the wrong kind of far-sightedness, and gambling on a lot of risky calculations in which there must never be a single mistake. And it is a defect in such enthusiasts that they seem unwilling to leave anything to Providence, unwilling even to leave the future flexible, as one must do; and they forget that in any case, for all we know, our successors may decide to switch ideals and look for a different utopia before any of our long shots have reached their objective, or any of our long-range projects have had fulfillment. It is agreeable to all the processes of history, therefore, that each of us should rather do the good that is straight under our noses. Those people work more wisely who seek to achieve good in their own small corner of the world and then leave the leaven to leaven the whole lump, than those who are for ever thinking that life is vain unless one can act through the central government, carry legislation, achieve political power and do big things."

"Humanism and Humanitarianism, Liberalism and Internationalism...emerge as a result of a tendency to translate into secular terms certain movements and aspirations which had characterised a Christian civilisation... humanitarianism, for example, is an anaemic substitute for the doctrine of New Testament love."

"One of the paradoxes of history has been the way in which the name of England has come to be so closely associated with liberty on the one hand and tradition on the other hand."

"But the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness—each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked—each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity."

"Much as it may hurt us, we really have no choice but to move further to a more positive kind of internationalism, which welcomes the new world with open arms, prepares changes in the status quo before the cry for them becomes desperate, and greets the rise of new nations with unreserved joy. If the western world has to be ranged against the world behind the Iron Curtain, surely it is to our interest to see the Middle East, and indeed the whole Afro-Asian block, rise as quickly as possible to real equality and independence, so that they play a genuinely autonomous part in the world's diplomacy. Since the Asiatic countries are so exposed to the threat of Communism, it is difficult to believe that their power—freely exercised—would not operate to our own benefit."

"Considering the part played by the sciences in the story of our Western civilization, it is hardly possible to doubt the importance which the history of science will sooner or later acquire both in its own right and as the bridge which has been so long needed in between the Arts and the Sciences."

"The raconteur knows too well that, if he investigates the truth of the matter, he is only too likely to lose his good story.”"

"The study of the past with one eye upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history. It is the essence of what we mean by the word "unhistorical".”"

"If history can do anything it is to remind us of those complications that undermine our certainties, and to show us that all our judgements are merely relative to time and circumstance. ...we can never assert that history has proved any man right in the long run."

"When the sins and errors of an age have made the world impossible to live in, the next generation, seeking to make life tolerable again, may be able to find no way save by surrender of cherished ideals, and so may find themselves compelled to cast about for new dreams and purposes. An important aspect of the historical process is the work of the new generation... being driven to something like a creative act for the very reason that life on the old terms has become impossible."

"We have to be on our guard when the whig historian tells us... that the Reformation is justified because it ultimately led to liberty... for it is possible to argue against the whig historian that the ultimate issue which he applauds only came in the long run from the fact that, in its immediate results, The Reformation was disastrous to liberty."

"In the crisis of 1940 our leaders continually reminded us of those resources in the past which can be drawn upon to fortify a nation at war. While plunging into a sea of changes, novelties and inventions, England resumed contact with her traditions and threw out ropes to the preceding generations, as though in time of danger it was a good thing not to lose touch with the rest of the convoy."

"Some nations have had a broken and tragic past. Others are new or have only recently arisen after a long submergence. Some have been torn by a terrible breach between past and present—a breach which, though it happened long ago, they have never been able to heal and overcome. We in England have been fortunate and we must remember our good fortune, for we have actually drawn strength from the continuity of our history. We have been wise, for we have taken care of the processes which serve to knit the past and the present together; and when great rifts have occurred—in the Reformation or the Civil Wars, for example—a succeeding generation has done its best to play providence upon the tears and rents that have been made in the fabric of our history. Englishmen in the after-period have actually thrown back the needle, seeking by a thousand little stitches to join the present with the past once more. So we are a country of traditions and there remains a living continuity in our history."

"Macaulay refers to the fact that England has always taken particular pride in the maintenance of her institutional continuity. Our statesmen and lawyers have been under the influence of the past to a greater degree than those of other countries. From the 17th century our greatest innovators have tried to show that they were not innovators at all but restorers of ancient ways. And so it is that even when we have a revolution we look to the past and try to carry it out in accordance with ancient precedents. It is different in France as Macaulay explains—different especially since the Revolution of 1789. A Frenchman has no need to exaggerate the power of Louis XIV or underrate the ancient rights of the Parlement of Paris. He can take the view that the year 1789 rules a line across the story, he can say that modern France has a new start at the Revolution; while in modern England, if an unusual problem arises, the procedure may have to be determined upon precedents that go back to the middle ages. So in all English controversies both parties have referred to history in order to discover what they wished to discover—both parties have had a colossal vested interest in the historical enquiries that were taking place"

"It is typical of the English that, retaining what was a good in the past, but reconstruing it—reconstruing the past itself if necessary—they have clung to the monarchy, and have maintained it down to the present, while changing its import and robbing it of the power to do harm. It is typical of them that from their 17th-century revolution itself and from the very experiment of an interregnum, they learned that there was still a subtle utility in kingship and they determined to reconstitute their traditions again, lest they should throw away the good with the bad. In all this there is something more profound than a mere sentimental unwillingness to part with a piece of ancient pageantry—a mere disinclination to sacrifice the ornament of a royal court. Here we have a token of that alliance of Englishmen with their history which has prevented the uprooting of things that have been organic to the development of the country; which has enriched our institutions with echoes and overtones; and which has proved—against the presumption and recklessness of blind revolutionary overthrows—the happier form of co-operation with Providence."

"All we can say now is that the government of England did not in fact develop into a despotism. In any case a tory historiography based on this monarchical supposition cannot exist in England in the 20th century. It is possible to be a tory historian in detail—to be kind to Charles I or Charles II or George III. It is not possible to have a tory structure of English history as a counterpart to that of the whigs."

"Perhaps only in the shock of 1940 did we realize to what a degree the British Empire had become an organization for the purpose of liberty. What power is in this English tradition which swallows up monarchy, toryism, imperialism, yet leaves each of them still existing, each part of a wider synthesis. And how cunningly did the whig interpretation assert itself in all the utterances of Englishmen in 1940—throbbing and alive again, and now projected upon an extended map."