The BBC’s head of religion has sent in the Hot Gospellers from Songs of Praise to stir things up in Calais. (H/T Guest Who) and he insists this is not a political move.
It is, of course, patently a highly political intervention by the BBC and is fully intended to stir up debate and put pressure on the government to open the borders as the BBC continues to drip feed us, if ‘drip’ is the right word, maybe deluge is better, with tales of hardship, danger and ‘desperation’ of the migrants intending to generate sympathy, empathy and compassion for them and a subsequent capitulation and surrender of all reason, common sense and intelligent debate in favour of short term emotion which long term will produce far more conflict and ‘desperation’ for all than is being ‘suffered’ now as economies and societies collapse under the massive weight of these migrants and tribalism and war breaks out. The BBC could bring you endless tales of desperate lives from any country in the world including on our very own streets in the UK. Why not send Songs of Praise to the back streets of Delhi or Mumbai and then suggest that perhaps all the residents should move to the UK….what is the difference other than the location of the ‘desperate’ and downtrodden…are those in Delhi or Mumbai not also in need of salvation and sanctuary? Or Shanghai or Moscow or perhaps Ferguson in the USA?
Not political? Very few programmes seem to have come from abroad…I could find only one recent one which came from Kenya. There are churches all around the world and yet the BBC doesn’t send in the Songs of Praise squad to visit them and to comment/intervene on the political issues of the day there…..clearly it is not the church at Calais that is of interest but the fact that the congregation is made up of migrants.
This is what Ahmed admits is the pupose of the programme..
Almost two weeks ago, I read about the make shift church in the Calais camp known as ‘The Jungle’.
It started a conversation with the Songs of Praise team about the faith of the people who built and use the Church in the camp, what is the Christian response to the migrant issue in Calais and would it be of interest to our audience. Songs of Praise is not only about Christian music, it also explores contemporary issues and modern themes from a Christian perspective.
What would be the Christian response to the migrant crisis? Exploring contemporary issues and themes? Sounds just a little like this is highly political as this next quote illustrates as he lays out what he thinks the Christian response would be…let ’em all in basically…
The Gospels themselves are full of stories and teachings of Jesus to help those in need, to find the dispossessed and vulnerable and to love your neighbour as yourself, whether that’s close to home or in a global context.
Ahmed is of course Muslim…far be it from me to suggest an ulterior motive, but I have yet to hear a Muslim in the public sphere who doesn’t use his job to promote Islam. Mishal Husain said she would use her position on the Today programme to improve people’s perceptions of Islam and Baroness Warsi in her role as minister for faith promoted the idea of more influence and a bigger role for religion in society knowing that promoting Christianity meant the government would also be obliged to do the same for Islam and provide it with similar privileges and powers. A slightly more sophisticated version of ‘my enemy’s enemy’.
Ahmed knows that many, if not the majority, of illegal migrants and those claiming to be asylum seekers are Muslim…any chance he has stitched together this programme to promote migration and thence to further increase the Muslim population of Britain? This Songs of Praise is about a Christian church but the real narrative is about migrants and if they should be allowed to come into the UK and Europe as a whole in uncontrolled numbers…and it would be uncontrolled…..have you ever heard a pro-immigration advocate name a figure which when reached migration could then be ‘controlled’? The very same hue and cry about ‘desperate’ migrants would then kick off again and the well practised moral blackmail would be churning out of the BBC filling the airwaves.
If Ahmed is so enthralled with Christian values perhaps he should convert himself and adopt them rather than pay lip service to them and make a pretence of respecting them when we know that Islam condemns Christians and Christianity.
As for Ahmed’s association of migrants with Jesus as a refugee, well there’s plenty in the Bible that we could use for inspiration….how about killing all the first born? Or seeing how far food banks get with a couple of loaves and a few fish. Or, as Jesus was crucified, perhaps, like in the film Spartacus, we could line the roads with crucified migrants as if they were so many Jesus’ living and dying as he lived and died. If Ahmed wants the Bible to be taken as gospel and a guide for our lives let him be the first to try…..
No? Too far?
Or perhaps like Jesus the migrants would have no need for boats and the Chunnel…..why not just walk on water across the Channel to Britain?…
Practically everyone working at the BBC are secularist and atheist, they don’t care about Christianity, if they did, would they stick a muslim as head of religious programmes in a Christian country ?
The obvious question to ask after this is why they don’t care about Christianity but chose to suck up to Islam in every conceivable way?
The 2011 census gives the muslim population of the UK at less than 5%. The BBC give the impression that muslims are in the majority. Amazing !
Judging by the number of Mosques I think its rather more than 5%. I think the BBC know things we are not told.
What is the Christian response to the migrant crisis
WHAT is the Muslim response to the migrant crisis?,
it was a good idea, wasn t it, oh and still making riches off
them, what with boats, and passage … if it slacks off
kill a few more to get the interest right up again.
Richard Coles, Giles Fraser, Diana Louise Jordan, Steve Chalk and the Tom Robinson of the Church that is Jonathan Edwards.
The BBC like their Christians like THAT…harmless, bought up Derek Nimmos…bit of Vicar of Dibley and Dads Armys resident mockup (Rev Farthing?) thrwon in for comic effect.
The Cliff Richard ambush of last year showed what they REALLY think of his like…Whitehouse., Thatcher, Powell seem to be everything the BBC hates and fears in Christians.
Nah-the real Christians in todays world are getting throats cut in Libya, tortured in North Korea and Bangladesh….but has anyone heard the Church truly speak out on THOSE evils?
The CofE isn`t worth the persecutions it would face if it made a jot of difference to the cultural evils we live with…no evidence to confirm that their faith matters a damn.
You really couldn’t make it up.
Worth considering the individual elements contained in this story to really see how insidious and slimy the BBC truly are.
Now the BBC’s head of religion, who just happens to be a Muslim in a Christian country, but the BBC find this fitting to serve their licence fee payers, is now saying that the plight of the migrants in the Calais camp can be likened to that of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus when they had to flee to Egypt.
I might buy that if he had also included the fact that any Christians fleeing persecution today are doing so because of Islam, but he neglects to add that.
They also don’t explain why these migrants need to cross the channel when they are already in France, a place that is a safe country free from persecution.
So I suppose according to BBC logic the armed British gangs assisting these migrants must be holy warriors in the service of the Lord.
The BBC pissing on our legs and telling us it’s raining.
He is also assuming all the invaders aqre genuine refugees. Just because someone has left Syria it doesnt mean it wasnt simply a choice! Obvioulsy its not a greta place to live but nor are they all ‘fleeing for their lives’, they are simply taking advantage of an opportunity to use their country’s troubles as a chance to break into Europe, a chance they wouldnt have been given in peaceful times.