The BBC’s favourite ‘turbulent priest’ Giles Fraser has said something that might be construed as islamophobic in the corridors of the BBC…
“A week before the Occupy thing started I preached at St. Paul’s about violence,” said Fraser. “I’m very exercised, and always have been, by the way the Church justifies violence to itself.
That sermon is really about [the French anthropologist] René Girard. He argues that religions are sublimated forms of violence—and religion is a bad word for him. Scapegoating the one who’s different unites the community, and it’s the priest who sanctifies this, who launders society’s violence. For Girard, Jesus is the supremely anti-religious figure, because he sees the violent secret that binds people together. Above all he sees the role that religious professionals play in concealing and reinforcing it and that is why they hate him. Jesus is saying, in effect, ‘Those ones you’re telling to go home, those ones you’re pushing around, those ones you kill—they are me. That old person who natters on, the gay boy, the foreigner. The one who’s different.’ ”
From that you could take it that ‘Christianity’, the religion of Jesus Christ, is a religion of Peace, turning the other cheek and the meek inheriting the earth and all that good stuff.
Islam of course may well be the religion that is a classic example of sacredly endorsed violence sanctified by the supposed Revelations of a ‘merciful and forgiving’ God…..
Could any Muslim argue with that description? It seems they are unlikely to, in fact some revel in the violent nature of Islam…..
‘We are not a pacifist religion. We don’t turn the other cheek. We hit back.’
Dr. Kalim Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute in London
Surely the BBC will not be happy that their latest anti-Establishment poster boy has been so Islamophobic?
I don’t get how any he’s said is in any way related to Islam or Muslims.
And when the BBC claims that Islam is ‘a religion of peace’ do you pipe up and ask ‘show me just where it says that in the Koran’.
The post is fairly obviously tongue in cheek….however the fact that Fraser is happy to say religion sanctifies violence and apartheid begs the question why is it impossible to suggest Islam is a violent religion…especially on the BBC..without being labelled a racist or islamophobic.
James, don’t be so obtuse: it is quite clear that the post is about Fraser pontificating: “I’m very exercised, and always have been, by the way the Church justifies violence to itself.”
Now replace ‘the Church’ for ‘Islam’…do you think that phrase would be broadcast? Do you think Fraser would even say it? Would he be allowed by the BBC to say that some French anthropologist thought that some Imam ‘sanctifies violence’? Do you?
Doesn’t the left ever learn? Don’t they remember what happened to all leftys in Iran?
Well, here’s tough guy Ayotollah Khomeini on the matter:
“those who say Islam should not kill don’t understand Islam. Killing is a divine gift that appears to man. A religion that does not include provisions for killing and massacre is incomplete”
A Muslim saying this: no problem. A non-Muslim reporting that a Muslim said this: an islamophobic, bigoted, and racist scumbag.
Trebles all ’round!
I don’t think Fraser’s statement can be interpreted as having anything to do with Islam whatsoever. He was criticizing his own Church for turning away the Occupiers.
I realize that Girard’s words can be used to show that the basic teachings of Jesus are superior to Islam and put the lie to the “religion of peace” gag, but that’s obviously not what Fraser intended here.
It’s obvious he really doesn’t understand them any more than the Beeboids who’ve been praising them and sanitizing them do. An attempt to speak outside the established order? That’s the same dopiness Katty Kay and Laura Trevelyan were spouting at the beginning. It was an still is an attempt to destroy, and nothing more. All the babbling about Nietzsche and Luther only reinforces the impression that Fraser is seriously deluded about the Occupiers. He really doesn’t get that they are exactly the extreme nihilists against whom Nietzsche warned (if I understand him correctly, that is). Nietzsche was able to appreciate many sides of an argument, while the Occupiers can’t even remotely do so.
The more this man speaks, the more I think he’s a clown.
re your 1st paragraph: I think you miss Alan’s irony.
I must have missed it.
Agree 100% with these sentiments. Rowan may be a bearded lefty, but at least he’s also one of the greatest intellectuals of his generation. I’d rather listen to him than to Fraser any day.
“one of the greatest intellectuals of his generation.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Are you sure?
That’s irony, right?
http://tinyurl.com/bqyo4yb
http://tinyurl.com/cjg4sdz
No, of course he wasn’t talking about Islam specifically….the point is that should you want to so talk about the violence inherent in the Islamic religion you risk your reputation and career , if not a visit from the police….talking about ‘Christian’ violence seems to be OK.
However Fraser actually preached about religiously endorsed violence before the Occupation of St Paul’s……so he was talking in general about religious violence as well as in relation to St Paul’s….
“A week before the Occupy thing started I preached at St. Paul’s about violence,” said Fraser. “I’m very exercised, and always have been, by the way the Church justifies violence to itself…..That sermon is really about René Girard. He argues that religions are sublimated forms of violence.’
As for Nietzsche….I think you’re right, Fraser talks out of his backside…few mere mortals have any idea of what Luther or Nietzsche said let alone meant so he loses his audience immediately.
It could also be that he is utterly wrong about what Nietzsche said….here is Fraser’s take on Nietzsche…
“In his azure isolation, in his love of mountaintops, in his refusal of the perspective of the poor, really, I think Nietzsche in the end becomes kitsch. That’s my real criticism: his refusal of ordinary life, his refusal of politics in a way, his refusal of health care and plumbing. Nietzsche is kitsch because he’s not interested in that—he’s too big and lofty and important and romantic to do all of that.”
Here is my very limited understanding of some of Nietzsche’s writing….
Nietzsche himself said that experience is the vital ingredient in life…..and priests take upon themselves people’s suffering…they do not impose it back onto the people….
‘People don’t respect wisdom but the man who has sacrificed himself for them and god…a priest who can absolve them of their sins and crimes, a man who stands outside and looks on at society…..With a cow-like composure, prudent and pious.
But real wisdom comes from experience, those who constantly live in storm cloud of the highest problems and heaviest responsibilities.’
And as for his religion…I don’t think Nietzsche could have been too impressed with the priestly emanations of the religious……
‘After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave – a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead: but given the way men are, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown – And we – we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.’
‘In the end, to be sure – to present the other side of the account of these religions, too, and to expose their uncanny dangerousness – one always pays dearly and terribly when religions do not want to be a means of education and cultivation in the philosopher’s hand but insist on having their own sovereign way, when they themselves want to be ultimate ends and not means among other means.’
I think Fraser is trying to co-opt Nietzsche into the religious fold just as Muslims try to claim Jesus was a Muslim in order to lessen his ‘danger’ to their own ideology.
Hold your friends close and your enemies closer.
The BBC and every other middle class Left-wing waste of space are scared of the religion of ‘peace’ because they simply don’t want to find out what a sharp side of a kebab knife feels like. It’s pure cowardice and socialist championing of the minority group. If white, working class heterosexual Christians were a minority, they’d be untouchable.
Won’t be long before they become a minority given all the shades of a so-called government we get every time now.
Wake up electorate! time is short.
The media throughout mainland Europe republished “the Cartoons” No-one in the UK would for fear of reprisals by “offended Muslims” There is no principle here – it is naked cowardice in the face of the threat of Muslim violence. There is an establishment conspiracy to avoid eye-contact with muslim aggression.
When a minister was asked about the courageous French ban on face-covering, the burqua, some stupid Tory said “It’s not British to ban things” Forgetting they banned smoking in doors. Cowardly scum.
I get better theology from Aled Jones or Steve Wright than I do from Giles Fraser.
Once the BBC require you as the chapel sock puppet for the NUJ, then you`re clearly miles away from any pretence of a calling or vocation to serve God.
He tripped Dawkins to stumble on the Today show….all those years at Oxbridge…and that`s his legacy!
Where`s Nazir Ali?…for Gods sake come back sir!
So long as Islam doesn`t equate Giles Fraser with any representation of the Christian faith, save for the hospice mechanical provision of intravenous feeding, in relation to a banquet.
Giles is on Radio 4 constantly I’m amazed he actually has time for any God bothering.
Christians say “Forgive those who hate you“. Muslims say “Hit back against those who hate you“. The BBC says “Arrest those who hate you, hate crime is illegal“
I think you’ll find it’s the executive, the judiciary and the police who say the last bit. If we want it changed we need a majority of the public to agree.
If we want it changed we need a majority of the public to agree.
That’s how it used to, and should be.
These days I think you’ll find that a dozen highly vocal activists with the ear of any media-hungry quango ‘Lord’ can usually end up with enough ‘noise’ across the MSM (but lead via direct links to BBC Producer iPhones) to change anything they set their hearts to as knee-jerk, spine-free pols try and court the fickle comfort zone of currying favour with ‘public opinion’.
“If we want it changed we need a majority of the public to agree. ”
Unfortunately, democracy isn’t allowed anymore. Remember the referendum in California on gay marriage. The people voted to keep marriage as being between a man and a woman. Activist judges then overturned the decision for being ‘homophobic’.
Giles was back to more familiar territory on TFTD this morning. The old SWPer was fearlessly supporting the parasites in conference in Rio and banging on about “sustainability” being the real message of Christ. You’ve got to hand it to the BBC, it’s loyal to its friends: but only as long as the friends are loyal to it (cf David Bellamy).
Indeed. Only Jesus freaks holed up in compunds in Iowa think the Bible has anything to say about abortion or gay marriage, but the real message of Christ is the need for sustainable growth.
‘Blessed are those who recycle their spent goods, and are sparing of their carbon emissions, for they shall inherit the Kingdom of Gore’.