Friday, June 24, 2011

Equality chief lays into Evangelicals for ‘picking fights’


From The Church Times-

The chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Trevor Phillips, has been criticised by the Evangelical Alliance and others, after he was quoted as saying that some Christian campaign groups “want to have a fight” in order to gain political influence.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Phillips said that Evangelical activists seek to “fight, and choose sexual orientation as the ground”. But, he said: “The whole argument isn’t about the rights of Christians. It’s about politics,” and a desire to “have weight and influence”.
He said: “I think the most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim, but the person most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an Evangelical Christian.” He attacked “some Christian organisations”, which he described as “constantly defining the ground in such a way that anyone who doesn’t agree with them about anything is essentially a messenger from Satan”.

He criticised African-Caribbean churches, whose attitude to homosexuality was “unambiguous” and “nasty and in some cases homicidal”. In contrast, he said he believed Muslims in the UK were “doing their damnednest to try to come to terms with their neighbours to try to integrate”.

Mr Phillips also said that he under stood why people of faith felt that they were “under siege” from secularists, and that the EHRC would defend believers who felt they were being discriminated against.

More here-

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=114678

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