Justifying Islamism?

Ed Stourton is pretty religious, a Catholic, often suspected of having a Catholic agenda in the programmes he presents….Ed Stourton reveals his liberal Catholic bias again as he puts the boot into the Ordinariate

Stourton has come out with this:

David Cameron’s attack on Islamic extremism at this month’s Slovakia security conference included the charge that groups such as Islamic State believe “religious doctrine trumps the rule of law”.

The phrase is revealing in a way the prime minister probably did not intend: it underlines how far the role of religion has been eroded in British life.

For most of our history, most people in this country would have taken it for granted that God’s laws should trump those made by man – indeed they would have assumed that “religious doctrine” provided the proper basis for “the rule of law”.

Take Magna Carta, which we have heard so much about recently.

This cornerstone of law and liberty was explicitly laid on religious foundations.

The idea of an inherent conflict between law and religion is a very modern one.

But then Mr Cameron leads a country where religious faith, in particular as expressed through the established Church, is in precipitous decline.

The Magna Carta was created eight hundred years ago and was not created by the Church but forced upon a reluctant King by the Barons, the Aristocracy, in the interests of a fairer society ….giving people far more rights than the Church ever would have.

It is curious that a BBC man should be trying to justify Islamic beliefs and the creation of the Caliphate by comparison to Christianity when the BBC normally tries to deny any link between Islamic radicalism, fiundamentalism really, and Islam.

He might also have mentioned that all this denounced by Cameron..‘The cause is ideological. It is an Islamist extremist ideology one that says the West is bad and democracy is wrong that women are inferior, that homosexuality is evil.’ is also from the Koran.

But…if you’d read this from Stourton last year you might understand why he admits that there is a religious basis to ISIS……

BBC’s Edward Stourton: British media suffers from religious ‘blind spot’ leading to ‘skewed’ coverage

BBC journalist Edward Stourton has said Britain’s lack of appreciation for the importance of religion across the world damages its news coverage.

Stourton, presenter on Radio 4’s religious programme Sunday, believes British journalists have a “blind spot” when it comes to religion, meaning coverage can be “skewed”.

He highlighted coverage of the Ukraine crisis, the Middle East and Boko Haram in Nigeria as examples of stories which would be covered better with more understanding of religion.

“I do think that there is a problem with British culture… in the way that we treat religion as a sort of curious ‘ghetto’-like thing,” he told Press Gazette.

“And I don’t say that from the point of view of arguing that religion is a good thing – because very often it’s not.

“But it does damage our understanding and our ability to perceive stories accurately.”

He suggested that British news organisations have not considered the importance of the growth of churches in Russia and what Russian nationalism means in coverage of Ukraine. And on Middle East stories, he said “we continually misread the story because we don’t think what a powerful force religion is”.

He goes on…

“But it’s been perhaps made more apparent than ever by events since 9/11, because a whole area of quite complex religion has become very essential to the understanding of mainstream news.”

So understanding Islam is essential to understanding what is going on in the world.

Who’d have thought.

And just a curious coincidence…as Stourton pushes ‘Religion über alles’….so does Giles Fraser on Thought for the Day…….telling us that Christians should run their own ‘Caliphate’ and ignore the democratic, political, national, patriotic government….instead adopt the ‘revolutionary spirit’….and ignore the established Church….it’s not the job of Christians to be patriotic, their identification is with a god that supercedes all national boundaries.

Giles worships the Prince of Peace not the Duke of Wellington apparently.

Good old Giles, getting more like George Galloway every day.