Should the State be Funding Religion?

I know that in Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Belgium and so on the state funds the official churches and religions, but yesterday’s statement by Ruth Kelly, the British Minister for Women and Equality, that “our strategy of funding and engagement must shift significantly towards those [Muslim] organisations that are taking a proactive leadership role in tackling extremism and defending our shared values” is utterly wrong. It is not the business of the state to fund religions. Engagement maybe, but funding no way. Surely that is half the problem.

There again the comments by the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, Massoud Shadjareh, were priceless. The government, he said, should not use its “financial muscle to socially engineer a new brand of Islam which will be subservient to its foreign policy.” After all, it seems to me that all this ruddy government ever tries to do is to socially engineer the populous into a client fiefdom.

Religion must be for its followers

I don´t think it is wise for the development of religious life that religious institutions receive funding from the Government, since that makes them dependent on political power. The Western dichotomy between Church and State must be preserved, and the role played by the Government should only be as a facilitator of religious life without interference. If, in the end, you have strong religious communities then you have a very strong instrument of public opinion to challenge multiculturalism, political correctness and Islam.

Perhaps, the only religious thing Government should help finance is the historical monuments with religious significance.

As for preaching Christianity to Muslims in Europe, I believe it won´t work that much. It is true there are some conversions, but not enough to show a trend. The whole history of relations between Islam and Chrisitanity proofs every attempt at conversion of Muslims tends to fail in the end.

The Spanish historic experience with that is also not encouraging. After the end of the Reconquest in 1492 Muslims were given quite some time to convert. Some did it, and the continous pressure by Church and State made many of them to convert in public. As you can see, that was not satisfactory enough, and not only in religious or cultural terms; but securitywise.  Many of them were actively collaborating with Berberian pirates and the Ottomans, and a plan to invade Spain with their assistance was even found. This sealed their fate here, since they were expelled from Spain for good in 1609.

Another example is in the Phillippines, were the country is basically Christian, Catholic but for a troublesome minority in the South. They were never reduced or converted.

Therefore, the only viable option is, simply, to make life difficult for pious Muslims, so as to make them choose between religious life or living in Europe.

 

Spanish Diplomat

Secular Religion

Certainly no taxpayer funds should be given to political parties as in Germany which is to let the bank clerk loot the safe

Yes...

Only insofar as preserving old churches, cathedrals, and abbeys is concerned, but otherwise no.

Colonialism

Britain is pursuing its colonial policy - find a tribal leader you can co-opt, fund him, and get him to manage his tribe. Trouble is that outside Shia Islam there are no prists and no hierarchy so any one-eyed man can proclaim himself king in the land of the blind, and the government tries to manufacture a holding company to manage all the branch offices - ie. tries to impose a political structure on a religious cell-structure.

It is top-down politics which desperately needs a circus-master before the animals escape from the ring and eat the spectators.

In actual fact the only logical system - since this colonial policy was used when Whites were a minority in their colonies - is to enforce Majoritarian Rights. The only Church to receive any public funding, if at all, should be the State Church and ALL immigrants should be pressured to convert.

There should be a concerted effort to evangelise Muslims and State funds should be used to persuade them to convert to Christianity with massive public information on the basis of the Christian Faith so the immigrant population can understand the prevailing Christian culture