Christians with traditional beliefs about issues such as homosexuality should be given “reasonable accommodation” in law, Britain’s most senior woman judge has said.  Lady Hale, deputy president of the Supreme Court, said the UK is “less respectful” towards people with religious views than other countries, despite its long Christian traditions.  She questioned whether the current “hard line” approach to discrimination claims, based on EU law, could be sustained in the long term. Her comments, in a lecture at Yale law School in the US, follow a series of cases in which British Christians claimed to be suffering religious discrimination but lost their cases. They include Shirley Chaplin, a nurse from Exeter, who was banned from wearing a cross at work as well as Gary McFarlane, a former Relate counsellor, and Lillian Ladele, a marriage registrar, who both lost their jobs after resisted performing tasks they said went against their religious beliefs.

Well said, Baroness Hale!

We should compare and contrast her words with those of Archbishop Justin Welby, the man who ought to be in the forefront of the promoting of Christian values – and indeed the truth of the Christian gospel. But given friends like Welby, Christians have no need of enemies. He says, “It is absurd and impossible to ignore overwhelming changes in social attitudes.” This echoes Rowan Williams’ remarks last year to the effect that Christians “…have a lot of catching up to do with secular mores.” Thus we might phrase the Welby-Williams revised gospel as “Repent not, but be ye indeed conformed to this world.”

So here we see those who were appointed to defend the Christian faith and its moral teachings instead undermining both faith and teachings. It’s as if they should have declared, “And the Lord said unto his disciples, ‘Go ye into all the land and set up focus groups that ye might understand and know what it is that is desired of the people: that give unto them.”

Can you imagine Isaiah the prophet or Jeremiah the seer preaching to King Ahab or to the apostate Jeroboam, son of Nebat, “Keep not the Law of the Lord but what seemeth pleasurable unto the crowd, that do. And behold, I give unto thee a new commandment: Thou shalt do as thou bloody well likest”?

There are words to describe the Welby-Williams axis: “Beware of false prophets which come to thee in sheep’s clothing but underneath they are ravening wolves…white sepulchres which indeed appear beautiful outward but within are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.”