Writing for Christian Today, Julian Mann reflects on what a ban on Islamophobia would mean for Christians, and Gospel proclamation.
Mann begins: “With the strong likelihood that the Labour government will outlaw Islamophobia, could Christians who deny that Islam is a saving faith fall foul of the law? Labour’s Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, also Communities Secretary, confirmed in the House of Commons on Monday September 2 that the government is actively considering a definition of Islamophobia.
“Reporting on Rayner’s comments in Parliament, London’s evening paper, The Standard, reminded readers that in 2019 the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on British Muslims devised a definition of Islamophobia as “rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”.
The paper reported that the Labour MP for Manchester Rusholme, Afzal Khan, had previously written to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer “urging him to host meetings with Muslim community leaders and to formally adopt a definition of anti-Muslim prejudice put forward by the APPG”.
“In the Commons on Monday, Khan said the riots in August had caused “fear and distress” amongst his constituents and members of the Muslim community across the UK.
“In March, ahead of the General Election, the Free Speech Union published an essay by Christian Concern’s Head of Public Policy, Tim Dieppe, with a foreword by the atheist biologist Richard Dawkins, arguing that any attempt to define Islamophobia would have “a chilling effect on free speech”.
“Dieppe wrote: “People in a free society must be able to criticise each other’s beliefs and practices. This necessarily includes religious beliefs and practices. The beliefs and practices of all religions and worldviews should be open to public scrutiny and people should be free to question, criticise, ridicule, or joke about them. But the widespread acceptance of too broad a definition of ‘Islamophobia’ risks silencing or censoring criticism of Islam. It is therefore a threat to free speech.”
After outlining the threat such a definition poses to the C of E Collect, Mann explores its wider implications. “It would threaten the proclamation of the biblical gospel in the UK. That is because sharing the gospel, according to the New Testament, involves calling on people to abandon their existing worldview and instead to embrace the eternal salvation from sin and death that only the Lord Jesus Christ can bring them.
“As an example of the radical change of religious affiliation the gospel calls for, the Apostle Paul reminded the Christians in Thessalonica in 1st Century Roman Macedonia: “The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia (southern Greece) – your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath” (1 Thessalonians 1v8-10 – New International Version).
“How can Muslims in Britain be saved if Christians are no longer free to tell them, graciously and lovingly, that Islam is not a saving faith?”
Worth reading in full.
As Mann highlights, Tim Dieppe, the Head of Public Policy at Christian Concern, believes that any attempt to define ‘Islamophobia’ and punish those responsible for it, whether by cancelling them or changing the law to make ‘Islamophobia’ a ‘hate crime’, would have a chilling effect on free speech.
That’s particularly true of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims’ definition, which is so broad that, among other things, it means anyone disputing Hamas’s description of Israel’s military operation in Gaza as a ‘genocide’ is guilty of ‘Islamophobia’.
Click here to read Tim Dieppe’s essay, published by the FSU with a foreword by Rich Dawkins.
