Forgiveness

Meditations from brief travels in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

He who forgives is greater than he who is forgiven.

The Serbs have not forgotten their treatement at the hands of the Nazi-allied Croatian Ustashi in WW2. This is understandable, given the nature and scale of the attrocities committed. The time since is but a brief moment compared with the time elapsed since the Battle of Kosovo between Serbian lords and the Ottomans on 15 June 1389: another event that has not been forgotten.

The former Yugoslavia is where Rome and Byzantium and Islam collide: the Pope, the Patriarch and 'the Prophet.' It's interesting to reflect on the 'accidents' of history. The dissolution of the Habsburg Empire and the unification of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs; the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Axis invasion, and then (falling out of Britain's less-than-ideal alliance of convenience with Communist Russia and the subsequent defeat of Nazi Germany and her allies), the 'Second Yugoslavia', the socialist republic of Tito's Partisans. A Federation, but with Belgrade standing astride, very much in the centre, for geographic and historical reasons.

With the breakup of the old communist-socialist order, Serbia had an opportunity to be magnanimous, to be bigger than her old ethno-religious enemies, to forgive and to move on. To let go. Instead she chose to hang on. To deny freedoms. To fight seccession. And, in what can only be considered a terrible irony after the experiences that followed the Axis invasian of 6 April 1941, she got a National Socialist leader. Nationalsozialist. Nazi to you and me.

There followed 'ethnic cleansing,' mass murder and attrocities. Ancient score settling is surely the road to misery.

"The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." James 1:20

In eschewing forgiveness Serbia has reduced herself. It is now she who needs forgiveness. In seeking domination, and a 'Greater Serbia,' she has forfeited her dreams of greatness and now finds herself greatly reduced. An uneasy peace has settled. Slobodan Milosevic has passed on to give his account to the highest court. Will Serbia's neighbours now rise to the opportunity and be big enough to forgive her?

May refreshing showers of forgiveness descend gently on the souls of the people of the mountains and plains of the Western Balkans.

Tolerance and the homosexual lobby

Tolerance is the gracious middle ground between complete acceptance and complete rejection.

That middle ground is where Western society used to stand in relation to homosexuality. Society expressed its disapproval of the practice through the law. Ministers of religion were at liberty to speak against it, at the times and in the places of their choosing. And yet, despite the general disapproval of society, people were at liberty to choose a homosexual lifestyle, on the understanding that they were publicly discrete and did not give offence. The conscious policy was not to enforce the law within the private domain.

The traditional gracious tolerance of Western society is a reflection of God's grace, of the kind that one would hope to see in a society with historic Christian roots. (It stands in stark contrast to, for example, Nazi Germany's violent persecution and execution of homosexuals). God did not respond to the Fall of Adam and Eve — their direct rebellion against Him — by passing the death sentence immediately upon them (which He would have been completely justified in doing). Instead, he graciously suspended the sentence, provided clear warnings against sin and of the need of salvation, and provided the opportunity of redemption and eternal life after the temporal sentence of death.

Today, the homosexual lobby, acting in league with the wider licentious Left have contemptuously rejected the gracious tolerance traditionally extended to homosexuals. 'You are either with us, or against us' is apparently their policy. It is completely unacceptable to them that anyone should be at liberty to speak against homosexuality. Everyone must move to a complete acceptance of their view, their anti-morals. Public funds must be used to promote it. The media must advocate it and celebrate it. Public funds must be removed from anyone who refuses to promote it.

* * *

In Britain, Roman Catholic adoption agencies find themselves faced with the prospect of closing their doors unless they submit to the diktat that they open up the placement of adoptive children to homosexual couples. Their response has been hopelessly timid: merely asking for 'exemption' and saying nothing against the evil law itself or against the legislature which 'frameth mischief by a law.' ('Regulation must not trump conscience' by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor in today's Torygraph).

Piece by piece, the framework is being assembled for persecuting Christians with the full force of the State. The inherent, latent Authoritarian streak of the Libertarians is being gradually revealed.

Adoption is a precious thing, providing an analogy for our reconciliation with God. Similarly, marriage between a man and a woman is a precious thing, not only because it was ordained by God at Creation, but because He dignified it as the principal analogy for the relationship between Christ (the heavenly Bridegroom) and His church. The beauty in even these two pale, earthly reflections of pure divine love is the subject of intense, blind hatred by Libertarians and the licentious Left. Its challenge to even their hardened consciences is too much for them to bear and so they must desecrate it, trample it underfoot and decry anyone who would champion it and uphold it.

Conducting potentially harmful experiments on children is usually condemned. Not in this case. Let the experiment run then, that its designers may condemn themselves with its results.

Pity the poor, innocent children.

Minting headless coins

The school leaving age in Britain is to be raised for the first time since since 1972, from 16 to 18. We are told this will reduce welfare payments. One wonders whether it will increase education payments by more or less than the welfare savings. At the margin, does it cost the Exchequer less, the same or more to pay teenagers to do nothing to wander the streets or to do nothing in a classroom?

What will an increase in the number of students who don't want to be there do to the classroom environment and life-prospects for the others in their final two years of school who do want to be there?

The report on this in the Times Online (by Anthony Browne and Philip Webster) had some real policy gems. There would be exemptions for under-18s who are caring for parents or relatives (so much for the Labour social safety net), and (the real gem) for young teenage mothers. This government of unintended consequences seems oblivious to the potential effects of passing legislation forcing teenage girls to stay in school while giving them the option of pregnancy as a "get out of school free" card. But hey, why miss an opportunity to create two new problems instead of one, especially when it can be done with just a few extra lines of legislation?

And another classic: Education Secretary Alan Johnson (who apparently sees no irony in the fact that he left school at 15 and rose to cabinet level) wants to launch guaranteed apprenticeships, so that any youngster who reaches a certain skill level will have the 'right' to follow a suitable apprenticeship.

And so another 'right' is minted at the great Rights Mint in Westminster Palace. This government seems not to realise that creating a right also creates an obligation or a liability. But who is holding the obligation, the liability of all these guaranteed apprenticeships? Who is the guarantor? Is the government planning to (re-)nationalise great swathes of British industry?

It's as if they are minting coins stamped with a value on one side, but blank on the other. Or printing bank notes with no mention of the Bank of England. Or writing cheques with no drawer.

If Labour ministers understand this, maybe they figure that counterfeit rights don't cost much, and may fool enough of the people enough of the time. Such is the cynicism of the counterfeiter. Or perhaps, far from understanding liberty, they understand almost nothing. Take your pick. Either way, these are the leaders and the legislators we have elected. A greater indictment of the Conservatives than the electoral success of this government could hardly be imagined. For a decade they have failed to hit such a large target, lumbering about blindly, causing havoc. But then again, each nation gets the Government (and the Opposition) that it deserves.