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12/03/2003 Entry: "We should flag up Scotland's Christian side"
Interesting stuff from the Edinburgh Evening News
DESPITE being an agnostic, I was angered by reports that the Scottish Parliament had abolished any reference to Christianity on its Christmas cards, and delighted to hear MSPs would in fact be given a choice of card, with or without religious message.Read the whole thing. It's a fascinating contrast to the usual conversation about Church/State seperation.An agnostic angry about the deletion of Christianity, surely a contradiction? Not as much as it would seem.
No Scot, whose family roots go back in time to when this country was part of Christendom, can avoid being deeply influenced by Christianity.
Nor is that an influence I reject. I know all the humanist arguments that religion was the opium of the poor people, promised pie in the sky when they died as long as they remained poor and meek on Earth; and that in our islands, disputes over the Christian religion brought wars and cruelty. But that is only one side of the coin.
It is from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount that our society has drawn its moral values, its core of belief about how we should treat each other, and few have been able to decry the essential good that lies in that message. Christianity, and the struggles within it, has shaped our society and the moral philosophy which underpins it.
