In a symbolic move the meeting will take place at the Moravian settlement at Fulneck, Pudsey. The Moravian church there provided hospitality for children and families fleeing the Nazis. The name Moravian derives from the refugees from Moravia. The original church also suffered persecution during the counter-Reformation and survived in an underground fellowship over the next hundred years.
Tomorrow’s statement follows a tradition of West Yorkshire church leaders uniting to speak out against the BNP, going back to the last European elections in 2004. It also follows increased efforts by the BNP to recruit Christians using the rhetoric of defending ‘Christian Britain’.
Pastor Gloria Hanley, Chair of West Yorkshire Ecumenical Council said: “racism is a sin, as all people are created in God’s image; the British National Party does not speak for Christians“.
As well as Pastor Hanley, others affirming the statement are likely to include Angican bishops, the Catholic bishop of Leeds, and representatives from the Quakers, Salvation Army, the Moravians, the Lutherans, the Methodist Church, the Baptist church and the United Reformed Church.
West Yorkshire Ecumenical Council has taken a lead in 2009 in mobilising Christians to vote for parties other than the BNP. It has issued specimen church magazine material entitled ‘Use Your Cross’ and a set of resource notes for local churches.
The full text of the statement is as follows:
"Seventy years ago, the Fulneck Moravian Settlement became home for Jewish children and families fleeing from the terror of the far right in Europe. As leaders of different churches in West Yorkshire, meeting at Fulneck, we affirm the values of unity, tolerance, hospitality and mutual respect, which have always helped people from different backgrounds to live together.
- "We are deeply concerned at the views and activities of British National Party which is using people’s fears to stir up racial and religious hate.
- "We assert that all human beings are created equally in the image of God, that racism is a sin, and that such extremist groups do not speak for Christians.
- "In particular, we are called to love our neighbours as ourselves; and so we abhor any rejection of our neighbours of other faiths as an affront to all our beliefs and a danger to the unity of the whole community.
West Yorkshire Ecumenical Council resources are available here.
Ekklesia
6 comments:
When Hitler got to power, he spewed the evils of racism, and appeared to be a lunatic, but nowhere did he mention he would set up concentration camps.
Thus, the people must be reminded that the BNP would more than likely set up death camps and start murdering people too, just like their heroes, the original nazis of the 1930s and 1940s, who, via Oswald Mosely gave rise to the British Movement, the National Front, and finally, today's BNP.
Thank God they won't ever win a single seat at Westminster.
It's always worth showing pictures of Aushwitz on election material, alongside quotes from leading members and organisers to remind people of the horrific dangers that lurk in the shadows of the mentally ill, hate-driven BNP mind.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/17/piratebay_neonazi_ok/
Some interesting news about the Euro nazi scene, Ketlan/Denise!!!
Actually, it's True about Pirate Bay being a nazi haven.
It's run by one of the world's most richest Noe-Nazis and contains some of the most hardcore nazi material online including beheading videos by skinheads which no other site would show.
Please think twice anti-establishment people before using PirateBay, if it launches an appeal and continues to operate. Everytime you download a video from there, viewing its advertisements, you are helping the European neo-nazi scene grow stronger and stronger, at a time when you are uniting to defeat the BNP.
I couldn't find an entry on this blog about Pirate Bay's fascist ownership, which is a shame!
Carl Lundström was linked to a gang of skinheads that attacked Latin American tourists in Stockholm in the mid-1980s. [Expo.se report (Swe) - 2005].
Over the years, Lundström has switched his support from Keep Sweden Swedish to the far-right headbangers party New Democracy - but was thrown out for being too right wing. He's currently bankrolling 100 candidates for the Swedish equivalent of the BNP.
The Pirate Bay's T-shirt design omits Lundstrom and yet he
Lundström is alleged to own 40 per cent of The Pirate Bay - t.
This story seems to have upset the Thurrock Patriots.
http://thurrockpatriots.blogspot.com/2009/04/only-cross-that-matters-is-one-for-bnp.html
In that case why don't the Church authorities and anti-fascists/anti-racists get together to get the fake 'Rev' West, the BNP's No 1 Euro candidate for the East Midlands, expunged from his so-called Episcopal Church?
Surely there is a law or Church regulation that prevents racists, or indeed any liar, pervert or fantasists, from donning a vicar's collar and claiming to be a 'Reverend'?
How on earth did West manage to get his title? Surely it wa sby fraudulent means and that it can be removed from him?
Let's have a camapign with the Church to have this pathetic little Hitler-worshipping racist 'Reverend' de-frocked?
In response to Anon @ 10.40 it seems to me that anyone can set up a church nowdays, they can buy a dog collar at a boot sale or on ebay put it round their neck and call themselves Rev and it looks like no one can do anything about it.
tulip
ps unless of course the Almighty steps in with a few "thunderbolts and lightening"
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