Could the flag of St George be replaced by Alban's symbol, a diagonal yellow cross on a blue background that bears a strong similarity to St Andrew's cross
Posted on 07/05/2006 12:45:38 AM PDT by Eurotwit
His dragon-slaying heroics have kept his legend alive through the centuries.
But the Church of England is considering rejecting England's patron saint St George on the grounds that his image is too warlike and may offend Muslims.
Clergy have started a campaign to replace George with St Alban, a Christian martyr in Roman Britain.
The scheme, to be considered by the Church's parliament, the General Synod, has met a cautious but sympathetic response from senior bishops.
But it clashes with the increasing popularity of the saint and his flag in England. The World Cup brought out millions of St George crosses as the symbol became increasingly mainstream and less frequently dismissed as a badge favoured only by far-Right political activists.
If St Alban replaced St George, the red cross on a white background would have to be replaced as England's flag by Alban's symbol, a diagonal yellow cross on a blue background that bears a strong similarity to St Andrew's cross, the flag of Scotland.
The proposal has been put forward by the Rev Philip Chester, vicar of St Matthew's, Westminster, who has called the use of St George as patron saint 'dotty'.
His call for a change is based on the lack of firm historical evidence that George - said to be a Roman general from the 4th century AD who was put to death by Emperor Diocletian for professing Christianity - ever existed.
He said: 'We are sure St Alban is a real figure. What's more, he lived in this country.'
Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams indicated support for an upgrade for Alban, although he is said to be cautious about relegation for George.
He told the Sunday Times: 'I think St Alban is irreplaceable in the history of English Christianity. Perhaps we ought to raise his profile because it's the beginning of the church in this country with martyrdom, wisdom and courage.'
The image of St George was used to foster patriotism in 1940, when King George VI inaugurated the George Cross for civilian acts of the greatest bravery. The medal bears a depiction of the saint slaying the dragon.
However, George has become unfashionable among politicians and bureaucrats. His saint's day, April 23, has no official celebration in England, and councils have banned the St George flag from their buildings and vehicles during the World Cup.
The saint became an English hero during the crusades against the Muslim armies that captured Jerusalem in the 11th century.
An apparition of George is said to have appeared to the crusader army at the Battle of Antioch in 1098.
His dragon-slaying legend is thought to have begun as an allegory of Diocletian's persecution of Christians.
Alban was martyred in 304 AD on the site of St Albans abbey in the Hertfordshire city that now bears his name.
A Roman army officer, he was said to have converted after sheltering a Christian.
Could the flag of St George be replaced by Alban's symbol, a diagonal yellow cross on a blue background that bears a strong similarity to St Andrew's cross
It used to be once a month leaving the rest of freeping time to discuss current affairs now I spend all my time defending my country from all the bollox that gets sprouted on here.
Bollox to this may join Mad Ivan and stop wasting my time on this site
Gee whizz..... I wonder if Muslims will replace their, martyrs, and clerics prophet with people I find more palatable. Maybe a few pacifists in the Islamic zodiac of martyrs...
WTF?!
What is this spineless nonsense?
St. George's cross has been an emblem of Britain for countless centuries! You see it prominently displayed in medieval artwork.
May offend Muslims? Are you kidding me! The whole country is selling itself out. No piglet, do away with the nation's patron saint, even deny his existence... The nation needs another Thatcher or a Churchill or someone in that vain. Not that all of Europe isn't falling over backwards to erase its past, deny its heritage, decimate its beliefs, and roll the red carpets for the Muslimes.
for Christ's sake! something tells me we are about to go through some dark period in humanity.. and only the strong and faithful will survive.. cuz the PC crowd is gonna be extinct
Personally, I think articles like this are good. Hopefully, they can help further fuel the backlash against this PC nonsense.
What posters on an American website thinks of it is of little consequence.
FWIW, I am probably the greatest anglophile there is. Pathetic almost :-)
Rule Britannia!
I don't blame this on England.
The Church of England has been out to lunch for some time now. Just more of the same...
No need to worry about the rest of us that think that England is a crap country. The reason it generates so much concern is that England isn't a crap country, though there is a very strong faction of people who'd like to move it in that direction, apparently.
I've lived and worked in England, but some the events occurring there are to say the least disturbing...
This is a joke, right?
So I guess they're replacing Churchill with Neville Chamberlain as their model statesman.
This is just ridiculous.
I expect a mass, public, self castration, of all British males at any moment, after all, it is the politically correct thing to do, once you've outlawed steak knives, and are starving!
Don't blame us for the image Britain projects, Tony, it sure ain't our doing! Even a Frenchman would balk at some of the stuff y'all embrace!
Just call me a crude, rude, and barbaric, colonial boy. At least I'm not too damn civilized [socialized] for my own good!
BUAIDH NO BAS
I have too many friends serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Church of England long ago fell on it's sword and conceded defeat to political correctness but the people of England haven't. The silent majority will never have this shambles of a proposal pushed in their face, it just ain't gonna happen.
This is the dying breath of the Church of England as it now sinks into the swamp of oblivion, listen out for the glug glug glug as it goes under..
And they wonder why congregations get less and less every year.....
Prayers to your friends, thanks for your service, and prayers for your country.
It's alright, we've all been there. Not like you are now, but it's frustrating defending something you believe in, perhaps believe in strongly, from those who would belittle it.
Take care! I assure you that your nation also has a lot of admirers and friends across the Atlantic, myself included. In my mind, there's no more peaceful place on earth than early summer in the dales of Yorkshire.
Islam is a death cult.
F*ck them.
The flag of St. Alban is a yellow saltire on a blue field. The flag is flown over the city and cathedral of St. Albans in Hertfordshire, England. The golden saltire represents the first English martyr St. Alban, a Romano-British soldier. The traditional arms of St Albans derive from St Alban being the first British martyr, hence the cross.
It is diagonal as he was not crucified, but beheaded. Hence he was entitled to the cross of martyrdom, but not in the usual form. These arms were assigned to St Alban along with those assigned to many other early Christian saints and figures.
It already happened in Spain.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3680331.stm
Church to remove Moor-slayer saint
Monday, 3 May, 2004
A statue in a Spanish cathedral showing St James slicing the heads off Moorish invaders is to be removed to avoid causing offence to Muslims.
Among the reasons for the move is to avoid upsetting the "sensitivities of other ethnic groups".
The statue of St James "the Moor-slayer" is expected to be replaced by one depicting the calmer image of St James "the Pilgrim", by the same 18th century artist, Jose Gambino.
The Saracen-slaying image of St James, or Santiago in Spanish, is a symbol of the fight between Christianity and Islam and the reconquest of Spain from eight centuries of Moorish rule before 1492.
The saint is said to have appeared to Christian troops fighting Moorish army at the Battle of Clavijo in 844, the crusaders rallying to the cry of "Santiago y cierra Espana" - "St James, we will reconquer Spain".
Cathedral authorities insist the timing of the decision has nothing to do with the 11 March bombings in Madrid, which an Islamic group is alleged to have carried out.
http://www.users.drew.edu/~ebunn/135/apostol.jpg
http://www.la-falange.com/nacional/noticias/matamoros.jpg
Its not the image Britain projects, its an image a certain few project who get lots and lots of publicity, and then you lot on the other side of the pond point at them and say look at Britain going down the tube.
Political Correctness was invented in America, most of the stupid ideas that come out of these idiots came from your side of the pond in the first place.
Thanks, don't know why I feel so stressed lately. Guess it is because I am getting old and a lot of lads I trained are now going over seas.
When was PC-ism technically invented? Because I do believe it was portrayed first by Orwell as "Doublespeak". Just got a new name and differing terminologies, but the results were the same.
Never ever call a duck a duck and equalize everyone by destroying the prominant.
The words first appeared two centuries ago in the 1793 Supreme Court case Chisholm v. Georgia, which upheld the right of a citizen to sue another state. Justice James Wilson wrote an opinion in which he objected to the wording of a common toast: " 'The United States' instead of the 'People of the United States' is the toast given. This is not politically correct." Wilson's use of the term was quite literal. He felt that the people, not the states, held the true authority of the United States, and therefore a toast to the states violated the "correct" political theory. Supporters of states' rights did not concur, and the Eleventh Amendment was passed to overturn the Chisholm decision. And the phrase politically correct quickly faded from memory."
Look, it may tick you off, but at least you don't get half the way through a "Scrapple" article before you realize something insane didn't really happen here in the USA (guess I could say that about the NYT, too.)
We didn't invent ASBOs! I can still buy a machete, our hound dogs still can run foxes, and William Wallace is still proud of me!
You just need to learn to say "NO", and mean it, Tony, never bluff, the barstards count on that. Whatever you allow will be done to you, count on this! It is the lesson of history, and life!
http://www.pbase.com/tsiya/root
http://photobucket.com/albums/v244/tsiya/
Good find. :)
Well... bad find.
It will be the death of us regardless of who created it.
The main problem with political correctness is it does nothing but antagonize.
It does not help those it claims to support and it antagonizes everyone else.
All it is is a sop to a section of the Middle Class who consider them self's to be liberal.
If you want to help the poor and disadvantaged then roll out your sleeves and get in there and help them, charities are crying out for those skills many middle class have.
'For f**ks sake can we have one f******g day with out a article on Britain which will encourage all the Brit Bashers to have another field day about what a cr*p country we are, we are all going to the dog, in 10 years we will all be kin Muslims.'
Relax Tony - I know there's a lot of rabid anti-British sentiment on here, but that's because it's easier to criticise other countries than to fix your own problems.
The yanks don't even have a patron saint fer christs sake! :D
Then you have certain American freepers with a dislike of England bordering on the insane using it as an excuse to Bash Britain.
While you and I know for a fact it will never get through, and its more to do with getting publicity for them self's.
Anything to do with PC and Muslims will inflame British public opinion anyway.
What I would like to know is, did any one in the Church of England mention the Muslims, or was it tagged on by the Media.
IIRC didn't Edward the Confessor used to be England's patron saint?
In a battle between Football and the ridiculous potemptkin "I'm almost sure God really existed" Church of England - I know who I'm going to bet on!
Political correctness in itself is proving to be a kind of pyschological dictatorship over the less educated members of the public and therein lies it's real danger, dictatorship by stealth.
It's a clever tool by the Marxist's to gag free speech.
I must admit though having scoured some of the HYS boards on the BBC a lot of people are waking up to this nonsense in droves so I'm fairly confident it won't take a serious hold in England.
Remember that the Church of England is very much divided as a church, as the recent conferance a few weeks back has shown.
We were in St. George, Maine a couple of days ago and I remarked that the statue of St. George slaying the dragon at the high school should be ripe for a suit by the ACLU. Little did I think that England might oust the saint. Good grief.
Can't blame you for being on edge. I've known a few people serving in Iraq myself. All of them are older army reservests.
You shouldn't mind the "Brit bashing" so much. People are always hardest on their friends. Tell you what, have a few goes at Americans. Some of us deserve it.
I spent 1.5 years in England, enjoyed it very much. Everyone was very freindly, except for a few snotty hotel clerks in London. Strangely enough, the owner of the house I rented in a very rural part of Suffolk was Australian!
If it makes you feel any better, there are those of us in America who have days when we are under attack here on FR as well. I just go do a load of laundry and ignore them for a couple of days.
I am hoping that my anniversary present next year is a trip to England, which I only have visited once in the late 60's (and then didn't have enough money to see much but the big tourist places in London). Maybe we could meet you for a pint.
Tony, you're shooting the messenger again....
Good post.
As a Scandinavian I am intimately familiar with the PC plague. Thankfully, there is here as well a growing public backlash against it.
I am thankful for your service and thankful for the sacrifices made by British solderiers of yesteryear who have helped keep Norway free.
Cheers.
Islam is a fire-breathing dragon. So much the better if England/GB were to do the slaying.
They tried to remove Santiago, but there was too much outcry and they had to bring him back. The only way these nutty ideas are ever stopped is by popular rebellion against them. I hope the Brits make it clear exactly how stupid it would be to "remove" St. George.
That's very kind of you Sir: thank you.
Unfortunately history becomes the victim of gratuituous PC nonsense. It is very interesting to wonder about dragons. As far as we know, they never existed, yet they appear in both Chrisian and Chinese art. Satan is identified as a dragon in Revelation. It would certainly be an achievement for relativism to ditch what may be a universal archetype for evil while, at the same time grovelling to a one-sided bias against the Crusades. I would rather see someone mount a fascinating exhibition on dragons and let people understand why the Byzantine emperor asked the Pope for help fighting off aggression.
Since the CoE is trying to please muslims, I suggest skipping to the end of this surrender, & replace the Cross of St. George with the crescent moon of saint mohammed (POSbuh) & replace the Bible with the koran.
Anything less will only continue to offend muslims.
Also, I suspect St. George would prefer he were not associated with such cowardly appeasers of satan.
Disgusting!
"But the Church of England is considering rejecting England's patron saint St George on the grounds that his image is too warlike and may offend Muslims."
Wow.
Just F#$king wow.
They've apparently forgotten how to speak English at the Daily Mail. Past participial form of "to slay" is "slain," not "slayed."
And here I figured it was PETA after ol George for the endangered species dragon thing.
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