You just won't let me dream, will you?
In all seriousness, thanks for the post. I don't agree with everything you say (especially about Charles...he visited my region some time ago, and I was not impressed at all).
Anyway, it's always good to hear your perspective.
Side note: Just before I checked my FR messages, I was listening to Jo Stafford's Songs of Scotland CD. Then I saw your post. A coincidence, or a sign that I should defer to you regarding Charles?
Hi.
I warn you that I am angry at some of the posts today, but don’t take too much from them.
For myself, I have for some time now been deeply troubled by the growing difficulties faced by Christian communities in various parts of the Middle East. It seems to me that we cannot ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are, increasingly, being deliberately targeted by fundamentalist Islamist militants. Christianity was, literally, born in the Middle East and we must not forget our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ. Their church communities link us straight back to the early Church, as I was reminded by hearing Aramaic, Our Lord's own language, spoken and sung a few hours ago.
Yet, today, the Middle East and North Africa has the lowest concentration of Christians in the world – just four per cent of the population and it is clear that the Christian population of the Middle East has dropped dramatically over the last century and is falling still further.
This has an effect on all of us, although, of course, primarily on those Christians who can no longer continue to live in the Middle East: we all lose something immensely and irreplaceably precious when such a rich tradition dating back two thousand years begins to disappear. It is, therefore, especially delightful to see such a rich panoply of church life here to-day, including the Antiochian, Greek, Coptic, Syrian, and Armenian Orthodox Churches, the Melkite, Maronite, Syrian Catholic, Chaldean, and Roman Catholic Churches, as well as the Church of the East, and Churches established, dare I say it, somewhat more recently, including the Anglican Church!
Not surprisingly, this speech did not get a lot of publicity. The left wing media delights in presenting a caricature of the Prince of Wales to the world. They do this by ignoring many of the things he says unless they push their particular agenda (meaning his environmentalism - one of the few areas he is on their side on - gets a lot publicity) or unless they can be spun to make him look foolish. They do this because he is fundamentally a conservative and they like making conservatives look like fools.
I'm not happy about the way the London election looks like going, but it's largely down to the fact that the voters are likely to go Labour rather than Conservative this time, simply because of the inertia of change - and the Labour candidate happens to be Muslim.