Hi, Apart from all the other misconceptions, offences against reason and confusion of ideas, originating from a relativist world view and its tendency to live exclusively in the here and now, is the hole in our historic awareness. And so it happens that without that knowledge we are re-framing the story of ourselves through the eyes and in the terminology of Islam. This apparently extends to the Anglican archbishop, which is a shame. He of all people should know better. We've now heard so often about our appalling record (crusades, imperialism, slave-trade, colonialism), that we have come to believe it ourselves and are repeating it in those terms. Perhaps it's time the truth be told, that without Christian civilization, built on the ruins of Athens and Rome, we would today be quite a different lot. And that we owe Christianity Universal Human Rights (not the U.N. as some are fond to point out), the rule of law, labour rights, science and all the other human achievements that are presently claimed by the children of the Enlightenment. Yes, we owe Christians in the East a great deal as well; they are the original inhabitants of Asia Minor and the Near East, that have been conquered, reduced to dhimmitude and left to fend for themselves.
By the way, it is another misunderstanding of relativism to think that if you "talk yourself down", correspondingly you "talk the other up". Quite the contrary is the case!
Nice blog! Keep it up! Cheerio! Cassandra
http://millennium-notes.blogspot.com/