“Sell everything you own and buy yellow precious metal, fashioned in the form of one vertical long stick crossed with a horizontal shorter stick. And wear it publicly at all times, as a sign of your devotion to me. Blessed are the jewellery wearers for they shall inherit media attention” Book of Ratner ch19.v4 <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(As Jesus directed his followers in a previously little-known apocryphal bible book covering the Jewellery Company Years) <\/p>\n

Determined cross wearers Shirley Chaplin and Nadia Eweida<\/a> (a former nurse and a former British Airways worker) have taken their case to the European Court of Human Rights<\/p>\n

Shirley Chaplin and Nadia Eweida take cross fight to Europe.
\nShirley Chaplin said “hiding” her cross was akin to denying her faith<\/strong>(headlines on the BBC report)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can’t see that it matters what styles of jewellery people wear. I think that their employers have behaved insanely (although I bet they were a real trial to employ). Although, if you know that a job has a uniform and you refuse to stick to the uniform rules, you shouldn’t really take that job. <\/p>\n

The problem is that the cross ladies picked this fight on purpose. To bolster the picture of the UK’s imaginary condition of “discrimination against Christians”.<\/p>\n

Christian Concern website (find it yourself, if you want, I’m not keen to post a link) is always willing to place itself at the centre of any case that it can use to promote the fantasy that we live in a parallel universe in which European Christians are beingpersecuted.<\/p>\n

Increasing numbers of Christians have been penalised for their faith in the public sphere, often due to equalities legislation and the promotion of homosexual rights. Some Christians have been threatened with disciplinary action, suspended, and even sacked for refusing to act against their consciences. At Christian Concern we vigorously resist any restrictions on freedom of speech and expression for Christians.(from Christian Concern)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What? Equalities legislation and homosexual rights are a threat to Christians? <\/p>\n

Passing blithely over the irony that people who feel threatened by human rights legislation are resorting to the European Court of Human Rights for redress, do they claim that they are being compelled to become homosexual in order to get human rights? No, I think I get it, maybe they claim the right to persecute gay people is the human right that they are in danger of losing?<\/p>\n

Christians have been sacked for refusing to act against their consciences? I would have much sympathy – nay, admiration – if their consciences were telling them they had to resist the government’s ongoing programme to attack the poor and the NHS or if they were campaigning against wars or using their resources to feed the hungry and house the homeless…<\/p>\n

But their Christian consciences aren’t stirred by such insignificant social issues. Their moral sense is roused by rules about wearing jewellery in work. <\/p>\n

And their consciences can only be accommodated by following the Book of Ratner and wearing jewellery with malice aforethought. <\/p>\n

Oh, and spending vast resources on getting their own way through the courts. What would Jesus Do? Well, the same, obviously. I believe he was working on his latest designer jewellery collection for Argos when he was crucified. He thought the cross shape would be really great for the brand.<\/p>\n

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