England Swings

England Swings
By Wendy Wippel

London was a settled by the time of Christ’s birth. Geoffrey of Monmouth, author of “The History of the Kings of Britain” (1136) traces its beginning back to Brutus (great grandson of Aeneas,the Trojan), who called the new settlement Trinivatum. It would prove to play a huge part in the evangelism of the rest of the world. That was then, however. And this? This is now.

Back from our trip to England last week, and I must say we got our money’s worth. We saw about everything there was to see, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, home to 165 apartments, where all the royals live. I’m not sure what I typically envision as an apartment is really what that meant.

Leeds Castle, where Kathrine of Aragon was sent into exile after Henry #8, finding her infertile (and old), sent her. Also, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.

Hampton Court, where Henry #8 wedded and bedded his other 5 wives, most of whom had their heads taken from them not too far away at the Tower of London.

We saw Stonehenge. We saw Oxford, and many Harry Potter film locations.

We saw the white cliffs of Dover, made famous in a WW2 song, and got to take a piece home with us.

We saw the underground bunker that housed Churchill and all of his staff for the length of the war, the war room untouched since they walked away from it on May 8. Decades later, still untouched but opened as a museum, it was literally stepping back into history.

We saw Canterbury Cathedral, begun in 1007, unbelievable beautiful and still holding services.

And Westminster Abby, ditto, and ditto again.

Both Cathedrals were full of dead people. Which is common in Europe. They buried their dead in the churches themselves.

But there’s some grievous irony here, because the churches of England today are empty. And the people outside are spiritually dead.

Pastor Adrian Hamilton (not the NFL linebacker), fears that the “church of England may not survive my children’s lifetimes”, THEN added, “AND maybe not my own”, and traces its problems to the fact that Henry #8 made the church and the British ruler one entity.

Because he wanted to divorce Katherine of Aragon (living in the beauful enirons of Leeds castle). And marry Ann Boleyn.

The Pope said no.

So Henry, furious that the Pope had the nerve to say no to the King of England, divorced the Roman Catholic Church.

And made a new one. The Church of England. The rules changed, but the rituals stayed pretty much the same.

With his very own Highness at its head.

Bad idea, in respect. Because for the England’s population at this point, the church, with its pomp and circumstance, is hard to distinguish from the royalty. According to Hamilton, “the majority of the English people are happy to say they are part of the Anglican church”. But it’s just a show, with exotic clothes and ritual prayers (with no more spiritual meaning than the changing of the guard) and no one goes. In a country of 33 million professing Christians, only 3% attend church even once a month. In contrast, according to one survey, 930,000 Muslims attend a place of worship at least once a week. Islam has replaced Christianity as the dominant religion in Britain, and Muslim leaders are now lobbying for equal status in British law.

Whatever that would mean when the queen is the de facto high priest.

More than a thousand churches have closed in Britain in the last 50 years. and an additional 4,000 or more are facing elimination in the next few years. To add insult to injurty, closed churches turn into mosques, now numbering almost 2000 in Britain. Not to mention the 2000 Muslim prayer halls and countless personal mosques around the country.

England swings, alright. It is swinging to the Dark Side.

Which is sad. Very sad. My husband and I followed a tour of Biblical apologetics in the British Museum that we found online and it was incredibly encouraging. Hundreds of items that completely confirm the historical veracity of the Scriptures. Really just mind-blowing and, IMHO a bucket list must-do for every believer.

But with absolute proof of the Bible’s accuracy right there in the midst of them, London, long a lighted City on a Hill, is in serious danger of having their flickering spark extinguished.

One of the things that really surprised me in London was that on the subways and on the streets you almost never heard English. And when you did, it was nearly always heavily accented. And the number of Muslim residents, specifically, is expected to more than double in the next ten years.

Which would be a great thing if England was still the Shining City on the Hill that it was for more than a hundred years. The world’s peoples are coming to them. And learning their language!

But England is not what it was.

Adrian Hamilton, a high-placed figure in the Anglical Church, wrote an appeal to sever ties with the Buckingham Palace in a 2011 article he entitled “Will the last person to leave the Church of England please turn out the Lights?”.

Sorry, Adrian, but I think the lights are already out. I saw every kind of non-Christian religion and political viewpoint readily expressed in the subways and on the streets with the exception of Christianity. Though the JWs were out in force.

What’s a believer to do?

At this point, I hope you are thinking what I am thinking:

We speak English!

Who’s up for a mission trip to London? And don’t toy with me. I am serious.

Maybe the surest proof of the decline of England’s spiritual discernment is the fact that Charles Darwin himself is buried in Westminster Abbey. In a place that you have no choice but to walk on his grave.

I couldn’t resist an impromptu declaration of my feelings about that incredibly beautiful place of Worship, (such as it is) being besmirched with remains of a man who did more than anyone in history to erode belief in the God supposedly worshipped there.

So I danced. On his grave.

I really did.

And got out before the paddy wagons arrived.

Fancy a trip to London, love? Anyone?