A British MP has used his maiden speech in the House of Commons to urge Britain to return to its Christian heritage.
Danny Kruger, MP for Devizes in Wiltshire, and former speechwriter to David Cameron said, in the past, there was a recognition that the nation was rooted in Christianity. This fact, not only shaped the way Britons viewed themselves, but also each other, and formed the basis from which British liberties were derived.
In his 7-minute speech, Mr Kruger said:
“I want to finish on a more abstract issue, but it’s one I think we’re going to find ourselves debating in many different forms in this parliament. It’s the issue of identity. Who we are. Both as individuals and in relation to each other.
“Traditionally we had a sense of this. We are children of God, fallen but redeemed, capable of great wrong, but capable of great virtue.
“And even for those who didn’t believe in God, there was a sense that our country is rooted in Christianity, that our liberties derive from the Christian idea of absolute human dignity. And today, these ideas are losing their purchase.
“So, we are trying to find a new set of values to guide us, a new language of rights and wrongs, a new idea of identity, based not on our universal inner value, or on our membership of a common culture, but on our particular differences.”
Mr Kruger continued, “I state this as neutral as I can because I know good people are trying hard to make a better world and I know that Christianity and the Western past are badly stained by violence and injustice. But I’m not sure we should so casually throw away the inheritance of our culture.
“There’s so much to be positive about. I share the Prime Minister’s exuberant optimism about the future, but we need a set of values and beliefs to guide us…
“As we advance at speed into a bewildering world, where we are forced to ask the most profound questions about the limits of autonomy and what it means to be human, we may have reasons to look about for the old ways and seek wisdom in the old ideas, which are in my view, entirely timeless.”
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