From David Cameron’s Christmas message:<\/p>\n
It is because [the armed forces] face danger that we have peace. And that is what we mark today as we celebrate the birth of God\u2019s only son, Jesus Christ \u2013 the Prince of Peace. As a Christian country, we must remember what his birth represents: peace, mercy, goodwill and, above all, hope. I believe that we should also reflect on the fact that it is because of these important religious roots and Christian values that Britain has been such a successful home to people of all faiths and none.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Peace, peace, peace; are we not currently at war with ISIS? The war is not happening in the UK, but it’s a war nonetheless. I despair of this message. The reasons for people joining ISIS are complex, however, a significant part of the appeal of ISIS is a desire for identity, belonging and a cause. Cameron’s message may alienate some Muslims, and push them towards ISIS. His message says, essentially, that we are a Christian country, but don’t mind others staying here too; in saying this he draws an artificial line between Christians and the rest. That’s an artificial line we don’t need – we have too many divisions already. I’d rather hear that we are a multi-faith society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From David Cameron’s Christmas message: It is because [the armed forces] face danger that we have peace. And that is what we mark today as we celebrate the birth of God\u2019s only son, Jesus Christ \u2013 the Prince of Peace. As a Christian country, we must remember what his birth represents: peace, mercy, goodwill and, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}