CHRISTIANS IN THE COMMUNITY OF THE DOME
By Julian Mann
EP Books. 100 pages. £6.99
ISBN 978 1 783 972 104
This is a fascinating, creative and insightful little book which you should not read if you wish to remain safe and undisturbed behind evangelical rose-tinted spectacles.
The Dome of the title is the Millennium Dome, built under the guidance of Peter Mandelson, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief advisor and an architect of the rebrand-ing of the Labour Party as ‘New Labour’.
I remember visiting the Dome with my family and walking out after an hour feeling quite depressed. The reason was that the Dome and its exhibitions seemed to represent all that Britain was becoming under the new politicos: high on style, low on substance, tacky, superficial and destined to be short lived. In many ways it was a fitting monument, so different to London monuments of the past, which appear grand and aspiring, reflecting our rich Christian heritage.
Julian Mann, who is a gifted writer, takes the Dome as a metaphor for the type of oppressive secular society Britain has become with breathtaking rapidity since the New Labour government took office in 1997. Now, whether one leans to the political left or right, vacuous secular values have been taken on wholesale with the rise of a new hegemony, whereby such values are taken as ‘given’, thanks to the neo-Marxist trick of disseminating such ideas through the media and education, now backed by law. ‘Trad is bad and the latest is the greatest’ could be the mantra for the secular driving of a coach and horses through our society.
Starting from 2001
Julian Mann traces these developments by following four time-lines that show the significant social, political and cultural changes which have occurred from 2001 to the present. A revolution, which few people seem to have noticed, has taken place. Reading the book, one is taken aback by the way so many people have been abused, prosecuted and vilified simply for expressing views which not that long ago would have been considered mainstream and common sense. The book is a valuable resource for this information alone. On page after page we are presented with hair-raising examples of the intolerance which masquerades as the new tolerance. These accounts are not for those of a nervous disposition!
But this cannot be dismissed as irresponsible scaremongering, any more than Ezekiel’s writings in his day could have been conveniently sidelined. This is in many ways a prophetic book.
Three visions
It is especially so towards the end, which paints three different scenarios of Britain in the year 2050. The first is a Britain which is dominated by Islam. And lest people think this is fanciful, remember that the Muslims have the birth rate on their side, as well as the cultural elite’s blinkered view that ‘real Islam’ is ready to embrace the secular myth which flattens out all beliefs.
The second vision is distinctly Orwellian, where secularism rules and religion is banned. Written by Andrew Symes of Anglican Mainstream, this is a very thoughtful section which is frighteningly realistic. Several forces are portrayed as being at work to pave the way for this scenario, one being the wrongheaded retreat by evangelicals into their churches so that they can ‘preach the Word’, evangelise and church plant, but not raise their voices pub-lically. (Although not mentioned, the success of the LGBT movement using the stratagem advocated in After the Ball, is seen as being highly effective. The portrait pictured here is only too possible.)
The third vision has the author in a retirement home at the age of 86, living in a Britain that has seen Revival, as in the 18th century. This comes about through Muslim converts and has a government headed up by a former Muslim, but now Christian, Prime Minister! This chapter makes you want to pray all the more to God that this would be so.
This highly readable, thought-provoking and penetrating book is highly recommended if you wish to be like the men of Issachar and ‘understand the times’.
