London Church may be Forced to Close over Muslim Neighbour Singing Complaint

If you think you’ve heard it all from post-Christian Britain, here’s a story that will shock many of you.

A London, UK, church has been effectively “silenced” by a Court after a decision by Magistrates to uphold a noise abatement notice, not to play excessive sound, after just one Muslim neighbour complained about noise levels of worship in a church which was next door to the house he purchased.

Singing Songs of Praise on a Sunday is normal Church activity. Using amplification is a normal part of Church life and it was argued at the Court hearing that the normal use of a Church building entails worship and cannot constitute noise nuisance.

According to the Christian Legal Centre, Immanuel House of Worship Church (IHOW) has been meeting at 89 Vallentin Road in Walthamstow, London, since it bought the premises in 2006.

“The Church was built in 1894 and was formerly used by the United Reformed Church, when the Church owned all the land on which the current properties are now built,” said a spokesperson for the London-based Christian Legal Centre.

“The property next door to the church, No 87, was formerly the Manse (vicarage) until 1989, when it was then sold by the United Reformed Church. In 2005, No 87 was sold to the current occupants, Mr. and Mrs. Baha Uddin.

“From 2005 – 2006, the property was empty and vagrants frequently hung around church. Currently, the IHOW church offers a nursery to serve the whole neighborhood and has an impressive list of neighbors who welcome the church and who do not regard their worship as a problem.

“However, Mr. and Mrs. Uddin complained about the level of noise of worship coming from the church for just 40 minutes a week and an Abatement Notice was served on the Church Trustees on 6 May 2009 under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 section 79(1) (g). The church appealed to the magistrate court and the hearing took place on 5 and 6 October at Waltham Forest Magistrates Court.”

Mr. Ade Ajike, a trustee of the church said: “When we moved into Valentinn Road in 2007, and we had renovated the property and bricked up the three windows facing house No 87. We also double glazed all the windows, except one stained glass window, and spent £10,000 ($16,000 USD) to carry out sound-reducing. In fact, the Council’s environmental department at the time said it would be enough just to brick up the windows.

“After moving in we invited Environmental Officers to visit the premises and we got the OK. We also visited neighbors and took them potted plants, and had no problem until Mr. Uddin made his official complaint in August 2008.

“Gary Vickers, an Environmental health enforcement officer visited Mr Uddin’s house on 10th August (Sunday worship service time) and on 12 August issued a letter to us saying that in his opinion, the volume from the music was of statutory noise nuisance level throughout the neighbours’ property. He suggested to deal with matter through sensible negotiation, informing our pastor that ‘the church had to keep the noise down so as not to offend the Muslims living in the area’. He told us ‘this is a Muslim borough, you have to tread carefully’.”

According to the Christian Legal Centre, during August, IHOW took action. They reduced hours of Sunday worship from 4 hours to 2 hours 30 minutes, of which music is played for about 45 minutes. They reduced their weekly services to one service on Sunday, and all mid-week services held are skeletal services without music. Sunday evening services were reduced to once a month. The trustees also took the decision not to hire out the premises in case noise would aggravate Mr. Uddin, a move which has cost the church additional revenue. However, the visiting officer changed and questioning got more “hostile”.

Mr. Ajike said: “Officers questioned the church why they needed amplifiers when 50 years ago the Church would not have used drums and amplified music. On 6 May 2009, an Abatement Notice was issued against the church alleging an unreasonable level of noise nuisance caused by excessive loud amplified music and drums.

“Since then we have stopped using drums and further reduced our worship time to 20 minutes beginning from 11.30am on a Sunday morning. We have also restricted church services to once a week. Despite all our action, Mr. Uddin, who actually lives in what was the former Manse (vicarage) to the church, would stand at church’s main entrance door and shout his complaints and demand our pastor come out to speak to him during his sermon.”

Now the IHOW has sought the advice of the Christian Legal Centre over their plight and to appeal this week’s decision. CLC has instructed leading Human Right’s expert Paul Diamond to represent the church at the Appeal.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and director of the CLC said: “The charge of nuisance in law must involve proving there is a substantial interference with comfort. Surely, any reasonable person would think that singing for 40 minutes or so once or twice a week would not cross this threshold.

“Worship in a Church is to be expected. The Environmental Health Officers do not seem to have taken this fact into account. This is a vibrant Afro Caribbean community of Christian believers whose worship of God is fundamental to the expression of their faith. The richness and vibrancy of groups like the London Gospel Community Choir is based on the Afro Caribbean expression of faith through music.”

For more information, please go to www.christianlegalcentre.com

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Dan Wooding, 68, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 46 years. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC., and now hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on KWVE in Southern California and which is also carried on the Calvary Radio Network throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on UCB UK and Calvary Chapel Radio UK. Wooding is the author of some 43 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, “From Tabloid to Truth”, which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, press this link. Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, also recently released “God’s Ambassadors in Japan” which is available at amazon.com.

 

The Minefield of Political Correctness

Land mines have a long history in warfare. Minefields in warfare are primarily used in defensive scenarios, but modern terrorists use them offensively (pun intended).

There are several ways to avoid the damage of a minefield. One way is go around it, but you have to be aware of the field in advance and must have some idea of its size. A second way is to clear the minefield. This must be done manually. It takes time, it is very slow and endangers personnel, but you may blow a safe path through the field large enough for your purpose. This method is very expensive and is not one hundred per cent effective. A third way is to cross the forbidden ground, taking a chance and then everyone who follows will follow the safe path. This is dangerous but it is the fastest way.

IED (improvised explosive devices) are a type of land mine, but this article is about another type of terrorist minefield…that of “political correctness”.

The PC mine is used offensively. It is designed to bait, harass, and entrap freedom loving Americans. There are also times when it is used as a facade, daring anyone to cross into an area at their own risk. This type PC minefield is known by many names, social (legal) extortion, Danegeld, Liberation Theology, pacification, civil rights, civil liberties, tolerance, diversity, etc.

It is time to start crossing those PC minefields. To quit being afraid of what might be and face what is. The socialist progressives have planted real and imaginary minefields hoping that we not test them. We are letting the minority rule this Republic. It is time to step up and step out for Freedom.

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If you prefer some lighter reading why not try…

 

 

 

Ghost Ranger, Tex’s first novel, is now available on Lulu and Amazon.

 

 

 

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‘American’ = Geographical Chauvinism (What?!)

Tucker Carlson and Steve Doocy discuss words that are now considered too “politically incorrect” by the NEA for American Students (oops) “Students of the United States.”

 

For some background, also watch this video introducing the series leading up to a FoxNews documentary scheduled for the end of August:

 

The Trouble with Textbooks

Coming Soon to You: The State PC Church

Cross-posted from Faultline USA

by Bill Muehlenberg at Culture Watch

I have written extensively as of late about how religious freedom in the West is slowly but surely coming under attack. State-sponsored anti-Christian bigotry is on the increase throughout the Western world. Various forces have been warring against the free expression of faith. These include radical minority groups, secularist groups, the forces of political correctness, and meddling governments.

The reasons provided to justify this crackdown on religious freedom and expression often sound good: the need to prevent discrimination, vilification and the like. But the effect of various equal opportunity laws and religious vilification bills is to effectively silence the church.

And it is a lot sneakier way of doing things. If the state announced that all churches would be closed and all Bibles confiscated, there would be – hopefully – a huge public outcry. But these indirect and sneaky methods are really achieving the same thing. Religious freedom is being taken away, and soon the only churches will be those which have the government tick of approval.

This incremental, piece-by-piece approach seems to be working quite well. Most religious folk have no idea that the public expression of their faith is slowly being strangled. They do not seem to know or perhaps care that each day the state is intruding more and more in religious affairs.

The coming state-approved PC church is not just the stuff of conspiracy theorists. This site has documented numerous cases of this very thing. We are well on the way to the sort of brave new world scenarios often depicted in works of fiction and film.

Indeed, it reminds me of a 2002 film I saw recently, Equilibrium. In a futuristic police state, people are banned from all things which might trigger emotional responses: books, music, art. They are even forced to take drugs which suppress emotions. This is done for a very good-sounding reason; to maintain peace and stamp out war.

But of course the price for such coerced peace is too high – the loss of freedoms, and the deadening of humanity. So a group of rebels arise to fight the system. The film is well worth renting and watching.

It seems we may not be so far off today in the West. We live in an age in which the state knows that bread and circuses will do the trick. Keep the masses fed, and keep them entertained and amused. As long as that is done, most people won’t mind the steady erosion of other freedoms and the very things which make us human.

Thus even those who should know better – biblical Christians – are sleeping through this slow and steady rise of state-approved religion. Fortunately I am not alone in these concerns. Chuck Colson in the US is also greatly concerned about these trends. His most recent article also warns about the suppression of religious freedom.

He begins with these words: “In China, Christians have a choice: Join a government-approved church – which is constantly monitored by the authorities – or join an underground church. Thank heavens things like that don’t happen in the West, you may be thinking. Think again. In Britain, the government has begun sticking its nose in church business, telling churches what to do.

“According to the Daily Telegraph, starting next year, the British government is going to begin forcing churches and other religious institutions to hire open, practicing homosexuals. It will happen under the provisions of the so-called Equity Bill, which forbids discrimination against homosexuals or transsexuals. The law would ‘cover almost all church employees,’ according to Deputy Equities Minster Maria Eagle. ‘The circumstances in which religious institutions can practice anything less than full equality are few and far between,’ Eagle said. Church groups, she said, ‘cannot claim that everything they run is outside the scope of anti-discrimination law’.”

I have written up this case as well: http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2009/05/21/is-this-the-end-of-christianity-in-england/

But Colson reminds us just where all this is heading: “What’s next – regulating the content of sermons? I’m not kidding. According to Eagle, ‘Members of faith groups have a role in making the argument in their own communities for greater’ acceptance of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people. Maybe it would simplify things if the government simply wrote the sermons for the pastors.”

He continues, “The Equity Law could lead to some interesting situations. What happens if a church, under pressure, hires a gay youth minister—and orders him to teach kids about the sinfulness of homosexual behavior? And I can only imagine the reaction of a British mosque when the religion police orders it to hire a lesbian secretary.”

What we have here is a case of governments “beginning to run the churches. And if they succeed, it will be the end of religious freedom in Britain. Legislation like the Equity Law should concern Americans. So-called ‘social reforms’ that begin in Europe soon wash up on our own shores. And then, what will happen to the Church? Will we put our congregations under the authority of Caesar? Or will we resist and, if need be, abandon our elegant buildings and, like our faithful brethren in China, form underground churches?”

Colson concludes, “The Bible teaches that the followers of Christ will be tested. We ought to be in prayer for the church in Great Britain, asking God to guide it as the government bears down. Second, we ought to be preparing for similar laws here. Many churches are already under great pressure by homosexual activists to violate their own teachings under the guise of ‘fairness’ – a much abused word. This, by the way, is not a hysterical rant. The threat is very real. Third, we ought to remind our neighbors that the First Amendment was written not just to protect the government from churches, but more so to protect churches from the government.”

Things in Australia fare no better. We are well down this path of state-approved PC churches. And if this does come to full fruition, in many ways we will only have ourselves to blame. There have been plenty of warnings about all this. The question is, do we take our faith seriously enough to stand up and do something about this. Or will we simply sheeplike take our emotion-blocking drugs as in Equilibrium, and in docile fashion accept what the government tells us to do.

The choice is really up to us.

http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=11915

Free Speech, Real Jews, Under Jihadic Siege in England, India, America, and Canada.

Jihad is fully upon the West, both by stealth and by more and more open displays of Islamic aggression, hatred, and violence. Free speech (which includes truth-telling and the right to self-defense), is under the most profound siege. The United Nations has long been lost, Europe, (at least England, Holland, and possibly France), have rapidly become dhimmi states. North America is-and has been-in the cross-hairs of jihadic desire.

The recent demonstrations, ostensibly about Gaza, turned into dangerous hatefests all across the country. University campuses have become increasingly dangerous for Jewish and other pro-Israel or anti-fascist, pro-democracy students. Just the other day in Toronto, a student wearing a kippah set off a huge riot among the highly Palestinianized student body which even the Toronto police could not put down.

India has also had to live with countless Muslim terrorist attacks before the Mumbai atrocity and with attacks against authors, such as Bangladeshi Taslima Nasrin, who had been granted asylum in an Indian city. (She is now, once again, living in Europe). A friend of mine who lives in another Indian city has been writing to me about the situation but feels she cannot afford to go public with her views or her information. I am saddened, appalled by her silence, but I do understand it. I am grateful that she immediately called my attention to the incredible fuss that a recent article written by Johann Hari in the English language Statesman has caused. Hari asks why religion cannot be criticized or rather why only some religions cannot be criticized. Unbelievably, by February 12th, the editors of the Statesmen who published Hari’s piece were arrested for “offending Islam.”

Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

What Good Does It Do?

If anyone has noticed lately, I have not submitted much in the way of articles to this blog. There are many reasons for this and I take this opportunity to explain a few.

Sometimes I feel that I am preaching to the choir. Few people read and I get the feeling even fewer understand the calamity that is facing this Nation. I started writing about the leftists’ manipulation of elections and finances several years ago, but I was called a nut or a conspiracy theorist. Yet finally, some of the things I saw and informed the public of then are occurring now. I could explain how the socialists from other countries have learned from past mistakes like trying to openly bribe elected to officials to their current use of Pay Pal and other on-line funding mechanisms. Or I could explain how they sponsor environmental groups to wage war on free enterprise. I could go on for days about how they lobby for obfuscatory language in Bills brought before Congress or how they get the Federal Government to finance their subversion of American ideals and principles.

I could also repeat myself about the puppet masters like George Soros who profit from the failure of economies. Or how Ted Turner and Teresa Heinz-Kerry have used their resources against the well being of the United States. I could explain once again how biased and anti-American the media is. I could also yell about how putting profit and greed ahead of patriotism is wrong. But what good would it do?

This Nation started forsaking its roots in the 1950s. The people have become apathetic and uncaring. There are no longer neighborhoods; there are housing developments. There are no longer schools; there are indoctrination centers. People screaming “me, me, me” with their hands outstretched. High School graduates who can’t read. College graduates who are unable to think independently. Students who regurgitate theories from over-priced textbooks written by purveyors of socialism. Politically correct groups who trample on the rights of the majority. A nanny government that is bloated with cronyism and affirmative actions. A government where it takes ten to do the job of one. A government controlled by money and sorely lacking in principals.

You remember principles? They are what used to be taught in schools, Churches and on television. The reason I have been lax in my writing is not that I don’t care, because I do. I still educate myself daily about the issues and the people. I have been lax because I do not see the situation changing or even slowing down. It is said of an alkie or an addict that they must hit bottom before they can start upwards again. This Nation is addicted to governmental control. We haven’t hit bottom yet but it is coming and soon because most do not care about anything past their noses. I am old and feel older than my years. I just hope the tyranny and oppression that is coming with the socialist-Marxist Democrat rule does not start with a Stalinistic purge. I hope and pray that the fire in my belly known as patriotic fervor and the will to resist and fight back that I have espoused for so many years to soldiers and civilians will out live me, for without it this Nation will never recover.

 

Dems afraid to use the “J” Word.

Jeffry Imm has some great info over at the Counterterrorism blog, explaining the Hoeckstra amendment, and who is against it.

Basically, the Hoeckstra amendment counters a trend that is developing within the intelligence community toward banning the use of words like “jihad” and “Islamic Terrrorism,” to describe Jihad and Islamic Terrorism (words the Jihadis and Islamic Terrorists are proud to use to describe themselves).

Not surprisingly, mostly Democrats and a few RINO’s were opposed to the amendment, due to its politically-incorrect nature. Imm has a complete list of which U.S. Representatives opposed the amendment or abstained from voting, and encourages you to contact your Representatves to demand an explanation, here.

CNN Newspeak in Atlanta. Honor Killing=Cultural Misunderstanding; Pakistani=South Asian; Muslim=Holy Man/Victim.

Good afternoon dear people!

Well, this time, the mainstream media is actually beginning to cover the honor murder in Atlanta. I do not understand why they never covered the honor murder of the Said sisters in Dallas about which I have previously written many times at this blogsite. But-in only a matter of days, CNN not only wrote about it; they also turned to an alleged expert who says that honor murders are no different than domestic violence cases world-wide…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

The History of ‘Political Correctness’

This is a Blog Talk Radio podcast, by Doug, of Political Pistachio, in which he explains that “Political Correctness,” is basically “cultural Marxism,” and discusses how it developed and why it is dangerous.

Below is the Free Congress Foundation video that Doug played in his show, which was sent to him from a link on Atlas Shrugs: The History of Political Correctness:

LIES, LIES and More LIES

I really shouldn’t read the comments on news articles – it raises my blood pressure! First, read the selected comments, then the rest of the story. (Warning if you have high blood pressure please, medicate before reading, and all spelling mistakes are copied directly.)

This is the sick humor of the Republican Party. They are racist and hateful. They are always talking about values. Is this what they call values? Wake up America they are trying to turn the clock back. We democrates need to take a stand against this type of bigotry. We are better than that. The Republican party is shaking their heads now. They simply can’t believe that a Black/Biracial man has gotten this far and they will stop at nothing to try to destroy him. They will lose in the end. OBAMA will win and the “White House” will finally be for everyone. Blacks, Whites, Latino’s, Asians, Gay and Straight. We are all one America.

Read more

Finding a Roommate Online: It’s illegal to ask sexual orientation, race, or religion to choose a roommate. (Updated 11/21/08)

What?! Let’s say you find yourself needing to save money, and find someone to share living expenses. I’ll get a roommate, you think. This is a sensitive matter. This is the person you will be sharing at least a kitchen and living quarters, perhaps a bathroom, a garage, and definitely your set of house keys with for months, maybe years. This person is going to have access to your personal belongings, your family, your friends, your phone calls, and your computer. Trust and compatibility are paramount. Read more