Easter and Christian Culture Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
John Hayes
Main Page: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)Department Debates - View all John Hayes's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Easter and Christian Culture
John Hayes Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Nick Fletcher
My hon. Friend said in 30 seconds what has taken me 18 minutes to say, so I thank him for his contribution. He is completely right.
As I was saying, I am sure there must be a way the Department can do much more to promote faith and family and our Christian heritage, values and way of life; encourage the country’s people to look out for each other instead of focusing inwards; embrace a culture of forgiveness and love for all our neighbours; and lead the nation to speak proudly of its past. The formidable Douglas Murray once urged people to have “an attitude of gratitude”. A nation that knows the boundaries of right and wrong sets them in stone so that we all know where we are and that no means no, not maybe, especially when speaking to and guiding our young. That is a nation where opportunity is available to all for the better of all. I want a nation’s people that believes what CS Lewis once stated:
“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.”
Can we not do all that while letting those who have called our shores home enjoy their culture, too? I think we can and we should.
If our Christian culture with its faith and families shines like the beacon of hope that it should, the ideologies and desires that are often negative will be starved of oxygen and will fall away one by one. The new people we welcome will see our culture and maybe even want to be a part of it, too.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I endorse my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on securing this debate. He is articulating the fact that the most corrosive force in our country now is nihilism and the moral relativism associated with it. We hear people speaking not of truth, but of their truth, as though truth could be negotiated. But truth cannot be negotiated; it is an absolute, and is embodied in the message of Christianity.