Harry's Blog

Last night Channel 4 aired an interesting and rather unintentionally funny documentary called In God's Name about the danger in Britain of fundamentalist Christians gaining influence and power in the UK political system.

On the whole, while entertaining, David Modell's film failed to prove its hypothesis, though he seemed to think it had. The truth is that the three very sad figures of Christian Voice's Stephen Green, the female Christian parliamentary lobbyist and the rather strange lonely bloke John - all cut rather pathetic figures that were far from powerful.

Stephen Green continued to show why his tiny little group of nutters has failed to achieve anything other than annoying people. He's an insignificant racist twit of the highest order. He believes Islam is from "the pit of Satan" and that when a bird shat on him (to the amusement of Modell) that it was a message from God to stop taking part in the filming.

There was plenty of amusement to be had in watching what happened to all the silly homophobic pamphlets he was handing out at the gay rally.

An equally sad figure was cut by the lobbyist. For someone who has managed to get through law school she didn't really have two brain cells to rub together. When tackled on her silly belief that the world was four to six thousand years old she struggled for a while to think of anything to say at all and in the end asked for the camera to be turned off. When challenged alongside a Conservative MP she had formed a lobbying relationship with about her belief in Islam being from Satan she switched her microphone off. She had absolutely nothing of intellectual note to back up her beliefs. And I expect the relationship with the MP is now over.

There was also the sad figure of John, a young man clearly struggling with himself. In the end it seemed a bit unfair to focus on him - but then he had come forward at a rally and wished to be filmed. But his fixation on sex, his recording of his own prayer and his seemingly lonely existence (we were told he was getting married - but that didn't stop him seeming very lonely) were just sad. The film maker should have left him alone.

But however sad these three people seemed it is true there were some areas of concern in the documentary. The groups lobbying parliament over the current embryology and fertilisation bill were loud, vocal, often insane and completely oblivious to the realities of the situation.

In trying to lobby for the abortion limit to be reduced to 20 weeks they were actively doing something at best foolhardy and at worst evil. Women rarely try to get an abortion at 20 weeks for frivolous reasons. Such late terminations are often carried out for the safety of the woman - in many cases to save her life. Or for a young girl unaware she was pregnant and unable to deal with the situation. So these twits (including the lobbyist who was working with the Tory back-bencher) were looking to continue with early frivolous abortions and instead remove the lawful ability for doctor's to save lives. Wankers.

Meanwhile their views on the new animal/human embryonic hybrids were equally ill-informed. No one is trying to make bizarre Frankenstein animal hybrid creatures. We are talking about creating a way of harvesting stem cells to cure diseases without using up dwindling stocks of donor eggs - which are better served helping infertile women conceive. Again a worthy cause attacked by fundamentalists - often sad strange and rather dopey figures who feel if they shout about something together loud enough their idiocy will be intellectually validated.

There were other worrying aspects aired in the film. The Christian school was rather creepy. And its science exam - which featured questions such as "how old is the earth" answer "6000 years old" laughable and pathetic. The science textbook explained to primary school children that when humans had got to the moon they had found evidence that the world was just 6000 years old. Is the faith of these people so weak that they must lie to prop up their crazy ideas. It seems so.

So what can we gather from the documentary In God's Name? Well that there are clearly some misguided and strange people gaining power within Christian circles. That some children are being given an education that borders on abuse.

Yet there was little evidence to suggest that our nation as a whole - in political terms - was in any danger from these fundamentalist nut jobs.

It is the moderate churches that should be scared - for it is control of their own destiny that is in danger, not our political system. I can't have been the only view to be shocked to see a dog collar or two in the audience of the meeting to discuss the supposed evils of Islam?