Prime Minister David Cameron's Dec. 16 "King James Bible Speech" http://www.number10.gov.uk./news/king-james-bible has attracted strikingly little notice here in the States.
Pity. The bloke committed heresy, identifying Britain as "a Christian nation" and urgently urging repair of the moral foundations on which that identity rests.
E.g., "The Bible has helped to shape the values which define our country..Yes, they are Christian values. And we should not be ashamed to acknowledge that. But they are also values that speak to us all -- to people of every faith and none...
"[T]hose who say being a Christian counry is doing down other faiths simply don't understand that it is easier for people to believe and practise other faiths when Britain has confidence in its Christian identity...
"[M]oral neutrality or passive tolerance just isn't going to cut it anymore. Shying away from speaking the truth about behaviour, about morality has actually helped to cause some of the social problems that lie at the heart of the lawlessness we saw with [last summer's] riots...
"[F]or too long we have been unwilling to distinguish right from wrong..."
Differ if you like with word choice, with shades and gradations of meaning. This remains pretty stirring stuff, and lovely to hear, originating as it does with a political leader who candidly calls himself "a vaguely practising Church of England Christian." Beats what the Archbishop of Canterbury says on selected occasions,and he's the one with the theology degrees. As we tend to say in this sacred season: Hallelujah.