The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians is reporting that a Christian doctor who was fired (sacked) for emailing a prayer to his colleagues has lost his clam for unfair dismissal, after an Employment Tribunal ruled that there was "no need" for religious references to be made at work.
We read here that, "Dr David Drew (aged 64) took legal action against Walsall Manor Hospital after he was dismissed for e-mailing a motivational prayer by St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, to his department, stating that his colleagues had made him feel like a 'religious maniac' for circulating the message.
However, Employment Judge David Kearsley ruled that the hospital had not acted unlawfully in sacking Dr Drew because discussions about religion should be avoided if considered 'inappropriate.' He said: 'There is no need for such assertions in professional communication nor was there a need to make religious references if they are considered inappropriate and if they hinder proper communication.'
One employee also complained about a text message that Dr Drew had sent wishing him 'a peaceful Christmas'. An independent investigation subsequently conducted into Dr Drew's behavior, ordered him to 'refrain from using religious references in his professional communications, verbal or written'. Dr Drew rejected the recommendations and was subsequently dismissed after refusing to accept a 'bribe' from hospital bosses to leave quietly.
Dr Drew said: 'The allegation that I have forced my religion onto other people, that I am some kind of religious maniac, was made worse by the fact that they told me there was no need to understand what this is all about. This means that you cannot be yourself in the workplace, you cannot say 'I am a Christian.'
Andrea Minichiello Williams, CEO of Christian Concern, commented: 'This is like the shutting down of identity. This approach to Christians is like forcing them to deny their identity – being Christian isn't something which you take off when you go to work. To say that it is not appropriate to say that you are a Christian at work is to totally misunderstand our history, our heritage, freedom under the law, freedom of religion, it is deeply illiberal, it is wrong.'"
I would like Judge David Kearsley to explain how an inspirational prayer from St. Ignatius of Loyola, sent to co-workers in an email, may be interpreted as "inappropriate" and how such a communication could possibly "hinder proper communication." If Dr. Drew had sent an email promoting an LGBT event, would such an email also be considered "inappropriate" and as obstructing proper communication? Or as evidence of fanaticism or mania? How about a passage from the Koran? Or a quotation from one of Richard Dawkin's books? Or is it only the Christian message and Christian prayer which are deemed "inappropriate" and a stumbling stone toward inter-office communication?
I think we all know the answers to these questions. But I would still like to hear from Judge Kearsley.
Writing for the Church of England newspaper last month, Andrew Carey noted that, "Free speech is an increasingly limited value in modern Britain. Yet it is astonishing that there is so little outcry over the limitations to free speech that have been introduced in recent years." Astonishing. But not unexplainable. Increasingly, the peoples of the West are being desensitized to the rapid decay in faith and morals and the loss of freedoms which result from what Pope Benedict XVI has called "the dictatorship of relativism."
The English psychiatrist William Sargent explained that, "It is not the mentally ill but ordinary normal people who are most susceptible to 'brainwashing.'" And in her book The Nazis and the Occult, Dusty Sklar notes how, "Hitler's early speeches were so mesmerizing that even people who were repelled by his ideas felt themselves being swept along. The playwright Eugene Ionesco mentions in his autobiography that he received the inspiration for Rhinoceros when he felt himself pulled into the Nazi orbit at a mass rally and had to struggle to keep from developing 'rhinoceritis.' We 'catch' ideas, too, because we want to be like others, particularly when we want not to be our despised selves. If we're satisfied, we don't need to conform, but if we're not, we imitate people whom we admire for having greater judgment, taste, or good fortune than we do....Through conformity, the person who feels inferior is in no danger of being exposed. He's indistinguishable from the others. No one can single him out and examine his unique being. Conformity, in turn, sets him up to be further canceled out as an individual, to have no life apart from his collective purpose. This gives a movement tremendous power over the individual. Even intelligent people are not immune from the desire to conform. Heinrich Hildebrandt, a schoolteacher who was anxious to hide his liberal past, joined the Nazi party, and to his own disgust, found himself 'proud to be wearing the insignia. It showed I belonged, and the pleasure of belonging, so soon after feeling excluded, isolated, is very great...I belonged to the new nobility..'" (The Nazis and the Occult, pp. 157, 158).
It was Tacitus who proclaimed, "O man, how prompt to slavery." And waiting in the wings is a Lawless One who will rule over such men. The Christian message will not be tolerated. He will strive to stamp it out altogether. He will seek to eradicate any expression of Christian thought or prayer. He will outlaw the Holy Mass. And then he will demand worship of himself.
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