In his lament on the decline of the Roman Empire, French philosophe Montesquieu wrote “There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”
In 21st century England, the legal profession itself is just as complicit in the degrading of truth and virtue as the strictures they are employed to uphold. Master of the Rolls Sir Geoffrey Vos has said Lincoln’s Inn will scrap its centuries-long practice of saying Christian grace before meals: in a statement littered with deferences to our new atheistic dogma, Sir Geoffrey said the decision was made to “foster inclusivity,” “modernise,” and “create a more thoughtful environment.” Saying grace will be replaced with a nondescript message of “Thanks,” with any reference to England’s established faith eliminated.
Given that it is impossible to make any sentence, never mind a prayer, palatable to every human being, it is clear that something else is at play in this pronouncement, an attack on Christianity and thus the English tradition responsible for Lincoln’s Inn’s very existence.
Inns of Court—not to be confused with a boozy public house—are professional associations to which all English and Welsh barristers (a lawyer who advocates for litigants before a common law court) must belong. While most Britons will never set foot on their palatial grounds, our justice system is staffed with graduates and members of these elite associations.
Who is Sir Geoffrey to decide that saying grace is “outdated”? This is tantamount to suggesting that the Christian religion itself is an anachronism. How then, does he explain that Christianity remains the world’s largest religion, with some 2.2 billion faithful worldwide?
Britain may have fallen victim to secular malaise, but a growing majority (almost 90%) of the global population professes some kind of faith, and Christianity itself will soar to 3.33 billion followers by 2050, despite harsh persecution. As economic hardship surges, British food banks are overwhelmingly run by church-affiliated groups, and the vast majority of global charity is faith-based.
Sir Geoffrey and his ilk have degraded the Inn to the level of knee-jerk myopia that characterises oikophobic western liberals desperate to appear outwardly cultured and yet incapable of acknowledging the world beyond their own nose.
This is hardly the first blow the mediaeval body of Lincoln’s Inn has been dealt, having been battered by a 1915 air raid. Still, it represents how our once robust public institutions are now being degraded from within, rather than being united against external challenges.
The Inn’s move unfairly assumes offence on the part of non-Christians. I do not imagine that any sincere and respectful believer of any faith is offended by the expression of another. The idea that the presence of a short Christian prayer would invoke any reasonable non-believer into a state of panic is especially bizarre when one remembers that less than 40% of Britons now identify as Christians and the British state now arrests people for praying silently.
It also seems the Inn is happy to pick and choose when Christianity is acceptable. Its gothic revival chapel was described by its resident preacher as “the spiritual heart of the Inn” on its 400th anniversary earlier this year, and indeed it is obviously subject to some lingering privilege, given that it has not been levelled by bulldozers or converted into a greying airport-style interfaith lounge. The Inn’s majestic great hall, where members gobble their sumptuous daily lunches, displays a 45-feet G.F. Watts fresco depicting secular and religious lawgivers throughout the ages, including Islam’s primary prophet Muhammed—an image many left-wing busy bodies and Islamists would find less than “inclusive.”
The Inn has not made any suggestion that its members, who must clock up many thousands of pounds in education and training before even being considered for membership, were consulted on such a historic change; nor is there any evidence that a huge backlog of formal complaints made them reconsider the practice. Of course, a flurry of outrage would not morally sanction these or any other unwise plans, but they would at least imply some thin, utilitarian motive.
Much like the liberalising reforms of the 1960s—most of which were ushered in through poorly scrutinised private members bills to avoid public outrage—the Inn’s shift is a deliberate surrender of our shared past by an unaccountable elite.
It is also important to note that this kind of secular mandate, common in institutions across republics such as France and the United States has no such precedent in Britain. To the chagrin of our political class, we have no separation between Church and State, and our established Churches maintain bishops in the House of Lords, with our monarch as its supreme governor.
Similar to Labour’s war on hereditary peerages and soon the Lords itself (and the pitiful Tory complicity), the Inn’s attack on Christianity foreshadows a wider siege against our constitution.
This is why many faiths and non-Anglican denominations, well exemplified by the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ impassioned defence of the role of the Church of England and monarchy, have largely supported Britain’s peculiar but long-successful structure.
Our legal system and educational history, which once forged one of the most free and just civilisations on the planet, are rooted in the presumptions of Christianity, and our culture continues to exist in its afterglow. As Blairite historian Tom Holland argues, even our newfound obsession with environmental armageddon and gender self-identification is a kind of Christian heresy. Lincoln’s Inn itself would not exist if Christianity had failed to reach England’s shores.
By the Inn’s logic, we should simply chuck the whole constitution without consultation for the sake of “inclusivity”? Sir Keir Starmer has already admitted to such plans, and the Tories have offered no real objections. What faceless bureaucrats and power-hungry politicians wish to erect in its vacuum will surely be more sinister and much less inclusive to anyone who disagrees with its premise. Certainly, this would suit the likes of Sir Geoffrey, who has been accused of serial fraud and deploying tyrannical gag orders.
As much as these militant secularists would like to pretend otherwise, biblical law is at the root of our criminal and civil law traditions.
The idea of human equality before the law, sadly observed by a waning number of nations, is rooted in Genesis’ revelation that each person is made in the image of God and is thus equal in dignity, a revolutionary concept in the ancient world—as is the idea of an objective moral code that condemns the wrongs of theft, corruption, murder, and many more. Biblical narratives also promoted self-restraint, honesty, and virtuous monarchy.
Montesquieu may have lauded Rome’s greatness, but it was Christianity that changed Europe for the better. In 200 AD, the imperial capital may have had 140 males per 100 females due to the classical world’s propensity for murdering baby girls directly or indirectly by abandoning them to nature; modern China and India are suffering similar imbalances due to their own leadership’s rejection of human equality.
Beyond even its official role, Lincoln’s Inn has exemplified the best of biblical civilisation. From the 18th century, its chapel undercroft was known as a place where mothers left their babies if they felt unable to look after them. Many of these so-called ‘foundling’ children were partly raised by the Inn, even being bestowed with the surname Lincoln.
What an embarrassment these facts must be to those keen to denounce the historic evil of religion, convinced that ideas of charity and dignity were cooked up in the shiny corridors of Brussels.
Much like Rome before it, our polity may well end, in T.S. Eliot’s words, “not with a bang” but with the slow whimper of those persuaded against even the smallest displays of our heritage. And who, then, will Lincoln’s Inn have left to thank?
No “Thanks”
The chapel at Lincoln’s Inn, London
In his lament on the decline of the Roman Empire, French philosophe Montesquieu wrote “There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”
In 21st century England, the legal profession itself is just as complicit in the degrading of truth and virtue as the strictures they are employed to uphold. Master of the Rolls Sir Geoffrey Vos has said Lincoln’s Inn will scrap its centuries-long practice of saying Christian grace before meals: in a statement littered with deferences to our new atheistic dogma, Sir Geoffrey said the decision was made to “foster inclusivity,” “modernise,” and “create a more thoughtful environment.” Saying grace will be replaced with a nondescript message of “Thanks,” with any reference to England’s established faith eliminated.
Given that it is impossible to make any sentence, never mind a prayer, palatable to every human being, it is clear that something else is at play in this pronouncement, an attack on Christianity and thus the English tradition responsible for Lincoln’s Inn’s very existence.
Inns of Court—not to be confused with a boozy public house—are professional associations to which all English and Welsh barristers (a lawyer who advocates for litigants before a common law court) must belong. While most Britons will never set foot on their palatial grounds, our justice system is staffed with graduates and members of these elite associations.
Who is Sir Geoffrey to decide that saying grace is “outdated”? This is tantamount to suggesting that the Christian religion itself is an anachronism. How then, does he explain that Christianity remains the world’s largest religion, with some 2.2 billion faithful worldwide?
Britain may have fallen victim to secular malaise, but a growing majority (almost 90%) of the global population professes some kind of faith, and Christianity itself will soar to 3.33 billion followers by 2050, despite harsh persecution. As economic hardship surges, British food banks are overwhelmingly run by church-affiliated groups, and the vast majority of global charity is faith-based.
Sir Geoffrey and his ilk have degraded the Inn to the level of knee-jerk myopia that characterises oikophobic western liberals desperate to appear outwardly cultured and yet incapable of acknowledging the world beyond their own nose.
This is hardly the first blow the mediaeval body of Lincoln’s Inn has been dealt, having been battered by a 1915 air raid. Still, it represents how our once robust public institutions are now being degraded from within, rather than being united against external challenges.
The Inn’s move unfairly assumes offence on the part of non-Christians. I do not imagine that any sincere and respectful believer of any faith is offended by the expression of another. The idea that the presence of a short Christian prayer would invoke any reasonable non-believer into a state of panic is especially bizarre when one remembers that less than 40% of Britons now identify as Christians and the British state now arrests people for praying silently.
It also seems the Inn is happy to pick and choose when Christianity is acceptable. Its gothic revival chapel was described by its resident preacher as “the spiritual heart of the Inn” on its 400th anniversary earlier this year, and indeed it is obviously subject to some lingering privilege, given that it has not been levelled by bulldozers or converted into a greying airport-style interfaith lounge. The Inn’s majestic great hall, where members gobble their sumptuous daily lunches, displays a 45-feet G.F. Watts fresco depicting secular and religious lawgivers throughout the ages, including Islam’s primary prophet Muhammed—an image many left-wing busy bodies and Islamists would find less than “inclusive.”
The Inn has not made any suggestion that its members, who must clock up many thousands of pounds in education and training before even being considered for membership, were consulted on such a historic change; nor is there any evidence that a huge backlog of formal complaints made them reconsider the practice. Of course, a flurry of outrage would not morally sanction these or any other unwise plans, but they would at least imply some thin, utilitarian motive.
Much like the liberalising reforms of the 1960s—most of which were ushered in through poorly scrutinised private members bills to avoid public outrage—the Inn’s shift is a deliberate surrender of our shared past by an unaccountable elite.
It is also important to note that this kind of secular mandate, common in institutions across republics such as France and the United States has no such precedent in Britain. To the chagrin of our political class, we have no separation between Church and State, and our established Churches maintain bishops in the House of Lords, with our monarch as its supreme governor.
Similar to Labour’s war on hereditary peerages and soon the Lords itself (and the pitiful Tory complicity), the Inn’s attack on Christianity foreshadows a wider siege against our constitution.
This is why many faiths and non-Anglican denominations, well exemplified by the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ impassioned defence of the role of the Church of England and monarchy, have largely supported Britain’s peculiar but long-successful structure.
Our legal system and educational history, which once forged one of the most free and just civilisations on the planet, are rooted in the presumptions of Christianity, and our culture continues to exist in its afterglow. As Blairite historian Tom Holland argues, even our newfound obsession with environmental armageddon and gender self-identification is a kind of Christian heresy. Lincoln’s Inn itself would not exist if Christianity had failed to reach England’s shores.
By the Inn’s logic, we should simply chuck the whole constitution without consultation for the sake of “inclusivity”? Sir Keir Starmer has already admitted to such plans, and the Tories have offered no real objections. What faceless bureaucrats and power-hungry politicians wish to erect in its vacuum will surely be more sinister and much less inclusive to anyone who disagrees with its premise. Certainly, this would suit the likes of Sir Geoffrey, who has been accused of serial fraud and deploying tyrannical gag orders.
As much as these militant secularists would like to pretend otherwise, biblical law is at the root of our criminal and civil law traditions.
The idea of human equality before the law, sadly observed by a waning number of nations, is rooted in Genesis’ revelation that each person is made in the image of God and is thus equal in dignity, a revolutionary concept in the ancient world—as is the idea of an objective moral code that condemns the wrongs of theft, corruption, murder, and many more. Biblical narratives also promoted self-restraint, honesty, and virtuous monarchy.
Montesquieu may have lauded Rome’s greatness, but it was Christianity that changed Europe for the better. In 200 AD, the imperial capital may have had 140 males per 100 females due to the classical world’s propensity for murdering baby girls directly or indirectly by abandoning them to nature; modern China and India are suffering similar imbalances due to their own leadership’s rejection of human equality.
Beyond even its official role, Lincoln’s Inn has exemplified the best of biblical civilisation. From the 18th century, its chapel undercroft was known as a place where mothers left their babies if they felt unable to look after them. Many of these so-called ‘foundling’ children were partly raised by the Inn, even being bestowed with the surname Lincoln.
What an embarrassment these facts must be to those keen to denounce the historic evil of religion, convinced that ideas of charity and dignity were cooked up in the shiny corridors of Brussels.
Much like Rome before it, our polity may well end, in T.S. Eliot’s words, “not with a bang” but with the slow whimper of those persuaded against even the smallest displays of our heritage. And who, then, will Lincoln’s Inn have left to thank?
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