Jamaica is known for its drugs, violence, Bob Marley music, white-sand beaches and Caribbean climate. It ought also to be famous as the birthplace of the church Street Pastors scheme. 

South London-based former Rastafarian Les Isaac visited urban churches in Jamaica, saw the effectiveness of their scheme in reducing street crime and launched a similar initiative in London in 2003. There are now over a hundred Street Pastor groups in towns and cities across the UK, from Inverness to Ilfracombe.

I first saw Street Pastors in action a year ago in Kingston (on Thames, not Jamaica) where there’s a thriving club scene. Every Friday and Saturday night, from 10.00pm to 4.00 am, groups of Christians of all ages walk the streets offering friendship and support to the large number of the boozed and frequently drugged young people milling around in the town centre.

The Street Pastors are trained to bring care and compassion but never confrontation or criticism. Where there’s tension or drink-driven violence, they usually back off, call the police if necessary and pray. But where there’s a bloke legless in the gutter or a girl hysterical because her boyfriend has two-timed her, the Street Pastors call (and pay for) a taxi or sit and listen for hours. I saw a girl asleep on the top of a wall by the river at 2.00am; if she’d rolled over she’d have fallen in. The Street Pastors gently woke her, carried her and set her down out of harm’s way until she had sobered up.

What amazed me was the warmth shown towards them by the clubbers, undoubtedly resulting from the many acts of kindness done over many months. I was part of a patrol at 1.30am when four young men lurched along moving from one club to another. “We love you Street Pastors!” they bellowed from the other side of the street. They were drunk but they meant it.

The scheme emphasises the involvement of men as Street Pastors because of ‘the lack of positive role models and mentors for young men from an early age’, but actually some of the most effective members are the older women. “The clubbers become just vulnerable kids when things go wrong,” explained a leader of the Kingston group. “Our older women are like the mums they need to help them out.”

The success of the scheme has been notable, with street crime reduced by 95% in Camberwell, 74% in Peckham and 30% in the first 13 weeks in Lewisham. As a result the police have become strong supporters of Street Pastors.

Since December Newham has boasted its own branch operating on Friday nights in Stratford, and I’ve recently joined the management team. By way of support both Newham police and the Met have given significant start-up grants.

And already the results have been encouraging and surprisingly entertaining. At our meeting last night Dave the Newham leader told us that (a) the team have bought a job-lot of flip-flop sandals to give to drunken girls who can no longer totter along on their high heels; (b) sprightly Len aged 83 has become one of our most committed members and is out clubbing (well, engaging with clubbers) into the early hours; and (c) the patrols have befriended and been praying with burly bouncers on the doors of two Stratford night clubs.

Also, a couple of weeks ago a patrol stopped a young man getting his head kicked in during a fracas outside a pub.

It’s gratifying. It’s Christian service and love in action. Watch this space.

A Newham political blogsite, John’s Labour Blog, often adds lots to the partisan political prattle but little to the serious discussion of issues. Amongst other things the blogger, John, has got the ‘ump with me over my opposition to the mega-mosque proposed by Islamic sect Tablighi Jamaat at West Ham, close to the site of the 2012 Olympics

So recently I promised him I’d blog the mega-mosque issue.

The topic is too big for one post so I’ll write more in due course dv. Meanwhile there are half a dozen videos up on YouTube (such as this and this) explaining my position, as well as our website www.megamosquenothanks.com - although they could all now do with refreshing.

But as the Labour Party rules the borough with an iron fist, it is instructive to look at their response to the huge mosque project at local level before it moves up onto the national stage and into the clunking fist of their party colleagues in government - in the unlikely event of course that Gordon and crew are still in power at the time.

Newham Mayor’s executive adviser, Cllr Clive Furness, and more recently the Labour MP for West Ham, Lyn Brown, have actively joined the charm offensive orchestrated by Tablighi Jamaat’s Mayfair-based PR agents, Indigo. Last year Cllr Furness instructed Council officers to invite some 150 Newham voluntary sector leaders to the mega-mosque’s ‘Indigo Consultation’. (I attended, and you can see on my YouTube video what a farce it was.) And earlier this year Lyn Brown invited Newham community and church leaders to the House of Commons to hear Tablighi Jamaat elders promote their project.

It’s extraordinary that Labour politicians should enthusiastically encourage the project. Are they simply clueless about the neo-fundamentalist ideology that would be promoted and gain credibility from this national landmark mosque? Tablighi Jamaat’s fierce Islamic separatism runs directly contrary to all government policy on social inclusion and community cohesion (‘scuse the Whitehall jargon). And their treatment of women is repressive, ugly and unacceptable in 21st century Britain, as I demonstrated in a recent guest post on Harry’s Place blogsite.

Of course some say that Labour is not clueless but cynically courting the Muslim vote Livingstone-style. However, I’ve been encouraged by the strength of opposition to Tablighi Jamaat’s proposals within the wider Muslim community. They are not all as articulate as the irrepressible Taj Hargey from the Muslim Educational Council at Oxford, but he has spelt out in stark terms in a letter to The Times what progressive and reasonable Muslims are thinking.

(It is interesting that there are also reports of opposition even within the sect itself. A Lapido Media report last week claims that the Indian leadership of Tablighi Jamaat at their global headquarters in Nizamuddin, Delhi, is against the mega-mosque project promoted by the UK’s primarily Pakistani leadership.)

East London is reckoned to be the prime territory in Britain for belligerent benighted Wahhabi/Jamaat Islami activists, and a Counter Terrorism Command officer from New Scotland Yard told me eighteen months ago that Newham is at the top of UK hot-spots for militants and terror suspects. But nonetheless there are courageous Muslims in the borough who object to fundamentalist Islam in all its forms.

It’s a pity Newham Labour Party doesn’t show the same discernment and courage.

Winston Churchill suffered from regular bouts of depression - he called it his ‘black dog’. In the 2002 BBC television film “The Gathering Storm”, director Richard Loncraine seats actor Albert Finney in Churchill’s Chartwell pig-sty, surrounded by snorting swine, rotting veg and mud, in order to vividly portray the hero’s deepest of black dogs.

By 1938 Churchill’s extraordinary roller-coaster career had run into the buffers. He - almost alone - had seen with penetrating insight the danger to Europe of German re-armament and Nazi military ambition. Yet his warnings in Parliament were ignored or mocked and he had been actively sidelined by the Chamberlain government. He was in the pits of despair.

Seven years later Churchill stood alongside King George VI on the Buckingham Palace balcony receiving the nation’s rapturous applause from huge crowds in The Mall. They were celebrating victory and he had been reborn as arguably Britain’s most successful Prime Minister and certainly Britain’s most glorious wartime leader.

Recently I’ve been enjoying another sort of rebirth. Two months ago West Ham Park was covered with the heaviest snowfall for eighteen years and we were in the dead of winter. Now, as I take my daughters to their primary school that overlooks the park, the daffodils have flowered, the magnolias are magnificent and the blossom on the trees is as full and fragile as ever. Nature is responding to the tilt of the earth’s axis and the spring sunshine is warming our hearts as well as our faces.

Today, 9th April, is Maundy Thursday and we are about to celebrate yet another rebirth, only this one is of a different order and foundational to all others. As the Creed says, “Jesus Christ… was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.”

What are the implications of this simple statement? They are profound and stunning. Here are three:

First, truth. Jesus is the root Truth of the universe upon whose shoulders all other truths stand; the fact that He died and came back to life becomes the key, most significant event in all history for all people. Truth proved indestructible, so thereby He sustains and emboldens all truth and undermines all falsehood wherever they are found.

Second, love. “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus’ willing self-sacrifice shines a warm generous spiritual light into the cold shadowy corners of our human existence. He embodies love and confronts hate.

And third, life. Jesus’ defeat of death by coming back to life following his judicial murder means that potentially all death is defeated. Death, which casts a long dark disturbing shadow over every person’s life, need no longer be a fearful termination of life but rather an open doorway to light and love. We can now laugh freely and repeat with St Paul, “O death, where is your sting?”

It is a resurrection that is radical as it gets to the heart of our human existence. So much of our day-to-day life is crippled by guilt, selfishness, fear and deceit that the only effective solution is to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. Sticking plasters won’t do. A re-birth and a re-start is the truly relevant solution, and that’s what Christ’s resurrection offers.

It’s individual and personal; it’s also collective and cultural. Our cynical, materialistic and selfish society needs a death and a resurrection. It needs Christ.

And that’s why overt Christian politics is so vital to the UK. The renewal of our Christian roots and promotion of timeless compassionate Christian values is the only way forward for our complex, hardened, bewildered Britain.

Er, as party leader I should now say, Vote Christian Peoples Alliance.

But for the moment and even better, Have a blessed Eastertide!

Last Thursday saw by-election day in the Royal Docks ward of Newham. It was the end of a six week campaign that brought narrow victory for the amiable Labour candidate Steve Brayshaw and total defeat for the reputation of local politics.

It was a vicious reputation-shredding campaign between the two major parties as both Tories and Labour slagged each other down on the streets, in their election literature and through the internet. The leafleting, door-knocking and telephone-canvassing by both parties grew ever more intense - as did the political attacks and personal smears. And on election night the ward was stuffed full of party faithful from both sides ‘knocking-up’ reluctant voters and pleading with them to come out to vote for their respective candidates.

Labour had all but seven of the sixty seats on Newham Council. But this dominance did not stop them wheeling in Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, local MP Lyn Brown, the executive Mayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales and probably every one of their 53 councillors - plus trade unionists, party activists and volunteers - to fight an election in the borough’s smallest and most isolated ward. One Labour campaigner proudly announced that on election day the party had 93 (yes, ninety three) people working the ward!

As a display of raw power, it was awesome. As an exercise in enlightened participatory politics it was awful. In the event Steve beat Neil Pearce, the Conservative candidate, by 15 votes in a ballot in which only 22.8% - less than one in four - bothered to vote.

Therein lies the problem. During the campaign local (and national) politicians have dishonoured the people of Royal Docks who have long been ignored as well as isolated. A local councillor died and immediately they found themselves the focus of unaccustomed attention - not to receive better services but simply as a source of votes. For six weeks they became the electoral playground and gladiatorial amphitheatre for determined and ruthless political parties. They became a bone for the party dogs to fight over.

“F*** off. I’m sick of it. You’ve been banging on my door all week,” a man in Woodman Street told me two nights before the election. I hadn’t, but collectively we had. On the day, over 77% - including the man in Woodman Street - declined to vote.

What is to be done? The answer is not easy. But we could start by viewing local voters as people to serve rather than as a source of power. We could look up to them rather than down on them. We could give to them rather than take from them.

A radical heart-change along these lines by politicians and government bureaucrats would lead to a beneficial change of culture, discourse and language in our public life.

In a previous more Christian era, such people were called public servants who went into public service. “The leader is the one who serves,” said Christ. Note the word. We could do with replacing our current strutting political power-play with some caring and committed public service.

How did CPA fare? We were thoroughly and classically squeezed by the two major parties as they slugged it out and traded blows. We did worse than expected although we acknowledged we had a mountain to climb with little prior CPA name-recognition in the ward.

However at the count our candidate Anne-Marie Philip was rightly complimented for her clean fight. One day soon she will make a great young councillor, dv. We intend that that should happen on 6th May next year.

According to an excellent young Salvation Army captain called Nick, I should soon be spending a couple of days marching on the streets of London. Tall, lean and with two young sons and a thick Scots accent, he was our preacher in church yesterday.

His Bible text was the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25f) and the title of his message came from an incident he recounted from the life of William Booth, the founder of the Army.

It was around the turn of the last century and money was short but Booth wanted to send a clear message to the burgeoning Salvation Army Corps around the world. Telegrams were the most rapid means of communication a hundred years ago but they were priced on a ‘per word’ basis.

Booth was a communicator of genius and he sent a one-word telegram that brilliantly encapsulated the essence of his Christian message which was also Nick’s theme yesterday: “Others”.

As he warmed to his theme, Nick reminded us firmly that to love others as ourselves is a fundamental Biblical injunction. When a Jewish lawyer asked Jesus about loving his neighbour, the Lord told a story about a despised and outcast Samaritan who was the only person to come to the aid of a mugged and injured traveller. “Go and do likewise,” said Christ.

Arguing that we should be good neighbours to ‘undocumented migrants’ (aka ‘paperless residents’, ‘unauthorised aliens’ - oh, and ‘illegal immigrants’ too) Nick challenged us to join the ‘Strangers into Citizens’ rally at Trafalgar Square on Bank Holiday Monday, 4th May, run by the big-hitting and mold-breaking Citizen Organising Foundation whose first-ever meeting I attended at St Margaret’s RC Church, Canning Town, back in 1994. That smallest of seeds has grown into a cross-London tree such that senior politicians now compete to perch in its branches and stand on its platforms.

Certainly it’s vital we treat all immigrants humanely and fairly, and personally I like the Strangers into Citizens idea of an earned amnesty for long-term illegals of good character. But, pace EU legislation and my own commitment to London’s diversity, I also favour a three or four year moratorium on non-refugee immigration.

Before the rent-a-gobs shout “racist” and “BNP” they should note that, according to BBC and MORI polls, 60% of Asian and 45% of Black people also reckon current immigration is excessive. They too suffer from the resulting pressure on public services and social infra-structure, so to them - and me - the issue is about numbers not race. But a full explanation of my views will have to await another post.

Salvationist Nick also wanted us to join the ‘Putting People First march for Jobs, Justice and Climate’ ahead of the massive G20 Summit that is taking place locally here at ExCel Exhibition Centre, also in Canning Town, on 2nd April. (Having lived in the community for over quarter of a century and now representing the area as a local councillor, I can tell you: Canning Town really is the centre of the universe.)

The Putting People First march is at Victoria Embankment on 28th March and supported by unions such as Unison and GMB, aid organisations such as Christian Aid, CAFOD and Tearfund - and a company called Pants To Poverty which trades in “ethical underware that are fair-trade certified, sweat-shop free, and made from organic cotton from India”.

I dunno about ethical underpants. It’s my shoe leather I’m now concerned about. Thanks Nick.

Last night I attended the 10th anniversary celebrations of City Gateway (www.citygateway.org.uk) a Tower Hamlets-based charity that works with deprived and disengaged youth and women with low aspirations and low language abilities, bringing them skills, motivation and ambition. ‘Ten Years of Bringing Hope to Tower Hamlets’ was the theme of the event.

It was a glittering affair held in the East Wintergarden at Canary Wharf with its spectacular 27 metre high arched glass-roofed atrium. 400 of us munched canapés, quaffed bubbly, fruit juice or Red Bull (I suppose exhausted City-types from Canary Wharf need the caffeinated energy drink after a hard day of crashing FTSEs, dwindling bonuses and shrunken expense-account lunches) and we listened to two government ministers - Andy Burnham and Stephen Timms - lauding the virtues of City Gateway.  There can’t be many young charities with such establishment pulling-power.

Stephen Timms gave out awards and certificates, and told us proudly how the Prime Minister had appointed him the Labour Party’s first-ever Vice-Chair for Faith Groups – a fact that was reiterated on the large screen above his head. Another indication of the rise of religion in public life?

All this was a far cry from my last visit to the East Wintergarden during the small hours of 6th May 2005 where, following a tense General Election count, George Galloway was declared the new Respect MP for Bethnal Green & Bow. He promptly proclaimed “Mr Blair, this is for Iraq”, and then proceeded to slag off Tower Hamlets Council’s Chief Executive – who could not defend herself - for running an election “that would disgrace a banana republic”.

The speakers yesterday were far more impressive, none more so than Eddie Stride, City Gateway’s Chief Executive, and Dirk Paterson, Chairman of the Trustees. They explained how the charity had struggled in the early days and how staff had given up well paid jobs to work with the organisation and help achieve the vision.

Since then they had not looked back and many of the charity’s beneficiaries drawn from Tower Hamlets’ different communities were there to give testimony as to how City Gateway had changed their lives for the better. The organisation has deliberately targeted hard-to-reach people; a third of Tower Hamlets’ population is of Bangladeshi Muslim origin, half of whom are under 20, and over 30% are unemployed.

Eddie and Dirk explained the strong Christian roots of the charity, of which I was previously unaware. The founders were professional people from local churches and their faith was their motivation. “Jesus taught that we should love our neighbours and City Gateway is our attempt to do so,” said an unashamed Eddie in front the worldly-wise Canary Wharf business executives.

My only regret was that City Gateway partners had to finance this stylish event rather than put their money into the charity’s work on the ground. But that’s the name of the game these days for those who want to tap into CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) funding.

All in all it was an impressive showcase for an impressive organisation.

Yes, I know. There’s nothing unusual about the Tories losing an election here in Labour-run Newham in the deprived East End of London. After all, Labour have had such a long-term and total stranglehold on the borough that when I was first elected as a councillor in 2002 I was the sole non-Labour elected representative in Newham at any level (European and Westminster parliaments, London Assembly and Newham Council) for some years. And the Tories haven’t won a single Council seat here for over a decade.

But they now reckon they are the favourites to win a Council by-election in Royal Docks ward on 26th March – a by-election caused by the unexpected death of Labour councillor Simon Tucker.

Jack Dash and his militant Communists in the old London docks of the ‘50s and ‘60s would turn in their graves. The Royal Docks area was their typical working class stamping ground. It comprises a thin and isolated sliver of land between the Royal Victoria and King George V docks to the north and the Thames to the south and there, until recently, Conservatives were like snowflakes in a bush fire.

But gentrification has taken hold via the new large Britannia Village, Barrier Point and Gallions Point developments with the result that the Conservatives came a close second to Labour in the ward at the 2006 Council elections and even closer at last year’s London Mayor and Assembly elections.

Gentrification and an active Conservative candidate combined with the terminal unpopularity of the Labour government and local animosity towards Newham’s New Labour executive Mayor means the by-election is simply the Tories’ to lose according to some punters. Me? I’ll wait and see.

And CPA? We’ve a superb candidate in Anne-Marie Philip. Young, personable, bright, articulate, of Asian background (British-born to Indian parents) and with a committed Christian faith, she lives in Canning Town and works in the voluntary sector with the disengaged youth of Tower Hamlets. She represents a new generation of committed Christian activists.

But we’ve got our work cut out to catch up with the major parties as CPA has not campaigned in Royal Docks ward before and our name recognition is low. However we’ve had good teams out leafleting and door-knocking in the cold and the wet, and many people are fed up with both the major parties.

Two things worth noting: First, the Labour candidate is promoting himself but not his party. Out campaigning on Saturday I saw two of his leaflets and both mentioned the Labour Party only in small print at the bottom of the page. The “Labour” label has become a toxic asset and a busted brand.

Second, it’s ironic that both the Conservative and Labour candidates are campaigning hard against the expansion of London City Airport which is located within the ward – the self-same expansion that has already been approved by a cosy cross-party consensus of the Conservative Mayor of London and the Labour Mayor of Newham.

The by-election issues may be parochial but they’re fascinating.

Is the tide turning? Is the country waking up at last?

A fortnight ago the Home Office banned Geert Wilders, Dutch MP and producer of the anti-Islam film Fitna (http://www.themoviefitna.com/fitna-the-movie) from entering the country, in part because jailbird Lord Ahmed promised 10,000 Muslims on the streets in protest. It was a depressing denial of freedom of speech by a government that somehow manages to be both supine and hectoring at the same time.

The erosion of our liberties has been going on for decades but, to lift our spirits, it seems the fight-back has started. There is a sold-out Convention on Modern Liberty (http://www.modernliberty.net) this weekend that I’d give my right arm to attend.

Sponsored by Liberty, The Guardian, Joseph Rowntree and openDemocracy, the Convention organisers point out that 60 years after Britain was the proud co-author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), we are now faced with ‘unprecedented… challenges to our rights, freedoms and democracy’. They argue we are the ‘inheritors of an inspiring tradition of liberty’, and through the Convention they are issuing a ‘call for the renewal of our democratic self-confidence’. Amen to that.

Significantly the Convention draws together people from across the political spectrum. The rights-loving Left comes together with the freedom-loving Right and Tony Benn sits on the same platform as David Davis MP. Maybe this is another sign of the break-up of the old-style turn-of-the-century political categories and of the re-drawing of political boundaries and alliances.

Earlier this week a courageous woman made a little-noticed call about an under-publicised aspect of the UDHR. In a Question for Short Debate in the House of Lords, Baroness Caroline Cox asked the government about the persecution of religious believers in contravention of Article 18 of the UDHR (http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.com/pa/ld200809/ldhansrd/text/90224-0011.htm#09022472000227).

Caroline Cox is an extraordinary woman who displays quintessentially English qualities. Modest, fearless, practical and restless, with a passion for the under-dog and a mild dose of attractive eccentricity,  she has busied herself over the years with dispensing aid and love to the most persecuted and forgotten communities on earth. Often at great personal risk in conflict zones and frequently in situations of real personal hardship, she has helped and comforted dispossessed people in Nagorno-Karabakh, Burma, North Korea, northern Nigeria, Sudan and northern Uganda amongst others. She has seen human misery at its worst and faith at its most hopeful.

When she speaks she does so with real authority based on her first-hand experience. She knows what she is talking about.

In the House of Lords this week the Baroness pointed out that while around the globe millions of people suffer because of their religious and atheist beliefs, national governments - including our own - only half-heartedly support Article 18 of the UDHR (that is, the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; to change religion or belief; and to outwardly express religion or belief).

She also highlighted the attempts of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to protect Islam from criticism by repeatedly promoting a spurious ‘Combating Defamation of Religions’ resolution at the UN General Assembly.

I’ll return to the subject of the OIC and its defamation resolution in a future post dv, and I may find myself irresistibly compelled to defame their religion as espoused by fundamentalist members of the OIC such as the Wahhabi Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

But meanwhile let’s celebrate the efforts of Caroline Cox and the Convention organisers. While there are such people impacting public debate, the lights of liberty cannot be fully extinguished.

Douglas Murray is a man in a hurry – or at least a man rapidly on the move.

Youthful founding director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, political columnist, lonely defender of neo-conservatism, luminary of BBC programmes such as Question Time and The Moral Maze and biographer of Oscar Wilde’s homosexual lover Lord Alfred Douglas, Murray is a rising star on the national political scene.

I was at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre a couple of years ago where, before a huge audience, he and Daniel Pipes trounced Ken Livingstone and Salma Yaqoub at the then Mayor’s showcase ‘Clash of Civilisations’ debate. Murray was entertaining, incisive and outstanding.

I also know personally that he is generous and sensitive.

I was saddened therefore to read his recent Spectator article ‘Studying Islam has made me an Atheist’  in which he blames the ‘repetitions, contradictions and absurdities’ of the Quran for turning him against all holy books including the Bible of his own Christian heritage. ‘Holy texts are an accretion of human effort and human error… Scepticism of the claims made by one religion (Islam) was joined by scepticism of all such claims… Muhammad made me an atheist.’

Although he went to church with his family on the Big Day three weeks ago, it was his first non-believing Christmas.

I can understand where he is coming from. Like Murray I was brought up an Anglican and like Murray my religion ebbed and flowed. (As Boris Johnson puts it, “My faith is a bit like Magic FM in the Chilterns, the signal comes and goes.”) But following university and business school, I had drifted into long-term indifferent agnosticism by my mid-twenties.

But what pulled me up short and converted me into an irrevocably committed Christian just before my 30th birthday was precisely that which Murray has so recently rejected – the scriptures, and in particular the account of Christ in the New Testament.

I found that the Bible isn’t primarily a set of propositional truths, ancient stories, beautiful poetry or abstract theology – although it is these. Neither is it just great literature like Shakespeare – although the 1611 Authorised Version gives the Bard more than a run for his money.

I found rather that the scriptures are alive and active. They have the ability to reach out and pluck at your heart strings and/or punch you on the nose in a way unknown to other literature.

So when Shakespeare puts in King Lear’s mouth “I am a man more sinned against than sinning,” we may begin at last to engage sympathetically with Lear in his steady decline from tyrant to tragedy, but we leave the theatre personally unchallenged.

However, when the New Testament tells us that the pre-existent Son of God, facing betrayal, scourging and an excruciatingly painful death, tells his followers “Now (am I) glorified and God is glorified (in me)… A new commandment I give you: Love one another,” we cannot walk away unchallenged. Christ is making huge claims about himself and his demise and significant demands on his followers.

Either he is completely nuts or he is who he says he is.

As I wrestled with the scriptures I found the truth slowly got hold of me from out of its pages. In the end I could do nothing but stop arguing, chuck in the towel and admit that Jesus Christ is indeed the ultimate reality.

Precise accuracy in the material or measurable sense was no longer of major concern. The Bible had revealed profound truth that transcended this limited physical world in a way that Shakespeare cannot. Despite myself, I had come into a deep personal commitment.

Douglas Murray’s issue about the accuracy or error of the Bible is important, but not - in my experience - with regard to personal faith. The key question is whether it speaks to you in a life-challenging way.

When Jesus tells us ‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’ is that just an interesting Christian ethic? Or is it a command from our Maker to be complied with?

The decision, as they say, is yours.

I received a circular email yesterday that contained quotes about Arabs and Jews by former Israeli prime minister and current leader of the right-wing Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu. It originated from the tensions surrounding the Gaza tragedy and there are no prizes for guessing the tone of Netanyahu’s views.

But what caught my eye were some of the facts that compare Jews and Muslims – hard facts I’ve noticed before that cannot simply be dismissed as Netanyahu bias.

The email points out that the total Muslim population is approximately 1.3 billion or 20% of the world’s population yet Muslims have received just 7 Nobel prizes during the award’s 100 year history; 4 for peace, 2 for medicine, 1 for literature and none for physics and economics – the email doesn’t mention the Nobel prize for chemistry.

(Indicatively, the number would be 8 if it weren’t for censorious Islamic orthodoxy.  In 1979 Pakistani physicist and devout Ahmadhi Muslim Abdus Salam quoted the Quran as he received his Nobel award from the King of Sweden. But he cannot be included among the Muslim Laureates. In 1976 the Islamic Republic of Pakistan gave the Ahmaddiyya Muslim community the Islamic order of the boot, officially classifying them as non-Muslims. In protest Salam promptly decamped for England.)

The email then compares this lamentable Islamic record with that of the total Jewish population of around 14 million or just 0.02% of the world’s population, which received 129 Nobel prizes over the same period, including a phenomenal 53 for physics and 43 for medicine – and 8 for peace.

Why is the Islamic world making such a minimal contribution to creative research, scientific progress and the advance of knowledge, especially compared with the culturally Christian West, predominantly Hindu India and primarily Confucian China?

My favourite loudmouths such as Al-Jazeera star Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi presumably think the Nobel prizes are a Jewish plot. Or that Islamic under-peformance is the fault of the crusades. Or European colonial rule.  Or Israel. Or George Bush.

Muslim professor Pervez Hoodbhoy of Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, offers a more thoughtful analysis that is worth reading in full. (here)

Noting that no major invention or discovery has emerged from the Muslim world for well over seven centuries, Hoodbhoy says that under liberal and enlightened caliphs Islam enjoyed major advances in mathematics, science and medicine during the 9th to 13th centuries – “Islam’s magnificent Golden Age”. Then rigid fundamentalist interpretations of Islam took over and long periods of darkness have followed.

He notes sadly that his own university which is rated No 2 amongst the universities of the 57 countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has 4 mosques and no bookstore.

Former Muslim Ibn Warraq has a similar analysis in his ‘Why I Am Not A Muslim’. He distinguishes three Islams: Islam 1 is what Muhammad taught as contained in the Quran; Islam 2 is the religion as subsequently expounded, interpreted and developed in the traditions (hadith) including sharia and Islamic law; and Islam 3 is what Muslims actually did and achieved, that is Islamic civilisation and culture.

Ibn Warraq reckons that Islamic civilisations often reached magnificent heights despite Islams 1 and 2, and not because of them. It seems that the further Muslim societies are away from these two Islams, so the philosophy, science, literature and art of Islam 3 can better flower and flourish.

Some blame Islam’s lack of achievement on the West’s apparent superiority in the marketplace, the battlefield and the public square over the past couple of centuries.

Maybe the cause lies rather within Islam itself.