Well, while the Archibishop of Canterbury may be trying to “dumb down” christianity, the Archbishop of Wales seems to be on track:

In his Christmas message, the archbishop said: “Any kind of fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous.”

The archbishop said “atheistic fundamentalism” was a new phenomenon.

He said it advocated that religion in general and Christianity in particular have no substance, and that some view the faith as “superstitious nonsense”.

As well as leading to Christmas being called “Winterval,” the archbishop said “virulent, almost irrational” attacks on Christianity led to hospitals removing all Christian symbols from their chapels, and schools refusing to allow children to send Christmas cards with a Christian message.

He also said it led to things like “airlines refusing staff the freedom to wear a cross round their necks” - a reference to the row in which British Airways (BA) suspended an employee who insisted on wearing a cross necklace.

Dr Morgan said: “All of this is what I would call the new “fundamentalism” of our age. It allows no room for disagreement, for doubt, for debate, for discussion.

“It leads to the language of expulsion and exclusivity, of extremism and polarisation, and the claim that, because God is on our side, he is not on yours.”

He said: “God is not exclusive, he is on the side of the whole of humanity with all its variety.”

Dr Morgan said it was “perfectly natural” to have a “coherent and rational debate about the tenets of the Christianity”.

But he said “virulent, almost irrational” attacks on it were “dangerous” because they refused to allow any contrary viewpoint and also affected the public perception of religion.

I think that Dr. Morgan has stumbled in to the Twilight Zone like phenomenon that we in the Colonies call “Political Correctness”.  The difference being that here in the US, the Atheist Fundamentalists are only on the rampage against Christianity, and to a much lesser degree, Judaism.  I see no evidence that they are similarly opposed to Islam - in fact, I think they choose to see Islam as a Race or Ethnicity, rather than a Religion.

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Tags: anglican, atheism, fundamentalism