The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester and an evangelical Christian, has delivered a remarkable message to a group of Catholics:
‘Bishop Nazir-Ali said that, with the growth of Islamic militancy and the persecution of Christians worldwide, many people were now looking to Rome as the voice that could stem the tide. He said these people included many Evangelicals who never, in the past, would have thought about Rome. ‘So the Catholic Church has both a great opportunity and also a great responsibility.’
He is right on two counts. First, that the persecution of Christians worldwide is overwhelmingly the work of Muslim militants – as the Archbishop of Canterbury has acknowledged, though only the Pakistani-born Bishop Nazir-Ali has spoken with true clarity on this matter.
Second, that many evangelical Protestants now look to Rome as the world’s chief defender of Christian values – values that Dr Nazir-Ali felt that his fellow C of E bishops were failing to uphold, which is why he resigned his see to run Oxtrad,
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