Mal Fletcher looks at Sir Richard Dannatt's comments last week



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The General did not suggest for a moment that everyone serving in his Army should be a Christian. In fact, he mentioned the work of Muslims in the ranks. What he is saying is that no Army - and no society - can long stand if it does not agree on its core values.

An Army cannot survive if it is wishy-washy on the what it stands for, or against. Neither can the society from which the Army is drawn and which it is called to defend.

As I've written before in this column, we in the West are not children of nothing. We are the offspring of our cultural parentage; we have inherited a set of ideas and values which have shaped our culture, making it strong.

We are foolish to turn away from these, on the flimsy pretext of being inoffensive to those who have a different view.

The poet T. S. Elliott once said that he could not see how Europe societies could survive the complete eradication of Christian ideas and values.

It is time for the voice of the church to be heard - not simply the shrinking institutionalised church, but the wider and very often fast-growing evangelical and charismatic wings of the church.

It is time for a debate not just about the politics of multi-culturalism and the use of armed force, but the values which these are meant to protect. It is time for us to stop our fruitless dalliance with political correctness, which only confuses issues and makes social cohesion more difficult to achieve.

It is time to look again at what Sir Richard called our 'moral compass' and decide what we represent as a society and what we do not. CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.