MP says CoE 'overcome with political correctness'

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/mp.says.coe.overcome.with.political.correctness/22922.htm

[Christianity Today UK] 30 Mar 2009--A Conservative MP has criticised the leadership of the Church of England for being “overcome with political correctness”.

Henry Bellingham, a practising Anglican, praised some members of the Church of England leadership but said on the whole it was too timid.

Bellingham was speaking during Friday's parliamentary debate on the 1701 Act of Settlement – the law which prohibits the monarch from marrying a Catholic.

During the debate Bellingham, who is also the shadow justice minister, said that the Church was in “no fit state” to take part in the debate because of its internal weakness, low morale and declining attendance.

Bellingham claimed that senior Church leaders were lacking in self confidence and added that their thinking on some issues was muddled.

He was quoted by the BBC as saying, "I think one of the reasons why Church morale is low is because of the way in which the leadership in my Church is, at the moment, distinctly lacking. I only wish that they would stand up more proudly and put a stronger case for Anglicanism."

He continued: "When it comes to standing up for basic Christian beliefs, all too often again, all we see is a deafening silence … It just seems to me that too many bishops are overcome with political correctness, they are riven by a feeling of guilty about speaking up for anything which might even cause remote offence to minority religions and they are obsessed with multiculturalism."