Out canvassing this morning and a potential voter thought it was a UKIP rosette I was wearing. I pointed out that it was CPA and she declared she would have 'nothing to do with anything Christian', pointing to that word.
On the minus side: Christians took part in the Crusades and religion was used as an excuse for war. Though the Crusades themselves were in response to an Islamic jihad that threatened the then Western civilisation. I say this with Christian love and no disrespect to any Muslims reading this blog.
On the plus side: we started one of the first free education schemes in this country (through the SPCK);
we provided the first free hospitals that had a Christian ethos (St Thomas' Hospital, St Bart's, Guy's Hospital (name after the Christian philanthropist Thomas Guy);
we exported Christianity through the conduits of the old Empire. Never let it be said that the old Empire did not have its moral side.
According to Wale Babatunde, himself a Nigerian and thus a child of the old Empire, it was the missionaries who provided the best doctors, teachers and nurses.
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