Rule the Waves

As a child, I remember well the parades in July of each year to celebrate those who came home from the World War 2. The bands, the heady drone of the bagpipes, the thrill of the drums, and the ranks of uniformed soldiers marching lock-step paraded right up the main street of our modest Ontario town. Later that evening, the great choir decked in red, white, and blue would lead two-thousand voices in that thrilling, patriotic hymn of celebration: “Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves, Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!” As part of the British Empire, pride of conquest, love of country, and the smell of freedom were the bedrock of our public education system, our jurisprudence, and yes, the very fabric of our lives.

Then I grew up. Each year as I observed the celebrations, I would ask myself the question, “How can it be that all of these thousands of voices can mindlessly sing about Britannia being free from slavery when in fact bondage had long ago slipped in the back door and throttled the whole system?”

“A breeding ground of Darwinian evolution and atheism . . . and more recently spreading Islamization . . . England has been recognized as falling away from its Christian heritage for generations.”[1] Not even the head of the Church of England, Queen Elizabeth II, can halt the spreading moral virus which has infected the land of Wesley, and Spurgeon, and Tyndale, and Wycliffe.

However, there seems to be hope—or is there? Evidently, there was a poll headed up through Oxford University, which discovered that a significant segment (43 percent) of the public thought that Christianity ought to be taught in the classroom as a “building-block” of the nation’s religious heritage. However, thanks to the British Humanist Association, which wants to make sure that nothing evangelistic might squirt out in the mix, the desired result must be an academic curricula that displays Christianity as a “historical and cultural platform.”

So, is it true today? Can the Brits and all those who still have some pride in the Union Jack ever sing with full understanding, “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves”? It seems doubtful that this can happen until another John Bunyan steps forward and gives identity to the kind of spiritual bondage we are really in and points the nation to the only Name given among men whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

In Christ, Steve Fazekas

[1] Poll: Britain Wants to Return to Its Christian Roots, http://onenewsnow.com/culture/2012/12/01/poll-britain-wants-to-return-to-its-christian-roots