Members of the Royal British Legion club in Oadby, Leicestershire, are furious about a decision to block the singing of Onward Christian Soldiers during the Remembrance Sunday service.
At the end of their parade each year the participants march into St Peter’s Church in Wigston Road to the traditional hymn. And who could object to that, you might wonder. The Council? The local humanist society? Wrong and wrong again. The person who’s vetoed the hymn is none other than the vicar himself. The Rev Steve Bailey, bowing to the Church of England’s modern multi-cultural orthodoxy, said they’re not doing it because not everyone at the service will be Christians.
It’s not the ‘soldiers’ but the ‘Christian’ bit that the vicar wasn’t happy about, a disgusted British Legion member relayed, saying: ‘He’s going to have the hymn All People That on Earth Do Dwell instead.’
Perhaps they should count their blessings. On the Church of England’s current form Mr Bailey might have replaced the annual remembrance service with a Zen Buddhist meditation, if not a delayed Diwali.
