THREE CHEERS FOR THE BRITS!

Three cheers for the Brits, the older version, that is, not the modern day socialistic, "Better Red Than Dead" version. In days gone by, the Brits had backbone, spines ramrod straight. Yes, that was back in the day, the early 19th century, to be exact, the time when India was part of the British Commonwealth.

THE PYRES

For hundreds of years, India had a custom called "suttee," the practice of requiring the death of the widow of her recently deceased husband. (A demon-inspired custom if ever there was one.) When they burned her husband's body on the funeral pyre, they burned her too, burned her alive. As one might imagine, there were women who refused to die, so they had to be pushed or thrown into the flaming pyre. Yet there were those who willingly perished in this way at their husband's funeral. No matter which way, by free will or by force; it was a public spectacle.

THE BRITISH CAME

Then along came the British with their colonialism. England, by that time, had been saturated with the Bible, starting with John Wycliffe in the 14th century. It was Wycliffe who wrote: "Trust wholly in Christ; rely on his sufferings; beware of seeking to be justified in any other way than by his righteousness."

From history we learn that John Wycliffe "believing that every Christian should have access to Scripture (only Latin translations were available at the time), he began translating the Bible into English, with the help of his good friend John Purvey.

"The Roman Catholic Church bitterly opposed it: 'By this translation, the Scriptures have become vulgar, and they are more available to lay[men], and even to women who can read, than they were to learned scholars, who have a high intelligence. So the pearl of the gospel is scattered and trodden underfoot by swine,' they responded.

"Wycliffe replied, 'Englishmen learn Christ's law best in English. Moses heard God's law in his own tongue; so did Christ's apostles.'

Wycliffe was such a thorn in the side of the Roman Catholic Church, that forty-three years after his death, officials dug up his body, burned his remains, and threw the ashes into the river Swift." ("Christian History," Aug. 8, 2008)

William Tyndale followed Wycliffe in the 16th century. He also broke the ban on the translating of the Bible into English imposed by the Roman Catholic Church in 1408. (For his "crime," Tyndale was burned at the stake on October 6, 1536.)

 Tyndale was outspoken about his desire to translate the Bible into English. "He often added spice to the table conversation as he was confronted with the biblical ignorance of the priests. At one point Tyndale told a priest, "If God spare my life, ere many years pass, I will cause a boy that drives the plow shall know more of the Scriptures than you do." (From "Christian History," July, 2007)

BACK TO THE WIDOWS

From the Bible, the British knew that God has a special concern for widows--the Mosaic Law had provisions for their sustenance and protection, Psalm 68:5 is a warning for those who would take advantage of them, Christ condemned the Pharisees for their treatment of them, and the early church supported them when their families couldn't.

And so it was, that in 1824, that the Brits outlawed suttee. British General Sir Charles Napier, confronted with the fact that suttee was part of the culture of India, was told that there was a collision between the British law and the cultural practice of suttee, said: “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.” (Three cheers for the Brits!)

WAIT. WHAT?

General Napier's attitude would be condemned today; he didn't follow the dictates of multiculturalism which holds all cultures with their customs and practices as equally valid. That is to say, that multiculturalism makes people say that the American culture which takes care of widows is fine and the Indian culture which burns them alive is fine, because all cultures are equally valid. (The end result of relativism.)

Thus, in multiculturalism, no culture is believed to be any better than the other, even if it burns widows alive. The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice, thinking that the god of the sun needed constant nourishment in the form of human blood to keep the sun moving from east to west across the sky. But hold your criticism; all cultures are equal.

A college class reflected such thinking. Allan Bloom tells of the incident in a college class in which the professor brought up the practice of suttee and the British outlawing it. The teacher asked the class if they were right to do so. One girl spoke for the group when all she could say was, "Why were the English there in the first place?" She was implying that England had no right to interfere with the custom because she'd been taught that colonialism was evil. (Bloom, "The Closing of the American Mind")

IN THE REAL WORLD

In the real world, everybody knows that burning widows to death is wrong, even evil. Yet, the further a culture gets from the Bible, the more that culture can't see reality and the people of that culture or a multiculturalist society aren't living in the real world where there is good and there is evil, yet they can't admit it. The sad fact is that multiculturalism shuts people up and doesn't allow them the freedom to say the obvious, "2+2=4." (George Orwell)

The British saw suttee and said, "2 + 2 = 4." Three cheers for the Brits!