Trevor Phillips Says UK Christians Are More Militant Than Muslims

In an explosive interview, Trevor Phillips, the Chairman of Equality and Human Rights Commision says UK Christians are more militant than their Muslim counterparts. He gave an interview to The Telgraph saying that: 

"I think the most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian," he said.

"There are a lot of Christian activist voices who appear bent on stressing the kind of persecution that I don't think really exists in this country. There are some Christian organisations who basically want to have a fight and therefore they're constantly defining the ground in such a way that anyone who doesn't agree wholly agree with them about everything is essentially a messenger from Satan.

"I think for a lot of Christian activists, they want to have a fight and they choose sexual orientation as the ground to fight it on. I think that whole argument isn't about the rights of Christians. It's about politics. It's about a group of people who really want to have weight and influence and they've chosen that particular ground. 

"I think there's an awful lot of noise about the Church being persecuted but there is a more real issue that the conventional churches face that the people who are really driving their revival and success believe in an old time religion which in my view is incompatible with a modern, multi-ethnic, multicultural society. 

"Muslim communities in this country are doing their damnedest to try to come to terms with their neighbours to try to integrate and they're doing their best to try to develop an idea of Islam that is compatible with living in a modern liberal democracy.

"One of the aspects of that is essentially saying 'whatever we feel about matter of sexuality we're going to have to deal with the fact that most of our neighbours, most of our children's friends, most of our work mates have a broader, more liberal view and we just have to live with that'. 

"Integration is also about compromise and I think the reason you don't hear a lot about that from Muslims is that they're trying to find ways of being good Muslims in a way that is consistent with the society they're living in."

The UK Evangelical Alliance has fought back over this claims saying in a statement released on its website that “Phillips' analysis is in some areas defective.”

The EAUK called Phillips’ comments about African-Caribbean Christianity being an irrelevant old time religion as “patronizing and disparaging”

“Sadly Mr Phillips fails to appreciate that this expression of Christian belief is at the heart of the mainstream, historic and orthodox Christian church that is growing rapidly in every continent." EAUK further reiterated that Pillips is “mistaken in assuming Muslims have integrated better into the new world of equality and human rights than Christians. The likely reality is that Christianity is seen as a 'soft target'.”