My friend James Preece has guts

As you might recall, I stayed with James and Ella Preece when I went to England in 2007. Lovely, wonderful people! My dinner with Ella’s family was one of the great evenings of my life (plus, Ella is an archer with a bow made in (where else?) Nottingham).

Anyhow, they are both young and vibrant Catholics (in the process of creating younger and still more vibrant Catholics) and they are very active in the Catholic community in Hull and elsewhere in England.

Recently, James had an opportunity for white martyrdom and, being the valiant sort, he did not blink but leapt at the chance. It came in the form of a shot at being on something called “The Big Questions”: a Brit TV programme in which various secular types and apostates get on the tube and ridicule the Catholics while pretending to discuss issues of faith in a serious way. To accomplish this little auto de fe, a token Catholic is, of course, required as a whipping boy and James, God bless his soul, volunteered in the hope of getting a word in edgewise.

You can see James’ entries about his adventures here and here. For a full description of just how absurdly biased the program was, see the Hermaneutic of Continuity’s description of the show James did (written by Fr. Tim Finigan, who is himself an uppity English Catholic who greatly irritates the UK Chattering Classes for not replying “Thank you sir! May I have another?” to the tired anti-Christian cliches but instead talks back with sass and class.

James and Fr. Tim are brave men and deserve our thanks for their heroic willingness to take abuse for the kingdom. I’m greatly heartened to see guys like them arising on the English scene to challenge the braindead godlessness of English media culture. All Jesus needed was 12 such guys and he was able to conquer Rome. May God raise up more like James and Fr. Tim in England and help the English have a chance to hear at last what they have somehow grown weary of hearing while never having heard it.

Bravo! Maybe you guys could start conspiring with A.N. Wilson now that he’s gotten the cobwebs out of his head and is clear about the sheeplike uniformity of the godless talking heads in British media. A serious media counter-offensive from Christians who aren’t afraid to laugh at the braindead cliches and echo chamber of the secularists might be a real tonic. It would certainly have the virtue of never having been tried in England. 🙂