Latest news with #JosefFritzl
Telegraph
3 days ago
- General
- Telegraph
‘God exists whether you have doubts or not': Five religious leaders on Kemi Badenoch's crisis of faith
At one stage in her life, Kemi Badenoch believed in God. 'I would have defined myself as a Christian apologist, always arguing with people about why there was a God,' she told the BBC on Thursday. But then news of Josef Fritzl, who'd locked his daughter in a cellar for 24 years, broke. 'That killed it', said Badenoch. It's a story familiar to religious leaders across the country, who are often asked how God can exist and still allow evil and awful personal tragedy to take place. Indeed, vicars, priests, rabbis and imams often experience their own trials, which can be all the more tortuous given their responsibility to project confidence and stability in the face of adversity. Here, five religious leaders describe how they address doubts that are raised with them about the existence of God, even in cases where they have privately wrestled with similar concerns. 'I don't have the answer' Yitzchak Schochet, 60, rabbi of Mill Hill Synagogue, north London At the beginning of April, there was a crazy car accident that happened in New York. A car jumped a kerb on Saturday morning when a mother and her daughters were walking home from synagogue, killing her and two of the children. I flew to the funeral in Israel, and I will never forget how, in the midst of it all, the grandfather who lost his daughter and two granddaughters yelled out to me, 'Rabbi. Why does God allow this to happen?' All I could do in that moment was give him a hug. I wasn't there to even attempt an answer, because I don't have the answer, and I have to be honest enough to know that. I know that there are things that are well beyond human comprehension. To believe in God means that you believe there are things that are beyond your own understanding. But the inevitable tension is always going to be there: knowing that I will not be able to provide the answer for the question that they're asking, but at the same time, wanting to encourage them to hold on to their faith, because that's the only thing that will walk them through whatever turmoil they're undergoing. 'I'm not some kind of saviour figure' Fr Ben Bell, 50, rector of St George the Martyr, south London My church is on Borough High Street. It's really busy, just down the road from London Bridge. We've got Guy's Hospital around the corner from us so it's not uncommon for people to come into the church on their way to an appointment. They come in with all sorts of crises: relationships, work-related, homelessness. Sometimes people come and ask: 'Am I cursed?' And I can give some concrete answers to that and say, 'No, I don't believe that is the case.' But very often, my role is to be an accommodating presence for people who are going through the s--- of life. We can all be tempted, from time to time, to think that we might be able to help. I'm not some kind of saviour figure, so that's not my business. I'm also a human who is a representative of the church. The place of the church is to hold people, or to provide a space for people who are wrestling with these questions: that is exactly what the church exists for, not for people who are full of certainty. As vicars, we're certainly not superheroes, we're certainly not fixers. We're certainly not spiritual paramedics. Our role is of accompaniment and prayer. Doubt and questioning how faith breathes are all part of this thing we call 'faith'. One of the great curses of modernity is that it's taught us that faith is an individual activity, and is all about certainty. I think that faith is communal and about mystery. It's not about certainty. And I think that we've been betrayed by modernist thinking in that respect. 'My son died on his honeymoon, but I don't believe it was the will of God' Rabbi Jonathan Romain, 70, Convener of Reform Judaism's Beit Din One of my sons drowned on his honeymoon two years ago: it was devastating for me, but it was not the will of God or part of some unfathomable divine plan, but sheer bad luck. Being religious means not being derailed by it and still living life to the full. People like to have a reason for why things happen. Why did my son drown? Why did my father die of cancer? Why did my wife get killed in a car accident? Sometimes there is no good explanation. People don't like question marks, they like answers. They much prefer to have an exclamation mark to a question mark. But Judaism is very much about saying life happens, bad things happen, but let's try and make a positive change. The trouble is that sometimes there's a difference between a person's emotional response and their intellectual response. Intellectually, a lot of people will say, 'You're right: my wife's cancer was just just bad luck', but emotionally they still feel there ought to be a reason. My message is: that's not always possible, but what is possible is change. So go out and do something positive for change in your wife's memory. 'My own faith is challenged' Glynn Harrison, 75, former diocesan lay minister, Christian speaker and retired psychiatrist I've wrestled with many of the same doubts and questions that Kemi talks about. You can't be a follower of Christ and not be sensitive to suffering. But I'm now much more comfortable with the fact that not knowing the answer to something doesn't mean an answer doesn't exist. And that's the way I cope with this question of suffering and the violent clash there is between the realities of the world and the conviction that God is good. I see the terrible toll of mental illness on some people and that really challenges my own faith, because you are watching a disintegration of the self at the most profound level of who we are. That's really hard, but even so, I come back to this idea that I think I can trust that God is good. Everything else about my faith tells me that God is good. We may not know the answer, but if he's good, there's reason for trusting him. I can think of a man who could not accept the tragic death of his wife and it finished his faith. At that point, you don't come in with arguments. You sit with them. It's a time for showing the love of God rather than talking about it. Being present, listening, supporting and grieving with the person. Later, after they've seen love in action, there's the opportunity to ask where this love comes from. Does it come from blind, material forces in a cruel universe? Or, does it come from the reality that we bear the image of God himself, and therefore from him who's the author of love? 'Doubt comes from my emotional reaction to something' Fergus Butler-Gallie, 30, vicar of Charlbury with Shorthampton, Oxfordshire I don't think anyone is immune to doubt, but I think there's an arrogance to think that my doubts matter. I think God exists, whether I doubt him or not, and doubt almost certainly comes from my emotional reaction to something rather than what's actually the case. That's my attitude to my own doubts. And then, invariably, something happens to reaffirm things and makes me realise how silly those doubts are. I don't really take them intellectually seriously, I view them as an emotional response, because God is there whether I like it or not. And one morning I might not like it, but that doesn't change it from being the case.
The Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
The criminal case that killed Kemi Badenoch's belief in God
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has revealed she lost her faith in God after learning about the case of Austrian sex offender Josef Fritzl in 2008. She explained that the unanswered prayers of Fritzl's daughter and captive Elisabeth Fritzl, contrasted with her own trivial prayers being answered, caused her to question her belief. That was a turning point that she described as being 'like someone blew out a candle'. Despite rejecting God, Ms Badenoch said she had not rejected Christianity and remains a 'cultural Christian '. She said she wants to 'protect certain things because I think the world that we have in the UK is very much built on many Christian values'.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Fritzl case led Badenoch to ‘reject God', says Tory leader
The case of Austrian sex offender Josef Fritzl caused Kemi Badenoch to lose her faith in God, the Conservative leader has said. In an interview with the BBC, Mrs Badenoch said she was 'never that religious' while growing up but 'believed there was a God' and 'would have defined myself as a Christian apologist'. But this changed in 2008 when she read reports that Fritzl had imprisoned and repeatedly raped his daughter, Elisabeth, in his basement over 24 years. Mrs Badenoch, whose maternal grandfather was a Methodist minister, said: 'I couldn't stop reading this story. And I read her account, how she prayed every day to be rescued. 'And I thought, I was praying for all sorts of stupid things and I was getting my prayers answered. I was praying to have good grades, my hair should grow longer, and I would pray for the bus to come on time so I wouldn't miss something. 'It's like, why were those prayers answered and not this woman's prayers? And it just, it was like someone blew out a candle.' But she insisted that while she had 'rejected God', she had not rejected Christianity and remained a 'cultural Christian', saying she wanted to 'protect certain things because I think the world that we have in the UK is very much built on many Christian values'. During her interview, which is due to be broadcast on Thursday evening, Mrs Badenoch also said her tenure as Conservative leader was going 'well', adding her job was to 'make sure that people can see that we are the only party on the centre-right'. In an apparent dig at Nigel Farage's Reform UK, she said: 'There are pretenders. We're the only party on the centre-right, and we're the only ones who still believe in values like living within our means, personal responsibility, making sure that the government is not getting involved in everything so it can focus on the things it needs to look at, like securing our borders.' She went on to defend previous comments saying the fact she had worked at McDonald's made her working class, saying: 'I had to work to live. 'That, for me, is what being working class is. It's the lifestyle that you have. You have to work, to survive.' And she argued that parents who were 'worried about their children getting stolen or snatched' had created a younger generation that lacked the 'resilience' to deal with problems in life. Responding to figures suggesting a quarter of people aged 16-24 said they had a mental disorder, Mrs Badenoch said: 'I think they think they have a mental disorder, I don't think they all have a mental disorder.' She added: 'I'm not a medical expert so it is not my expertise on exactly what we need to do to get them into work, but we should be trying to get them into work.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch says Josef Fritzl case made her ‘reject God'
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has revealed the case of Austrian sex offender Josef Fritzl caused her to lose faith in God. Mrs Badenoch said she was 'never that religious' while growing up but 'believed there was a God' and 'would have defined myself as a Christian apologist'. But this changed in 2008 when she read reports that Fritzl had imprisoned and repeatedly raped his daughter, Elisabeth, in his basement over 24 years. Mrs Badenoch, whose maternal grandfather was a Methodist minister, told the BBC: 'I couldn't stop reading this story. And I read her account, how she prayed every day to be rescued. 'And I thought, I was praying for all sorts of stupid things and I was getting my prayers answered. I was praying to have good grades, my hair should grow longer, and I would pray for the bus to come on time so I wouldn't miss something. 'It's like, why were those prayers answered and not this woman's prayers? And it just, it was like someone blew out a candle.' But she insisted that while she had 'rejected God', she had not rejected Christianity and remained a 'cultural Christian', saying she wanted to 'protect certain things because I think the world that we have in the UK is very much built on many Christian values'. During her interview, which is due to be broadcast on Thursday evening, Mrs Badenoch also said her tenure as Conservative leader was going 'well', adding her job was to 'make sure that people can see that we are the only party on the centre-right'. In an apparent dig at Nigel Farage's Reform UK, she said: 'There are pretenders. We're the only party on the centre-right, and we're the only ones who still believe in values like living within our means, personal responsibility, making sure that the government is not getting involved in everything so it can focus on the things it needs to look at, like securing our borders.' She went on to defend previous comments saying the fact she had worked at McDonald's made her working class, saying: 'I had to work to live. 'That, for me, is what being working class is. It's the lifestyle that you have. You have to work, to survive.' And she argued that parents who were 'worried about their children getting stolen or snatched' had created a younger generation that lacked the 'resilience' to deal with problems in life. Responding to figures suggesting a quarter of people aged 16-24 said they had a mental disorder, Mrs Badenoch said: 'I think they think they have a mental disorder, I don't think they all have a mental disorder.' She added: 'I'm not a medical expert so it is not my expertise on exactly what we need to do to get them into work, but we should be trying to get them into work.'
The Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch says Josef Fritzl case made her ‘reject God'
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has revealed the case of Austrian sex offender Josef Fritzl caused her to lose faith in God. Mrs Badenoch said she was 'never that religious' while growing up but 'believed there was a God' and 'would have defined myself as a Christian apologist'. But this changed in 2008 when she read reports that Fritzl had imprisoned and repeatedly raped his daughter, Elisabeth, in his basement over 24 years. Mrs Badenoch, whose maternal grandfather was a Methodist minister, told the BBC: 'I couldn't stop reading this story. And I read her account, how she prayed every day to be rescued. 'And I thought, I was praying for all sorts of stupid things and I was getting my prayers answered. I was praying to have good grades, my hair should grow longer, and I would pray for the bus to come on time so I wouldn't miss something. 'It's like, why were those prayers answered and not this woman's prayers? And it just, it was like someone blew out a candle.' But she insisted that while she had 'rejected God', she had not rejected Christianity and remained a 'cultural Christian', saying she wanted to 'protect certain things because I think the world that we have in the UK is very much built on many Christian values'. During her interview, which is due to be broadcast on Thursday evening, Mrs Badenoch also said her tenure as Conservative leader was going 'well', adding her job was to 'make sure that people can see that we are the only party on the centre-right'. In an apparent dig at Nigel Farage's Reform UK, she said: 'There are pretenders. We're the only party on the centre-right, and we're the only ones who still believe in values like living within our means, personal responsibility, making sure that the government is not getting involved in everything so it can focus on the things it needs to look at, like securing our borders.' She went on to defend previous comments saying the fact she had worked at McDonald's made her working class, saying: 'I had to work to live. 'That, for me, is what being working class is. It's the lifestyle that you have. You have to work, to survive.' And she argued that parents who were 'worried about their children getting stolen or snatched' had created a younger generation that lacked the 'resilience' to deal with problems in life. Responding to figures suggesting a quarter of people aged 16-24 said they had a mental disorder, Mrs Badenoch said: 'I think they think they have a mental disorder, I don't think they all have a mental disorder.' She added: 'I'm not a medical expert so it is not my expertise on exactly what we need to do to get them into work, but we should be trying to get them into work.'
