The bullying of Christians

The bullying of Christians is being taken to a new low in some quarters. The dismissal of Olive Jones from her job as a supply teacher for offering to pray for a sick pupil is not only ridiculous but doesn't make sense on a number of levels. Mrs Jones is a regular churchgoer who attends her local Church of England church most Sundays. In what sense can the offer of prayer, by a member of the Church of England, be interpreted as a sackable offence when the Church of England is the established church of the land and when British citizens are regularly entreated by the state to ask God to 'save our Queen' in the national anthem which is itself written in the form of a prayer. Paddy and Stephanie Lynch claimed their daughter was left 'distressed' and 'traumatised' by Mrs Jones' conversation. Perhaps Olive Jones was less than tactful, and their teenage daughter frightened by her illness, but however difficult the personal circumstances of the Lynch's, one would have to be overly sensitive, and lets face it pretty mean minded, to report the teacher to the local authority for offering them the comfort and support that many people in similar circumstances would be grateful for. Their complaint lead to the perfunctory sacking of the teacher after a lifetime of public service when Olive Jones' managers agreed that offering to pray for someone 'could be perceived as bullying'. It is, to put it mildly, a pretty perverted world view that tries to construe someone offering to do another person a kindness as bullying them. Any sane person would have no option but to judge that it is Mrs Jones who is being bullied here.