Celebrating a Great Non-Event of 2019
by Douglas Murray • December 31, 2019 at 5:00 am
The hope of most of us in a country such as Britain is not that everybody leaves their faith, but simply that people have religious freedom and that this should include the freedom to leave a faith if you wish to do so with no repercussions against your person.
It is, in short, the essence of that Enlightenment which Europe gave the world three centuries ago. We hear plenty of news of assaults on that Enlightenment. But this story of a non-event suggests that aspects of that Enlightenment may be more solid -- and attractive -- than we are sometimes given to think.
This has been a year filled with bad news. It is a season that cries out for good news. So perhaps I could end the year with a reflection on something that for me has provided -- in a difficult and contested era -- a small source for optimism. It is really a story of something that didn't happen. A story, as Sherlock Holmes would put it, of the dog that did not bark.
