Guys, I know it's April 1st but this isn't a joke.
Well, it is a joke, but the world's actually too crazy for comedy now.
The liberals running the council had put up a massive display to celebrate the Islamic month of fasting, Ramadan, which is currently underway.
Then a conservative councilman noted that no one had done anything for Easter.
The problem at the council started on Wednesday evening, when The Telegraph approached with a complaint from one of its most senior councillors.
"Why," Paul Swaddle, the leader of the minority Conservative group, wanted to know, "was there a Ramadan celebration in the window of Westminster City Hall" but not a corresponding display for Easter?
The query, it now appears, set minds racing in what is probably the most high-profile local authority in all of the UK: its main offices a stone's throw from Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.
If you're not a history buff, you might not appreciate how insanely ironic this is. Westminster is one of the more iconic cities in all of Christianity. This London borough was named after the Westminster Abbey, a church founded by the Saxons over ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO:
The site has been used for dozens of royal coronations and funerals since 1066 AD.
Feel free to peruse the extensive list of historic churches in Westminster. There are dozens of them!
A major Christian document, the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith, is also one of the most important in Christendom, providing theological guidance during the tumultuous English Civil War. It was an important statement of faith for the Reformed Christian believers settling on the shores of the Americas and underpins the thought expressed in the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Hundreds of millions of Christians still use the Westminster Confession as a standard in their own churches!
The Westminister City Council forgetting to put up Easter decorations would be like Meccan authorities in Saudi Arabia forgetting to put up Ramadan decorations because of an Easter display!!
Here's a summary of the anger after Christian Brits learned what happened:
Still, city hall was slow to respond.
"I am sure we will be doing something," a source at the Labour-run council replied on Wednesday night, as it dawned on officials that Easter, the holiest of Christian holidays, had seemingly been forgotten.
This is like an episode of "Parks and Rec" right here!
By Thursday morning, the council appeared to have begun an operation to prepare an Easter display hastily. Another council source declared: "We had some Easter stuff planned. There was consideration that we should ‘Easterise' the building. There will be additional focus this afternoon."
Translation: We totally forgot.
At lunchtime, however, there was still no sign of the display. Timings were getting tight. Council employees were starting to depart for the long Easter weekend. The council assured The Telegraph the display was being prepared. "The facilities guys," it became clear, "tend to do their work at the end of the day," a source said.
By 3.30pm, the council was issuing an official communiqué. "The council celebrates Easter every year. A window display is being installed today," it said in a statement issued to The Telegraph.
And then, at 5pm, came the miracle of Easter. First, a table appeared in the empty window to the left of City Hall's two revolving doors. Then came the bunting, which was followed by some multicoloured eggs and a couple of cut-out rabbits. The final piece in the display was two posters, wishing the public a happy Easter, depicting a giant golden egg wrapped with a red ribbon and superimposed on what looked like the fountain at Trafalgar Square.
Notice no actual symbols depicting the meaning of Easter, just some sanitized eggs and rabbits.
The spat over the Easter - or lack of Easter - display followed the appearance of an array of Ramadan lights which have been installed at prime spots in Oxford Street and between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square after winning approval from Westminster city council.
The display was switched on by Sadiq Khan, London's mayor, at the start of the holy month of Ramadan. The lights have been funded by the Aziz Foundation, a charity founded by Asif Aziz, a billionaire property developer, and at no cost to the taxpayer.
I know we like to joke that England is no longer a Christian nation and it'll soon have Sharia law, but it's not really a joke. It's just a reality of time and demographics.
Christian Concern, a nonprofit ministry, is putting forward design ideas for next Easter after this whole crazy story.
We'll see what the city council lets them actually get away with!
(Hint: It's gonna be eggs and bunnies.)
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