Althouse: "The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has helped a small Cornish village buy its Methodist chapel."

June 29, 2017

"The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has helped a small Cornish village buy its Methodist chapel."

"One villager, Valerie Wallace, had the idea [to email him] as a last ditch attempt, with the group having failed to raise sufficient funds elsewhere. 'We thought nothing of it and then we began to get phone calls from Dubai... We thought we were being hoaxed but it was no hoax.'"

Reports the BBC.

21 comments:

Laslo Spatula said...: This is Althouse's response to the deleted commenters in the earlier Ramadan post, I think.

I am Laslo.; 6/29/17, 7:17 AM
David Begley said...: The Methodists of this small English village had abandoned their religion and stop supporting their Church financially. Now, as a community center, it can be repurposed as a secular building open to all faiths.

Why didn't the Methodist church just give the building to the community center group? What happens to the purchase money? Pay debts?; 6/29/17, 7:34 AM
Once written, twice... said...: A very nice thing the Sheikh has done. I hope none of the regulars here takes this opportunity to attack him based solely on his Muslim faith.; 6/29/17, 7:39 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/29/17, 7:49 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Deleted for the crime of confusing Welsh with Cornishmen.; 6/29/17, 7:51 AM
tcrosse said...: Praise be to Moolah, the All-Powerful.; 6/29/17, 8:04 AM
David Begley said...: Once written:

It was an "in your face" donation. The shiek was simply acknowledging that Methodism has failed in England. The future belongs to secularism and Islam. Nothing really nice about it.; 6/29/17, 8:07 AM
Fen said...: Dubai UAE has been one of the key financiers of madrassas that spread Wahabi Islam. 20,000 madrassas in Pakistan alone.

I think it's great that they saved this church, but let's not get carried away here.

What do you think their motivation is? Charity? Goodwill toward men? Public relations?; 6/29/17, 8:30 AM
Michael said...: It would be wrong to think of this as some ecumenical outreach on the part of the Sheikh. The village shares the name of his stables so perhaps there was a sentimental reason for him contributing to (not funding) the purchase of the building that was once a church. As noted above the members of the church had essentially abandoned both the faith and the building.; 6/29/17, 8:31 AM
Carol said...: It will make a nice mosque or mosquette. Eventually.; 6/29/17, 8:31 AM
Fen said...: And just to be clear, these are the madrassas that teach women like Althouse deserve to be gangraped and have acid thrown in their face for showing too much ankle.; 6/29/17, 8:33 AM
Ann Althouse said...: This story motivated me to create a tag for Dubai. I then went back into the archive to add it to old posts. Click on the tag to see what's come up over the years about Dubai.; 6/29/17, 8:40 AM
Fen said...: A quick scan of (favorably editted) Wiki reveals the Sheik to be a reformer, cracking down on corruption. Massive aid to charity and humanitarian causes. Also, millions invested in PR works to bridge cutural gaps and promote Dubai.

Another quick net scan brings up international concerns that Dubai is money laundering capitol of the world - blood diamonds, sex slaves, narcotics, mafia. Common for Russian oligarchs to buy a flat to gain residence in what had become a hub for international crime.

Again, saving the church is a good story. I'm not a Christian but I still respect the Sheik for the act of charity.

But my bullshit sensor is going off. I understand if you felt a need to spotlight this in response to prejudice in the Paki thread downpage...

But just a quick net scan of the Sheik and Dubai has me remembering all the wonderful things La Cosa Nostra did for small communities on the east coast.; 6/29/17, 9:01 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: One of the cool things about Islam is it's safe to assume that the sheikh didn't give them the money because he was hammered.; 6/29/17, 9:10 AM
tcrosse said...: One of the cool things about Islam is it's safe to assume that the sheikh didn't give them the money because he was hammered.

Not necessarily. My experience is that Moslems, like Methodists, don't drink in front of one another.; 6/29/17, 9:24 AM
buwaya said...: Dubai/Emirates is one of the better places in the ME for Filipino OCW's (Overseas Contract Workers, aka gastarbeiter, etc.)
Better treatment, less weirdness than Saudi Arabia.
They actually permit, and subsidize, Christian churches there.

A couple of the family servants spent time as OCWs there (they came home to take a retirement job, more or less, after earning enough to give them a solid financial foundation).; 6/29/17, 9:39 AM
Oso Negro said...: He runs a very nice emirate.; 6/29/17, 9:57 AM
MikeR said...: Always go to the top first.; 6/29/17, 10:45 AM
George M. Spencer said...: Yes, there are churches in Dubai, a hereditary tribal theocratic monarchy where apostasy is punishable by death as is homosexuality. Female rape victims jailed. No free speech. Illegal for Muslim women to marry non-Muslims. Dreadful labor camps for Third World workers. Mass arrests and torture for political reformers.

Basically, your worst nightmare. It's a real life "Handmaid's Tale."; 6/29/17, 12:17 PM
tim maguire said...: Methodists?!? Everybody knows they're going to hell anyway. Heretics.; 6/29/17, 2:51 PM
buwaya said...: "Basically, your worst nightmare. It's a real life "Handmaid's Tale.""

No, there are much worse nightmares in this world, and even worse ones in the past. And for every negative, in that case, there are many positives. Emirates/Dubai is a rather nice place for nearly all its residents, compared to what the majority of the world has to put up with.
A list of terribles does not make a worthwhile sense of perspective.

This is the same fault, from a different direction, that you get from university "studies" departments. They see what they hate, and nothing else.; 6/29/17, 4:40 PM