We've much to thank our British forebears for.   The rule of law, Westminster democracy, our justice system and the freedom that's woven into almost every feature to name just a few.

It pays to get a little contemplative from time to time - to reflect on where we are and how we got there.   Earlier his year a group of British church and political leaders did just that in London.  

Today The Australian carries this article written by Kevin Donnelly.   He's a senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University and he co-chaired last year’s national curriculum review.   Here are the first few paragraphs:

The British Prime Minister went on to argue that all schools must teach what it means to be British, which is not surprising given last year’s “Trojan Horse” ­affair, where some Muslim schools in Birmingham were considered in danger of advocating extreme ­Islamic values.

Cameron described British values as “freedom, tolerance, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility and respect for British institutions. Those are the sorts of things I would hope would be inculcated into the curriculum in any school in Britain.”

The argument that Christianity is central to British culture, especially its political and legal systems, is also argued by 22 Christian leaders in a document titled Values: The Characteristics of Our ­British National Identity.

Like Cameron, the Values document highlights the importance of liberal democratic values such as the rule of law, the sanctity of human life, a commitment to the common good and “freedom of speech, debate, conscience and ­religion”. The argument is also put that such values are “derived from our Judaeo-Christian foundations” and are “fundamental to the health of our national life”.

Cameron, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is on record as warning that multiculturalism has failed as a government policy and that the alternative must be “muscular liberalism”.

If Islamic youth are not taught clear and firm values about what it means to be British and why such a way of life is worth defending, then, Cameron argues, it shouldn’t surprise anyone if they are attracted to “extremist ideology”. Neither should it surprise anyone that in Australia — a former British colony, with the same political and legal systems — liberal, democratic values and Christianity are central to our way of life, too.

As detailed by Murdoch University’s Augusto Zimmermann, Christianity plays a significant role in the history of common law. In an essay titled A Law above the Law: Christian Roots of the English Common Law, Zimmermann ­argues that common law “has an incredibly rich Christian heritage”.