Tag: Christianity

Quite by accident today I came across a fascinating question.  If you know someone in the UK, who is struggling financially, just how, in practical terms, do you give them money? 

I’m not the first to ask this question.  The recession has kicked in, and some people are really struggling.  Others are doing OK.  And we all know what the bible has to say about giving.  But … how?

If I had a friend and offered him money, he’d almost certainly decline.  He wouldn’t want to be obligated.  If he accepted, it would probably change our relationship forever.  Or if I knew of a stranger who needed something, it would be even worse.

You can’t write a cheque, because your name will be on it.  These days  money-laundering legislation tends to make it impossible to obtain a cheque from a building society without a name on it.  And you wouldn’t want to post it anyway, because how do you get an acknowledgement that it has gone to the right place, and not been stolen by a postman?

Of course one could sneak up to their door, wearing a rubber Tony Blair mask, and stuff an envelope full of twenty pound notes through the door.  That would do it, for relatively small sums.  You could write on it something about “I don’t need this.  I believe that you do.  When the time comes, repay me by being generous to someone else.”  But of course this strategy is full of risks itself!

A google search reveals results entirely from the USA.  That is very creditable to the generosity of this nation; less so, to the generosity in the UK, or Australia, or wherever.

Anyone any ideas?

Some wise words from the Trevin Wax blog today:

The headline story in the Daily Telegraph today is about a submission by George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, to a court case before the European Court of Human Rights.

Britain’s Christians are being vilified, warns Lord Carey

Christians are being “persecuted” by courts and “driven underground” in the same way that homosexuals once were, a former Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.

Lord Carey says worshippers are being “vilified” by the state, treated as “bigots” and sacked simply for expressing their beliefs.

The attack is part of a direct appeal to the European Court of Human Rights before a landmark case on religious freedom.

In a written submission seen by The Daily Telegraph, the former leader of more than 70 million Anglicans warns that the outward expression of traditional conservative Christian values has effectively been “banned” in Britain under a new “secular conformity of belief and conduct”.

His comments represent one of the strongest attacks on the impartiality of Britain’s judiciary from a religious leader.

He says Christians will face a “religious bar” to employment if rulings against wearing crosses and expressing their beliefs are not reversed.

Lord Carey argues that in “case after case” British courts have failed to protect Christian values. He urges European judges to correct the balance.

The hearing, due to start in Strasbourg on Sept 4, will deal with the case of two workers forced out of their jobs over the wearing of crosses as a visible manifestation of their faith. It will also take in the cases of Gary McFarlane, a counsellor sacked for saying that he may not be comfortable in giving sex therapy to homosexual couples, and a Christian registrar, who wishes not to conduct civil partnership ceremonies.

Lord Carey, who was archbishop from 1991 to 2002, warns of a “drive to remove Judaeo-Christian values from the public square”. Courts in Britain have “consistently applied equality law to discriminate against Christians”.

They show a “crude” misunderstanding of the faith by treating some believers as “bigots”. He writes: “In a country where Christians can be sacked for manifesting their faith, are vilified by State bodies, are in fear of reprisal or even arrest for expressing their views on sexual ethics, something is very wrong.

“It affects the moral and ethical compass of the United Kingdom. Christians are excluded from many sectors of employment simply because of their beliefs; beliefs which are not contrary to the public good.”

He outlines a string of cases in which he argues that British judges have used a strict reading of equality law to strip the legally established right to freedom of religion of “any substantive effect”.

“It is now Christians who are persecuted; often sought out and framed by homosexual activists,” he says. “Christians are driven underground. There appears to be a clear animus to the Christian faith and to Judaeo-Christian values. Clearly the courts of the United Kingdom require guidance.”

He says the human rights campaign has gone too far and become a political agenda.

1. ^[1]UPDATE: But my memory deceived me when I wrote this.  I was thinking of an essay in volume 2 of that work, entitled Marie Bashkirtseff, wherein he writes on p.263, “The eclipse of faith has not proved fatal by any means to the instinct of confession.”  By the mysterious alchemy of memory this became the statement above.↩

I came across a blog run by Community Church Derby — about which I know nothing — here.  The blog is a set of daily thoughts on Psalm 23, for Lent. 

The item for Sunday 18th March struck me particularly:

Sunday 18th March ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and staff they comfort me.’

God, our Shepherd, wants to guide us. The question is will we allow him to guide us? Will we allow him to be our compass, our reference point in life? Christianity is not a system of beliefs that we choose to sign up to the try our best to live up to, it’s a call to a radical new way of life which involves making a daily decision to allow God, our Shepherd to lead us and give our life direction, meaning and purpose.

The Sheep: Pray for someone you know who is self-employed and for those who work mostly alone during the day, maybe in the home. Pray against feelings of loneliness and that they would know God’s presence with them in the hours of work.

There are a lot of lonely people out there, you know.  There are a lot of people also, whose work prevents them from really meeting people, even if they sit in an office.  I’ve encountered a number of these over the last couple of months, and I have been struck by how alone most people are. 

Giving our life meaning, seeking every day God’s will in our decisions … what does this mean, in practice?  Or do we just drift on, doing what we always do, and asking for His help only in crises?  The answer, surely, will differ for each of us.  We can, at least, all ask God how He wants us to play this.

Note that the church in question uses “radical” in its proper sense, of returning to the root (radix) of Christian teaching in the New Testament.

Three stories in one day today.  The first is a general de-Christianisation thing; the other two involve state-backed attacks on Christians just going about their lives.  Three in a day is sobering, isn’t it?

The first story is at eChurch blog, in the BBC and commented on by Cranmer.  This is headline news here, so needs little special treatment from me.  Apparently a judge in the High Court has ruled, after a claim by an atheist activist, that having formal prayers before the start of council meetings — something that councils have done for a century — is illegal under some law of 1972.

A Devon town council acted unlawfully by allowing prayers to be said before meetings, the High Court has ruled.

Action was brought against Bideford Town Council by the National Secular Society (NSS) after atheist councillor Clive Bone complained.

Mr Justice Ouseley ruled the prayers were not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972.

Christians will not necessarily be that exercised about these formal things, except that it indicates a general state determination to remove anything associated with Christianity — the official religion, remember — from official functions.

The ruling itself is absurd, of course, and the judge must have known it.  You can’t discover that a law says something as controversial as this after a period of 40 years, so evidently the judge was trying to invent the law for political purposes of his own.  However I don’t remember voting for Mr Justice Ouseley to invent law, and neither did anyone else.  The government should oblige him to resign; but I suspect it won’t.  Such behaviour by a judge is quite improper.  Issues of this kind should be decided by parliament.  But the verdict, to me, suggests that English justice is not to be relied on, and has been corrupted.

The other items are much more sinister.  The case of two elderly Christians, Peter and Hazelmary Bull, who were targeted by the gay lobby continues.  Regular readers will remember the story.  The victims rented out rooms in their home to visitors on a bed-and-breakfast basis, aimed at Christians.  A pair of sodomites were sent by a gay pressure group as agents provocateurs to demand accomodation in a double room — which was naturally refused.  They had no business there, of course, so they were there to provoke that refusal.  They then denounced the owners to the police under the “equalities” legislation drawn up by that same pressure group and passed by a dirty deal with the government.  The court promptly found the victims ‘guilty’ of various absurd ‘crimes’ and fined them thousands of pounds.  The couple appealed, with the help of a Christian charity who funded the appeal (since the couple were penniless).  Today we learn via the BBC that the appeals court rejected their appeal.

Judge Andrew Rutherford ruled last year that the Bulls had breached equality legislation.

The appeal judges heard that the Bulls thought any sex outside marriage was a “sin”, but denied they had discriminated against Mr Hall and Mr Preddy.

Mr Bull, 72, and Mrs Bull, who is in her late 60s, were not in court for the ruling.

The judges heard that the Bulls’ appeal was funded by the Christian Institute and Mr Hall and Mr Preddy were backed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The sinister EHRC is a taxpayer-funded organisation.  The Christian Institute is a meagerly funded charity.  Nice to know that the state is harassing the elderly for who they let in their homes, isn’t it?  The EHRC stooge added, menacingly:

He added that the commission had no intention of enforcing its entitlement to legal costs.

Translation: “Now roll over or else.”  Nice again.  Again we have to ask whether the justice system has become corrupt; for what honest court would allow this evil?

But the final word rests with the wealthy and well-connected gay activist who, I am told, drew up the law being used here, in a backstairs deal with the last government, and then masterminded this attack on two poor frail old people:

“I hope Mr and Mrs Bull will now feel content to go home to do God’s good work as Easter approaches, instead of relentlessly pursuing a happy couple through the courts.”

The only people being pursued through the courts, relentlessly, on and on, with state funding, are two old pensioners who were targeted out of malice, and Mr Summerskill knows that very well.

In the third story, the Daily Mail has been ordered to put the establishment line on this one in their headline, it seems:

Bible-clutching street preacher in court for ‘telling gay couple they would “burn in hell” in High Street’

Love the adjective “bible-clutching”.  The Daily Mail would usually be expected to object to this sort of thing, so evidently the establishment has instructed newspaper proprietors to toe the line.

A Christian street preacher told two gay men they were ‘sinners’ who would ‘burn in hell’ as they walked past him on a busy high street, a court heard today.

In a case which could reignite the debate over the boundaries of free speech, Michael Overd, 47, is accused of using threatening language towards civil partners Craig Manning and Craig Nichol when he saw them as he preached on a busy high street last July.

The court heard claims the lay preacher was provoked by a previous altercation with the couple in October 2010, when he singled them out when he saw them holding hands.

The words agents provocateurs again springs rather strongly to mind.  Walk past a street preacher ostentatiously holding hands, and then denounce him to the police if he shows any sign of objecting — yes, I think we all know what that’s about.  And since “the process is the punishment”, and the object is to chill free speech, it hardly matters whether the victim is convicted or not.  Others will be afraid to risk the same, and thus will not dare to say that homosexuality is a sin; and that, I think, is the object here.  What kind of country can’t tolerate sandwichboardmen saying “prepare to meet thy God”?

The defence counsel added an interesting snippet about the complainants:

He said: ‘You made up your mind to silence him, didn’t you?

‘You went up to him and abused him, saying ‘Who the f*** do you think you are? I’m going to kick your f****** head in. You’re dead, you’re dead’.’

They deny it, of course.

Again, I think English justice is on trial here.  Is the judge honest?  Or will he behave as the establishment demand, and convict a man for stating an unpalatable truth in the hearing of overt evildoers desperate to “take offence”?

All this is very bad, and there is undoubtedly worse to come.

It is the hallmark of a repressive society that it cannot leave the Christians alone.  Such societies insist on harassing this unthreatening group, under one pretext or another.

It is the mark of such societies that they pass laws which they know Christians must break, because Christ says so, and then the society treats them as law-breakers, and punishes them viciously for offences that wouldn’t even come to court, if the victims held some other views.

This is how persecution is done, over some trivial pretext.  This is how hate manifests.

But let us not revile the wicked men who do these things.  They are merely dupes of Satan, allowed to make themselves miserable for the purposes of one who will treat them as meat.  Let us love them, and pray for them, and discuss them without reviling, as the scripture says.  Let us also pray for the confessors and the martyrs, for Peter and Hazelmary Bull, and those who support them; and for Michael Overd and his people.  Pray that God will strengthen them to endure this trial.

UPDATE: Michael Overd has been found not guilty by the magistrates.  This is excellent news.

UPDATE2: Eric Pickles, the powerful no-nonsense Yorkshire MP who is Communities Secretary (and has been doing an excellent job of recalling corrupt local councils to the purposes for which they exist), has criticised the ruling that official prayers cannot be held.  Another MP has commented that, if the ruling stands, even the House of Commons could be interfered with.  Good news again.

An old college friend died a couple of years ago.  I only found out a week or so ago, when I did something that I never do — I logged into Friends Reunited.  A menu highlighted that someone that I knew at college had a page, and it was him.

The page was written by him.  It discussed his life, and gave his thoughts about it.  And then someone had added a note at the bottom with news of his death.

The page made rather sad reading.  His career https://www.highlandpediatricdental.com/antabuse-disulfiram/ evidently never went anywhere, and then he gave it up and took a series of short-term jobs, unsuited to a man of his abilities.

This man was an Oxford graduate.  He was brighter than I am, and was in the year above me at college, doing the same subject.  We were, in some ways, very similar people, and I got on well with him. 

In imagination I can still see his window in the Rose Lane Annex.  It was often lit late at night.  I remember going up to see him, at some late hour, as students do, and finding him playing LP’s of Russian composers — he introduced me to Shostakovich — and drinking strange teas.  The one I remember looked more like logwood chippings than tea!  We would discuss politics, in which we were both active, although he was slightly more right-wing than myself.

He had grown up among Christians.  He owned a number of Graham Kendrick LP’s, which I took care to copy.  His parents were simple folk, delighted to have so intelligent a son. 

But he had rejected Christ at some point before I knew him.  I remember him complaining about the Christian Union at college — made up of the brightest that England could produce, remember — that it was not intellectual enough.  He said that he had been along to a bible study, and that he and another would discuss the Greek of the passage, while everyone else looked blank.

But I also remember learning something else about him.  There was a debate in the Union, and I spoke, somewhat ineptly, against the newly fashionable promotion of unnatural vice.  To my surprise he got up — we were sitting together — and spoke for it.  Later he told me that he had become a homosexual.  I didn’t throw him out — indeed I couldn’t really believe it, and tended to treat the profession as one of his eccentricities — but it was odd.  In time he went down from college, as we all did, and I saw him no more.  I kept in contact for a couple of years, but then lost contact with him, and with others of my time at college.

The page https://www.carolinasmilesnc.com/ambien-zolpidem-online/ makes clear that he never married.  It contains what is perhaps the saddest phrase I ever saw:

I have no children (that I know of).

What self-inflicted emptiness lies behind those words!  I fear that, before I knew him, he came up to college and Satan drew him into sin, to reject Christ, and then on into unnatural vice, thereby cutting him off from everyone.  I remember him saying https://www.bordeauxcenter.com/ativan-lorazepam/ that he could no longer relate to his parents, in times of trouble.

Now he is dead.  He died at 48 (I think), alone.  What sort of life did he have?  Not much, from the look of it.  Yet he was a marvellous creation of God’s, a “character” in the best sort of way, one that Dickens would have delighted to draw.

He was a decent chap, I always felt, and yet, on the face of it, he lived a miserable life and died without God.  Who can doubt his damnation?  His life was empty.  He neither made himself happy, nor did what God asked.  Poor soul! 

Let us hope that I am wrong, and that, before he died, he repented and turned back to God. 

It is a sobering warning to us all, to take heed of ourselves.  This is not a rehearsal.  This is not play-acting.  This life … this is it.  Either turn to God, or lose even what we think we choose instead.

Over the last few days, I have been reading life lessons: life-changing stories for christian growth, ed. Glenn Myers, Christian Focus, 2010.  It’s a slim paperback, less than 100 pages.  It consists of ten chapters, in each of which someone reflects on their life, and how God has worked in it.

It’s been enormously helpful to me, because it’s real.  These are people who have had real problems.  They have not always overcome them, but had to learn to live with them.  Yet they all know God, and are faithful to him.

It’s also easy to read, and intelligent.

I won’t give a link to an online shop.  Go to your Christian bookshop and support them by buying or ordering it.  It will do you good.

All of us need something to aspire to.  Books of Christian testimony can sometimes be a little corny, or superficial.  This one is gold.