This by Cranmer's Curate appeared on US-based orthodox Anglican news service VirtueOnline:
The UK Foreign Secretary the Right Honourable William Hague MP has intervened in the case of evangelical pastor Youcef Nadarkhani facing execution by Iran’s Supreme Court.
British religio-political blogger Archbishop Cranmer yesterday contacted the UK Foreign Office about the plight of Pastor Nadarkhani, an evangelical house church leader who is married with two young sons.
Cranmer reports that within an hour Mr Hague issued the following statement: “I deplore reports that Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian Church leader, could be executed imminently after refusing an order by the Supreme Court of Iran to recant his faith. This demonstrates the Iranian regime’s continued unwillingness to abide by its constitutional and international obligations to respect religious freedom. I pay tribute to the courage shown by Pastor Nadarkhani who has no case to answer and call on the Iranian authorities to overturn his sentence.”
Cranmer today reported that Pastor Nadarkhani appeared before Iran's Supreme Court for the third time and was asked to recant his faith in Christ.
“For the third time, he refused. His lawyer presented the final defence and we are presently awaiting further news. Sources indicate that the judges could take up to a week to issue their decision on the implementation of the death sentence. However, they reserve the right to effect execution within a shorter period of time should they so desire. There is a real concern that the death sentence could be implemented without any official announcement at all.”
Friday, 30 September 2011
Monday, 26 September 2011
UK 2031 CE: PRICE OF PUTTING AD IN HISTORY EXAM
This is an extract from the journal of a pastor in the underground Confessing Church of the administrative district formerly known as the United Kingdom:
I really don't know what prompted Mavis to put AD after the date of the Battle of Hastings in her midi-Baccalaureate history exam. Possibly a spirit of adolescent rebellion, possibly a desire to take a clear Christian stand, possibly a bit of both. But the reaction from the authorities has been both swift and devastating.
The examiner immediately reported the incident to the Equality and Diversity Directorate. They then informed social services that the Correct Calendar Directive had been clearly breached by a child in full-time education.
John and Gill received a visit from a social worker accompanied by two police officers. They were informed that a care order had been placed on Mavis and that they were accompanying her to secure accommodation.
Rummaging about in an old trunk in their attic, she had found a religious studies text book from the end of the last century that used both BC and AD. She asked me what the terms meant after one of our church meetings. I explained and also warned her not to use them in normal discourse.
Thinking about it in retrospect, she did appear very excited by the thought that within living memory the concepts of 'Before Christ' and 'In the year of our Lord' were appearing in school text books.
I suspect the trail will lead to me before too long. To some extent life has been easier since the Confessing Church's registered religion licence was withdrawn after we refused to use the diversified bibles issued by the Official Church.
We've just got on with meeting behind closed doors. But a 15-year-old girl from our church using the Christian calendar in a public examination is a different story. It blows our privacy right open...
I really don't know what prompted Mavis to put AD after the date of the Battle of Hastings in her midi-Baccalaureate history exam. Possibly a spirit of adolescent rebellion, possibly a desire to take a clear Christian stand, possibly a bit of both. But the reaction from the authorities has been both swift and devastating.
The examiner immediately reported the incident to the Equality and Diversity Directorate. They then informed social services that the Correct Calendar Directive had been clearly breached by a child in full-time education.
John and Gill received a visit from a social worker accompanied by two police officers. They were informed that a care order had been placed on Mavis and that they were accompanying her to secure accommodation.
Rummaging about in an old trunk in their attic, she had found a religious studies text book from the end of the last century that used both BC and AD. She asked me what the terms meant after one of our church meetings. I explained and also warned her not to use them in normal discourse.
Thinking about it in retrospect, she did appear very excited by the thought that within living memory the concepts of 'Before Christ' and 'In the year of our Lord' were appearing in school text books.
I suspect the trail will lead to me before too long. To some extent life has been easier since the Confessing Church's registered religion licence was withdrawn after we refused to use the diversified bibles issued by the Official Church.
We've just got on with meeting behind closed doors. But a 15-year-old girl from our church using the Christian calendar in a public examination is a different story. It blows our privacy right open...
Thursday, 22 September 2011
STALINGRAD BATTLE AHEAD OVER SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
Cranmer's Curate learned the hard way on BBC Radio Sheffield that the battle over same-sex marriage is going to be a Stalingrad.
This is not - repeat not - to draw a comparison between the ideologies of the combatants in the World War II battle and those clashing in this 21st century culture war. But it is a figurative way of saying that a long hard winter of heavy pounding and hand-to-hand street fighting is in store for the defenders of the God-created institution of heterosexual marriage.
Tuesday's interview is not available on BBC iPlayer - there was apparently a technical problem. But it was an emotive debate in which your curate was roundly accused of being both 'reactionary' and 'fundamentalist'.
The 'reactionary' label is worth pondering. Yes, orthodox Christians are reacting against an attempt by the forces of political correctness to reshape the institution of marriage their way.
But the 'reactionary' insult means more than that - it means we are anti-progress, anti-Enlightenment, anti-humanity fulfilling its potential.
In truth, there is nothing 'reactionary' in that negative sense about defending an institution that is for the good of society, its stability and good order. There is nothing reactionary about not wanting to see people's businesses destroyed and their cars torched by the social disorder that results from undermining the institution of man-woman marriage.
Rebuilding respect for the institution of heterosexual marriage as the God-given context in which children are nurtured and learn positive values is actually essential for the spiritual and moral future of Britain.
So the defenders are the real progressives.
Furthermore, for the Church of Jesus Christ in the UK same-sex marriage is a tank on our lawn. If the institutional Church capitulates and agrees to conduct same-sex anti-marriages, public Christianity in our country will be practically finished.
Heterosexual marriage links into the nature of the God who created it, the authority of the Christ who upheld it and the faith his followers are called to profess and practice.
So, the stakes are high in this ideological Stalingrad and the defenders must be prepared to pay the cost. It is a battle we cannot shy away from. The attackers of course have massive resources at their disposal - the weapons of emotive arguments about celebrating love, the fire-power of equality and anti-discrimination, and now the heavy armour of the secular State.
But the Stalingrad comparison must not be pressed in terms of the outcome - in the World War II battle the defenders won. In this battle there is no guarantee that the State will not legalise same-sex marriage - in fact that is highly likely - or that the institutional Church will not capitulate to the blasphemy.
Yet for Jesus' people his words in John's Gospel need to be taken to heart as the flak flies:
This piece - Church of England's guilty silence on fatherhood - appeared on Archbishop Cranmer.
This is not - repeat not - to draw a comparison between the ideologies of the combatants in the World War II battle and those clashing in this 21st century culture war. But it is a figurative way of saying that a long hard winter of heavy pounding and hand-to-hand street fighting is in store for the defenders of the God-created institution of heterosexual marriage.
Tuesday's interview is not available on BBC iPlayer - there was apparently a technical problem. But it was an emotive debate in which your curate was roundly accused of being both 'reactionary' and 'fundamentalist'.
The 'reactionary' label is worth pondering. Yes, orthodox Christians are reacting against an attempt by the forces of political correctness to reshape the institution of marriage their way.
But the 'reactionary' insult means more than that - it means we are anti-progress, anti-Enlightenment, anti-humanity fulfilling its potential.
In truth, there is nothing 'reactionary' in that negative sense about defending an institution that is for the good of society, its stability and good order. There is nothing reactionary about not wanting to see people's businesses destroyed and their cars torched by the social disorder that results from undermining the institution of man-woman marriage.
Rebuilding respect for the institution of heterosexual marriage as the God-given context in which children are nurtured and learn positive values is actually essential for the spiritual and moral future of Britain.
So the defenders are the real progressives.
Furthermore, for the Church of Jesus Christ in the UK same-sex marriage is a tank on our lawn. If the institutional Church capitulates and agrees to conduct same-sex anti-marriages, public Christianity in our country will be practically finished.
Heterosexual marriage links into the nature of the God who created it, the authority of the Christ who upheld it and the faith his followers are called to profess and practice.
So, the stakes are high in this ideological Stalingrad and the defenders must be prepared to pay the cost. It is a battle we cannot shy away from. The attackers of course have massive resources at their disposal - the weapons of emotive arguments about celebrating love, the fire-power of equality and anti-discrimination, and now the heavy armour of the secular State.
But the Stalingrad comparison must not be pressed in terms of the outcome - in the World War II battle the defenders won. In this battle there is no guarantee that the State will not legalise same-sex marriage - in fact that is highly likely - or that the institutional Church will not capitulate to the blasphemy.
Yet for Jesus' people his words in John's Gospel need to be taken to heart as the flak flies:
If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free (John 8v31-32 - RSV).
This piece - Church of England's guilty silence on fatherhood - appeared on Archbishop Cranmer.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
CEM JOAD (1891-1953) - THE FORGOTTEN CHRISTIAN
This is a guest-post by Richard Symonds:
Philosopher Cyril Joad (1891-1953) is not someone we should forget as thinking Christians.
He wrote most of his 100+ books from his 'retreat' at South Stoke Farm West Sussex, until the end of the war (eg Teach Yourself Philosophy 1944).
Then, in 1946 until his death of cancer aged 61, lived at Stedham West Sussex - from where he wrote his last major work "The Recovery of Belief - A Restatement of Christian Philosophy" (Faber & Faber 1952)
As Cyril Joad's 60th Anniversary approaches, I grow in the conviction that if he had not died when he did - 1953 - a critically-important 'Moral Realist' movement would have developed, to rival that of the prevailing 'Moral Relativists'.
The Times Obituary for CEM Joad (April 10 1953) states: "CEM Joad made no original contribution to philosophy". That is simply incorrect. Joad made a very original - albeit late - contribution to Christian philosophy - "The Recovery of Belief".
Professor Geoffrey Thomas, of Birkbeck College London, wrote this in a booklet "Cyril Joad" (Birkbeck - 1992): "Cyril Joad also worshipped at Stedham church: and the image of Joad and T.S. Eliot, often the only communicants, is not the least curious of church history's vignettes."
This is what the Professor Thomas says on the first page: "This book commemorates Cyril Joad, a philosopher who believed that philosophy should not be a mere academic speciality, but a power in everyday life."
CEM Joad set up London's Birkbeck's Philosophy Department in 1930, and ran it for or 23 years - but he was never made a Professor; which is not the least curious in Birkbeck's history - especially as it is now considered one of the best Philosophy Departments in the world.
Joad is best remembered as The Professor' in the BBC's Brains Trust - one of the most popular wartime radio programmes in this country (there was no television) - now called Any Questions? and Question Time.
These days, if Cyril Joad is remembered at all, he is remembered more for a media-hyped train ticket 'scandal' in 1948, which all but destroyed his reputation as a well-known academic and broadcasting celebrity. His fall from grace was extremely rapid - sacked by the BBC, the title "Sir Cyril" lost, and then diagnosed with cancer.
But CEMJ's best work was produced late in life: "Recovery of Belief - A Restatement of Christ".
So what?
I believe a greater understanding of the work of Cyril Joad - and Moral Realism - may well be a critical pre-condition for humanity's survival in the 21st century.
Cranmer's Curate was on the Toby Foster breakfast show on BBC Radio Sheffield at around 8.20am this morning debating same-sex marriage.
Philosopher Cyril Joad (1891-1953) is not someone we should forget as thinking Christians.
He wrote most of his 100+ books from his 'retreat' at South Stoke Farm West Sussex, until the end of the war (eg Teach Yourself Philosophy 1944).
Then, in 1946 until his death of cancer aged 61, lived at Stedham West Sussex - from where he wrote his last major work "The Recovery of Belief - A Restatement of Christian Philosophy" (Faber & Faber 1952)
As Cyril Joad's 60th Anniversary approaches, I grow in the conviction that if he had not died when he did - 1953 - a critically-important 'Moral Realist' movement would have developed, to rival that of the prevailing 'Moral Relativists'.
The Times Obituary for CEM Joad (April 10 1953) states: "CEM Joad made no original contribution to philosophy". That is simply incorrect. Joad made a very original - albeit late - contribution to Christian philosophy - "The Recovery of Belief".
Professor Geoffrey Thomas, of Birkbeck College London, wrote this in a booklet "Cyril Joad" (Birkbeck - 1992): "Cyril Joad also worshipped at Stedham church: and the image of Joad and T.S. Eliot, often the only communicants, is not the least curious of church history's vignettes."
This is what the Professor Thomas says on the first page: "This book commemorates Cyril Joad, a philosopher who believed that philosophy should not be a mere academic speciality, but a power in everyday life."
CEM Joad set up London's Birkbeck's Philosophy Department in 1930, and ran it for or 23 years - but he was never made a Professor; which is not the least curious in Birkbeck's history - especially as it is now considered one of the best Philosophy Departments in the world.
Joad is best remembered as The Professor' in the BBC's Brains Trust - one of the most popular wartime radio programmes in this country (there was no television) - now called Any Questions? and Question Time.
These days, if Cyril Joad is remembered at all, he is remembered more for a media-hyped train ticket 'scandal' in 1948, which all but destroyed his reputation as a well-known academic and broadcasting celebrity. His fall from grace was extremely rapid - sacked by the BBC, the title "Sir Cyril" lost, and then diagnosed with cancer.
But CEMJ's best work was produced late in life: "Recovery of Belief - A Restatement of Christ".
So what?
I believe a greater understanding of the work of Cyril Joad - and Moral Realism - may well be a critical pre-condition for humanity's survival in the 21st century.
Cranmer's Curate was on the Toby Foster breakfast show on BBC Radio Sheffield at around 8.20am this morning debating same-sex marriage.
Friday, 16 September 2011
IS THERE A CONTENDER FOR ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY?
Charles Raven in his brilliant review of Mike Higton's Grove booklet on Rowan Williams's moral theology co-incidentally answers the question posed this week by Daily Mail columnist Stephen Glover: Will the Church ever have a strong enough leader?
Mr Glover, a political commentator who writes very incisively on the Church of England, calls for a spiritual leader able to take on the secular establishment of the BBC, which he argues is hugger-mugger with atheist propagandists such as Richard Dawkins:
Mr Raven gets to the heart of the leadership problem. It is not Dr Williams's giftedness that is at issue - he is an extremely gifted and civilised man - it is the uncertainty towards the authority of God's Word written, inherent in his theological methodology, that has made his job such a sad strain upon him:
In a nutshell, the Church of England needs a spiritual leader whose Christian mind is submitted to the authority of God's Word written and is therefore well defended from invasion by the forces of the 'ambient culture'.
A leader like that could make a huge difference. But he would have a very tough job on his hands.
Mr Raven writes from the perspective of a pastor who is no longer in the institutional Church of England. He leads an independent Anglican Evangelical congregation in Kidderminster having taken a brave stand on biblical orthodoxy.
But an orthodox Archbishop of Canterbury would be leader of an ecclesiastical institution whose theological incoherence is deeply entrenched. The strains of such incoherence are reaching breaking point and have certainly told on the soul of Dr Williams, albeit he has divested himself of the spiritual and intellectual defences to deal with them.
A Bible-believing Archbishop would face the challenge of having to collaborate with colleagues in the House of Bishops with a very different theological outlook, some of whom he might have to regard as false teachers. The spiritual, psychological and emotional burden of this would be enormous on even the most gifted, godly and robust of Christian leaders.
Frankly, leading the Church of England is one of the last jobs on earth Cranmer's Curate would want even if he were up to it, which he is not. Despite his height phobia, cc would rather clean windows at the top of skyscrapers than be Archbishop of Canterbury.
Nevertheless, a man by God's grace prepared to contend for the Gospel of Christ within and without the institutional Church would be the sort of spiritual leader Mr Glover is calling for.
The big bright purple question though is whether there is such there a contender in reach of Canterbury.
Mr Glover, a political commentator who writes very incisively on the Church of England, calls for a spiritual leader able to take on the secular establishment of the BBC, which he argues is hugger-mugger with atheist propagandists such as Richard Dawkins:
All of which brings me to the question of what sort of cleric should replace Rowan Williams, if he is indeed standing down. I have criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury from time to time, and now is not the moment to take up the cudgels again. Suffice to say that, brilliant and holy man though he undoubtedly is, he has not offered very firm leadership to the Church of England or great inspiration to the nation.
Mr Raven gets to the heart of the leadership problem. It is not Dr Williams's giftedness that is at issue - he is an extremely gifted and civilised man - it is the uncertainty towards the authority of God's Word written, inherent in his theological methodology, that has made his job such a sad strain upon him:
Mike Higton has done us a real service in providing a reminder that Christian moral decision making must be robustly theological, coming from what is effectively the shared enterprise of developing a ‘Christian mind’ committed to working out God’s grace in every area of life. But experience shows that unless that Christian mind is informed by an equally robust theology of biblical revelation, it will rapidly be colonised by the ambient culture. One of the keys to making sense of recent history of the Anglican Communion is to recognise the deep determination of Western liberals to overcome the set-back they received at the 1998 Lambeth Conference and it is a serious weakness that this booklet does not take account of the ways, practically and theologically, that Rowan Williams has served that agenda - not least by justifying the avoidance of decisions.
In a nutshell, the Church of England needs a spiritual leader whose Christian mind is submitted to the authority of God's Word written and is therefore well defended from invasion by the forces of the 'ambient culture'.
A leader like that could make a huge difference. But he would have a very tough job on his hands.
Mr Raven writes from the perspective of a pastor who is no longer in the institutional Church of England. He leads an independent Anglican Evangelical congregation in Kidderminster having taken a brave stand on biblical orthodoxy.
But an orthodox Archbishop of Canterbury would be leader of an ecclesiastical institution whose theological incoherence is deeply entrenched. The strains of such incoherence are reaching breaking point and have certainly told on the soul of Dr Williams, albeit he has divested himself of the spiritual and intellectual defences to deal with them.
A Bible-believing Archbishop would face the challenge of having to collaborate with colleagues in the House of Bishops with a very different theological outlook, some of whom he might have to regard as false teachers. The spiritual, psychological and emotional burden of this would be enormous on even the most gifted, godly and robust of Christian leaders.
Frankly, leading the Church of England is one of the last jobs on earth Cranmer's Curate would want even if he were up to it, which he is not. Despite his height phobia, cc would rather clean windows at the top of skyscrapers than be Archbishop of Canterbury.
Nevertheless, a man by God's grace prepared to contend for the Gospel of Christ within and without the institutional Church would be the sort of spiritual leader Mr Glover is calling for.
The big bright purple question though is whether there is such there a contender in reach of Canterbury.
Monday, 12 September 2011
WHY ALMIGHTY GOD DOESN'T BELIEVE IN US
Ever been told that God believes in you?
Cranmer's Curate first came across this disturbing conceit in a tribute in a national newspaper to Sir Robin Day after he died in 2000. The writer, a leading UK journalist, said he wasn't sure whether his late friend believed in God but was confident that God believed in him.
It is easy to see why, in this age of self-worship, this is becoming a popular shibboleth. It is a theological kissing cousin of Open Theism, the idea that human beings can thwart God's purposes because he is not omnipotent.
So God, being a bit like a stressed-out football manager on the touchline, depends on his team to do their stuff against the opposition. 'People skills' require that he bolsters his players' self-esteem by telling them that he believes in them.
Biblically, God does not behave like that because he is omnipotent and omniscient and human beings, including regenerate ones, are fallen and sinful. God Incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, John's Gospel tells us, 'did not trust himself to them' (that is to those who believed in his name when they saw the signs that he did in Jerusalem) 'because he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man' (John 2v24-25 - RSV).
Disbelieving in 'God believes in us' does not mean you have to deny that God has delegated responsibilities in his creation to men and women made in his image. Nor do you have to deny that Christian ministers are God's 'fellow workers' (cf 1 Corinthians 3v9).
Nor is disbelieving in this conceit an excuse for Christian ministers to be distrustful and unco-operative with God's other Bible-believing fellow workers in the harvest-field.
But it is assert that, biblically, God's decision to delegate and co-operate does not detract one bit from his sovereignty in fulfilling his good purposes for his universe, still less make him dependent on us.
Because we fallen human creatures are so spiritually and morally flawed, to teach that God believes in us is to make him out to be a fool.
If the person using the phrase is trying to find a fresh way of saying God is committed to humanity, then no orthodox Christian will have a problem with the sentiment. But in that case John 3v16 is a much better way of saying it, and indeed a more wonderful way, because the 'world' God sent his Son to die for is the world of sinful, God-hating humanity.
Where 'God believes in us' becomes decidedly unhelpful is when it is used in the sense of God placing his trust or confidence in humanity because, underneath it all, we are worthy of his trust, and God needs us on his side.
One suspects that the spread of such humanity-worshipping theology is being exacerbated by cursory confessions in public worship and by the marginalisation of good God-centred hymns in favour of me-centred choruses.
A regular dose of 'Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes' or 'Only thou art holy, there is none beside Thee, perfect in power, in love and purity' is a good antidote to this poison.
The youth group ought to be pleased to be reminded that the true Lord God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is not dependent on fallen Mann.
This piece - Thank the Good Lord for Parliamentary Democracy - appeared on Christian Today.
Cranmer's Curate first came across this disturbing conceit in a tribute in a national newspaper to Sir Robin Day after he died in 2000. The writer, a leading UK journalist, said he wasn't sure whether his late friend believed in God but was confident that God believed in him.
It is easy to see why, in this age of self-worship, this is becoming a popular shibboleth. It is a theological kissing cousin of Open Theism, the idea that human beings can thwart God's purposes because he is not omnipotent.
So God, being a bit like a stressed-out football manager on the touchline, depends on his team to do their stuff against the opposition. 'People skills' require that he bolsters his players' self-esteem by telling them that he believes in them.
Biblically, God does not behave like that because he is omnipotent and omniscient and human beings, including regenerate ones, are fallen and sinful. God Incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, John's Gospel tells us, 'did not trust himself to them' (that is to those who believed in his name when they saw the signs that he did in Jerusalem) 'because he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man' (John 2v24-25 - RSV).
Disbelieving in 'God believes in us' does not mean you have to deny that God has delegated responsibilities in his creation to men and women made in his image. Nor do you have to deny that Christian ministers are God's 'fellow workers' (cf 1 Corinthians 3v9).
Nor is disbelieving in this conceit an excuse for Christian ministers to be distrustful and unco-operative with God's other Bible-believing fellow workers in the harvest-field.
But it is assert that, biblically, God's decision to delegate and co-operate does not detract one bit from his sovereignty in fulfilling his good purposes for his universe, still less make him dependent on us.
Because we fallen human creatures are so spiritually and morally flawed, to teach that God believes in us is to make him out to be a fool.
If the person using the phrase is trying to find a fresh way of saying God is committed to humanity, then no orthodox Christian will have a problem with the sentiment. But in that case John 3v16 is a much better way of saying it, and indeed a more wonderful way, because the 'world' God sent his Son to die for is the world of sinful, God-hating humanity.
Where 'God believes in us' becomes decidedly unhelpful is when it is used in the sense of God placing his trust or confidence in humanity because, underneath it all, we are worthy of his trust, and God needs us on his side.
One suspects that the spread of such humanity-worshipping theology is being exacerbated by cursory confessions in public worship and by the marginalisation of good God-centred hymns in favour of me-centred choruses.
A regular dose of 'Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes' or 'Only thou art holy, there is none beside Thee, perfect in power, in love and purity' is a good antidote to this poison.
The youth group ought to be pleased to be reminded that the true Lord God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is not dependent on fallen Mann.
This piece - Thank the Good Lord for Parliamentary Democracy - appeared on Christian Today.
Friday, 9 September 2011
GIDEONS - INTREPID SERVANTS OF THE WORD
Anyone with an image in their mind of international Bible distributors The Gideons as a bunch of cheesy Bible bashers could not be more wrong. These gentlemen are intrepid servants of Christ and in a Western context courageous counter-cultural rebels in the right sense.
At a lunch hosted by their South Sheffield branch yesterday, Cranmer's Curate heard an account from a British Gideon of his labours distributing Bibles in Swahili to school children in Tanzania. He told how when he signed the visitors' book after a journey to a school in a very remote place the last signature was four years previously.
The warm welcome the Gideons received in Tanzania contrasted sharply with their reception at the Flemish university in Belgium. A lecturer called the police to prevent them distributing the New Testament to students on the pavement outside the campus. The speaker told how the indignant academic was unable to answer when asked: 'What is wrong with students at the Flemish university being encouraged to think for themselves?'
A computer lecturer in his day-job, this gentleman's international labours for the cause of Christ are entirely unpaid.
In the post-modern mind, the masculinity of the Gideons would be seen as a disadvantage. In fact, the Gideons' willingness to stand up for their Christian convictions and take risks to get the Word of God to the world is a feature of the pre-1960s male. Their godly masculinity is thus what makes them so effective in serving the Word.
Certainly, it would be a brave man who would attempt to distribute Bibles in the British school run by the headmistress who declared on national radio that mentioning Jesus in assemblies is a no-no because it would exclude some of her students.
Cranmer's Curate thanks the editor of the Sheffield Telegraph, Mr David Todd, very much indeed for publishing a clarification in this week's issue after cc was grossly misrepresented in a letter last week.
At a lunch hosted by their South Sheffield branch yesterday, Cranmer's Curate heard an account from a British Gideon of his labours distributing Bibles in Swahili to school children in Tanzania. He told how when he signed the visitors' book after a journey to a school in a very remote place the last signature was four years previously.
The warm welcome the Gideons received in Tanzania contrasted sharply with their reception at the Flemish university in Belgium. A lecturer called the police to prevent them distributing the New Testament to students on the pavement outside the campus. The speaker told how the indignant academic was unable to answer when asked: 'What is wrong with students at the Flemish university being encouraged to think for themselves?'
A computer lecturer in his day-job, this gentleman's international labours for the cause of Christ are entirely unpaid.
In the post-modern mind, the masculinity of the Gideons would be seen as a disadvantage. In fact, the Gideons' willingness to stand up for their Christian convictions and take risks to get the Word of God to the world is a feature of the pre-1960s male. Their godly masculinity is thus what makes them so effective in serving the Word.
Certainly, it would be a brave man who would attempt to distribute Bibles in the British school run by the headmistress who declared on national radio that mentioning Jesus in assemblies is a no-no because it would exclude some of her students.
Cranmer's Curate thanks the editor of the Sheffield Telegraph, Mr David Todd, very much indeed for publishing a clarification in this week's issue after cc was grossly misrepresented in a letter last week.
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
MORAL FRAGILITY OF COALITION EXPOSED BY DORRIES AMENDMENT
Despite the failure of her attempt to introduce independent counselling for women considering abortions, a courageous Member of Parliament has exposed the moral fragility of the coalition.
Within Parliament the bid by Conservative MP Nadine Dorries to amend the Health and Social Care Bill so as to break the pro-abortion lobby's stranglehold over counselling has had a significant effect.
The concerted political effort to sink the Dorries amendment has served to highlight the extent to which the Conservative Party has shifted from the Judaeo-Christian values that used to underpin it when it had a habit of winning elections. The letter from Conservative Health Minister Anne Milton last week telling MPs on the Government's payroll (including junior ministers and parliamentary private secretaries) that all health ministers were opposing the amendment was seen as an attempt at covert whipping in what has traditionally been a free vote issue.
The intervention backfired badly, only serving to highlight the ideological compromises underlying the coalition. There is a whiff of Weimar about British politics at the moment.
Thus the amendment’s exposure of the moral realities of coalition politics has served a good and truthful purpose.
Furthermore, the reaction to the reaction against the Dorries amendment has had a positive effect. The backing for her clause from Conservative Defence Secretary Liam Fox - and just as significantly the timing of his support - has boosted the independence of backbench MPs on issues of conscience.
As former Conservative Home Office Minister Ann Widdecombe wrote on ConservativeHome:
As long as there is a British Parliament, independently-minded MPs can use its processes to expose falsehood and tell the truth. It is worth considering that in a non-parliamentary regime run by a politically-correct incarnation of Joseph Stalin that would not be possible.
We desperately need more servants of Christ inspired by the truth of the gospel to defy cynicism and apathy about politics and to become MPs. Provided they are prepared to follow their consciences and sacrifice personal ambition they can by God's grace still do a great deal of good.
Within Parliament the bid by Conservative MP Nadine Dorries to amend the Health and Social Care Bill so as to break the pro-abortion lobby's stranglehold over counselling has had a significant effect.
The concerted political effort to sink the Dorries amendment has served to highlight the extent to which the Conservative Party has shifted from the Judaeo-Christian values that used to underpin it when it had a habit of winning elections. The letter from Conservative Health Minister Anne Milton last week telling MPs on the Government's payroll (including junior ministers and parliamentary private secretaries) that all health ministers were opposing the amendment was seen as an attempt at covert whipping in what has traditionally been a free vote issue.
The intervention backfired badly, only serving to highlight the ideological compromises underlying the coalition. There is a whiff of Weimar about British politics at the moment.
Thus the amendment’s exposure of the moral realities of coalition politics has served a good and truthful purpose.
Furthermore, the reaction to the reaction against the Dorries amendment has had a positive effect. The backing for her clause from Conservative Defence Secretary Liam Fox - and just as significantly the timing of his support - has boosted the independence of backbench MPs on issues of conscience.
As former Conservative Home Office Minister Ann Widdecombe wrote on ConservativeHome:
All pro-life Conservative MPs must be very grateful to Liam Fox for his public stand on the clause calling for independent counselling for women considering abortion. Liam – as we all know – has always been a courageous and clear-thinking fighter on any issue in which he has been involved. I, for one, was pretty confident that he would not toe the line on the Ann (sic) Milton memorandum calling on the Government payroll to vote for what she has chosen to describe as the Department of Health policy. To my mind it was undoubtedly backdoor whipping and decidedly in breach of the policy honourably held for over forty years by the Conservative Party.
As long as there is a British Parliament, independently-minded MPs can use its processes to expose falsehood and tell the truth. It is worth considering that in a non-parliamentary regime run by a politically-correct incarnation of Joseph Stalin that would not be possible.
We desperately need more servants of Christ inspired by the truth of the gospel to defy cynicism and apathy about politics and to become MPs. Provided they are prepared to follow their consciences and sacrifice personal ambition they can by God's grace still do a great deal of good.
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
JESUS DRIVEN OUT OF POLITICALLY-CORRECT PARADISE
"We are a very multi-cultural school and were we to mention Jesus it would exclude some of our students."
So said the president of the Association of School and College Leaders, herself a headteacher, on BBC national radio.
She was speaking after a Comres survey for BBC local radio found that 64 per cent of the 500 parents questioned said their child did not attend daily acts of collective worship. The survey also found that the majority of the adults questioned did not want the enforcement of the law requiring state schools to provide a daily act of mainly Christian worship.
There is no point fulminating about the lady's statement. It is more constructive to analyse it coolly.
This pronouncement by a high priestess of political correctness reveals precisely why, unless there is a radical change in the ideological trajectory of UK society, it will be morally impossible for the British State to tolerate the Christian voice in the public square.
In a multi-cultural society, a morality to which everyone can subscribe is required for the sake of community cohesion and the avoidance of conflict.
That is why the saving Name of the Lord Jesus must not be proclaimed. Some people might feel 'excluded' by any expression of reverence for God Incarnate. He is just too controversial.
So He must be excluded, driven out of this politically-correct Eden of community cohesion.
Which of course does not alter the fact that He is the glorious Lord of life; that He is building His Church; and that He is far too compelling a figure to be confined by the tedium and mediocrity of a neo-Stalinist cultural graveyard posing as an earthly paradise.
UK evangelical journalist Tim Thornborough has produced a piece of high quality journalism in the Australian magazine The Briefing. In the brilliantly titled 'Does the future have a church?' Mr Thornborough analyses the implications for evangelical ministry of the latest statistical research about the UK church scene.
So said the president of the Association of School and College Leaders, herself a headteacher, on BBC national radio.
She was speaking after a Comres survey for BBC local radio found that 64 per cent of the 500 parents questioned said their child did not attend daily acts of collective worship. The survey also found that the majority of the adults questioned did not want the enforcement of the law requiring state schools to provide a daily act of mainly Christian worship.
There is no point fulminating about the lady's statement. It is more constructive to analyse it coolly.
This pronouncement by a high priestess of political correctness reveals precisely why, unless there is a radical change in the ideological trajectory of UK society, it will be morally impossible for the British State to tolerate the Christian voice in the public square.
In a multi-cultural society, a morality to which everyone can subscribe is required for the sake of community cohesion and the avoidance of conflict.
That is why the saving Name of the Lord Jesus must not be proclaimed. Some people might feel 'excluded' by any expression of reverence for God Incarnate. He is just too controversial.
So He must be excluded, driven out of this politically-correct Eden of community cohesion.
Which of course does not alter the fact that He is the glorious Lord of life; that He is building His Church; and that He is far too compelling a figure to be confined by the tedium and mediocrity of a neo-Stalinist cultural graveyard posing as an earthly paradise.
UK evangelical journalist Tim Thornborough has produced a piece of high quality journalism in the Australian magazine The Briefing. In the brilliantly titled 'Does the future have a church?' Mr Thornborough analyses the implications for evangelical ministry of the latest statistical research about the UK church scene.
Friday, 2 September 2011
ABORTION: THE CHILDREN WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN BAPTISED
The painful reality has to be faced that many thousands of children 'terminated' in Britain through abortion since 1967 would have been baptised.
Taking into account the falling numbers of children being brought for baptism since the 1960s, it is nonetheless incontrovertible that the overwhelming majority of abortions in England and Wales are to mothers, both white and Afro-Caribbean, whose religious background, such as it is, would be Christian. Someone in their wider family, probably at the older end, would have been baptised in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
According to government statistics kindly supplied to Cranmer's Curate by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, of the 189,574 abortions to residents of England and Wales in 2010, 76 per cent of the women involved were white and nine per cent were black.
It is undeniable that the majority of 'Christian-background' children aborted last year, had they been allowed to live, would have grown up in a completely secular environment - what has been justly described as 'pre-Christian' Britain. But children aborted in the 1970s and 1980s, who would now be in adulthood, would have been much closer to Christian Britain. Many of their grandparents, if not their parents, would have been baptised.
It is therefore quite possible that some of them, through wider family or adoptive parental influence, could have come into contact with a local church through baptism. That is not to assert the erroneous doctrine of baptismal regeneration ex opere operato. But it is to state the fact of parochial life that children who get involved in Sunday schools very often come through the baptismal route.
That means some of these children could have learned the love of Christ in childhood; some of them could have owned Christian faith for themselves in adolescence and early adulthood and come to Confirmation; some of them could have become leaders in the Church and in society, serving the living Christ and their fellow men and women in our generation.
A revival of the Christian faith is the only hope for the renewal of British society whose profound spiritual and moral problems were so shamefully exposed by the August riots.
God’s created image-bearers – according to Psalm 139 fearfully and wonderfully knit together in their mothers’ wombs – who through the wonder of spiritual rebirth could have become part of the solution were cruelly cut off.
The devastating spiritual, moral and social cost of abortion is that it has deprived Britain of some great Christians.
This piece - Anti-Anglican attack on Sydney Diocese - appeared on VirtueOnline.
Taking into account the falling numbers of children being brought for baptism since the 1960s, it is nonetheless incontrovertible that the overwhelming majority of abortions in England and Wales are to mothers, both white and Afro-Caribbean, whose religious background, such as it is, would be Christian. Someone in their wider family, probably at the older end, would have been baptised in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
According to government statistics kindly supplied to Cranmer's Curate by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, of the 189,574 abortions to residents of England and Wales in 2010, 76 per cent of the women involved were white and nine per cent were black.
It is undeniable that the majority of 'Christian-background' children aborted last year, had they been allowed to live, would have grown up in a completely secular environment - what has been justly described as 'pre-Christian' Britain. But children aborted in the 1970s and 1980s, who would now be in adulthood, would have been much closer to Christian Britain. Many of their grandparents, if not their parents, would have been baptised.
It is therefore quite possible that some of them, through wider family or adoptive parental influence, could have come into contact with a local church through baptism. That is not to assert the erroneous doctrine of baptismal regeneration ex opere operato. But it is to state the fact of parochial life that children who get involved in Sunday schools very often come through the baptismal route.
That means some of these children could have learned the love of Christ in childhood; some of them could have owned Christian faith for themselves in adolescence and early adulthood and come to Confirmation; some of them could have become leaders in the Church and in society, serving the living Christ and their fellow men and women in our generation.
A revival of the Christian faith is the only hope for the renewal of British society whose profound spiritual and moral problems were so shamefully exposed by the August riots.
God’s created image-bearers – according to Psalm 139 fearfully and wonderfully knit together in their mothers’ wombs – who through the wonder of spiritual rebirth could have become part of the solution were cruelly cut off.
The devastating spiritual, moral and social cost of abortion is that it has deprived Britain of some great Christians.
This piece - Anti-Anglican attack on Sydney Diocese - appeared on VirtueOnline.
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