CHRISTIAN RESISTANCE Pt 1

A Rival Religion

We repeatedly witness new, alarming, and sometimes bizarre examples of woke culture. From demands that free speech be curtailed for fear someone’s feelings are hurt, to unscientific assertions that there are countless genders and the consequent insistence on weird pronouns, or that Drag Queen Story Hour is for the good of children.

As well as reacting to specific incidents we should also step back and view the big picture. To resist any movement it is important to understand its underlying beliefs and motivation. Christians must realise that in confronting progressivism we are not face to face with a political ideology destroying Western culture piece by piece, but with a rival religion ultimately determined to supplant the Christianity which has given us Western culture.

REVOLUTIONARY LANGAUAGE

If you want to change a society, the most efficient way is not with guns and tanks but with a dictionary.

Progressives know the power of language and they prioritise it in their efforts to restructure society. Change the language and you change the way people think, change the way people think and you change the way people act, change the way people act and you have changed society; all without firing a shot. It takes longer than a violent revolution but it is much more effective and longer lasting.

TWO WORLD-VIEWS COLLIDE

Clash of World-Views

‘You Christians, especially evangelicals, are sex-obsessed. Why are you so concerned with what goes on in other people’s bedrooms?’ So goes the familiar response as soon as a Christian speaks up about any one of a multitude of subjects such as same-sex marriage, pornography and drag queen story hour.

We should ask why grown men want to dress as women and interact with young children

Economics and foreign policy are so passé. In politics today the issues which split people centre around sex. Reproduction, abortion, homosexuality, what constitutes a family, pornography, sex education, even what constitutes a sex itself are all hot-button issues. The UK’s decriminalisation of homosexual sex in 1967 was the key which opened the door to the progressive onslaught. Today sex has become the battering ram which progressives use in their campaign to fundamentally change biblically based Western culture.

SCOTLAND: POISONOUS POLITICS

Scottish politics, particularly within parties, has never been renowned for kindness and reasoned discussion. When our natural disposition to argumentativeness is combined with the culture war and spiced up with a hearty dose of religious bigotry, we present an even more unedifying sight than usual. Not for nothing is the irascible Groundskeeper Willie in The Simpsons portrayed as a Scot. Looking at Scottish politics I sometimes think he was forced to emigrate because all the other Scots thought him too much of a wimp.

‘Brothers and sisters are natural enemies. Like Englishmen and Scots. Or Welshmen and Scots. Or Japanese and Scots. Or Scots and other Scots. Damn Scots, they ruined Scotland.’

The fight for the leadership of the Scottish National Party, now in full feral swing, shows Scots at their very worst. Since Nicola Sturgeon abandoned the ship which she steered on to the rocks of intransigent transgender insanity, we have three candidates to succeed her: Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes and Ash Regan.

THE WHITE ROSE

Eighty years ago today, on Monday, February 22, 1943, three young Christians were led from their cells in Munich’s Stadelheim Prison to an execution chamber. There Hans Scholl (24), his sister Sophie (21) and their friend Christoph Probst (22) were decapitated by guillotine. It is invidious to compare acts of courage, but the moral and physical bravery of these young Christians humbles us all. 

Hans and Sophie Scholl with Christoph Probst

THE BIBLE: KEY TO FAMILY LIFE

It’s very easy to point at the things which particularly concern us and declare with great conviction, ‘This is the reason why we are witnessing the disintegration of society’. If we make claims like this we should be prepared to back them up.

To put my cards on the table, I happen to believe that the majority of suffering and wretchedness in our society could be cured if people would accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and allow Him to refashion their lives. A major positive impact would be that we would abandon the secular world-view which has brought about the disintegration of the family, and instead adopt God’s biblical standard for marriage and family life. Even if people were not converted to Christ but only attempted to follow the Bible’s teaching outwardly, there would be a marked alteration for the better in human behaviour.

THE COST OF FAMILY DESTRUCTION

The facts are undeniable, which means that when uncomfortable they are ignored. The assault on the traditional family unit of father, mother and children has brought with it an increase in avoidable social harm, especially for children. It is not as though the statistics have not been readily available, but facts cannot be allowed to get in the way of progressive ideology.

The Cost to Children of Family Breakdown

The UK has one of the highest rates of family breakdown in the developed world. What is ignored by progressives who discount the traditional family is that while cohabiting (as opposed to married) parents account for only 20.7 per cent of couples, they contribute to 51.4 per cent of family breakdowns.

THE ATTACK ON THE FAMILY

The first of a three part look at the importance of the family.

To destroy something totally you need to undermine its foundations; when the foundations are gone the rest of the structure falls.

According to Lenin, who should know, destruction requires two elements: a small group of vanguard thinkers who are convinced they know better than everyone else, and a much larger group of fellow travellers who don’t really understand the vanguard’s endgame, the people Lenin termed ‘useful idiots’. This is the situation we face in the West today, the destruction of society as we know it.

Christians should be especially aware of this. The family, which constitutes the foundational social structure of the West, is built around a specifically Christian understanding of life, as I hope to show in Part 3.

THE BISHOPS OR THE BIBLE

How does a denomination respond when it faces a potentially fatal split? The Church of England’s answer is a frantic fudge.

The fudge satisfies no one and only prolongs the agony of a denomination at war with itself

At their meeting next month the most contentious issue facing the CofE’s governing body, the General Trustees, will be same-sex marriage. Many are vociferously pressing for the church to solemnise such marriages, others are unequivocally opposed. Despite what the newspapers report, same-sex marriage is only the presenting symptom: underneath there is an unbridgeable theological divide.

THE DESTRUCTION OF WOMANHOOD

Throughout human history and for the majority of people today, especially those outside the West, the concept of men and women having beautifully different and yet complimentary identities rooted in their biological make up has been uncontroversial. We have accepted and enjoyed the reality of human diversity. However, today in our confused culture there is both an increasing polarisation between the sexes which goes hand in hand with a contrary move to deny any fundamental difference between them.

THE WORLD’S MOST TOTALITARIAN CONVERSION THERAPY BAN

Scotland has become a progressive Petri dish where woke ideas are cultivated, brought to virulent reality and let loose on the public.

Wishing to create a new criminal offence of attempting to change a person’s sexuality or gender identity, Scotland’s SNP/Green administration established an Expert Advisory Group on Ending Conversion Practices (EAG). The resulting EAG ‘Report and Recommendations’ outlines 32 ‘guiding principles’ which, if implemented in a Bill to be presented to the Scottish Parliament later this year, could prohibit practices such as talking therapies, parental chats, prayer and preaching.

If these recommendations are passed into law this year Scotland is going to become a dangerous place for concerned parents and Christians.

The Christian Institute warns: ‘If the Scottish government follows the advice of its Expert Advisory Group it will be exceeding its powers and inflicting the most totalitarian conversion therapy ban in the world.’ The Scottish government welcomed the report.

THE CofE’s LEADERSHIP VACUUM

We all have opinions regarding leadership styles, from Sir Alex Ferguson to the Dalai Lama. My preferred leaders are boringly competent rather than charismatically exciting.

Our society faces increasing internal division and economic hardship. More importantly, we see the benefits of Christian-based Western civilisation being trampled underfoot. Unfortunately when we look to today’s leaders in church and politics they seem to embody the ‘boring’ whilst missing out the ‘competent’.

Justin Welby Archbishop of Canterbury

The greatest controversy facing the Church of England, the UK’s largest and most influential denomination, is the issue of same-sex marriage. Should the CofE bless or even permit homosexual marriages in church?

TRANSGENDER THREAT TO WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Tomorrow the Scottish Parliament will debate, and very possibly approve, the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. This Bill will allow anyone to be given a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), which recognises a change of gender, purely on self-identification without any medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

This Bill . . . a powerful new weapon which predatory men will exploit to harm women and girls

The Bill would establish the criterion for legal status of sex as a matter of simple self-declaration of ‘gender identity’. If passed, the Bill will erode the scientific, biological basis for the protected characteristic ‘sex’. All rights and protections of women and girls as the female sex will be affected. The legal and cultural definition of ‘woman’ will be changed from a person who is of the female sex to a person of either sex who has a feeling of being a woman. 

CHRISTIANS FEAR ETHNIC CLEANSING

The Armenian Christians of the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh face yet another threat to their existence. Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh, is a mountainous and landlocked region in the South Caucasus. Its population is nearly 100 per cent Christian ethnic Armenian, members of the oldest Christian nation on earth (301 AD). They are surrounded by Azerbaijan which is 99.2 percent Muslim, with only one road connecting them to Armenia.

The Christian Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh have justified fears of ethnic cleansing at the hands of Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Armenians were the victims of genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turkey between 1915/16, with further massacres and ethnic cleansing of the Armenian survivors carried out by the Turkish nationalist movement after World War I. Today the Christian Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh face another possible genocide, at the hands of Azerbaijan and modern-day Turkey.

WHY DO SJW’s HATE CHRISTIANS?

Jesus tells us that if the world hates us, we should remember that it hated him first (John 15:18f), and that we are not of the world. But why does the world hate Jesus? He was goodness personified, he taught how to live a good life, he showed compassion and understanding, he gave sight to the blind and even raised the dead. Why hate one who lived like this? Because he testified that the world’s works are evil (John 7:7). Why do progressive social justice warriors (SJWs) constantly attack Christians? Because they’re afraid we’ll derail their project.

SJWs want to enforce political, social and intellectual group-think, and to do so they target Christians. This isn’t because they think we can be brushed aside easily: it’s because they recognise that Christians are the only genuine roadblock to their total triumph.

It’s not old-style persecution; we aren’t being thrown to the lions. We do face job losses, harassment and social stigma. Christians, especially Evangelicals, are the sole minority it’s socially acceptable to scorn and marginalise. Ordinary rules of civility and social inclusion don’t seem to apply to those who believe in biblical teaching. 

THE NEW RELIGION SHAPINGTHE WEST

In the Middle Ages there were no nation states. Instead, there were competing and interlocked feudal power blocs ruled by upper classes identifying with each other. The elite spoke the same language, had the same interests, shared the same culture. The peasants and serfs they ruled were of no account.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, ‘The more things change, the more they remain the same.’ Today another elite leadership rules businesses, universities, the media and governments. Having little attachment to the people, local traditions and cultures where they live, they are creating a global civilisation shaped by their values and technocratic beliefs.

SOCIAL JUSTICE IS CORROSIVE

Many Christians, especially young Christians, have been persuaded by constant media pressure and some Christian leaders to embrace ‘social justice’ as the outworking of the Christian faith. They may be sincere, but such Christians fail to realise they’re importing into the church a corrosive ideology destructive of biblical Christianity. Despite a surface similarity, social justice is diametrically opposed to biblical justice.

Christ’s Call To Justice Christ’s followers are called to confront evil, to care for the vulnerable and to make right that which is wrong. This is no cultural fad: throughout the Old and New Testaments, God’s call that we do justice is consistent. Psalm 82:2, Proverbs 3:27-28, Isaiah 1:17, Micah 6:8, Zechariah 7:8-10, Luke 11:42, 1 John 3:17; this message appears again and again.