DECLINE AND FALL

There are many good and godly men and women in the Church of England who simply want to worship and serve God as best they can in the way their parents did. There are ministers whose preaching and teaching has enriched us and whose books Christians read with profit. Such Christians have been betrayed by their denomination.

Sadly today the CofE, an institution which has been of inestimable benefit to Christians across the globe, has been captured by woke ideological extremists who appear determined to set the Church on a course leading to gross doctrinal error and institutional suicide. All this with the support of the liberal bishops and the middle-of-the-road clergy.

LIVING IN AN ALIEN WORLD Pt 2

How do we face life in a culture which is increasingly moving from indifference to the Christian faith to outright opposition? A world where orthodox Christians have less and less trust in the institutional mainstream church? The question we must face is how do we live faithfully as a small minority in an environment which is sometimes antagonistic, sometimes friendly, but always alien?

In ‘The Benedict Option’ Rod Dreher, as an Orthodox Christian, found his pattern in the lives of the saints, those Christians who lived the faith under fierce communist oppression. As someone steeped in Reformed theology I, like most of my readers, find my pattern in the Bible. In the inspired recording of the lives of those who faced a similar question: how to survive in an alien culture and maintain the faith.

PROPHETS OF FRAGMENTATION

In the West we live in a culture which teaches us to scorn what was once considered normal and to value and praise that which only yesterday was thought to be abnormal or even dangerous. Those things which once bound us together, such as love of country and tradition, are despised and those things which force us apart such as multiculturalism and the transgressive are held up as ultimate values.

Diversity is a good only when there is an underlying cohesion within society. A society which places the exceptional and divergent at the core of its identity is a society in the process of fragmenting. If we fail to celebrate that which holds us together we will inevitably split apart. Which is what is increasingly happening around us today. Yeats warned us that when ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.’

LIVING IN AN ALIEN WORLD PT.1

Most Christians live in blissful ignorance of the reality of Eph. 6:12 that in a rapidly re-paganising West we are in the midst of spiritual and moral warfare. This spiritual struggle around us is going to metastasise massively, and the only way to survive as Christians is to draw in deep to the faith, and to a community of the faithful, to take refuge in God and his people.

Toxic Environment In our post-Christian society, practices which once were the province of dubious characters and were conducted under threat of criminal sanction are now socially legitimised big businesses. There was a time when society saw it as its responsibility to protect people from such harms through bans or restrictions and by the power of social condemnation. Those days are long gone. What was condemned is now celebrated, and our government is a major player.

A FAITHFUL REMNANT

On Life Support Recently a friend, a leader in his denomination, recounted an experience he had in hospital. In the next bed was a gravely ill elderly man. One morning while being given a bed bath he collapsed. The nurse repeatedly pressed the alarm bell to summon help. The alarm didn’t function. The nurse began calling for help. My friend jumped up, rushed into the corridor and called a nurse from the nurses’ station. Within a couple of minutes the ward was flooded with nurses and doctors. A crash cart was wheeled in as they tried to resuscitate the patient, but without success. The elderly man had died.

Any dispassionate examination of the health of the institutional church in the UK today would have to admit that it is on life support and the prognosis is bleak. The symptoms are all there, my friend said; ‘we see slow decline, congregations dissolved, small, faithful groups of believers labouring for the Lord, but minimal conversion fruit, a dearth of younger families and an ageing profile of church membership.’

A BLOCKHEADED INTERVENTION

The wokes of the UK should be down on their bended knees thanking whatever it is they worship for Lee Anderson MP. With one clumsy statement he got them off the hook. By saying that Sadiq Khan, the Muslim mayor of London, is ‘controlled’ by Islamists, he managed to refocus the debate. What had been under discussion was the effect of Islamists in our midst threatening Parliament and browbeating MPs. There was a chance, however small, that we might get some serious discussion of one of the major problems facing Britain today.

Lee Anderson

That chance vanished as soon as Anderson clumsily inserted himself into the debate like a bulldozer in a glass factory. Now the progressives had the perfect opportunity to go overboard about ‘Islamophobia’, and they grabbed it with both hands. Broadcast and print media overflowed with condemnation of ‘Islamophobia’. One could almost hear the sighs of relief in the corridors of the BBC as they dropped discussion of threats to Parliament and re-focused on Anderson’s hurty words. Conservative politicians rushed to prove their right-on credentials by condemning Anderson, not for his inept intervention, but for ‘Islamophobia’. Anderson had the whip removed and was cast out into the political wilderness.

APPEASMENT PAYS A PRICE

Fear In Parliament On Wednesday it came home to roost. What the public have known for years, Parliament has now experienced. We have witnessed the Speaker of the House breaking parliamentary convention because of security threats to MPs from Muslims. We cannot avoid the truth: MPs are in fear of Muslim mobs and are voting accordingly. The time for soft words is long gone and we must speak clearly.

The Guardian reports that the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer warned Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle ‘that Labour MPs’ security was at risk. With hundreds of protesters congregating outside parliament, they worried worse might be to come’.

A HERO FOR OUR TIME

Alexei Navalny, one of the heroes of our time, died in a prison camp of Vladimir Putin, one of the villains of our time. Many thousands of words have been written in the West about the death of Alexei Navalny. But amongst the outpouring of outrage from the West, little has been mentioned about this remarkable man’s Christian motivation.

Alexei Navalny

Despite having been imprisoned on fictitious charges, released and then poisoned with Novichok nerve agent requiring treatment in the West, Navalny had returned to Russia. The 47-year-old anti-corruption activist and politician who had organised anti-government protests and had millions of YouTube followers suddenly fell unconscious after a walk in the brutal ‘Polar Wolf’ Arctic Circle penal colony. He died on February 16. 

LIVING UNDER OCCUPATION

Triumph of Progressivism As 1940 began, the French were confident. They were at war with Nazi Germany but they had a large navy, army and air force, they sheltered behind the impregnable Maginot Line, and their allies the British had sent troops. France felt secure. On May 10 Germany invaded and Paris fell on June 14. France was either under Nazi occupation or run by the collaborationist Vichy regime. The swastika, the emblem of the conqueror, flew over Paris.

Today the Pride flag flies outside many churches, sometimes even draped on the altar inside. Symbols matter, and this symbol denies God’s established order as revealed in Scripture and all that the church has taught concerning human sexuality for two thousand years. Instead it flaunts the great lie, that we can be as gods rejecting His having created us man and woman. Flying this flag is not a way of saying that LGBT people are welcome in the church: it is a way of saying that Christians holding to the truth of Scripture are not welcome. The only people attracted to the church by such a display are those who want to transform, even destroy, the church.

A SMALLL BAND

Responses The post ‘It’s Over – Prepare For The Future’ provoked interesting responses on the blog, where it was published elsewhere, and privately.  Perhaps the most perceptive response came in a personal email from Kathy Gyngell, editor of TCW Defending Freedom: ‘I think it is fundamentally about understanding humility – the understanding we cannot change other people, we can only change ourselves while never underestimating the impact that alone can have on others. 

‘I was thinking about Christian survival through the last “dark ages” recently myself and the role of monks.

‘It will once again be a small band of brothers (and sisters!) I fear. It’s hard. More hymn singing could help at a practical level – unifying and strengthening!’