CHRISTIAN GENOCIDE

Here in the West we Christians get ourselves hot and bothered about such matters of concern as whether we should attend same-sex weddings, women in leadership positions or the type of worship music we use. Elsewhere in the world church life is dominated by different concerns. In Nigeria, a member of the Commonwealth and the country with the largest mixed Christian/Muslim population in the world, the main concern of Christians is how to avoid being murdered for their faith.

Christians Buried In Mass Grave

At least 52,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009, reports the International Society for Human Rights and the Rule of Law (Intersociety). Seventeen Christians a day were murdered for reasons related to their faith during the first half of 2020. According to Intersociety, roughly five million Christians have been displaced and forced into Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps within Nigeria and refugee camps at regional and sub-regional borders.

IT’S OVER – PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE

Too many Christians in the UK are living with an illusion. Let me tell you plainly: it’s over. The days of being a Christian country have gone, and they are not coming back any time soon. It is imperative that we grasp this. Instead of pretending we are living in a pale imitation of the past, we have to work out how to live in the present and prepare for the future.

I pray (literally) that there might be a recovery of both church and nation, that the Holy Spirit will sweep through the land and we will have godly leaders in church and state. In the meantime, until God does this, we Christians have to get our own house in order. Merely doing what we have always done in the hope that this time it will work is to embrace failure.

TO BLESS OR NOT TO BLESS

WHEREVER we look, the church continues to get itself tied in knots over same-sex weddings. We have seen the Pope get the entire Roman Catholic hierarchy at odds with itself over whether or not they should bless same sex-couples. Pope Francis issued a Vatican document, Fiducia Supplicans, which authorises priests to give spontaneous, non-liturgical blessings to couples in irregular situations, which includes same-sex couples.

Pope Francis

This naturally has caused a storm within Roman Catholicism: it has been rejected by the entire Catholic church in Africa, while in Europe LGBTQ-etc activists within the church see it as a watershed moment in their struggle for full recognition.

PERSECUTION BACKFIRES

Growth Means Opposition When Algeria gained its independence from France in 1962  Articles 29 and 36 of the Algerian Constitution allowed freedom of religion and missionary work. As a result more Algerians came to know Christ. This encouraged others in their faith in Jesus and to share it with their family and friends. Some went on to have important positions in society, including in the government, but there was a price to pay. 

Gendarmes Lock Algerian Church

FROM HEARTBREAK HOTEL TO HAZBIN HOTEL

I’m old enough to remember the outcry over Elvis. The appearance of the hip-swivelling singer was for some a harbinger of the downfall of society. We saw the same reaction to the emergence of Beatlemania. I can remember Mary Whitehouse and her opposition to the cultural revolution of the 60s which swept the West. And I can remember the derision, ridicule and even hatred she encountered.  How we atheists laughed: ‘Those crazy Christians, just because they don’t like something they want to stop everyone else from enjoying it.’ 

Today the early 60s seem a time of almost idyllic innocence and few can seriously say Mrs Whitehouse’s slippery slope prophecy was wrong. Fast forward to 2024 and just about every social value of that time has been bulldozed out of the way: we live in a society where morally anything goes with perhaps the exception of paedophilia (for the moment), and those ‘crazy Christians’ can be arrested when sharing their faith or praying on the street.

A GOSPELPHOBIC CHURCH

Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury and captain of the good ship Anglican, having steered the ship onto the rocks is bailing furiously in an attempt to stop the vessel from sinking. His officers meanwhile can only give one order ‘Full steam ahead’. Meanwhile most of the deckhands have taken to the lifeboats or jumped into the cold cold water, deserting the sinking ship however they can. The remaining tenacious few of the crew left behind are frantically trying to persuade the officers to alter course and patch the leaks.

Can A Badly Holed Vessel Be Made Seaworthy Again?

A Shrinking Church Despite the crying need of the great majority of Brits to hear the unvarnished gospel. Despite the longing of those few continuing to attend services in the CofE for worship which connects with their lives rather than the concerns of the editors of the Guardian and Pink News. Despite all the evidence of danger to the church, the officers keep on insisting, ‘Those aren’t rocks, it is clear calm water ahead.’

UKRAINIAN ATTACK ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

It is possible to see Russia as an imperialist aggressor in Ukraine and believe that Putin is a totalitarian despot with blood on his hands, while at the same time being critical of the West for using Ukraine to bait Russia and of the Zelenskyy government for the way it treats political opponents. Despite the human tendency to see ‘our’ side as the good guys, it is magical thinking to assume that one side wears black hats and the other white hats.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

When Volodymyr Zelenskyy unexpectedly became president in the 2019 elections, he immediately stated that he did not intend to interfere in the affairs of churches. But that was then. Today Zelenskyy faces real pressure, not just from the Russians but from political opposition from within Ukraine. As well as consolidating the television platforms under state control and banning opposition political parties, Zelenskyy is now going after the church.

HOW PROGRESSIVES GET MARRIAGE WRONG

Is Marriage Worth It? For the Christian, the marriage of a man and a woman leading on to the family of father, mother and children is the core unit of society. Therefore it is hardly surprising that marriage comes under attack from progressive opinion-formers. The question asked by progressives is: ‘Marriage brings a lot of harmful baggage that needs to be negated, overcome and defeated – is marriage worth it?’ From a radical feminist perspective the answer appears obvious.

This attitude is not confined to the ultra-woke. The broken marriage and the dysfunctional family are staples of modern drama and literature, and when a man and a woman do find happiness with each other marriage is rarely mentioned. When heterosexual marriage is mentioned, it is often portrayed as humdrum and tedious, something from which to escape into a more interesting life.

WHAT THEN SHOULD WE DO?

As we face another year, it is a good time to ask ourselves what our priorities should be.

A Sinking Society We cannot escape the fact that the United Kingdom really is post-Christian, and not only post-Christian, but post-liberal. Like the rest of the West, the UK has undergone a vicious assault on reason and tradition. What was once a liberal, tolerant society which sought to build communities has become censorious and intolerant with self-interest reigning supreme, resulting in a society where anything goes and nothing works.

It is possible to argume that the UK is post-liberal precisely because it is post-Christian. Lacking the guidance and restraint of Christianity, liberalism has degenerated into progressivism, an ideological derangement motivated by contempt for the past whilst lacking a rational direction for the future. A coherent moral consensus within a well-grounded community is totally absent and as a result we witness moral chaos, a lack of creative thought and an increasingly narrow-minded society. In the space of a single generation, Western liberalism has degenerated into a cultural suicide cult.

A PAINFUL CHOICE

Last Sunday Catherine Bond and Jane Pearce, a lesbian couple who are both priestesses in the Church of England and who both have children from previous marriages to men, received the first formal blessing of a same-sex partnership in a C of E service. 

The Rev Andrew Dotchin who prayed over them claims that ‘Their love helps them to be more faithful Christians, and their love helps other people to understand that God is generous and no one is left outside.’