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DPP could cause ‘constitutional crisis’ on assisted suicide

Assisted suicide (Euthanasia) guidelines laid out by Keir Starmer Director of Public Prosecutions

Assisted suicide: The worm has turned – The response to the Director of Public Prosecutions’ “guidelines” for when assisted suicides in England and Wales won’t be prosecuted has been almost universally hostile.

New legal guidance on assisted suicide has succeeded only in taking our country down a literal dead-end of ever-increasing darkness, though obviously the idea was to make things clearer for those contemplating this awful step.

Dial 911 for suicide assistance?

Assisted suicide: retired GP faces arrest for giving ‘final tips’ to MS sufferer – An 83-year-old retired GP (Dr Libby Wilson) expects to become the first person to be arrested since the publication of new guidelines on assisted suicide, after disclosing that she gave advice to a terminally ill academic about taking her own life.

The Christian Post

From Third Sector

Scout groups, churches and amateur sports clubs have won their battle against the controversial ‘rain tax’.

Environment secretary Hilary Benn MP announced yesterday that the Government would step in to halt large increases in charges for surface water drainage for voluntary and community groups by legislating to allow water companies to run concessionary schemes for them.

Some community organisations faced increases in water bills of several hundred per cent under a charging regime for surface water drainage based on the size of premises rather than rateable value.

Water regulator Ofwat had advised that concessionary charges would be discriminatory.

Martin Dales, spokesman for pressure group DontDrainUs.org, which fought the tax on behalf of charities, churches and clubs, welcomed legislation that he said would allow volunteers to use the money they raised for the charitable purposes they existed to provide.

“It is grossly unfair that churchwardens, sports club treasurers and scout leaders have had to bear the intolerable burden of these bills, which has affected their ability to provide services for their members.”

An Ofwat spokesman said the regulator welcomed the Government’s move. “The devil is in the detail and we will work closely with ministers to ensure all customers get a fair deal,” he said.

The new legislation will form part of the Flood and Water Management Bill in the next session of Parliament.

Previous Related Posts

THE Catholic Church last night dealt a blow to Government hopes of its outright support for the Lisbon Treaty. The hierarchy has decided not to align themselves for or against the treaty, but assured Catholics that they are free in conscience to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

A leading Czech pro-life group has urged Irish voters to reject the Lisbon Treaty in their upcoming second referendum, saying a Yes vote will threaten the Irish constitutional guarantees for the unborn. In fact, if the Irish vote Yes in October, the group says, national laws protecting human life in all EU member states could be overturned.

Battle Lines Drawing up in Ireland’s Second Lisbon Treaty Referendum – With 43 days to the second Irish referendum on Lisbon, and with the government with almost unlimited public funds already campaigning heavily for a Yes, No campaigners on both sides of the political divide have launched a strong counter-offensive.

Lisbon Treaty Will Force Abortion into Ireland through EU Charter of Human Rights

Article from Biased BBC

One of the biggest failings of the BBC is bias by omission. That is, they conveniently ignore the issues that really matter because they don’t accord with the BBC mindset. An organisation that spends £800m a year on newsgathering – probably the biggest operation of its kind anywhere in the world – fritters the money away.

Take coverage of the EU, for example. Five years ago, the Wilson report damned the corporation’s analysis of EU affairs as narrow, boring annd unchallenging. The BBC responded by saying – as it always does when criticised – that it’s coverage was actually OK, but even so it would do better.

Spool forward to today. The Lisbon Treaty remains a matter of massive controversy which millions of people in England – as the recent EU poll showed – think is a major step towards a tyranny that they don’t want. So how does the BBC cover steps towards its ratification? By providing measured, in depth debate, as it promised? Not a bit of it.

On BBC1 Breakfast Time this morning an item on the Irish vote on Lisbon was sandwiched between coverage of the cervical cancer scare and – far more important – a lengthy item on the importance of dog-tagging. The Irish piece boiled down to a soundbite from a fish and chip shop owner who was intending to vote ‘yes’ and a fisherman who would say’no’. In between, a bland BBC reporter told us that the reason that Ireland was voting yes was because of the recession. And that was it.

Nothing about the implications of the vote, the claims of vote-rigging by Brussels, or the lies being told about the Treaty. No attempt to show the importance to people’s lives, or to do anything but the bare minimum.

This is what the BBC’s £800m news operation now routinely does. Items of major importance are reduced to their lowest, most simplistic, denomininator, while other matters its judges closer to people’s lives (like dog-tagging) are elevated to inflated over-importance. The BBC sold its soul to the EU years ago, and while Britain moves inexorably towards being a satellite vassal state of Brussels, its journalists sit on their hands refusing to analyse the issues that matter. “Bias by ommission” indeed.

“Without shedding of blood is no remission.” Hebrews 9:22

I WILL show you three fools. One is yonder soldier, who has been
wounded on the field of battle, grievously wounded, well nigh unto death;
the surgeon is by his side, and the soldier asks him a question.- Listen, and
judge of his folly. What question does he ask? Does he raise his eyes with
eager anxiety and inquire if the wound be mortal, if the practitioner’s skill
can suggest the means of healing, or if the remedies are within reach and
the medicine at hand? No, nothing of the sort; strange to tell, he asks, “Can
you inform me with what sword I was wounded, and by what Russian I
have been thus grievously mauled? I want,” he adds, “to learn every minute
particular respecting the origin of my wound.” The man is delirious or his
head is affected. Surely such questions at such a time are proof enough that
he is bereft of his senses.

There is another fool. The storm is raging, the ship is flying impetuous
before the gale, the dark scud moves swiftly over head, the masts are
creaking, the sails are rent to rags, and still the gathering tempest grows
more fierce. Where is the captain? Is he busily engaged on the deck, is he
manfully facing the danger, and skilfully suggesting means to avert it? No
sir, he has retired to his cabin, and there with studious thoughts and crazy
fancies he is speculating on the place where this storm took its rise. “It is
mysterious, this wind; no one ever yet” he says, “has been able to discover
it.” And, so reckless of the vessel, the lives of the passengers, and his own
life, he is careful only to solve his curious questions. The man is mad, sir;
take the rudder from his hand; he is clean gone mad! If he should ever run
on shore, shut him up as a hopeless lunatic.

The third fool I shall doubtless find among yourselves. You are sick and
wounded with sin, you are in the storm and hurricane of Almighty
vengeance, and yet the question which you would ask of me, this morning,
would be, “Sir, what is the origin of evil?” You are mad, Sir, spiritually
mad; that is not the question you would ask if you were in a sane and
healthy state of mind; your question would be: “How can I get rid of the
evil?” Not, “How did it come into the world?” but “How am I to escape
from it?” Not, “How is it that hail descends from heaven upon Sodom?”
but “How may I, like Lot, escape out of the city to a Zoar.” Not, “How is
it that I am sick?” but “Are there medicines that will heal me? Is there a
physician to be found that can restore my soul to health?” Ah! you trifle
with subtleties while you neglect certainties. More questions have been
asked concerning the origin of evil than upon anything else. Men have
puzzled their heads, and twisted their brains into knots, in order to
understand what men can never know — how evil came into this world,
and how its entrance is consistent with divine goodness? The broad fact is
this, there is evil; and your question should be, “How can I escape from the
wrath to come, which is engendered of this evil?” In answering that
question this verse stands right in the middle of the way (like the angel with
the sword, who once stopped Balaam on his road to Barak,) “Without
shedding of blood is no remission.” Your real want is to know how you
can be saved; if you are aware that your sin must be pardoned or punished,
your question will be, “How can it be pardoned?” and then point blank in
the very teeth of your enquiry, there stands out this fact: “Without
shedding of blood there is no remission.” Mark you, this is not merely a
Jewish maxim; it is a world-wide and eternal truth. It pertaineth not to the
Hebrews only, but to the Gentiles likewise. Never in any time, never in any
place, never in any person, can there be remission apart from shedding of
blood. This great fact, I say, is stamped on nature; it is an essential law of
God’s moral government, it is one of the fundamental principles which can
neither be shaken nor denied. Never can there be any exception to it; it
stands the same in every place throughout all ages — “Without shedding of
blood there is no remission.” It was so with the Jews; they had no
remission without the shedding of blood. Some things under the Jewish law
might be cleansed by water or by fire, but in no case where absolute sin
was concerned was there ever purification without blood — teaching this
doctrine, that blood, and blood alone, must be applied for the remission of
sin. Indeed the very heathen seem to have an inkling of this fact. Do not I
see their knives gory with the blood of victims? Have I not heard horrid
tales of human immolations, of holocausts, of sacrifices; and what mean
these, but that there lies deep in the human breast, deep as the very
existence of man, this truth, — “that without shedding of blood there is no
remission.” And I assert once more, that even in the hearts and consciences
of my hearers there is something which will never let them believe in
remission apart from a shedding of blood. This is the grand truth of
Christianity, and it is a truth which I will endeavor now to fix upon your
memory; and may God by his grace bless it to your souls. “Without
shedding of blood is no remission.”

First, let me show you the blood-shedding, before I begin to dwell upon
the text. Is there not a special blood-shedding meant? Yes, there was a
shedding of most precious blood, to which I must forthwith refer you. I
shall not tell you now of massacres and murders, nor of rivers of blood of
goats and rams. There was a blood-shedding once, which did all other
shedding of blood by far outvie; it was a man — a God — that shed his
blood at that memorable season. Come and see it. Here is a garden dark
and gloomy; the ground is crisp with the cold frost of midnight; between
those gloomy olive trees I see a man, I hear him groan out his life in
prayer; hearken, angels,hearken men, and wonder; it is the Savior groaning
out his soul! Come and see him. Behold his brow! O heavens! drops of
blood are streaming down his face, and from his body; every pore is open,
and it sweats! but not the sweat of men that toil for bread; it is the sweat of
one that toils for heaven — he “sweats great drops of blood!” That is the
blood-shedding, without which there is no remission. Follow that man
further; they have dragged him with sacrilegious hands from the place of
his prayer and his agony, and they have taken him to the hall of Pilate; they
seat him in a chair and mock him; a robe of purple is put on his shoulders
in mockery; and mark his brow — they have put about it a crown of
thorns, and the crimson drops of gore are rushing down his cheeks! Ye
angels! the drops of blood are running down his cheeks! But turn aside that
purple robe for a moment. His back is bleeding. Tell me, demons who did
this. They lift up the thongs, still dripping clots of gore; they scourge and
tear his flesh, and make a river of blood to run down his shoulders! That is
the shedding of blood without which there is no remission. Not yet have I
done: they hurry him through the streets; they fling him on the ground; they
nail his hands and feet to the transverse wood, they hoist it in the air, they
dash it into its socket, it is fixed, and there he hangs the Christ of God.
Blood from his head, blood from his hands, blood from his feet! In agony
unknown he bleeds away his life; in terrible throes he exhausts his soul.
“Eloi, Eloi, lame sabacthani.” And then see! they pierce his side, and
forthwith runneth out blood and water. This is the shedding of blood,
sinners and saints; this is the awful shedding of blood, the terrible pouring
out of blood, without which for you, and for the whole human race, there
is no remission.

I have thee, I hope, brought my text fairly out: without this shedding of
blood there is no remission. Now I shall come to dwell upon it more
particularly.

Why is it that this story cloth not make men weep? I told it ill, you say. Ay,
so I did; I will take all the blame. But, sirs, if it were told as ill as men
could speak, were our hearts what they should be, we should bleed away
our lives in sorrow. Oh! it was a horrid murder that! It was not an act of
regicide; it was not the deed of a fratricide, or of a parricide; it was —
what shall I say? — I must make a word — a deicide; the killing of a God;
the slaying of him who became incarnate for our sins. Oh! if our hearts
were but soft as iron, we must weep, if they were but tender as the marble
of the mountains, we should shed great drops of grief; but they are harder
than the nether millstone; we forget the griefs of him that died this
ignominious death, we pity not his sorrows, nor do we account the interest
we have in him as though he suffered and accomplished all for us.

Nevertheless, here stands the principle — “Without shedding of blood is no
remission.”

Now, I take it, there are two things here. First, there is a negative
expressed: “No remission without shedding of blood.” And then there is a
positive implied, forsooth, with shedding of blood there is remission.
I. First, I say, here is A NEGATIVE EXPRESSION: there is no remission
without blood — without the blood of Jesus Christ. This is of divine
authority; when I utter this sentence I have divinity to plead. It is not a
thing which you may doubt, or which you may believe; it must be believed
and received, otherwise you have denied the Scriptures and turned aside
from God. Some truths I utter, perhaps, have little better basis than my
own reasoning and inference, which are of little value enough, but this I
utter, not with quotations from God’s Word to back up my assertion, but
from the lips of God himself. Here it stands in great letters, “There is no
remission.” So divine its authority. Perhaps you will kick at it: but
remember, your rebellion is not against me, but against God. If any of you
reject this truth, I shall not controvert; God forbid I should turn aside from
proclaiming his gospel, to dispute with men. I have God’s irrevocable
statute to plead now, here it stands: “Without shedding of blood there is no
remission.” You may believe or disbelieve many things the preacher utters;
but this you disbelieve at the peril of your souls. It is God’s utterance: will
you tell God to his face you do not believe it? That were impious. The
negative is divine in its authority; bow yourselves to it. And accept its
solemn warning.

But some men will say that God’s way of saving men, by shedding of
blood, is a cruel way, an unjust way, an unkind way; and all kinds of things
they will say of it. Sirs, I have nothing to do with your opinion of the
matter; it is so. If you have any faults to find with your Maker, fight your
battles out with him at last. But take heed before you throw the gauntlet
down; it will go ill with a worm when he fighteth with his Maker, and it
will go ill with you when you contend with him. The doctrine of atonement
when rightly understood and faithfully received, is delightful, for it exhibits
boundless love, immeasurable goodness, and infinite truth; but to
unbelievers it will always be a hated doctrine. So it must be sirs; you hate
your own mercies; you despise your own salvation. I tarry not to dispute
with you: I affirm it in God’s name: “Without shedding of blood there is no
remission.”

And note how decisive this is in its character: “Without shedding of blood
there is no remission.” “But, sir, can’t I get my sins forgiven by my
repentance? if I weep, and plead, end prey, will not God forgive me for the
sake of my tears?” “No remission,” says the text, “without shedding of
blood.” “But, sir, if I never sin again, and if I serve God more zealously
than other men, will he not forgive me for the sake of my obedience?” “No
remission,” says the text, “without shedding of blood.” “But, sir, may I not
trust that God is merciful, and will forgive me without the shedding of
blood?” “No,” says the text, “without shedding of blood there is no
remission ;” none whatever. It cuts off every other hope. Bring your hopes
here, and if they are not based in blood, and stamped with blood, they are
as useless as castles in the air, and dreams of the night. “There is no
remission,” says the text, in positive and plain words; and yet men will be
trying to get remission in fifty other ways, until their special pleading
becomes as irksome to us as it is useless for them. Sirs, do what you like,
say what you please, but you are as far off remission when you have done
your best, as you were when you began, except you put confidence in the
shedding of our Saviour’s blood, and in the blood-shedding alone, for
without it there is no remission.

And note again how universal it is in its character. “What I may not get
remission without blood-shedding?” says the king, and he comes with the
crown on his head; “May not I in all my robes, with this rich ransom, get
pardon without the blood-shedding?” “None,” is the reply; “none.”
Forthwith comes the wise man, with a number of letters after his name —
“Can I not get remission by these grand titles of my learning?” “None;
none.” Then comes the benevolent man — “I have dispersed my money to
the poor, and given my bounty to feed them; shall not I get remission?
“None;” says the text, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.”
How this puts everyone on a level! My lord, you are no bigger than your
coachman. Sir, squire, you are no better off than John that ploughs the
ground; minister, your office does not serve you with any exemption —
your poorest hearer stands on the very same footing. “Without shedding of
blood there is no remission.” No hope for the best, any more than for the
worst, without this shedding of blood . Oh! I love the gospel, for this
reason among others, because it is such a levelling gospel. Some persons
do not like a levelling gospel; nor would I, in some senses of the word. Let
men have their rank, and their titles, and their riches, if they will; but I do
like, and I am sure all good men like, to see rich and poor meet together
and feel that they are on a level; the gospel makes them so. It says “Put up
your money-bags, they will not procure you remission; roll up your
diploma, that will not get you remission; forget your farm and your park,
they will not get you remission; just cover up that escutcheon, that coat of
arms will not get you remission. Come, you ragged beggars, filthy offscourings
of the world, penniless; come hither, here is remission as much
for you, ill-bred and ill-mannered though ye be, as for the noble, the
honorable, the titled, and the wealthy. All stand on a level here; the text is
universal: “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.”

Mark too, how perpetual my text is. Paul said, “there is no remission!” I
must repeat this testimony too. When thousands of years have rolled away,
some minister may stand on this spot and say the same. This will never
alter at all; it will always be so, in the next world as well as this: no
remission without shedding of blood. “Oh! yes there is,” says one, “the
priest takes the shilling, and he gets the soul out of purgatory.” That is a
mere presence; it never was in. But without shedding of blood there is no
real remission. There may be tales and fancies, but there is no true
remission without the blood of propitiation. Never, though you strained
yourselves in prayer; never, though you wept yourselves away in tears;
never, though you groaned and cried till your heart-strings break; never in
this world, nor in that which is to come, can the forgiveness of sins be
procured on any other ground than redemption by the blood of Christ, and
never can the conscience be cleansed but by faith in that sacrifice. The fact
is, beloved, there is no use for you to satisfy your hearts with anything less
than what satisfied God the Father. Without the shedding of blood nothing
would appease his justice; and without the application of that same blood
nothing can purge your consciences.

II. But as there is no remission without blood-shedding, IT IS IMPLIED
THAT THERE IS REMISSION WITH IT. Mark it well, this remission is a
present fact. The blood having been already shed, the remission is already
obtained. I took you to the garden of Gethsemane and the mount of
Calvary to see the bloodshedding. I might now conduct you to another
garden and another mount to shew you the grand proof of the remission.
Another garden, did I say? Yes, it is a garden, fraught with many pleasing
and even triumphant reminiscences. Aside from the haunts of this busy
world, in it was a new sepulcher, hewn out of a rock where Joseph of
Arimathea thought his own poor body should presently be laid. But there
they laid Jesus after his crucifixion.

He had stood surety for his people, and the law had demanded his flood;
death had held him with strong grasp; and that tomb was, as it were, the
dungeon of his captivity, when, as the good shepherd, he laid down his life
for the sheep. Why, then, do I see in that garden, an open, untenanted
grave? I will tell you. The debts are paid, the sins are cancelled, the
remission is obtained. How, think you? That great Shepherd of the sheep
hath been brought again from the dead by the blood of the everlasting
covenant, and in him also we have obtained redemption through his blood.
There, beloved, is proof the first.

Do you ask further evidence? I will take you to Mount Olives. You shall
behold Jesus there with his hands raised like the High Priest of old to bless
his people, and while he is blessing them, he ascends, the clouds receiving
him out of their sight. But why, you ask, oh why hath he thus ascended,
and whither is he gone? Behold he entereth, not into the holy place made
with hands, but he entereth into heaven itself with his own blood, there to
appear in the presence of God for us. Now, therefore, we have boldness to
draw near by the blood of Christ. The remission is obtained, here is proof
the second. Oh believer, what springs of comfort are there here for thee.
And now let me commend this remission by the shedding of blood to those
who have not yet believed. Mr. Innis, a great Scotch minister, once visited
an infidel who was dying. When he came to him the first time, he said, “Mr.
Innis, I am relying on the mercy of God; God is merciful, and he will never
damn a man for ever.” When he got worse and was nearer death, Mr. Innis
went to him again, and he said, “Oh! Mr. Innis, my hope is gone; for I have
been thinking if God be merciful, God is just too; and what if, instead of
being merciful to me, he should be just to me? What would then become of
me? I must give up my hope in the mere mercy of God; tell me how to be
saved!” Mr. Innis told him that Christ had died in the stead of all believers
— that God could be just, and yet the justifier through the death of Christ.
“Ah!” said he, “Mr. Innis, there is something solid in that; I can rest on
that; I cannot rest on anything else ;” and it is a remarkable fact that none
of us ever met with a man who thought he had his sins forgiven unless it
was through the blood of Christ. Meet a Mussulman; he never had his sins
forgiven; he does not say so. Meet an Infidel; he never knows that his sins
are forgiven. Meet a Legalist; he says, “I hope they will be forgiven ;” but
he does not pretend they are. No one ever gets even a fancied hope apart
from this, that Christ, and Christ alone, must save by the shedding of his
blood.

Let me tell a story to show how Christ saves souls. Mr. Whitfield had a
brother who had been like him, an earnest Christian, but he had
backslidden; he went far from the ways of godliness; and one afternoon,
after he had been recovered from his backsliding, he was sitting in a room
in a chapel house. He had heard his brother preaching the day before, and
his poor conscience had been cut to the very quick. Said Whitfield’s
brother, when he was at tea, “I am a lost man,” and he groaned and cried,
and could neither eat nor drink. Said Lady Huntingdon, who sat opposite,
“What did you say, Mr. Whitfield?” “Madam,” said he, “I said, I am a lost
man.” “I’m glad of it,” said she; “I’m glad of it.” “Your ladyship, how can
you say so? It is cruel to say you are glad that I am a lost man.” “I repeat
it, sir,” said she, “I am heartily glad of it.” He looked at her, more and
more astonished at her barbarity. “I am glad of it,” said she, “because it is
written, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
“With the tears rolling down his cheeks, he said, “What a precious
Scripture; and how is it that it comes with such force to me? Oh! madam,”
said he, “madam, I bless God for that; then he will save me; I trust my soul
in his hands; he has forgiven me.” He went outside the house, felt ill, fell
upon the ground, and expired. I may have a lost man here this morning. As
I cannot say much, I will leave you, good people; you do not want
anything.

Have I got a lost man here, Lost man! Lost woman! Where are you? Do
you feel yourself to be lost? I am so glad of it; for there is remission by the
blood-shedding. O sinner, are there tears in your eyes! Look through them.
Do you see that man in the garden? That man sweats drops of blood for
you. Do you see that man on the cross? That man was nailed there for you.
Oh! if I could be nailed on a cross this morning for you all, I know what
you would do: you would fall down and kiss my feet, and weep that I
should have to die for you. But sinner, lost sinner, Jesus died for you —
for you; and if he died for you, you cannot be lost. Christ died in vain for
no one. Are you, then, a sinner? Are you convinced of sin because you
believe not in Christ? I have authority to preach to you. Believe in his name
and you cannot be lost. Do you say you are no sinner? Then I do not know
that Christ died for you. Do you say that you have no sins to repent of?
Then I have no Christ to preach to you. He did not come to save the
righteous; he came to save the wicked. Are you wicked? Do you feel it?
Are you lost? Do you known? Are you sinful? Will you confess it? Sinner!
if Jesus were here this morning, he would put out his bleeding hands, and
say, “Sinner, I died for you, will you believe me?” He is not here in person;
he has sent his servant to tell you. Won’t you believe him? “Oh!” but you
say, “I am such a sinner;” “Ah!” says he, “that is just why I died for you,
because you are a sinner.” “But,” you say, “I do not deserve it.” “Ah!” says
he, “that is just why I did it.” Say you, “I have hated him.” “But,” says he,
“I have always loved you.” “But, Lord, I have spat on thy minister, and
scorned thy word.” “It is all forgiven,” says he, “all washed away by the
blood which did run from my side. Only believe me; that is all I ask. And
that I will give you. I will help you to believe.” “Ah!” says one, “but I do
not want a Savior.” Sir, I have nothing to say to you except this — “The
wrath to come! the wrath to come!” But there is one who says, “Sir, you
do not mean what you say! Do you mean to preach to the most wicked
men or women in the place?” I mean what I say. There she is! She is a
harlot, she has led many into sin, and many into hell, There she is; her own
friends have turned her out of doors; her father called her a good-for
nothing hussey, and said she should never come to the house again.

Woman! dost thou repent? Dost thou feel thyself to be guilty? Christ died
to save thee, and thou shalt be saved. There he is. I can see him. He was
drunk; he has been drunk very often. Not many nights ago I heard his voice
in the street, as he went home at a late hour on Saturday night, disturbing
everybody; and he beat his wife, too. He has broken the Sabbath; and as to
swearing, if oaths be like soot, his throat must want sweeping bad enough,
for he has cursed God often. Do you feel yourself to be guilty, my hearer?
Do you hate your sins, and are you willing to forsake them? Then I bless
God for you. Christ died for you. Believe! I had a letter a few days ago,
from a young man who heard that during this week I was going to a certain
town. Said he, “Sir, when you come, do preach a sermon that will fit me;
for do you know, sir, I have heard it said that we must all think ourselves
to be the wickedest people in the world, or else we cannot be saved. I try
to think so, but I cannot, because I have not been the wickedest. I want to
think so, but I cannot. I want to be saved, but I do not know how to repent
enough.” Now, if I have the pleasure of seeing him, I shall tell him, God
does not require a man to think himself the wickedest in the world, because
that would sometimes be to think a falsehood, there are some men who are
not so wicked as others are. What God requires is this, that a man should
say, “I know more of myself than I do of other people; I know little about
them, and from what I see of myself, not of my actions, but of my heart, I
do think there can be few worse than I am. They may be more guilty
openly, but then I have had more light, more privileges, more
opportunities, more warnings, and therefore I am still guiltier.” I do not
want you to bring your brother with you, and say, “I am more wicked than
he is ;” I want you to come yourself, and say, “Father, I have sinned ;” you
have nothing to do with your brother William, whether he has sinned more
or less; your cry should be, “Father, I have sinned;” you have nothing to do
with your cousin Jane, whether or not she has rebelled more than you.
Your business is to cry, “Lord, nave mercy upon me, a sinner!” That is all.
Do you feel yourselves lost? Again, I say, —

“Come, and welcome, sinner, come!”

To conclude. There is not a sinner in this place who knows himself to be
lost and ruined, who may not have all his sins forgiven, and “rejoice in the
hope of the glory of God.” You may, though black as hell, be white as
heaven this very instant. I know ‘tis only by a desperate struggle that faith
takes hold of the promise, but the very moment a sinner believes, that
conflict is past. It is his first victory, and a blessed one. Let this verse be
the language of your heart; adopt it, and make it your own:

“A guilty, weak, and helpless worm
In Christ’s kind arms I fall;
He is my strength and righteousness.
My Jesus and my all.”

From Melanie Phillips

Ten days ago, I happened to be on a panel of ‘talking heads’ at the annual conference of the Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales.

Against a backdrop of concern about the impact of looming public expenditure cuts, the panel were asked to name one thing they thought the police might usefully stop doing.

I suggested they should drop their obsession with ‘diversity’ and, rather than pursuing people under ‘hate crime’ laws for giving offence to others, should concentrate on tackling the yobbery on housing estates where besieged residents felt the police had abandoned them.

It is fair to say my remarks were not greeted with widespread acclaim. Officers seemed stunned that I could challenge the sacred cow of ‘diversity’.

As for abandoning the poor, they bridled and claimed that all the terrific things the police were doing in such places weren’t being appreciated — mainly due to the wicked media, which was instead spreading false despondency about how useless the police were.

Indeed, other panel members, such as the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Denis O’Connor, and the Government’s ‘yobbery czar’ Louise Casey, seemed principally concerned about how the police could better ‘get their message across’ to the public about all the whizzy initiatives they were offering them.

I thought about this discussion when I read of the appalling case of Fiona Pilkington, who was driven to set fire to herself and her 18 year-old daughter Francecca in her car as a result of a decade of harassment they had suffered at the hands of local yobs.

The details of this awful case make you weep. For more than ten years, the Pilkingtons lived under siege in Barwell, Leicestershire, from a gang of thugs who pelted the house with stones, set fences on fire, pushed fireworks through the front door, taunted Francecca, who had a mental age of four, and threatened and assaulted Mrs Pilkington’s son, Anthony, now 19.

The inquest has yet to reach its verdict. But the coroner has said the tragedy could have been prevented if the police and council authorities had taken the family’s complaints seriously.

And the evidence produced at the inquest was sufficiently horrifying for the Home Secretary to be reportedly planning to highlight the case in his speech to this week’s Labour conference.

For although Mrs Pilkington called the police no fewer than 33 times, none of the criminals who were making her life so unbearable was ever charged with a criminal offence.

When asked to explain this failure, the police response was astounding. Superintendent Steve Harrod told the inquest that ‘low-level anti-social behaviour is mainly the responsibility of the council’.

Come again, Superintendent? So what are the police for? Whatever happened to the first duty of the police to ‘preserve public tranquillity’? No wonder the Home Secretary is spitting tacks.

Certainly, the local councils in this case can also be faulted in failing to share information about this family’s situation. But at one point Anthony was marched at knife-point into a shed and threatened with an iron bar. If this isn’t a police responsibility, what is?

Many, many other unfortunate people are being forced to live in a similar state of siege from local yobs, with the police unable or unwilling to end the attacks. Other police forces, accused of ignoring the plight of terrorised residents, have claimed that the hurdles erected by prosecutors mean they can’t get criminals to court.

There may be something in that. But to Superintendent Harrod it appears that the police can only prevent crime if the criminal justice system is avoided altogether. The police, he said, had to avoid youngsters being ‘criminalised’ because if they went to jail they were more likely to re-offend.

But, of course, by not going to jail these thugs were free to carry on offending. This is surely obvious — but not to those ideologues for whom imprisonment, rather than crime, has become the evil to be avoided.

So as a result of the kind of half-baked propaganda from trendy criminologists with which today’s police officers are indoctrinated on their training courses, young thugs are left free to terrorise a vulnerable mother to the point where she is in such despair she kills herself and her daughter.

But now look at what the police are investigating with unalloyed zeal. Two Christian hoteliers, Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, were charged with using ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words’ which were ‘religiously aggravated’ after having a heated conversation about religion with a Muslim guest at their hotel.

We don’t know what was said. Maybe it was no more than a heated argument; maybe the Vogelenzangs were indeed offensive and unpleasant. But however horrible they may have been, how on earth can this be a proper matter for the police?

Similarly, last week a senior diplomat, Rowan Laxton, was found guilty of racially aggravated harassment after he shouted ‘F*****g Israelis’ and ‘F*****g Jews’ and that Israeli soldiers should be ‘wiped off the face of the earth’ while watching television reports of the Israeli attack on Gaza as he exercised in a gym.

Laxton was guilty of bigotry, to be sure, and should lose his job — and his membership of the gym. But prosecuting him was surely oppressive. If bigotry is to be treated as a criminal offence, it’s not just young thugs on housing estates who would be criminalised but vast swathes of the population.

Certainly, the police should step in where hateful speech is likely to incite people to commit criminal acts. But, as often as not, such incitement doesn’t lead to prosecution, while what is no more than an insult can bring down the heavy hand of the law.

Criminal offence has been redefined in such cases as the giving of offence. Bad ideas are thus considered worse than bad deeds.

Worse than that, those who try to stop bad things from happening — such as public-spirited individuals who try to stop acts of vandalism — find as often as not that they are the ones who end up in the dock.

Although it did not involve the police, this kind of grotesque injustice is what happened to Carol Hill, the dinner lady at Great Tey primary school, near Colchester in Essex. After she revealed to a pupil’s parents that their daughter had been tied up and whipped by four boys –an assault from which Mrs Hill had rescued the child — the school sacked her for ‘breach of confidentiality’.

Why are bullies being let off and innocent people being bullied in this way? It is surely the outcome of a culture distorted by the warped values of our intelligentsia and political class.

Obsessed by the impossible aim of eradicating all forms of prejudice or discrimination, it is also gripped by the belief that all punishment or retribution is a form of vengeance and must be avoided at all costs.

The combination of these two beliefs has meant that yobs who terrorise people to death must never be jailed, while those who cause offence to groups that tick the right boxes must be prosecuted.

It is also a means for the incompetent to avoid being held accountable for the failings on their watch. Right and wrong, victim and bully are being turned upside-down — and the police, who hold the line for a society’s values, are now in the very front of the charge.

EDITOR

Here are some of the details relating to policing and Fiona Pilkington and it makes for grim reading indeed from the Telegraph:-

Published: 8:00AM BST 29 Sep 2009

Nov 17 1997 Miss Pilkington reports chequebook and disability book stolen.

Oct 4 2000 Mrs Cassell contacts police about youths lighting fires in the street

March 26 2003 Miss Pilkington’s son, Anthony Hardwick, who was being bullied, goes missing for two hours.

Aug 3 2003 Anthony is punched in the mouth.

Jan 9 2004 Mrs Cassell phones police to complain about youths throwing stones and setting fire to gates. No officer attended.

Jan 24 2004 Threats are being made against Anthony’s life at school. His mother calls police but is told to contact the school.

Jan 28 2004 Further threats to kill Anthony are made. The police offer bullying advice.

April 19 2004 A 999 call is made from the family home. The line cuts out. An officer is sent out but the police log does not record what had happened.

April 29 2004 Miss Pilkington writes to her MP, David Tredinnick: “The children in my street seem to think they can do anything they want.”

July 28 2004 Anthony is attacked with an iron bar, but Miss Pilkington tells police she does not want a prosecution for fear of reprisals.

Nov 3 2005 Members of the gang start jumping on the family’s hedge shouting abuse.

Oct 13 2006 Anthony is pushed into a car by the gang, injuring his hand. When an officer attends eight days later, the incident is simply closed.

Feb 1 2007 Miss Pilkington’s neighbours report the family cowering inside their home. No officer is available to attend.

Feb 13 2007 A group of youths aged 10 to 14 are seen screaming outside the family’s home. No officers attend. That month Miss Pilkington again writes to her MP: “I don’t really know how to handle things any more?… No one can help.”

March 11 2007 Eight youths vandalise the “For Sale” sign outside the family’s home. A police community support officer “chats” to the youngsters.

April 6 2007 Anthony is hit by stones as he rides his bicycle. Police contact the council, which writes to the youths warning them about their behaviour.

May 12 2007 Miss Pilkington writes in her diary: “I drew the curtains and sat in the dark until 2.30am, stressed out. Learn from experience that no one is available on Fridays to Mondays.” The next day she writes: “Why can’t they just walk past without doing anything?”

June 2 2007 She writes in her diary: “They lit a fag and then tried to set fire to fences between the houses.”

July 3 2007 Neighbour accuses Miss Pilkington of hitting a child and claims she has been “telling the police things”.

Sept 26 2007 Mrs Cassell reports children throwing stones. Police attend and an officer apparently speaks to them.

Sept 28 2007 A window is smashed. Officer attends and youth’s father is “spoken to”.

Oct 4 2007 Mrs Cassell reports a youth throwing stones. An email is sent to a beat officer but no one attends.

Oct 23 2007 Miss Pilkington tells police two girls are jumping on her hedge. No officer attends but she is advised to draw the curtains and ignore the abuse.

From The Ugley Vicar

Teaching on the Wisdom literature yesterday, I was struck by how in Proverbs the foundation of the good life is the godly family. The book opens with several chapters addressing the young man (person) in need of wisdom who is urged to listen to his father’s instruction and not forsake his mother’s teaching.

We may note that this itself builds on another ‘foundational’ principle, enshrined in the Ten Commandments: “Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” As St Paul observed (Eph 6:2-3), this commandment has a special quality in that there is a promise attached to it. It has consequences, not just for the individual but for society, and these are spelled out: “you will live long, and it will go well with you in the land.”

Similarly, the Proverbs have social consequences. They are, according to 1:3, “for … doing what is right and just and fair.” And this is also the basis for God’s blessing of the world through Abraham’s descendants: “I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him” (Gen 18:19).

All this depends, in the first instance, on the parent-to-child communication of God’s ways. Abraham is to direct “his children and his household”. The subject of Proverbs is to “listen to a father’s instruction” (4:1).

The Christian reader of Proverbs, moreover, is in the privileged position of knowing that the human relationship between parent and child is a mirror of the divine relationship between two of the three members of the godhead. The Son is constituted as ‘son’ because, as Jesus is recorded as saying in John 5:19, he does “only what he sees his Father doing.” Obedience is inherent in the son-to-father relationship. What is often overlooked, however, is that the converse to this is trust: “the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father” (5:22-23). Here is not just a lesson about the Trinity but about parenthood: parents may expect children to obey them, but ultimately they must honour this by their absolute trust of their children.

Yet it is part of the lesson of the Wisdom literature (and its fulfilment in Christ as the Wisdom of God, cf 1 Cor 1:24), that this is not universally understood or accepted. That parents may expect obedience from their children, and have the right to direct them as to how they should live, is itself a theological proposition, based on the principle that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom” (Prov 1:7).

Where there is no such ‘fear of the Lord’, however, we may expect Wisdom to be in increasingly short supply. We must thus be ready to question much of the agenda of our society with regard to hildren and their upbringing.

At the same time, however, we may challenge the assumptions of our society, both collectively and individually, about not merely education but procreation. A question worth asking, it seems to me, is what people think gives them the right to have children in the first place.

Having a child involves bringing another person into existence — yet we do not (indeed, of course, we cannot) ask that person whether or not they want to exist. Most of the people thus caused to exist will experience life as, to a greater or lesser extent, a struggle. They may, of course, have happy times as well as bad, but they will have to come to terms with their own existence, and, perhaps most difficult of all, they will eventually have to face the inevitability of the termination of their life which, in the view of many, means their consequent non-existence. (The book of Ecclesiastes is replete with material which reflects that particular struggle!)

Yet parents —even atheist parents —assume they have the right to do this to someone else: to cause them to exist and therefore to face the angst of existence itself. They do this without question and, moreover, they unquestioningly impose their authority on them, beginning with naming the child. Yet what gives anyone the right to say to another person something as dramatic as, “Everyone will call you ‘Joel’ or ‘Ziggy’,” or whatever takes their parents’ fancy?

I have no doubt that somewhere in the dark recesses of some department of sociology or social policy unit exactly these questions are being asked. And I suspect that the answer is precisely what we would expect in a society where there is no ‘fear of the Lord’: that there is no right to do this —or rather that any rights there may be are to be defined in law and regulated by the State. Once it was thought to be a privilege that schools, colleges and so on could act in loco parentis. Today, one suspects, we are moving to the position where the parents will be allowed only those privileges that the State grants to them. their question: what gives them the right …?

If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, it is also true that the lack of such fear is the beginning of the unravelling of reason.

Revd John P Richardson
27 September 2009

We continue our reflections on the theme “Gather My People to My Home” by focusing on the challenging task of gathering those who are struggling with deep and serious questions about life and God.  In previous reflections we have addressed our calling to gather both “disconnected” Orthodox Christians and the unchurched.  This month we turn to the needs of persons whose spiritual well-being may be challenged by an unfulfilling quest for meaning or whose intellect or life experiences have raised tremendous questions or doubts regarding the purpose and direction of life.

Human beings have pondered questions about the meaning of life and the existence of God for millennia.  In our own Hellenic tradition, we can examine the works of ancient philosophers, which reveal great efforts in the pursuit of knowledge, an inner desire for truth, and countless theories on origins, the nature and function of the universe, and the purpose of life.  Others have arrived at the same questions and with the hope for answers through great tragedy and suffering.  The eventuality of physical death, the upheaval created by war, the pain of disease and poverty, and the demoralizing injustices in human communities and relationships have led many to seek something “greater” that offers or leads to a blessed life, peace, comfort, and truth.

People continue to ask questions and struggle in pursuit of the answers.  Did the world just happen, and are we a product of chance?  What is my purpose in life?  How can I be happy and have peace about who I am?  Does God exist, and if so, does he really care about me and my inner conflicts?  Why is there so much suffering in the world?  Will all of this just end in death and destruction, or is there something better?  These and many more questions reflect both the breadth of our intellect and our quest to know, understand, and to find answers not just for the sake of knowledge, but for our well-being and ultimate destiny.

As Orthodox Christians we have found many of the answers to life’s questions in our relationship with God and in our involvement in the Church.  This is what makes the Church our home.  Our lives in the kingdom of God and our participation in the community of believers connects us directly with the One who, with meaning and purpose, brought all things into existence, created us in His image and likeness and is guiding us toward fulfillment in life and being.  Further, it is through God’s loving presence in our lives and through the Holy Sacraments, the Holy Scriptures, the teachings, and traditions of the Church that we know, understand, and experience the truth about life and relationships, the effects of sin and evil, and the necessity of faith, hope, and love as genuine and true expressions of our humanity.   It is also in our relationship with God that we find meaning and purpose in our transformation from death to life.  Certainly, He guides us in understanding our great potential for creativity, thought, virtue, and knowledge; but all of this is part of becoming what He created us to be:  holy people living in loving and full communion with Him and each other.

Our challenge as Orthodox Christians is communicating the blessedness of this life and faith to those with serious questions about life and meaning or to those who are struggling spiritually with deep doubts about God and His role in their lives.  How can we meet this challenge and overcome the barriers that are keeping souls from finding their home in the Church?  How do we prepare to answer the serious questions that challenge the very being of many who are in need of the grace of God?

First, we must love and not condemn.  As stated above, questions about faith and our existence have been a part of our humanity from the beginning.  We have been created with an ability to ask these questions and to seek answers.  Thus, our task as Orthodox Christians is to help others find the answers that lead to life and fulfillment.  The Apostle Paul did not condemn the philosophers of Athens when he preached to them (Acts 17).  He affirmed their intellectual and spiritual search for higher things and presented the Gospel in a manner that addressed many of their questions.  Our Lord lovingly received Nicodemus and patiently answered his questions when he was seeking to understand Jesus’ teachings concerning spiritual rebirth and eternal life (John 3).

Second, in following the example of our Lord, we must be responsive and patient.  We should not reject others if their questions are not answered or their crisis is unresolved.  Many struggle with great questions about life and meaning for long periods of time.  Answers provided by our faith and relationship with God are not always readily accepted.  The task of gathering people to God’s home in the Church will take time and sacrifice on our part.  We must be willing to listen to their questions, concerns, and struggles, continuously offer prayers for their salvation and spiritual well-being, and rely upon the power of the Holy Spirit to lead them home.

Finally, we must also be aware of our strengths and limitations when offering faith and love to those seeking purpose and meaning.  Often, our greatest strength is in friendship, acts of kindness, and ministry in the name of Christ when a need arises.  Through our words and actions we can show others that they are valued and loved by God, even when they are in the midst of great struggles and doubt.  We also need to know that there are other resources to assist us.  These may include seeking the counsel of our parish priest, encouraging the person to visit with the priest, discussing serious questions in a parish Bible study or reading group, and engaging with our faith at deeper spiritual and intellectual levels through reading the lives and works of Saints and theologians of the Church.  In all of this, we must rely upon the guidance and grace of God to lead us in a manner that will help our fellow-men experience the presence of God and the ineffable joy of being gathered in God’s Home.

By Barry Rubin

The problem with President Barack Obama is not that he makes gaffes or factual errors when he speaks but because he expresses an ideological framework so shocking and dangerous.

Take the latest such remark, made in the G-20 press conference, referring to Iran’s nuclear program:

“I’m not interested in victory. I’m interested in resolving the problem.”

Totally detached from actual international conflicts, this is a rational and noble statement. Hey, says Pragmatic Man, I’m not seeking something to brag about, a total victory and my opponent’s humiliation. I just want to solve problems and leave everyone happy.

Yet he’s not playing a game of bridge here but dueling with a dictatorship that thinks it has divine support and wants to build a massive totalitarian empire. The fact that Obama thinks this way makes him a person not fit to deal with real enemies.

Briefly, here are several reasons why:

–In a misunderstanding with those who are otherwise friends, this “no victory” approach makes sense. If the United States has some minor problem with, say, Canada or the United Kingdom, it would be good to seek a resolution in which it wasn’t a victor. Sure, get the blip in an otherwise good relationship out of the way so the two allies can get back to cooperating on a hundred other matters.

But Obama doesn’t seem to understand the profound difference between friends and enemies.
As Obama has repeatedly shown, he is more eager to resolve conflicts with enemies than to back up friends. For him, enemies don’t exist but have only been created by mistaken U.S. policy. Apologies or concessions will suffice to end any friction.

–Obama assumes the other side is rational and well-intentioned. Whether its Libya or North Korea, Cuba or Syria, Iran or Venezuela, Obama simply doesn’t get the idea that dictatorship and ideology, greed and passionate hatred can create forces which don’t want to be friends.

In effect, such regimes have the precise opposite approach to that of Obama: They aren’t interested in resolving the problem. They are interested in victory.

–By making such a statement, Obama speaks as if Iran is a blank slate rather than a country which has repeatedly broken promises on the nuclear issue; called for genocide against Israel; been the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism; killed Americans through terrorist operations in Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other countries; is ruled by a regime that just stole an election; has violently repressed the opposition and put peaceful activists on trial for their lives; and has a defense minister who is a wanted terrorist.

Iran is not ruled by a regime with which you can just solve problems. And any solution without victory of a sort will not be a solution.

–If Iran intends to build nuclear weapons and the United States opposes this goal how can there be any resolution of the problem without victory? If the Iranian regime builds deliverable nuclear weapons then it wins; if Tehran is stopped from doing so, the United States wins. What kind of conceivable compromise can there be without a victory for one side or the other?

–Obama’s formulation could be sensible with another side whose feelings one didn’t want to hurt unnecessarily. Assuring the other side you don’t insist on total victory can be a soothing factor. Unfortunately in this case it is the radical side which needs to say so. (The Palestinian side and most Arab states need to say this to Israel but never do so. Israel has already said so to the other side but it hasn’t done much good.)

–But most important of all is Obama’s seeming inability to understand the concepts of deterrence and credibility. I’m not exaggerating here. He has never made a single statement incorporating these ideas.

Yes, you need to be tough. Yes, you sometimes have to make threats. Yes, you need to show yourself willing to use force. Yes, you sometimes have to win victories. The leader of a great power needs to do these things to discourage enemies from being more aggressive and disregarding his country’s interests. In addition, the leader of a great power must do these things to encourage friends to rely on him and his country for help and protection.

Obama thinks he is reassuring America’s enemies by apologizing, avoiding conflict, and insisting he doesn’t seek victory. He is reassuring them—reassuring them that they can walk all over the United States without cost.

In totally misconceiving the nature of his own responsibilities and of international affairs, Obama is creating an extremely dangerous situation. One of the many things he doesn’t understand is that his approach makes crisis, bloodshed, and war far more likely.

It is sobering to see the man who holds the world’s most powerful job for dealing with international affairs on the planet has no previous experience dealing with this topic. It is horrifying that his ideas ensure disaster for the democratic forces and successes for the dictatorial ones.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Bill Muehlenberg

Two and a half millennia ago the prophet Isaiah uttered these powerful words: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” Sadly, he was speaking to the people of God, not a bunch of pagans.

Things have not changed much. While we expect the secularists and radical activists to push an upside down morality, and pervert biblical values, we don’t expect those who claim to speak for God to do such things. Sure, these folk may be well-intentioned, but when they in effect end up calling black white, and white black, then we are in bad shape indeed.

There was yet another example of this, and in the usual place: the Melbourne Age. An Anglican Bishop wrote a piece in which he blithely promoted an agenda which he thought was fully biblical. But a closer look reveals plenty of fuzzy thinking and mushy morality – and very little of biblical truth.

He argued that Christians should support equal opportunity legislation (which would grant special rights to homosexuals, while taking rights away from the majority), and also should get on the Bill of Rights bandwagon. Thus he has fully endorsed some major campaigns of the secular left.

Now if a Christian wants to do that, well, we can perhaps agree to disagree. But when a Christian leader manages to completely mangle the Gospel as he seeks to push what is really a trendy lefty agenda, then it is a real concern. Indeed, his article could have been written by any secularist. It contains not one passage of Scripture, but plenty of vague and twisted platitudes and rhetoric about what Jesus would do.

Consider these incredible claims. He actually says that those who support the retention of religious exemptions to our equal opportunity laws are “arguably at odds with the essence of what the founder of the Christian faith lived, taught and died for.” Oh really? Jesus lived and died so that homosexual activists could get special rights, and so that Christian organisations should be forced to employ atheists, witches and unbelievers?

So Jesus spent his life campaigning for the right of homosexual activists to teach in our Sunday Schools, and for committed atheists to work in our Christian charities? But wait, there’s more. He goes on to again tell us what he sees is the essence of Christianity:

“At the heart of what Christians proclaim as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is this radical affirmation of universal human dignity as the basis of universal human rights.” It is? There I thought the core message was that God loves us, but that sin has ruined our relationship with God, and that Jesus came to take our place, suffering the punishment we deserve, so that we might be reconciled to God.

Sadly this befuddled Bishop has things all confused. (He does say several times, “I am perplexed”. That’s for sure.) He is simply putting the cart before the horse here. He is grossly mixing various biblical themes, and getting them out of their biblical order of priority.

Are human rights important? Yes, but they can only be achieved on God’s terms, not ours. An activist judiciary and radical social engineering are not the means by which real human dignity is achieved. In fact, it is only because we are all made in God’s image, and are all the objects of the love of Christ, that real talk about human rights even becomes possible.

But the fact that we are all one because we are created in God’s image and the object of his redemptive love has nothing at all to do with quite modern notions of egalitarianism. That is what the Bishop is really pushing here. He has mistaken the notion of biblical equality (we are all God’s creatures, but we are all equally sinful, and only some of us will respond to what Christ has done for us) with trendy lefty notions of egalitarianism.

Certain types of equality are compatible with Biblical ethics (equality before the law, equality of opportunity) while others are not (equality of outcome, eg.). The modern concept of levelling outcomes does not find clear biblical support.

Consider how this works out in contemporary society. Modern socialism for example demands equality of outcome. Regardless of who you are or what you do, all must end up with the same outcome (although it never quite worked that way in our Marxist utopias). But the Bible speaks of the deserving and undeserving poor. Those who don’t work shouldn’t eat. It is that simple. In other words, our choices, our behaviour, our beliefs and our practices all have an impact on outcomes.

The same in other areas. Heterosexual marriage has always held a privileged position in society because of its unique and important role. Heterosexual married couples have received certain benefits because of the great benefits they give to society.

Not all other types of relationships deserve that same sort of recognition or support. For the Bishop to imply that Jesus would somehow approve of state recognition of, and special rights for, homosexual relationships beggars belief. True, Jesus could hang around with tax collectors and prostitutes. But that was for entirely different purposes.

He did so in order for them to find forgiveness and reconciliation with God. He did not do so in order for them to get special favours from the government of the day. Jesus was not into enforcing some levelling egalitarian society. He was into creating a new redeemed people out of an old fallen people.

In fact, the ultimate proof that Jesus was not into some mindless equality of outcome is the biblical truth of our eternal destinies. If our Bishop were calling the shots, there would likely be no hell, and everyone would imply end up in heaven, whether they like it or not.

But Jesus, more than any other biblical individual, spoke about hell time and time again. We as sinners all have equality of opportunity: we can all choose to repent of our sins, and turn in faith to Christ for a new life, or we can refuse that free offer of grace.

There surely will not be a final equality of outcome. Hell and heaven are two completely different outcomes, and each is fully commensurate with the choices we have made. The same is true in this life. We are all different, and so to demand equal outcomes is in fact to treat people unequally.

The Bishop’s article is simply a reflection of trendy secular thought: long on mushy morality and rhetoric, but short on biblical content. The truth is, as I have argued elsewhere, Christians have every right not to be forced to employ those who hold an opposite faith to theirs, or no faith at all.

That is what religious freedom is all about. But the Bishop wants to take these freedoms away, and in their place force the egalitarian and socialist agenda on all of us – and all in the name of ‘what would Jesus do?’ Yikes, with friends like these, who needs enemies?

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-betrayal-of-the-faith-20090928-g95o.html

The start of the Jewish Day of Atonement at sundown Sunday marked the beginning of a day like no other in Israel, on which even Israelis with no connection to religion tend to put their normal lives on hold.

When Yom Kippur began at around 5 p.m. local time on Sunday, TV and radio stations blinked off the air, flights in and out of Israel’s airports ceased, and nearly all businesses and institutions closed. The streets emptied of cars and cities and highways were eerily quiet.

A main street in Jerusalem is seen completely empty (Image: Tess Scheflan / Jini)