eChurch Blog

By Samantha Singson

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  Next week in Europe, a committee of human rights “experts” will discuss a draft recommendation on measures to “combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity to ensure respect for human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons and to promote tolerance towards them.”

Proponents claim there is a need for “specific action” because homosexuals are still subjected to “homophobia, transphobia and other forms of intolerance and discrimination.” For starters, the 47 member states of the Council of Europe (CoE) should ensure that homosexuals have the right to adopt, to access assisted reproductive treatment like in-vitro fertilization and gender reassignment surgery, as well as give full legal recognition of such gender reassignment.

The recommendation calls for states to monitor any “direct or indirect discrimination” on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity and to “ensure that legislative and other measures are adopted and effectively enforced.”

The recommendation lists documents from European and United Nations (UN) sources that it claims “recognize sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination” and takes note of last year’s controversial French-Dutch led statement on sexual orientation and gender identity which was signed by 66 nations in the General Assembly.

Critics point out that the UN statement cited by the recommendation is non-binding and was hotly contested when it was introduced at the UN General Assembly. In a clear showing that there is no international consensus on sexual orientation and gender identity, nearly sixty nations presented a counterstatement to the French-Dutch statement, and Russia, Belarus and the Holy See made separate statements also in opposition. The counterstatement condemned “all forms of stereotyping, exclusion, stigmatization, prejudice, intolerance and discrimination and violence directed against peoples, communities and individuals on any ground whatsoever, wherever they occur,” while defending the ability sovereign nations to enact laws that meet the “just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare.”

Conservative European insiders who are monitoring the draft recommendation told the Friday Fax that they were concerned that the draft recommendation shifts from the usual principle of “non-discrimination” to a new one of “non-distinction.” Where the principle of non-discrimination still allows discrimination in proportion to justified reasons, the principle of non-distinction makes no consideration of whether a differential treatment is fair or unfair, since it is the differential treatment itself which is prohibited.

Social conservatives are also concerned by another provision in the draft which states that “neither cultural, traditional, nor religious values, nor the rules of a “dominant culture” can be invoked to justify hate speech or any other form of discrimination, including on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.” They fear that this could inhibit the right of churches and other faith-based organizations to speak on the immorality of homosexual acts as they might be accused of inciting intolerance.

Following next week’s meeting of the steering committee on human rights, the draft recommendation will subsequently be discussed by the Committee of Ministers of the CoE. Larger in membership and older than the European Union, the CoE is considered the chief protector and promoter of human rights in Europe.

Pakistani Christian TV News (Hat-tip Anglican Mainstream)

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali welcomes very much the news that Maryam Rustampoor and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad have been released from Evin prison in Teheran, where they have been detained on charges of propagating the Christian faith.

Although they have been released without bail, they are still due to stand trial, and other Christians have been arrested in Iran because of their faith.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali says: ‘I am thankful that they have been set free without conditions of bail and pray that justice will be done for them and for others who are being held in Iran in due course.

‘At the same time it seems ironic that while Maryam and Marzieh have been released by the Iranian authorities, the Home Office in this country is proposing to deport an Iranian Christian.

‘Amir – not his real name – attends an Orthodox church in the north of England and is on the church committee. It seems clear that if he is deported he will face interrogation, arrest and possible imprisonment in Iran simply because he is a Christian.

‘I appeal to the Home Office to allow Amir to remain free and to continue living in safety in this country.

‘Iranian Christians, whether in Iran or the UK, strive to be good and loyal citizens, and we continue to pray that their fundamental liberties will be upheld.’

“Yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God,
which fear before him.” Ecclesiastes 8:12

I HAVE heard it sometimes said by wicked men, when they would arraign
the justice of the Most High, that it is unjust that God should condemn men
for the use of the powers which he himself has given them. This most
subtle evil has often grieved the hearts of those who are weak and
ignorant, and have not seen its untruthfulness — for to speak plainly of it,
it is a gross lie. God does not condemn men for the use of the powers he
has given them; he condemns them for the misuse of those powers; not for
employing them, but for employing them as they ought not to employ
them; not for thinking, not for speaking, not for doing, but for thinking,
speaking, and doing, contrary to his law God damneth no man for the use
of the powers which he hath given him, let that be again repeated — but he
doth condemn them for the abuse of those powers, and for their impudence
in daring to turn those powers, which he hath given them, for his honor,
against his service, and against his throne Now, my friends, there is no
power which God hath given us, which may not be employed for God. I
believe that David uttered a great truth, as well as a great exhortation to
himself, when he said, “Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me,
bless his holy name.” There is nothing in man that God has not there,
which may not be employed in God’s service. Some may ask me whether
anger can be brought in. I answer, yes. A good man may serve God by
being angry against sin; and to be angry against sin is a high and holy thing.
You may ask me, perhaps, whether ridicule can be employed. I answer,
yes. I believe we may even rightly employ it in the preaching of God’s
word. I know this, I always intend to use it; and if by a laugh I can make
men see the folly of an error better than in any other way, they shall laugh,
and laugh here, too; for ridicule is to be used in God’s service; and every
power that God hath implanted in man — I will make no exception, —
may be used for God’s service, and for God’s honor. What man hath
gotten for himself by the fall, cannot be employed to serve God with, we
cannot bring before God Adam’s robbery, to be a sacrifice to the Almighty,
nor can our own carnal and sinful passions honor the Most High, but there
are natural powers which God hath conferred, and none of these are in
themselves sinful. I would have them, therefore, employed for the Master.
Yea, even those powers with which it seems impossible to worship, such as
the powers of assimilation, eating, and drinking, may be brought to honor
God; for what says the Apostle? — “whether ye eat or drink, or
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God, giving thanks unto God and
the Father by Jesus Christ.”

Now, you will notice that fear may be yoked into the service of God. True
fear, not fearing, but believing, saves the soul; not doubt, but confidence, is
the strength and the deliverance of the Christian. Still, fear, as being one of
those powers which God hath given us, is not in itself sinful. Fear may be
used for the most sinful purposes; at the same time it may be so ennobled
by grace, and so used for the service of God, that it may become the very
grandest part of man. In fact, Scripture has honored fear, for the whole of
piety is comprehended in these words, “Fear God;” “the fear of the Lord;”
“them that fear Him.” These phrases are employed to express true piety,
and the men who possess it. Fear, I have said, may ruin the soul, alas! it
has ruined multitudes. O Fear, thou art the rock upon which many a ship
hath been wrecked. Many a soul hath suffered spiritual destruction through
thee, but then it hath been not the fear of God, but the fear of man. Many
have rushed against the thick bosses of the Almighty’s buckler, and defied
God, in order to escape the wrath of feeble man. Many through fear of
worldly loss have brought great guilt into their consciences; some through
fear of ridicule and laughter have not had the boldness to follow the right,
and so have gone astray and been ruined. Yea, and where fear doth not
work utter destruction it is capable of doing much damage to the spirit.
Fear hath paralysed the arm of the most gigantic Christian, stopped him in
his race, and impeded him in his labors. Faith can do anything, but fear,
sinful fear, can do just nothing at all, but even prevent faith from
performing its labors. Fear hath made the Christian to sorrow, both by
night and day, a cankering fear lest his wants should not be provided for,
and his necessities supplied, has driven the Christian to unworthy thoughts;
and distrustful, doubting fear hath made him dishonor God, and prevented
his sucking the honey out of the promises. Fear hath kept many a child of
God from doing his duty, from making a bold profession; hath brought
bondage into his spirit. Fear misused, thou art the Christian’s greatest
curse, and thou art the sinner’s ruin. Thou art a sly serpent, creeping
amongst the thorns of sin, and when thou art allowed to twist thyself
around manhood, thou dost crush it in thy folds, and poison it with thy
venom. Nothing can be worse than this sinful fear; it hath slaughtered its
myriads and sent thousands to hell. But yet it may seem a paradox; fear,
when rightly employed, is the very brightest state of Christianity, and is
used to express all piety, comprehended in one emotion. “The fear of God”
is the constant description which the Scripture gives of true religion.
And now, beloved, I shall want you this morning to have some little
patience with me whilst I try to go after certain fearing souls whose fear is
of the right kind, even a fear which gendereth salvation, but who through it
are now suffering some degree of torment, and are wishing to be delivered
from it. An old Puritan says, “Jesus Christ would shake hands with a man
that had the palsy.” I must try and do the same this morning. Some of you
have the palsy of fear. I want to come after you and say unto you, “Fear
not;” to bid you to be of good cheer, because God would comfort you.
There are five different kinds of fear, that persons are laboring under which
I would now endeavor to address.

I. There is, first, THE FEAR CAUSED BY AN AWAKENING CONSCIENCE.

This is the lowest grade of godly fear; here all true piety takes its rise. By
nature, the sinner does not dread the wrath of God; he thinks sin a little
thing; he looks upon its pleasures, and forgets its penalty, he dares the
Almighty to the war, and lifts his puny arm against the Eternal. No sooner,
however, is he awakened by God’s Spirit, than fear takes possession of his
heart, the arrows of the Almighty drink up his spirit, the thunders of the
law roll in his ears; he feels his life to be uncertain, and his body frail, He
dreads death, because he knows that death would be to him the prelude of
destruction; he dreads life, for life itself is intolerable, when the wrath of
God is poured out into his soul. Many of you who are now before me have
passed through that dreadful ordeal of suffering under a sense of the wrath
of God. We, my brethren, shall never forget, to our dying day, that hour of
desperate grief when first we discovered our lost estate. By the preaching
of the Word, by the reading of the Scriptures, by prayer, or by some
Providence, we were led to look within; we discovered the evil of our
hearts, and we heard how terribly God would punish the transgressor. Do
you not remember how we started from our beds in the morning, having
slept uneasily, and bowed our knees in prayer, and prayed until the hot
sweat ran down our brow; but rose without a hope that we had been
heard? Do you not recollect how, in our business, we were sometimes so
absent in mind, that those who were round about us thought that we must
have been bereaved of our wits? Do you not well recollect how the best
dainties of our meals seemed to have the bitterness of wormwood in them,
and the sweetest draughts were mingled with gall; how all day lone we
sorrowed, and went to our bed at night with another prayer, still as full of
agony and still as hopeless; and by night we could not sleep, but dreamed
of the wrath to come, saw dreams more horrible than we had dreamed
before; each night and day the wrath of God seemed to increase, and our
pangs and agonies became more terrible? Oh, we shall never forget it;
those of us who have passed through the same will never let that era be
forgotten, for the time of its beginning was the time of our conversion, and
the time of its end was the time of our salvation. Have I any here who are
in this same state this morning? I am coming after you, and in coming after
you I proclaim the words of my text, “Surely I know that it shall be well
with them that fear God, which fear before him.” Sinner, it shall be well
with thee if thou art now made to fear the wrath of God on account of thy
sin; if God the Spirit hath poured forth the vials of Almighty wrath into thy
soul, so that thou art cast down and sore vexed. Think not thou shalt be
destroyed; it shall be well with thee. Let me comfort thee now, whilst thou
art suffering these things, remember that what thou sufferest is that which
all God’s people have had to suffer in a measure. Many poor hearts come
to me when I am sitting to see the anxious ones, and at other times, and
they tell me they are in such deep distress; surely never anyone felt as they
feel. And when I begin to unfold to them the experience of all saints, and
tell them how it is a well-trodden path which almost every traveler to
heaven has had to tread, they stand astonished, and think it cannot be so. I
tell thee sinner, that thy deepest woes have been felt by some one, even
more keenly than thou feelest them now. Thou sayest, “I sink in deep mire
where there is no standing.” Why, man, there have been some that have
sunk far deeper than thou hast sunk. Thou art up to thy ancles; I have
known some to have been up to the loins, and there have been some that
have been covered over their very heads so that they could say, “All thy
waves and thy billows have gone over me.” Your distresses are very
painful, but they are not singular, others have had to endure the same. Be
comforted, it is not a desert island; others have been there too; and if they
have passed through this, and won the crown, thou shalt pass through it,
and inherit yet the glory of the believer on the breast of Christ.

But I will tell thee something else to comfort thee; I will put this question
to thee — Wouldst thou wish to go back and become what thou once
wast? Thy sins are now so painful, that thou canst scarce eat, or drink, or
sleep. There was a time when thy sins never haunted thee, when thou
couldst drink and may with Satan and with sin as merrily as anyone. Come,
wouldst thou like to be as thou wast then? “No,” I hear thee say, “no; my
Master, my God, grieve me more, if so it pleaseth thee, but do not let me
be hardened any more.” Ask the poor strickened conscience, in the first
agonies and throes of his grief, whether he would like to be a hardened
sinner? “No,” he says; and when he hears the blasphemer swear against
God, the tear is in his eye; he says, “Lord, I thank thee for my miseries, if
they deliver me from hardness of heart. I can extol thee for my agonies, if
they save me from such dire presumption, such rebellion against thee.”
Well, then, be of good cheer, your condition, you see, is not the worst of
all; there is a worse state yet. Oh, it thou hast come so far, hope thou in
Christ, thou shalt come further yet. But the great consolation is this, Jesus
Christ died for thee. If God the Holy Ghost hath shown thee that thou art
dead in sin, and if he hath revealed to thee the desperate character of thine
iniquity, and broken thee in pieces with penitence on account of thy guilt
— hear me, I speak not now at hap-hazard, I speak with God’s authority
— Jesus Christ died for thee; yes, for thee, thou vilest of the vile. I am no
general redemptionist, I believe Jesus Christ died for as many as will be
saved; I do not believe he died in vain for any man alive. I have always
believed that Christ was punished instead of men. Now, if he were
punished in the stead of all men, I could see no justice in God punishing
men again after having punished Christ for them. I hold and believe — and,
I think, on Scriptural authority, that Jesus Christ died for all those who
believe or will believe; and he was punished in the stead of all those who
feel their need of a Savior, and lay hold on him. The rest reject him, despise
him, sin against God, and are punished for their sine. But those who are
redeemed, having been blood-bought, shall not be lost. Christ’s blood is
too precious to have been shed for men who are damned. It is too awful a
thing to think of the Savior standing in a sinner’s stead, and then that sinner
after all having to bear his own iniquities; I can never indulge a thought
which appears to be so unrighteous to God, and so unsafe to men. All that
the Savior bought he shall have, all that his heavenly Father hath given him,
he says, shall come unto him. Now here is something solid for thee, poor
soul. I ask again, dost thou know and feel thyself to be lost and ruined?
Then the Savior bought thee, and will have thee; then he was punished for
thee and thou never wilt be punished again; then he hung upon the cross
for thee that thou mightest not perish. For thee there is no hell, so far as
thou art concerned. The eternal lake is quenched; the dungeons of hell are
broken open, their bars are cut in sunder. Thou art free; no damnation can
ever seize thee, no devils can ever drag thee to the pit. Thou art redeemed,
and thou art saved. “What!” sayest thou, “I redeemed! Why, sir, I am full
of sin.” It is the very reason why thou art redeemed. “But I feel myself to
be the guiltiest of all the human race.” Yes, and that is just the evidence
that Christ died for thee. He says himself, “I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance.” If you have got abundance of good works, and
think you can go to heaven by them, you will perish; but if you know your
guilt, and confess it — it is not my affirmation, but the affirmation of the
Scriptures — “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom,” says the
Apostle, “I am chief.” Lay hold on that, poor soul: and then I repeat to
thee the text, “Yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear
God, which fear before him.” It shall be well with thee yet, and black
though thou art, thou shalt one day sing among the bloodwashed ones in
glory everlasting. That is the first stage of fearing God; we shall now
proceed to another.

II. There are many who have believed, and are truly converted, who have
a fear which I may call THE FEAR OF ANXIETY. They are afraid that they
are not converted. They are converted, there is no doubt of it. Sometimes
they know they are so themselves, but, for the most part, they are afraid.
There are some people in the world who have a preponderance of fear in
their characters it seems as if their mind, from its peculiar constitution, had
a greater aptitude for the state of fear than for any other state. Why, even
in temporal matters they are always fearing; and, when these poor souls get
converted, they are always afraid that they are not so. First, they will tell
you they are afraid they never repented enough; the work in their hearts,
they say, was not deep; it was just superficial surface-ploughing, and never
entered into their souls. Then they are quite sure they never came to Christ
aright, they think they came the wrong way. How that can be no one
knows, for they could not come at all except the Father drew them; and the
Father did not draw them the wrong way, Still they hold that they did not
come aright; then if that idea is knocked on the head, they say they do not
believe aright; but when that is got rid of, they say, if they were converted
they would not be the subject of so much sin. They say they can trust
Christ, but they are afraid they do not trust him aright; and they always do,
what you may, come back to the old condition; they are always afraid. And
now, what shall I say to these good souls? Why, I will say this, “Surely I
know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him.”
Not only those who believe, but those who fear, have got a promise, I
would to God that they had more faith; I would that they could lay hold on
the Savior, and had more assurance, and even attain unto a perfect
confidence; but if they cannot shall I utter a word that would hurt them?
God forbid; “Surely it shall be with even with them that fear God, with
them that fear before him.” There are some of these poor creatures who
are the holiest and most heavenly minded people in all the world. I have
seen men who, with poor, desponding spirits, have exhibited the most
lovely graces. There has not been the blushing healthful beauty of the rose;
but the lily hath its beauties, sickly though it seemeth, and these, though
they be faint and weak, have eminently the graces of humility and
meekness, of patience and endurance, and they practice more of
meditation, more of self examination, more of repentance more of prayer,
than any race of Christians alive. God forbid that I should vex their spirits:
there are some of God’s best children who always grow in the shade of
fear, and can scarcely attain to so much as to say, “I know whom I have
believed.” Darkness suits them best, their eyes are weak, and much sunlight
seems to blind them, they love the shadows; and though they thought they
could sing, “I know my Savior, I love him, and he loves me;” they go back
again, and begin to groan in themselves, “Do I love the Lord; indeed, if it
be so, why am I thus?”

Now, I am about to utter a great paradox — I believe that some of these
poor fearing people have got the greatest faith of anybody in the world; I
have sometimes thought that great tear, great anxiety, must have great faith
with it to keep the soul alive at all. See that man drowning, there — there
is another in the water too, I see. He in the distance thinks he can swim: a
plank is thrown to him; he believes himself to be in no danger of sinking.
Well he clutches the plank very leisurely, and does not seem to grasp it
firmly. But this poor creature here, he knows he cannot swim, he feels that
he must soon sink Now put the means of escape near him, how desperately
he clutches it; how he seems as if he would drive his fingers through the
plank! He clutches it for life or death, that is his all, for he must perish if he
is not saved by that. Now, in this case, he that fears the most believes the
most; and I do think it is so sometimes with poor desponding spirits. They
have the greatest fear of hell, and the greatest fear of themselves, and the
greatest dread that they are not right. Oh, what a faith they must have,
when they are enabled to throw themselves on Christ, and when they can
but whisper to themselves “I think that he is mine” — “Surely I know that
it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear-before him.”

But I want to comfort these poor souls a little. I do not think a minister
does well in killing the lambs; for where would be the sheep next year if he
should do so? But at the same time it is his business to make the lambs
grow into sheep if he can. And you who are fearing, I would not say a
word to hurt you, but I would say a word to comfort you if I could; I
would remind you that you are not fit to judge of yourself. You have been
just now examining yourself, and you came to the conclusion that you
really are not a child of God. Now, you will not be offended with me, but I
would not give one single farthing for your opinion of yourself. Why, I tell
you, you have not any judgment. It is not long ago you were a base,
presumptuous sinner, and then you thought yourself all right. I did not
believe you then. Well, then you began to reform yourself. You practiced
many good works, and thought, surely you were mending your pace to
heaven then. Then I knew you were wrong. Now you are becoming a true
believer in Christ, but you are very fearful, and you say you are not safe. I
know you are; you are not fit to judge. I should not like to see you
elevated to the bench; you would scarcely know how to deal with other
men, for you would not know how to deal with yourself; and who is he
that can deal with himself? We sometimes think ourselves proud, and we
are never more humble than when we feel that we are proud. At other
times, we think ourselves to be wonderfully humble, and we are never
more proud than then. We sometimes say within ourselves, “Now I think I
am overcoming my corruptions;” that is just the time when they are about
to attack us most severely. At another time we are crying, “Surely I shall
be cut off,” that is just the period when sin is being routed, because we are
hating it the most and crying out the most against it. We are not qualified
to fudge ourselves, our poor scales are so out of order, that they will never
tell the truth. Now, then, just give up your own judgment, except thus far.
Can you say that you “are a poor sinner and nothing at all, and that Jesus
Christ is your all in all?” Then be comforted. You have no right to be
anxious; you have no reason to be so. You could not say that if you had
not been converted. You must have been quickened by grace, or else you
would not be anxious at all; and you must have faith, or else you would not
be able even to lay hold of Christ so much as to know your own
nothingness and his all sufficiency. Poor soul! be comforted.

But shall I tell thee one thing? Dost thou know the greatest of God’s
people are often in the same condition as thou art now? “No, no,” says the
fearful soul, “I do not believe that, I believe that when persons are
converted they never have any fear,” and they look at the minister, and
they say, “Oh, but if I could be but like that minister; I know he never has
doubts and fears. Oh, if I could be like old deacon So-and-so — such a
holy man how he prays! Oh, if I could feel like Mr. So-and-so, who calls to
visit me, and talks to me so sweetly. They never doubt.” Ah, that is
because you do not know. Those whom you think to be the strongest, and
are so in public, have their times of the greatest weakness, when they can
scarcely know their own names in spiritual things. If one may speak for the
rest, those of us who enjoy the greatest portions of assurance have times
when we would give all the world to know ourselves to be possessors of
grace; when we would be ready to sacrifice our lives if we might but have
the shadow of a hope that we were in the love of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now, little one, if the giants go there, what wonder if the dwarfs must?
What if God’s favourite and chosen ones, what if his valiant men, the body
guard of Christ, those men whose swords are on their thighs, and who
stand up for the truth and are its champions — if they sometimes are weak,
what wonder if thou shouldest be weak? What if the heirs of salvation and
the soldiers of the cross sometimes feel their knees feeble and their hands
hang down and their hearts faint, what wonder if thou, who art less than
the least of all saints shouldst sometimes be in trouble too? Oh, be of good
cheer; fear will never kill anybody. “Doubts and fears,” said an old
preacher, once, “are like the toothache nothing more painful, but never
fatal.” They will often grieve us, but they will never kill us, they distress us
much but they will never burn the soul. Fears even do good at times. Let
me not however, praise them too much. I heard a preacher say, the other
day, that fear was a good housekeeper. I said, “So I have heard, but I do
not believe it. She never will keep a cupboard full; she is a good
doorkeeper; she can keep beggars and thieves away; she is a good
housedog to guard us and protect us in the night, and warn us of dangers,
lest we fall into them.” The fear of anxiety then, is a good fear. Take this
promise — “Surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God,
which fear before him.”

III. And now, my brethren, in the next place there is A FEAR WHICH
WORKS CAUTION. When we get a little further advanced in the Christian
life, our present state is not so much a matter of anxiety as our future state.
We believe that we shall never totally fall from grace. We hold it as a
cardinal doctrine of our religion that by no means will God ever leave his
people or suffer them to perish. But we often think within ourselves, I am
afraid lest I should bring dishonor on the cause of Christ; I am afraid lest,
in some moment of temptation, I shall be left to go astray; I am afraid lest I
should lose that hallowed peace and that delightful joy which it has been
my privilege to enjoy, and shall yet go back into the world. God grant I
may not prove to be a hypocrite, after all! Now, I have hundreds of
persons just now in this place, who are feeling like this, and I will tell you
one ill effect of this fear. These persons say, “I dare not join the church,
because I am afraid I shall fall.” A friend mentions to them that they hold it
to be their duty, if they have believed, to make a profession of their faith in
baptism. They say, “Well, I believe it to be my duty to partake of the two
institutions of our Savior; I ought to be buried with him in baptism unto
death; I ought also, I know, to hold fellowship with him in the Lord’s
supper, but I dare not join the church; for suppose I should bring dishonor
upon the cause, suppose I should disgrace the church, what a sad thing it
would be!” That fear is good, in itself. But do you think that you would
not bring disgrace on Christ’s cause as it is? You are always at the place of
worship; you are never away. You were always looked upon as being one
of the church, though you have not made a profession. Now, if you were to
sin, would it not dishonor the church even now? You know your relatives
and friends esteem you to be a Christian. You would scarce dishonor the
church more if you were actually to join it; for you really are united with it.
If you would be consistent, you must never go to the chapel any more. Just
stop away; give up your seat; turn right down irreligious, and then you
cannot dishonor the church. Do one or the other, but never think you will
be saving Christ’s church by dishonoring God, as you really are doing now.
And then I will ask you this question, Where do you think a man is safest
— in the paths of obedience, or in the paths of disobedience? Now you
know you are disobedient; you are quite sure of that. Do you think you are
safer where your wayward will leads you, or where God’s Spirit points the
way? And remember this, if you cannot trust God to keep you standing,
you must have a poor faith indeed. If you cannot just risk that and be
united with the church, and hope that Christ will keep you, then I fear you
will have some terrible fall. If you do not join the church, you will bring far
more disgrace upon it by being outside it, than you would have done if you
had been united with it and had been kept. Ah, friends, I believe that union
with the Christian church is often a means under God, of preserving men
from sin; for then they think there is a bond upon them, and a sacred claim,
and many of them are more careful what they do. And I trust there would
be the same check upon you.

But now, I daresay that the poor creature who has been uttering this,
thinks I am about to condemn her; and the poor man who has been talking
so thinks I would cut him off and say he is no child of God. God forbid!
My text belongs to him. You are afraid you will fall into sin — “Surely I
know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him.”
If you should tell me you were not afraid of falling, I would not have you
in the church for the world; you would be no Christian. All Christians,
when they are in a right state, are afraid of falling into sin. Holy fear is the
proper condition of a child of God. Even the most confident will not go
into presumption. He that knows his love to the Savior, and his Saviour’s
rove to him, is yet afraid lest he should dishonor him. If there be a man
who has an assurance of such a kind, as to put fear out of the question, so
that he is never afraid of sinning, I will tell him he has a satanic assurance,
an assurance which came from Satan and not from God for the more
assured we are of our own conversion, the more careful we shall be lest we
should offend God, and the more fearful lest by word or look, or deed, we
should grieve God’s Holy Spirit. I love your fear, and love you too for it,
you are my brother and sister in Jesus, if you can truly say that you fear lest
you should sin. Seek then, my friends, to grow in this fear of caution,
obtain more and more of it; and whilst thou dost not distrust the Savior,
learn to distrust thyself more and more every day.

IV. I shall not detain you many more minutes; I have only to notice in the
next mace the fear which I may call THE FEAR OF JEALOUSY. Strong love
will usually promote jealousy. “Love is as strong as death;” then comes the
next, “Jealousy is cruel as the grave.” We cannot love strongly without
feeling some jealousy — I mean, not jealousy against the object of our
love; for, “perfect love casteth out fear” — but jealousy against ourselves.
“Oh what jealousy,” says the Apostle, addressing the Corinthians, “what
revenge,” did grace work in you when you were first converted. The true
believer, when he gets his Savior in full possession, and in blissful
communion, is so jealous lest any rival should intrude in his heart; be is
afraid lest his dearest friend should get more of his heart than the Savior
has. He is afraid of his wealth; he trembles at his health, at his fame, at
everything that is dear to him, lest it should engross his heart. Oh, how
often does he pray, “My Lord, let me not be of a divided spirit; cast down
each idol — self-will, self-righteousness.” And I tell you the more he loves,
the more he will fear lest he should provoke his Savior by bringing a rival
into his heart, and setting up an Antichrist in his spirit; so that fear just
goes in proportion to love; and the bright love is congenial, and must walk
side by side with the deepest jealousy and the profoundest fear. Seek, my
brethren to know the meaning of communion, and you must know, then,
the meaning of fear; for fear and communion must, to a great degree go
together.

V. And now I will conclude by just mentioning that fear which is felt
WHEN WE HAVE HAD DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. Did you never, in the
silence of the night, look up and view the stars, feeding, like sheep, on the
azure pastures of the sky? Have you never thought of those great worlds,
far, far away, divided from us by almost illimitable leagues of space? Did
you never, whilst musing on the starry heavens, lose yourself in thoughts of
God; and have you never felt, at such a time, that you could say with
Jacob, “How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of
God, and the very gate of heaven.” Have you never seen the craggy hills
lift their summits to the skies? Have you never marked the tempests sailing
o’er them, and seen the thunder-cloud burst upon the mountain, and heard
the heavens shake beneath the tramp of the Most High, and seen the skies
all glaring red with fire, when God hath sent his thunder-bolts abroad; and
have you not trembled that God was there, and in other and happier
seasons have you not in your chamber been so wrapt in devotion, have you
not so manifestly known the presence of God that you were filled with
trembling? Fear took hold upon you and made all your bones to shake, not
because you dreaded God, but because you then saw some of his
greatness. It is said of Moses, that when he saw the burning bush he feared
to look upon God. God is so great a Being, that the rightly constituted
mind must always fear when it approaches into his presence. The Eastern
subject, when he came before his king, regarded him as a being so infinitely
superior to himself, that even in the vestibule he began to shake, and as he
neared the throne he began to totter and his cheek was blanched with fear.
Like Esther, he would faint when he came before the king, so glorious was
his majesty. And if it be so with earthly monarchs, how fearful must it be to
come into the presence chamber of the King of kings, and to feel one’s self
near him! Why, I believe that even in heaven we shall have this kind of fear.
Certainly the angels have it. They dare not look on God. They veil their
faces with their wings, and whilst they cry aloud, Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God of Hosts yet they dare not view him. The very sight of him might
destroy them, and they tremble at his presence. Now this kind of fear, if
you have ever felt it, if it has been produced in your heart by contemplation
of God, is a high and hallowed thing, and to you this promise is addressed
— “Surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear
before him.”

And now, might I go round again this morning — I cannot do it personally,
yet by my voice — to the poor trembling soul who is overcome with sin.
Poor man, where art thou? Hath the devil got hold of thee, and have thy
sins covered thee up, so that thou canst not see the face of the sun, and
behold the light of mercy? Listen to me; you may never hope till you have
left off hoping in yourself. You have never any right to believe, till you
have nothing to believe in yourself. Until you have lost all, you have no
right to take anything. But now, if you have lost all your own good works
and righteousness, if you feel that there is no reason why you should be
saved, that is the very reason why you should be. My Master bids me tell
the naked to come to his heavenly wardrobe, and take his royal garment for
their clothing. He bids me tell the hungry to haste away to his heavenly
granaries, and feed upon the old corn of the kingdom to their very full. He
bids me tell the thirsty that the river of life is broad and deep, and flows
freely to all those who thirst after it. Now, sinner, if thou art sick of sin,
and grieved at heart where thou standest, follow me in spirit in these
words: “O Lord, I know my guilt, and I confess my misery. If thou
dampest me to all eternity, thou wilt be just; but, O Lord, have mercy upon
me, according to thy promise, which thou hast made in Christ Jesus, unto
those who confess their faults.” If that came from your heart, go out of
that door, and sing all the way home, for you are a pardoned sinner. You
shall never see death — the second death, the death of the soul. Go home
to your chamber! let your heart burst itself in tears of thankfulness. Go, and
there prostrate yourself, and bless God that he has enabled you to see that
only Jesus can do a helpless sinner good. And then, “go your way; eat your
bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart. Let your head lack
no oil, and your face no ointment; for God hath accepted you; and you
have a right to be happy. Live cheerfully and joyfully all the days of your
life, hereafter and for ever.”

Welcome to the new European Empire (or perhaps the Revived Roman Empire as some eschatological proponents believe):-

BBC

Blair out of race to be EU president

EU leaders have chosen the Belgian Prime Minister, Herman van Rompuy, to be the first permanent European Council President, diplomats say.

The other top job created by the Lisbon Treaty – foreign affairs supremo – will go to the EU Trade Commissioner, Baroness Catherine Ashton from the UK.

Both are seen as low-key consensual politicians.

Earlier, the UK government said it was no longer pushing for former PM Tony Blair to get the presidency post.

Mr Van Rompuy had crucial French and German support. He has a reputation as a coalition builder, having taken charge of the linguistically divided Belgian government and steered it out of a crisis.

A UK government spokesman revealed the dramatic twist in the British position.

The UK persuaded the other six leaders in the socialist group to back the Baroness Ashton, having dropped Tony Blair.

EU leaders met in Brussels to select their first full-time president and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs – new posts created by the Lisbon Treaty, which will come into force on 1 December.

Read Entire Article

Oh well, at least Tony Blair is not our new Emperor, thank God for small mercies.

Previous recent post:-

Leaders of the 27 member states of the European Union are meeting (Secretly) in Brussels on November 19 to choose the first-ever European president and European foreign minister.

The following report comes from Eye On The UN and has been featured in Fox News:-

“The United Nations detained an outspoken critic and booted her from its New York headquarters in what the woman, a human rights watchdog, is calling an effort to silence her opposition to the world body.”

Anne Bayefsky claims that as retaliation for giving a two-minute impromptu speech defending Israel, her 25-year career of monitoring the U.N. is now in jeopardy — likely to be placed in the hands of a committee chaired by the genocidal regime in Sudan.

Bayefsky gets special access to U.N. meetings in her capacity as the director of a non-governmental organization, the Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust at New York’s Touro College.

But the longtime U.N. observer has found herself in what she calls a “Kafkaesque” gray zone, where the U.N. confiscated her credentials, then denied to reporters that her access had been blocked.

“This is no accident,” she told FoxNews.com, arguing that she is being denied access to vital meetings concerning her prime focus: defending Israel. “This is keeping [the U.N.'s] major critic absent during the heart of the year.”

Following a vote Nov. 5 at the U.N. General Assembly, a microphone was set up outside the UNGA chamber for delegates to tout their endorsement of the controversial Goldstone Report, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes during its invasion of Gaza last winter.

Without an invitation, Bayefsky approached the empty podium to offer what she thought would be a counter-balance to speeches from the Libyan president of the UNGA and the Palestinian observer, who both supported the resolution.

“I didn’t expect that there would be a problem at all,” said Bayefsky, who noted that she and other NGOs have spoken there in the past without incident. (Archived U.N. video shows an official from the NGO Human Rights Watch speaking in praise of the U.N. at the same podium in May 2007.)

Bayefsky blasted the Goldstone Report and called the U.N. a “laughingstock” for singling out Israel and ignoring human rights violations committed by the terrorist organization Hamas against Israeli and Palestinian civilians during the three-week campaign in December and January.

“This is a resolution that purports to be evenhanded; it is anything but,” she said of the document approved by the UNGA. “It is a travesty — it calls for accountability, and in fact what we see instead is impunity for the Palestinian side.”

Soon after she finished speaking, Bayefsky was swarmed by four U.N. security guards, who brought her to their security office, confiscated her NGO pass and kicked her out of the building, she said.

But the U.N. told reporters a different story at a press conference Tuesday — claiming that there has been no change in status for Bayefsky, even as she continues to sit in limbo.

“The credentials of her organization are not changed at this stage,” said Farhan Haq, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “It’s possible in the future that there could be a review, but at this stage there’s been no removal of credentials from that NGO or from Ms. Bayefsky.”

U.N. security officials became angered with Bayefsky after they realized she had brought an assistant to the U.N. proceedings without getting him a personal pass — a breach of protocol that led to a full-fledged investigation by the security office.

But Bayefsky says that the content of her speech is what rubbed U.N. officials the wrong way. She says supporters of the Goldstone report “are going to do everything in their power to silence anyone who gets in their way.”

Following her speech, the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, was informed that a pro-Israel NGO had spoken after him, and reportedly asked a member of the press, “Did we capture them?”

Later, as she pleaded her case before being forcibly removed from the General Assembly building, a security official told Bayefsky that “the Palestinian ambassador is very upset at the statement you made,” she told FoxNews.com.

U.N. officials denied that politics had anything to do with their handling of Bayefsky, and said it was purely an issue of protocol.

“She came to the microphone unannounced, unauthorized and unwarranted. It’s so simple,” said Jean-Victor Nkolo, a spokesman for the president of the General Assembly. “It’s nothing personal against Ms. Bayefsky at all. But it’s just that this cannot be allowed.”

Though her speech was broadcast live online, the footage was removed from the main proceedings made available by the U.N. on its Web site. Video of Bayefsky’s two-minute talk, which first streamed live, has been posted online on YouTube.

“This was broadcast live. These are very serious matters,” said Nkolo. “We are trying in this building to work toward peace in a very serious manner.”

Bayefsky is now waiting for the U.N. to return her credentials or to refer her case to the Committee on NGOs, which will meet during January and February and could decide whether to renew her NGO pass — a prospect that has her deeply worried.

“The chances of my getting through that committee are basically nil,” she said.

The nation that chairs the committee, Sudan, is currently engaged in a murderous war on its own citizens and expelled 13 major aid NGOs from the country in March — meaning that a human rights violator that rejects NGOs within its own borders will be overseeing the approval of NGOs at the U.N.

Asked about this apparent inconsistency, a spokeswoman for the U.N. body overseeing the NGO committee said in an e-mail that “the Departments concerned are investigating this matter on the basis of established practice, jurisprudence and thorough review of the facts.”

That spokeswoman, Diane Loughran, noted that “The decision on whether to suspend or withdraw her organization from the UN would be up to the Committee on NGOs upon receipt of a formal complaint.” But Loughran said she was not aware of any formal complaints filed with the committee.

In the meantime, Bayefsky has no pass and can’t hope for a hearing until at least January or February, which means she could be barred from working at the U.N. for the next few months.

“The next three weeks are the heart of the entire year at the U.N. General Assembly. The frenzy of anti-Israel activity is going on right now,” she said.

“There’s a reason they’re keeping me away — this is no accident.”

Click here to see previous posts on Christian Persecution in Iraq

By Jesús Colina

ROME, NOV. 17, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The problems faced by Christians in Iraq are not caused by the state, but the very social system, says one representative of the Catholic community there.

Archbishop Jules Mikhael Al-Jamil, procurator of the Syrian Catholic Patriarchate in Rome, presented this analysis at a press meeting organized at the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

The prelate, 71, said that in Iraq’s social system, Christians have no supports to defend themselves, thus becoming easy victims of common criminals or terrorist groups.

He said their situation can be called a “religious persecution” caused by a social system that is inspired by a view of the Quran, according to which Islam and its followers must dominate and regard believers of other religions as citizens with fewer rights.

The archbishop, expert in Arab culture and literature, explained that according to the Quran, Islam is a religion that is above all others.

In the past in Iraq (and some still hold this view), “Christians who were under a Muslim regime or doctrine were free to believe in Islam, to leave their land, or to pay a tax to live in peace,” he said.

Nevertheless, Archbishop Al-Jamil noted, Christians used to be a quite influential minority. They made a decisive contribution to the country’s culture in, for example, the creation and development of the first University of Baghdad. These contributions, the prelate explained, allowed them to “enjoy respect.”

“But this doesn’t mean that they enjoy the same rights” according to certain interpretations of the Quran, he continued. “A Christian cannot rule over a Muslim” in a Muslim regime. “A general of the army cannot be a Christian.”

Now that Christians have lost their political weight and social influence, and many have abandoned their land, they suffer the persecution of a dominant social system that keeps them defenseless, Archbishop Al-Jamil said.

Shut in

The archbishop later told ZENIT he is not in favor of a proposal to protect the rights of Christians by creating a Christian enclave in Nineveh (where there is a Christian majority), since Christians are part of the social fabric of the whole country.

Archbishop Al-Jamil is not in favor of emigration either, stating that “the Church must be the presence of Christ in the country. If we Christians flee when the situation is difficult, then we don’t give that necessary witness. And if the generations are uprooted then they will never return.”

According to the prelate, in a democratic country, which Iraq says it is and wants to be, Christians should enjoy the same rights as the rest of the citizens.

The meeting in the Mapamundi Hall of the Italian Chamber of Deputies was sponsored by the Save the Monasteries foundation, which aims to create awareness about the situation of the churches and monasteries that are being destroyed in Iraq, Pakistan and Kosovo.

I really enjoyed this little article from Ruth Gledhill over at the Times. I would however extend the sentiment to all Christians. We need backbone! A fearless, unashamed love of Jesus.

In the mind of the populace, Jesus is the meek and mild babe in the manger, non-judgemental and rather soft, but in reality, He is a glorious warrior, bold and brave, not fearing ridicule and even death. He stood against the prevailing spirit of the age with unshakable courage in the face of the baying wolves and gave no ground.

The Gospels show us over and again that His love and compassion was mixed with a fearless zeal for the truth, even when that truth was offensive to many.

Ruth Gledhil – Times

The Archbishop of Canterbury has displayed a munificent turning of the other cheek in response to what many see as a move by the Pope to annex part of his Church.

No one doubts his Christian holiness. But a bit more muscular Christianity would not go amiss. In Rome this week he might do better to ask himself not “What would Jesus do?” but “What would Thomas Cromwell do?”

Read Entire Article

This development was only a matter of time once the Lutheran church (ELCA) had voted to endorse gay marriage and to change its standards to allow pastors and other rostered leaders to be in committed same-sex relationships.

Click here to see all related Lutheran posts on this blog

I am personally heartened to see this decision from the Lutheran Core

Press release from the Lutheran Core

Lutheran CORE leaders announce that a new Lutheran church body will be formed for those leaving the ELCA

NEW BRIGHTON, Minn. — Leaders of Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Renewal) have voted to begin work on a proposal for a new Lutheran church body for those who choose to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, they announced Wednesday, Nov. 18.

The votes by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August to allow pastors to be in committed same-sex relationships have created a biblical and theological crisis throughout the ELCA and have generated conflict in local congregations. Many congregations and individuals are considering the possibility of leaving the ELCA or have chosen to redirect giving away from the national church.

More than 1,200 Lutherans gathered in Fishers, Ind., Sept. 25-26 unanimously voted to authorize the Lutheran CORE Steering Committee “to initiate conversations among the congregations and reform movements in Lutheran CORE and other compatible churchly organizations leading toward a possible reconfiguration of North American Lutheranism” and to bring a recommendation for action in 2010. The Lutheran CORE Steering Committee decided Tuesday that a new church body likely will be necessary and directed that work begin on a church body proposal.

“Many ELCA members and congregations have said that they want to sever ties with the ELCA because of the ELCA’s continued movement away from traditional Christian teachings. The vote on sexuality opened the eyes of many to how far the ELCA has moved from Biblical teaching,” said the Rev. Paull Spring of State College, Pa., Lutheran CORE Chair.

“Along with the WordAlone Network and our other renewal movement partners, Lutheran CORE will aid in the formation of a Lutheran church body for those congregations and individuals that choose to end their affiliation with the ELCA. This church body will stand where Lutherans have always stood and will center its life on the mission of the church to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” said Spring, the retired bishop of the Northern Pennsylvania Synod.

A special working group will draft the church body proposal in consultation with the WordAlone Network and the other reform movement partners of Lutheran CORE. The recommendations are to be released in February to allow interested individuals and congregations time for feedback. Final proposals will be brought to the Lutheran CORE Convocation Aug. 26-27 in Columbus, Ohio.

The working group will also bring recommendations for the continuation of Lutheran CORE as a free-standing synod that will serve both Lutherans in the ELCA and those in other church bodies. This working group will be in conversation with other Lutheran church bodies about ways to work together. Lutheran CORE has been in conversation with Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, an association of Lutheran congregations which many ELCA congregations have joined, and will continue to work closely with LCMC. The proposed new church body is intended to provide a place for congregations that desire a more traditional denominational structure.

“We have not made any firm decisions about what this church body will be or how it will be structured. That reality will come into focus as the working group meets with the members of Lutheran CORE who are looking for a new church body and with other Lutheran church bodies and reform movements in North America,” explained Ryan Schwarz of Washington, D.C., a member of the Lutheran CORE Steering Committee, who chairs the working group.

Lutheran CORE to continue as free-standing synod

Lutheran CORE will continue to exist as a free-standing synod. Both those within the ELCA and in this new church body will be able to continue in fellowship through Lutheran CORE.

“Lutheran CORE is committed to be a church fellowship for Lutherans who are committed to the teaching of Scripture — both those who choose to remain affiliated with the ELCA and those who choose to end their affiliation with the ELCA,” Spring said.

“It is important that those who want to uphold Biblical teaching work together. We need each other. To be an effective witness, Lutherans — both those who remain affiliated with the ELCA and those who end that affiliation — need to work together. Lutheran CORE hopes to continue to provide that church fellowship and serve that common mission,” he added.

“This new church body and the Lutheran CORE free-standing synod will make it possible for faithful congregations to work together in mission and to relate to other Lutherans worldwide,” Schwarz said. “Lutherans around the world have been scandalized by the ELCA’s actions. Lutheran CORE will work closely with Lutherans around the world who share our commitment to Scripture as it has been understood by generations of Christians.”

“We are not leaving the ELCA. The ELCA has left us. Lutheran CORE is continuing in the Christian faith as it has been passed down to us by generations of Christians. The ELCA is the one that has departed from the teaching of the Bible as understood by Christians for 2,000 years,” Spring said. “The division in the ELCA is not only really sex. It is about the authority of Scripture in the life of the church. The crisis in the ELCA is a direct result of the actions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.”

“We grieve that it has become necessary for so many to leave the ELCA and for so many others to alter their relationship with the ELCA, but we are heartened by the clear sense of mission and ministry that is motivating these changes,” the Lutheran CORE Steering Committee said in a letter to members of Lutheran CORE announcing the decision.

Coincidentally, two pieces today, related to ever-more sophisticated pre-natal diagnostic techniques, which allow us to detect more genetic anomalies in the unborn, leading to a rise in eugenics:-

By Hilary White

LONDON, November 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The British government has gone to court to prevent the publication of statistics on abortions of children with mild disabilities like cleft palates and club foot. The Department of Health has asked the High Court to overturn a Freedom of Information Act ruling that gave the Information Tribunal permission to publish the information.

The Information Tribunal is a government body that hears appeals under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. It ruled last month that the Pro-Life Alliance could review the abortion statistics.

The Department of Health refused to release the information claiming that it could lead to women who have late abortions being identified. Department lawyers argued that the information was “sensitive, personal and private.”

Under Ground E of the Abortion Act, babies who are suspected of having a “serious handicap” can be aborted legally in Britain up to the point of full gestation. The Act does not provide specific criteria for physicians to decide what kind of disability is severe enough to warrant killing an unborn child.

Julia Millington of the Pro-Life Alliance told the Daily Telegraph, “It is a reprehensible waste of public money and court time to continue a fruitless battle to hide this information.

“A country, committed to transparency and openness, accepts and expects that the same principles apply to abortion as to other areas of healthcare practice. These statistics should be made public.”

The Department of Health admits that at least 1900 babies were aborted last year under Ground E, but no longer gives a breakdown specifying the type of disability. This information has been withheld since 2005. When statistics were being released, it was revealed that between 2000 and 2001, nine unborn babies were aborted because of cleft lip and palate.

The killing of children with trivial deformities has come under scrutiny in Britain since it was highlighted by a female Church of England minister, Joanna Jepson, who instigated a legal challenge to the abortion of a 28-week-old child with a cleft palate in 2001.

Jepson wrote in an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph in 2003 that “more than 2,000 years after the birth of Jesus, was a baby unshielded and unwanted, deemed too ‘defective’ to live a meaningful life. It had no voice, and yet its death cries out to us all to reconsider the value and worth we grant to those who are weakest and most easily dismissed.”

And:-

Manuel and Sophia Corpas – Mercator

One of our biggest worries in the field of genome medicine is the use of prenatal genetics tests to justify the abortion of human embryos. Current technologies allow enhanced detection of genetic abnormalities that a few years ago would have been unthinkable.

Array-CGH (Comparative Genomic Hybridisation) is becoming a common method for analysing patients’ genomes. Array-CGH works by taking a reference genome covering the whole human genome sequence, cutting it into thousands of pieces and attaching them to a chip. These pieces are called probes or oligos and are usually on the range of dozens to thousands DNA bases long respectively. A saliva or blood sample is then taken from the patient and his/her DNA chopped into millions of pieces, carried by a suspension with a solvent. The array is then washed with the suspension containing the patient DNA pieces.

DNA is a double chain of nucleotide bases where one chain complements the other. Knowing one chain of the DNA, it is possible to know the other chain. In its natural state, a single DNA chain tends to bind to its complementary chain. Thus, by washing the patient’s suspension with array probes attached to a chip, the patient’s DNA ends up binding to their complementary DNA probe in the array.

Array-CGH can be used to detect whether a a region of the genome is missing or has been duplicated. Probes attached to the chip emit a different color depending on their state of binding. Once the array is washed, most probe spots appear yellow, meaning that most of the reference genome’s probes are bound to the patient’s DNA. If a patient is missing a DNA region big enough to span a probe, the complementary spot in the array appears in red. If several red spots appear in sequential order, these can be mapped to the patient’s genome as missing regions or deletions. The symptoms of the genetic disease depend on the genes that overlap the deletion.

The same happens if the array shows a series of green spots, indicating that a duplicated region of the genome has been found in the DNA of the patient. Because the gene content is also duplicated, this may cause disease as a consequence of the over-expression of genes included in such regions.

Thus we are now able to find deletions or duplications in the genome of a patient beyond the microscopic level. We are all familiar with the features of a patient with Down’s Syndrome. This syndrome is caused because there is an extra copy of chromosome 21 in the affected patient, due to a duplication of one of the two usual copies (trisomy 21). This was discovered in 1959 by the French geneticist Jerome Lejeune.

But it is only recently that we have discovered the importance of structural changes such as deletions and duplications in the evolution of a genome. Before these technologies became widely accessible to hospital practice, many patients with genomic diseases, ie diseases caused by pathogenic deletions or duplications, went undiagnosed because only big chromosomal changes (like trisomy 21) could be detected.

Techniques such as array-CGH now allow the detection of chromosomal changes a thousand times smaller in length. For a price of about US$170 per array a genome can be screened for chromosomal changes. In fact, it seems that most of the genetic changes observed between any two people (in terms of number of DNA bases) are micro-deletions and duplications (called copy number variations).

Next-generation sequencing technologies are fast arriving that will allow base-by-base complete sequencing of the DNA at a price of US$1,000 in 24 hours.

So far there is no remedy for DNA anomalies when they are detected other than the treatment of symptoms. Many prenatal tests are now by default array-CGH tests instead of the traditional microscope chromosomal observation (called a karyotype). We are now able to detect genetic abnormalities before children are born. Thus these marvellous array-CGH techniques may lead to the diagnosis of more and more subtle syndromes and changes that may lead to not-so-severe abnormalities.

In the current climate of laws that regulate abortion, the enhancement of detection techniques for genetic anomalies is creating a situation where parents are faced with abortion for ever less severe results. In such cases, it is necessary to make people aware that many of the results given by such genetic tests are not necessarily conclusive in terms of the prognosis for the born child.

Many so-called diseases might lead parents to decide to have an abortion because it is socially unacceptable for them to have children with a disability or simply because they cannot face the risk. These fears may lead to indiscriminate abortion for mild genetic abnormalities such as polydactyly (having an extra finger or toe) or microcephaly (having a small head).

In a society where we already allow abortion up until birth, for a simple (and, one should note, operable) cleft palate, the consequences of allowing array-CGH diagnostics ante-natally are huge. Once again, we are confronted with the delicate frontier between scientific research and the sensitive realm of ethics and morality. The benefits of array-CGH diagnostics are manifiold. Identifying the causes behind genetic diseases brings us a very large step closer to finding treatments and possibly even cures. But there are some who see “prevention” as better than cures, and certainly more cost-effective — even when “prevention” really means abortion.

But this is eugenics, not therapy. Our society is already using karyotyping to eradicate Down syndrome babies. The chillling reality is that about 94 percent of positive diagnoses end in abortion. What will happen to foetuses who have one of the huge range of genetic abnormalities which will be uncovered by array-CGH?

If Down syndrome, a series of conditions that are amenable to both life and happiness, is considered unacceptable, what then of other “problems”? In a society obsessed with so-called health, the outcome seems predictable. For those of us who are uncomfortable with or disagree with the laws on abortion, do we have to stop using a wonderful diagnostic tool for fear that it will, literally, fall into the wrong hands? Or is this a good moment for declaring a moratorium on ante-natal diagnostics and re-opening the abortion debate?

Manuel and Sophia Corpas write from the UK. Manuel Corpas is a scientist working at the Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK, one of the leading centres in genome research.

By Patrick B. Craine

ADELAIDE, South Australia, November 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a surprise victory for pro-life advocates, South Australia’s Upper House has narrowly voted down an amendment to their palliative care legislation that would have legalized euthanasia.

The bill was proposed by Greens member Mark Parnell.  It was expected to pass 11-10, with the support of independent member Ann Bressington, the swing vote.  Bressington opted to abstain, however, after amendments she had sought failed.  This abstention would have resulted in a tie, meaning that Upper House President Bob Sneath would vote to pass the bill.

In the end, however, member David Ridway announced to the shock of pro-life observers that personal reasons had led him to change his mind, and he voted against the bill.

Parnell has stated his intention to make another attempt at legalizing euthanasia after the state elections in March 2010.  With the upcoming retirement of two pro-life members, pro-life advocates have indicated that such an attempt has a real risk of succeeding.

The UK-based anti-euthanasia group SPUC Pro-Life called the vote “a victory for civilised values.”

Anthony Ozimic, SPUC’s communications manager and an expatriate Australian, stated: “Those seeking to develop civilised values which respect the sanctity of human life should be encouraged by this vote.

“In spite of all the money, media support and propaganda of the euthanasia lobby, many politicians recognise the dangers to public safety in introducing such legislation. This victory for civilised values joins the recent defeat of a similar bill in Tasmania, as well as the repeated votes by the British House of Lords against assisted suicide.”