eChurch Blog

(CNA).- More than 1,000 Buddhist extremists armed with clubs, swords and stones ferociously attacked a Catholic church in the town of Crooswatta, Sri Lanka on December 6, destroying the altar, statues and pews.

L’Osservatore Romano reported that Father Jude Denzil Lakshman, pastor of Our Lady of the Mystical Rose, said “I still can hear their shouts in my ears, ‘Cut him to pieces, kill him’.”

The attack took place after the 7 p.m., Sunday Mass, leaving several parishioners wounded. “It is obvious that the attack was well-planned and that the mob waited for us to come out after Mass,” Father Lakshman said.

One parishioner told the Archdiocese of Colombo that as the congregation was leaving the evening Mass, they saw a mob coming towards them.

The parishioner added that the mob “set fire to Fr. Lakshman’s car and then someone attempted to strike him with a sword,” but a young man heroically pulled him away.

The extremists “then damaged all other motor bikes, ordinary cycles of the poor people including a three-wheeler. Some persons armed with swords and batons went on beating the people. There are six Catholics in the hospital with cuts and injuries.”

The archdiocese noted that Air Force personnel were deployed immediately to bring the mob under control.  Guards are still in the area to guarantee the safety of the faithful, which include 293 families.

As of now, police have arrested 11 suspects from Buddhist extremist groups that have attacked the church in the past.

Executive Summary

For more than half a century, the United Nations and numerous international organizations have affirmed the principle of religious freedom.¹ For just as many decades, journalists and human rights groups have reported on persecution of minority faiths, outbreaks of sectarian violence and other pressures on religious individuals and communities in many countries. But until now, there has been no quantitative study that reviews an extensive number of sources to measure how governments and private actors infringe on religious beliefs and practices around the world.

“Global Restrictions on Religion,” a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that 64 nations — about one-third of the countries in the world — have high or very high restrictions on religion. But because some of the most restrictive countries are very populous, nearly 70% of the world’s 6.8 billion people live in countries with heavy restrictions on religion, the brunt of which often falls on religious minorities.

Some restrictions result from government actions, policies and laws. Others result from hostile acts by private individuals, organizations and social groups. The highest overall levels of restrictions are found in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran, where both the government and society at large impose numerous limits on religious beliefs and practices. But government policies and social hostilities do not always move in tandem. Vietnam and China, for instance, have high government restrictions on religion but are in the moderate or low range when it comes to social hostilities. Nigeria and Bangladesh follow the opposite pattern: high in social hostilities but moderate in terms of government actions.

Among all regions, the Middle East-North Africa region has the most government and social restrictions on religion, while the Americas are the least-restrictive region on both measures. Among the world’s 25 most populous countries, Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and India stand out as having the most restrictions when both measures are taken into account, while Brazil, Japan, the United States, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom have the least.

This study examines the incidence of many specific types of government and social restrictions on religion around the world. In 75 countries (38%), for example, national or local governments limit efforts by religious groups or individuals to persuade others to join their faith. In 178 countries (90%), religious groups must register with the government for various purposes, and in 117 (59%) the registration requirements resulted in major problems for, or outright discrimination against, certain faiths.

Public tensions between religious groups were reported in the vast majority (87%) of countries in the period studied (mid-2006 through mid-2008). In 126 countries (64%), these hostilities involved physical violence. In 49 countries (25%), private individuals or groups used force or the threat of force to compel adherence to religious norms. Religion-related terrorism caused casualties in 17 countries, nearly one-in-ten (9%) worldwide.

These are some of the key findings of “Global Restrictions on Religion.” The study covers 198 countries and self-administering territories, representing more than 99.5% of the world’s population. In preparing this study, the Pew Forum devised a battery of measures, phrased as questions, to gauge the levels of government and social restrictions on religion in each country. To answer these questions, Pew Forum researchers combed through 16 widely cited, publicly available sources of information, including reports by the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, the Council of the European Union, the United Kingdom’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, the Hudson Institute and Amnesty International. (The complete list of sources is available in the Methodology.)

The researchers involved in this process recorded only factual reports about government actions, policies and laws, as well as specific incidents of religious violence or intolerance over the main two-year period covered by this study, from mid-2006 to mid-2008; they did not rely on the commentaries or opinions of the sources. (For a more detailed explanation of the coding and data verification procedures, see the Methodology. For the wording of the questions, see the Summary of Results.) The goal was to devise quantifiable, objective measures that could be combined into two comprehensive indexes, the Government Restrictions Index and the Social Hostilities Index. Using the current, two-year average as a baseline, future editions of the indexes will be able to chart changes and trends over time.

Read the full report at pewforum.org

“Global Restrictions on Religion” is part of a larger effort — the Global Religious Futures Project, jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation — that aims to increase knowledge and understanding of religion around the world.

1. According to Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the foundational documents of the U.N., “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

By >Piero A. Tozzi, J.D. – C-Fam

A little-publicized decision by Italy’s Constitutional Court last month may have significant implications concerning the direction of Europe, strengthening national sovereignty as a bulwark against transnational overreach by European institutions. It also signals the continued importance of national constitutions, despite the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty earlier this month.

In Sentenza N. 311, the Italian Constitutional Court stated that where rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) conflict with provisions of the Italian Constitution, such rulings “lack legitimacy.”  Sources close to the Italian judiciary told the Friday Fax that the decision was intended as a warning that activist rulings by the Strasbourg-based ECHR overstepping jurisdictional boundaries will not be given deference.

Sources point to the timing of the decision, which followed an early November ECHR ruling, Lautsi v. Italy, directing that crucifixes be removed from the Italian classroom. The Italian government is appealing that decision to the full Grand Chamber.

According to Roger Kiska, European legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, Lautsi is flawed on a number of grounds, including overreach – the ECHR is not a constitutional court – and its disregard for “the cultural sovereignty of each Member State.” The Constitutional Court decision – which deals with civil service matters entirely unrelated to the crucifix case – signals that Italy may be prepared to break with the ECHR if it were to lose its appeal.

Kiska also notes that the ECHR recently heard arguments in the case A, B, & C v. Ireland, which involves a direct challenge to Ireland’s constitutional protection of unborn life. The Italian court decision could embolden Ireland’s Supreme Court in the event of an adverse decision.

Underlying the debate is the question of what role “subsidiarity” will play in post-Lisbon Europe. Subsidiarity is the notion that decisions are best made at the local level closest to the people affected by them, guaranteeing that national norms and values will not be overrun by top-down-dictates.

Observers note that the foundational documents of a united Europe – the 1957 Treaties of Rome establishing the European Economic Community – enshrine the concept of subsidiarity, and a protocol to the Lisbon Treaty states that European institutions shall “ensure constant respect for the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.”

By asserting that Italy’s Constitution is the final word when confronted with decisions by transnationalist bodies, the Constitutional Court is drawing a line in the sand similar to that drawn by the United States (US) Supreme Court in 2008, when it rejected a directive from the World Court in The Hague as incompatible with the US Constitution.

Italy has two High Courts – one dealing with constitutional issues, and a second, the Corte Suprema di Cassazione, which is the court of final resort on all issues other than those with constitutional implications. The ECHR, a Council of Europe body, is distinct from the European Court of Justice, which is the European Union’s highest court.

The whole incident of a potential arrest warrant issued against former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, has sickened me and caused me to feel embarrassed to be British, yet again. (Last time it was Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak)

This is an excellent cross post from the Modernity Blog (Hat-Tip CiFWatch)

Arresting Politicians – British Hypocrisy.

The media is full of stories concerning Tzipi Livni and a potential arrest warrant issued against her in the British courts.

That is, I think, a little bit unusual?

I can’t remember of any other nationality, or nation, being subject to these ad hoc arrest warrants, from British courts.

Even when General Pinochet, the murdering ex-dictator of Chile, was in Britain, he was only held under house arrest on a Spanish warrant, not a British one.

Further if we think of the variety and intensity of dictators, potentates and other assorted politicians who have graced Britain with their presence in the past 30 years it is hard to remember which of them were subject to warrants issued by British courts, or even the threat of arrest.

Was Vladimir Putin indicted for Russian barbarism in Chechnya ? Certainly not.

Was Robert Mugabe chastised for brutalising, starving and murdering Zimbabweans? No, not really.

Were King Fahd or his successor, King Abdullah II ever prosecuted for having the worst human rights record in the Middle East? Not at all.

You could go through the list of state visits from 1955 onwards and find any number of rogues, villains and the culpable, but what is surprising is that no one in Britain has seen fit to even **attempt** to acquire a warrant or two in the British courts, except when it comes to Israelis.

Moreover there are people in Britain who consider that Tony Blair is a war criminal for his advocacy of the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent bloodshed which ensued.

But as far as I know, not one single Brit has taken the trouble to apply for warrant arresting Tony Blair, even though some of them consider him a war criminal, which seems to suggest that their indignation is rather selective.

I can only suppose that if Tony Blair were an Israeli that there would be a stampede to the Law Courts, pleading for an arrest warrant at great haste.

Yet none of the political windbags that attack Blair would even dare to venture near the Law Courts where he is concerned, or they would have long since done it.

My bet is none of this top twenty worst human rights offenders have anything to fear in visiting Britain, Amnesty reports:

Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Algeria, Sierra Leone, Egypt, North Korea, Sudan, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Pakistan, China, Libya, Burma, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Chad and Congo (Republic).

However, should their leaders decide to visit Britain then, no matter how much blood is dripping from their fingers, they will probably receive a warm welcome in Blighty, and be patted on the back in true imperial fashion.

As long as they are not Israelis.

Countries may come and go, but there is one constant in history, good old British hypocrisy.

“As the mountains are round about Jerusalam, so the Lord is round about his
people from henceforth even for ever.” Psalm 125:2

THE changes of society may well illustrate the immutability of God. In the
days of David, Jerusalem was looked upon as an impregnable fortress. It is
surrounded by a natural rampart of hills; and appears to lie in the center of
an amphitheatre raised purposely for its defense. By the ancient Jew it was
considered to be an impregnable citadel. How changed now are the
manners of war! A small troop could easily take the city, and it must
indeed be a strong army that would be able to garrison it in its present
condition. Yet whilst Jerusalem is changed, and the figure has become
inappropriate, Jerusalem’s God remains, for with him is “no variableness,
neither shadow of turning.” We must this morning consider the text, not as
we should understand it in our day, but as we should have understood it in
David’s time. David looked upon the city of Jerusalem, and he thought
within himself, “No army can ever be able to surprise this city, and
however numerous may be the invading hosts, my people will always be
able to hold their own in the midst of a city so firmly fortified both by
nature and by art.” In his time, indeed, and in the time of his son Solomon,
I suppose it would have been utterly impossible for any enemy, possessed
only of the tactics of ancient warfare, to have scaled those mighty ramparts
of earth which God had piled about the city. And therefore, when David
said in his day, “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord
is round about his people;” he meant this — “As Jerusalem is fortressed by
the mountains, so are God’s people castled in the covenant, fortressed in
the Omnipotence of God, and therefore they are impregnably secure. We
shall thus understand the text, and endeavor this morning to work out the
great thought of the security of God’s people in the arms of Jehovah their
Lord.

We shall consider the text, first, as relating to the Church as a whole, and
then we shall endeavor to note how it applies to every individual in
particular.

I. FIRST, THE CHURCH AS A WHOLE is secured by God beyond the reach
of harm. She is ably garrisoned by Omnipotence, and she is castled within
the faithful engagements of the covenant. How often has the Church been
attacked; but how often has she been victorious? The number of her battles
is just the number of her victories. Foes have come against her; they have
compassed her about, they have compassed her about like bees, but in the
name of God she has destroyed them. The bull of Bashan and the dog of
Belial, the mighty and the insignificant, have all conspired to overthrow the
Church; but he that sitteth in heaven hath laughed at them, the Lord hath
had them in derision, and his church hath been as Mount Zion, which
cannot be removed, but which abideth for ever. Turn ye now to the roll of
history and read how the Church has been fortressed by God, when fiercely
attacked by men.

1. Persecution has unsheathed its bloody sword, and sought to rend up the
Church by its roots, or fell it with its axe. Tyrants have heated their
furnaces, have prepared their racks, have erected their stakes, the martyrs
of Christ have been dragged by thousands to a terrible death, the
confessors have had to stand forth at the risk of their lives, protesting the
gospel of God against the dominant of the times. The little flock has been
scattered hither and thither, and the dogs of persecution have worried them
in every corner whither they have fled. Into every nation of the earth have
they wandered; in sheepskins and goatskins have they been clothed; their
houses have been in the rocks and their sleeping places in the caves of the
earth. Like the stag pursued by the hounds, they have not had a moment’s
space for so much as to take their breath. But has the Church been
subdued? Has she ever been overcome? O God, thou hast proved the
invincibility of thy truth; thou hast manifested the power of thy Word, for
thou hast not only preserved thy Church in the time of greatest trouble,
but, blessed be thy name thou hast made the hour of her peril the hour of
her greatest triumph. You will find that whenever the Church has been the
most persecuted she has been the most successful. The heathen Proconsuls
wondered when they saw the many who were prepared to die.

They said, “Surely a madness must have seized upon mankind, that they
cannot be content to commit suicide, but are so fond of death that they
must come to our bar and plead that they are lovers of Christ as if they
sought to compel us to execute them.” God gave grace for the moment and
in the day of persecution he braced the nerves of his people, and made
them mighty to do or die, as God would have it. But, surely, had not
Christ’s Church been surrounded by the mountains of God’s Omnipotence,
she must have fallen a prey to her numerous enemies.

2. But by-and-bye the devil grew wiser. He saw that overt persecution
would not suffice for the putting down of God’s Church, and he therefore
adopted another measure not less cruel but more crafty. “I will not only
slay them,” said he, “I will malign them.” Did you ever read in history the
horrible reports which were set afloat in the early ages of Christianity
concerning the Christians. I dare not tell you with what vices the early
Christians were charged in their private assemblies. It is certain that they
were the purest and most virtuous of men, but never were men so fearfully
belied. The very heathens who revelled in vice, despised the followers of
Jesus on account of crimes which the voice of the liar had laid to their
charge. A few years elapsed and the mud which had been cast upon the
snow-white garments of Christ’s Church fell off from them, leaving them
whiter than before, the clouds that sought to obscure the light of the
heaven of the gospel were blown away, and “fair as the moon and clear as
the sun” the innocence of Christ’s Church shone forth again. But the devil
has adopted the same plan in every period. He has always sought to slander
any race of Christians who are the means of revival. I would not believe
any minister to be eminently successful, if I were informed that everybody
praised him. I am certain that such a case would be an exception, a glaring
exception to all the rules of history. You remember what was said of
Whitfield in his day. He was charged with crimes that Sodom never knew;
and yet a more pure and heavenly man God never sent to tread this wicked
earth. And it ever must be so. The Church struggling with sin and
wickedness, must through the enmity of the evil one find herself
bespattered and besmeared with slander. The wicked when they can do
nothing else against the righteous, will spit falsehood on them. But has the
Church suffered through their slander, or hath ever a solitary Christian lost
aught by it? No, the Lord God who set the mountains round about
Jerusalem has so put himself about his people, that no weapon that is
formed against us shall prosper, and every tongue that riseth against us in
judgment we shall condemn. This is the heritage of the people of the Lord.
Fear not, O Church of Christ, the slimy serpent of slander for even in thy
cradle, like Hercules, when the snakes of slander came against thee thou
didst slay them in thine infantile grasp, more than a conqueror through him
that loved thee. And now that God is with thee, and the shout of a king in
thy midst, fear not, though all men should speak against thee, thy Master
will yet honor thee, and thou wilt come up from the pool of slander like a
sheep from the washing, the fairer for thy black baptism, the more admired,
the more lovely for all the scorn and ignominy that men have cast upon
thee.

3. Again, Satan learned wisdom, and he said, “Now inasmuch as I cannot
destroy this people, neither by sword nor slander, lo, this will I do, I will
send into their midst wolves in sheeps clothing, I will inspire divers
heretics, carried away with their own lusts, who shall in the midst of the
church promulgate lies and prophecy smooth things in the name of the
Lord. And Satan has done all this with a vengeance. In every era of the
church there have been numberless bands of heretics. Only a small
company have in certain times adhered to the truth, whilst the mass of
professing Christians have gone aside and have perished in the gainsaying
of Korah. Look at the earliest days of Christianity. Scarcely were the
apostles in their graves, and their souls in paradise, than there sprang up
men who denied the Lord that bought them — some who did evil that
good might come, whose damnation was just. Heresies of all kinds began
to spring up, even in the first fifty years after the departure of our Master.
Since that time the world has been very prolific of every shape and form of
doctrine except the truth, and down to these modern times heresies have
prevailed. Now behold how Satan seeks to quench the light of Israel. There
is the heresy of Rome, she that sitteth upon many waters seeketh as far as
she can to delude the Church, and to draw the rest of the world aside from
the truth of God. She, with all the craft of hell, seeketh to proselyte
where’er she may from those who are the professed followers of the truth;
she will change her shape in every land; in her own dominions she will
build the dungeon, and practice intolerance — in a land of freedom she can
plead for liberty, and pretend to be its warmest friend. Base harlot that she
is, her whoredoms have not yet ceased, nor is the cup of her fornications
full. She seeketh still to devour the nations and swallow them up quick.
There is her sister the Puseyism of the Church of England, I speak nothing
now concerning my evangelical brethren. God Almighty shield them and
bless them! My only marvel is, that they do not come out altogether, and
touch not the unclean thing. But, alas, Puseyism is seeking to eat out the
very vitals of our godliness, telling the masses that the priest is everything
— putting down Christ and exalting the man, putting baptismal water in
the place of the influences of the Divine Spirit, and exalting sacraments into
the place which is only to be held by the Lord our God. Truly this
dangerous and deceptive, beautiful and foolish system of religion is much
to be feared, although we know that the true Church of God must ever be
safe, for against her the gates of hell shall not prevail.

Alas! that we should have to say something else! and this concerning those
who are commonly called evangelical, who have a form of error more
insidious and evil still. Alas that I should have to “cry aloud and spare not,”
concerning these matters. These are days when a false charity would have
us hold our tongues against the evils that we hate. My brethren, in the
midst of our dissenting churches especially there is a system which does
not deserve the name of system, except from its systematic desire to crush
every system. There is a system springing up which takes out of the Gospel
every truth that makes it precious plucks every jewel out of the crown of
the Redeemer, and tramples it under the foot of men. In a large number of
our pulpits at this time you will not hear the Gospel preached by a month
together. Anything else you like you may hear preached: Anti-state
Churchism, political affairs — these are the current staple of the day;
Christ and him crucified may go to the dogs for them. Polities fill up the
pulpits, and philosophy stands in the place of theology. And when there is a
little theology, what say they? Instead of exalting the Holy Spirit as the first
and prime agent, they are ever exhorting men to do what only God’s Spirit
can do for them, and not reminding them that the effectual grace of God is
necessary; the covenant, the “everlasting covenant, ordered in all things
and sure” is sneered at the banner once held so manfully by Calvin, who
took it from the hand of Augustine leaping over centuries to grasp it, who
again received it from the hand of the apostle Paul — the banner of the old
fashioned truth is to a great degree furled, and we are told that these old
doctrines are effete and out of date. Puritanical divinity, they say, is not the
divinity for these times; we must have a new gospel for a go-a-head era.
We must have sermons preache I which, if they be not absolute denial of
every doctrine of the gospel, are at least sneers at them all. The man effects
to be so supremely wise, that he in his own brain can devise a gospel
better, fairer than the ancient gospel of the blessed God, Now, this is one
of the attempts of the enemy to put down the truth, but he will never be
able to do it, for “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord
is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.”

I will not be hard, but I must say a word to many of my brethren of the
denomination to which I belong. There are many of you call yourselves
Particular Baptists, by which you mean that you are Calvinists, and yet,
gentlemen, your consciences are easy, and some of you have never
preached upon election since you were ordained. The peculiarities of “the
five points” are concealed. These things, you say, are offensive. And so,
gentlemen, you would rather offend God than you would offend man. But
you reply, “These things, you know, are high doctrines; they had better not
be preached: they will not be practical.” I do think that the climax of all
man’s blasphemy is centred in that utterance. Will you dare to say, “There
are some parts of God’s truth that we do not want to preach to the
people.” Tell me that God put a thing in the Bible that I am not to preach!
You are finding fault with my God. But you say, “It will be dangerous.”
What! God’s truth dangerous? I should not like to stand in your shoes
when you have to face your Maker on the day of judgment after such an
utterance as that. If it be not God’s truth, let it alone; but if you believe the
thing, out with it. The world will like you just as well for being honest, and
if the world does not your Master will. Keep back nothing; tell the whole
gospel out. Tell out man’s responsibility: do not stutter at it. Tell out divine
sovereignty: do not refuse to talk of election, use the word, even if they
sneer, tell men that if they believe not the blood is on their own heads, and
then if the high people turn against you, snap your finger in their face; tell
them you do not care — that to you it is nothing, nothing at all to please
man; your Master is in heaven, and him will you please, come fair, come
foul. This done, Satan would be balked and defeated; but at the present
moment, he is mightily striving thus to overthrow the church by ill
doctrine.

4. The craftiest invention of the devil, with which he seeks, in the last place
to put out the church, is a device which has amazed me above every other.
“Now;” says Satan, “If I can quench the church, neither by persecution, nor
slander, nor heresy, I will invent another mode of destroying her.” And I
have often marveled at the depths of deceit which are centred in this last
invention of Satan. Satan seeks to divide the church, to set us apart from
one another, and not allow those who love the same truth to meet with
each other and to work together in love, and peace, and harmony. “Now,”
says the devil, “I have it. Here is one body of good men — they are very
fond of one part of God’s truth. Now, there are two sets of truths in the
Bible. One set deals with man as responsible creature, the other class of
truths deals with God as the infinite Sovereign, dispensing his mercy as he
pleases. Now these dear brethren are very fond of man’s responsibility:
they will preach it, and they will preach it so that if they hear the brother
over the other side of the street preach God’s sovereignty, they will be very
wroth with him. And then I will make the brethren who preach divine
sovereignty forget the other part of the truth, and hate the brethren that
preach it.” Do you not see the craft of the enemy? Both of these good men
are right; they both preach parts of truth; but they each so set their part of
truth at the top of the other that a rivalry commences. Why, I have stepped
in and heard a godly brother preach a sermon that sent my blood through
my veins at a most rapid rate, whilst he earnestly preached of sin, of
righteousness, and of judgment to come but he spoilt all his sermon by
indirectly hinting — “Now, take care you don’t hear Mr. So-and-so,
because he will contradict all this, and tell you that you are saved by grace,
and that it is not of yourself but it is the gift of God.” I went, of course,
and heard the good man, because I was told not to go. Well, he was
preaching that “it is not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but
of God,” and I thought he handled the text very manfully, when he showed
that God was the author of all salvation; only in a parenthesis he told us
not to go to that work-mongering shop on the other side of the road. Why,
they were both right, but they had each got different parts of the truth; one,
that truth which dealt with man as responsible; the other, that which deals
with God as a Sovereign; and the devil had so perverted their judgment
that they could not see that both things were true, but they must go
fighting each other just to make sport for Satan. Now, I wonder that the
church has not been utterly destroyed by this last device, for it is the
craftiest thing, I believe, that Satan has yet brought under our notice,
though without doubt his depths are too deep for our understanding. But,
brethren, despite all this, let bigotry rave, let intolerance rail till it goes
mad, the church is just as secure, for God hath set himself round about her,
“even as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, from henceforth even
for evermore.”

And now just notice, before we leave this point, that as the Church always
has been preserved, the text assures us she always will be, henceforth even
for ever. There is a nervous old woman here. Last Saturday night she read
the newspaper, and she saw something about five or six clergymen going
over to Rome: she laid down her spectacles, and she began crying, “Oh!
the Church is in danger, the Church is in danger.” Ah! put your spectacles
on; that is all right; never mind about the loss of those fellows. Better gone;
we did not want them; do not cry if fifty more follow them, do not be at all
alarmed. Some church may be in danger, but God’s Church is not. That is
safe enough, that shall stand secure, even to the end. I remember with what
alarm some of my friends received the tidings of the geological discoveries
of modern times, which did not quite agree with their interpretation of the
Mosaic history of the creation. They thought it an awful thing that science
should discover something which seemed to contradict the Scriptures.
Well, we lived over the geological difficulty, after all. And since then there
have been different sets of philosophic infidels, who have risen up and
made wonderful discoveries, and poor timid Christians have thought,
“What a terrible thing! This surely will be the end of all true religion; when
science can bring facts against us, how shall we be able to stand?” They
just waited about another week, and on a sudden they found that science
was not their enemy, but their friend, for the Truth though tried in a
furnace like silver seven times, is ever a gainer by the trial. Ah! ye that hate
the church, she shall ever be a thorn in your side! Oh! ye that would batter
her walls to pieces, know this, that she is impregnable, not one of her
stakes shall be removed, not one of her cords shall be broken. God hath
fixed her where she is, and by divine decree established her on a rock. Do
you hate the Church? Hate on: it will never be moved by all your hate. Do
you threaten to crush it? It shall crush you, but you shall never injure it. Do
ye despise and laugh at it? Ah! the day is coming when the laugh shall be
on the other side. Wait a little while, and when her Master shall suddenly
come in his glory, then shall it be seen on whose side is the victory, and
who were the fools that laughed.

Thus we have disposed of the first point; THE CHURCH impregnably secure,
fortressed, and castled by God.

II. What is true of the mass is true of the unit. The fact which relates to
the Church includes in it EVERY MEMBER OF THE CHURCH. God has
fortressed his people; so that every believer is infallibly secure. There are in
the world certain people who teach that Christ gives grace to men, and tells
them, “Now, you shall be saved it you will persevere; but this must be left
to yourself.” This reminds me of an old Puritanical illustration, “The Duke
of Alva having given some prisoners their lives, they afterwards petitioned
him for some food. His answer was, that, ‘he would grant them life but no
meat.’ And they were famished to death.” The deniers of final perseverance
represent the Deity in a similar view. ‘God promises eternal life to the
saints if they endure to the end,’ but he will not secure to them the
continuance of that grace without which eternal life cannot be had! Oh!
surely if that were true, eternal life were not worth a fig to any of us.
Unless our God who first saves us did engage to keep us alive and to
provide for all our necessities, of what use were eternal life at all? But we
bless his name,

“Whom once he loves he never leaves,
But loves them to the end.”
Once in Christ, in Christ for ever,
Nothing from his love can sever.”

The Christian is fortified and secured from all harm. And yet, O child of
God, there be many that will seek to destroy thee, and thy fears will often
tell thee that thou art in the jaws of the enemy. Providence will often seem
against thee, thine eyes shall be seldom dry; it may be funeral shall follow
funeral. Loss shall follow loss; a burning house shall be succeeded by a
blasted crop. The Christian in this world is not secured against the perils
which happen to manhood. Oh! child of God, it may seem that all things
are against thee; perhaps all God’s waves and billows will go over thee;
thou mayest know what hunger, and nakedness, and thirst do mean; thou
mayest be found in this world houseless, friendless, fatherless, motherless,
but oh! remember, that neither famine, nor hunger, nor poverty, nor
sickness, nor weakness, nor contempt, can separate thee from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus thy Lord. Thou mayest sink ever so low, but
thou canst never sink lower than the arm of God can reach. Thy poor ship
may be drifted before the gale, but it shall never go so fast but God can
keep her off the rocks. Be of good cheer, the trials of this mortal life shall
work out for thee “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
Again, you may be tempted by the world! traps may be set for you on
every hand, you may be tempted by your flesh, your corruptions may have
great power over you, and often stagger your faith, and make you tremble,
lest you should be utterly overthrown, and the devil may set upon you with
fiery darts, he may pierce you with foul insinuations, he may almost make
you blaspheme, and with terrible suggestions he may drive you well-nigh to
despair. But oh! remember,

“Hell and thy sins obstruct thy course,
But hell and sin are vanquished foes;
Thy Jesus nailed them to his cross
And sang the triumph when he rose.”

And thou mayest, too, be overcome by sin. Thou mayest fall God grant
thou mayest not; but though thou be kept eminently consistent and
extremely virtuous, thou wilt sin and sometimes that sin will get such a
head against thee that thou canst scarcely stem the torrent. Conscience will
whisper, “How couldst thou be a child of God, and yet sin thus?” And
Satan will howl in thine ears, “He that sinneth knoweth not God.” And so
thou wilt be ready to be destroyed by thy sin. But do thou then, in the hour
of thy dark distress, read this verse — “As the mountains are round about
Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for
ever.” Be thou confident in this, that even sin itself shall not be able to cut
the golden link which joins thee to thy Savior.

Have you never heard the sermons of those people who believe in the
apostacy of the saints? Have you not heard them very pathetically enlarge
on the dangers of Christians? They say, “Yes, you may serve God all your
life, but perhaps in the last article of death your faith may faint, sin may
prevail, and you may be destroyed.” And they illustrate their very beautiful
and comfortable idea by the figure of a ship foundering just as she reaches
the harbour. Now, many wooden ships, I doubt not, do founder, and many
ships built in free-will dockyards founder too; but the chosen vessels of
mercy are insured against perishing, and were never known to be
shipwrecked yet. As an old divine says, there are no wrecks to be seen on
the sea which rolls between Jerusalem on earth and Jerusalem above. There
are many tempests, but never any shipwrecks. Bishop Hooker sweetly says
“Blessed for ever and ever, be that mother’s child whose faith hath made
him the child of God. The earth may shake, the pillars thereof may tremble
under us, the countenance of the heavens may be appalled, the sun may
lose his light, the moon her beauty, the stars their glory, but concerning the
man that trusted in God, if the fire have proclaimed itself unable as much as
to singe a hair of his head; if lions, beasts ravenous by nature and keen by
hunger, being set to devour, have, as it were, religiously adored the very
flesh of a faithful man; what is there in the world that shall change his
heart, overthrow his faith, alter his affections towards God, or the affection
of God to him?” Oh, when we once believe this doctrine and receive it in
our hearts as true, what a tendency it has to make the spirit buoyant in the
deep waters, to enable us to sing in the midst of the fierce billows. Who
need fear, if our salvation is made secure by the covenant of God?

And now for a few moments, without detaining you too long, I will try to
show some reasons why it is quite certain that the believer cannot by any
possibility perish. I want to do this, because I have a multitude of letters
from this large congregation every week, and I have to say to the glory of
God, there are many of those letters that make me so glad I can scarcely
contain myself, whilst others arouse all the anxiety of my heart. Among
them is one something like this. “Sir, I know that I was once a child of
God; many years ago I had such delightful feelings, and such ecstacies, that
I cannot doubt but what if I had died then I should have gone to heaven;
but now, sir, I am in such distress that I am quite sure if I were to die now
I should be lost.” Now, my brother, I know you are here. You may take it
to yourself. There are only two solutions to your mystery. If you were a
child of God then, you are a child of God now, and if you would have gone
to heaven then you will go to heaven now, be you what you may; if you
ever were regenerated, regeneration is a work that is never done but once,
and if it has been done once for you, it has not lost its efficacy — you are a
child of God yet. But I am inclined to think you never were a child of God:
you had a few fine ecstacies; but you never knew the plague of your own
heart; I am afraid, young man, you were never taken into God’s stripping
room, never were tied up to the halberts, and never had the ten-thonged
whip of law on your back. But, anyhow, do not tell me any more that you
were converted once but not now, because if you were converted to God,
God would have kept you. “The righteous shall hold on his way, and he
that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.”

And now shall I tell you why it is certain a believer cannot perish? In the
first place, how can a believer perish if that Scripture be true, which saith,
that every believer is a member of Christ’s body! If you will only grant me
my head afloat above the water I will give you leave to drown my fingers.
Try it: you cannot do it. As long as a man’s head is above the flood you
cannot drown him — it is clean impossible — nor yet drown any part of his
body. Now, a Christian is a part of Christ, the Head. Christ, the head of the
body, is in heaven, and until you can drown the head of the body, you
cannot drown the body, and if the head be in heaven, beyond the reach of
harm, then every member of the body is alive and secure, and shall at last
be in heaven too. Dost thou imagine, O heretic, that Christ will lose a
member of his body! Will Christ dwell in heaven with a mangled frame?
God forbid! If Christ hath taken us into union with himself, though we be
the meanest members of his heavenly body, he will not allow us to be cut
away. Will a man lose a arm, or a leg, or an hand, whilst he can help
himself? Ah! no, and whilst Christ is omnipotent, nought shall pluck his
children from his body, for they are of “his flesh and his bones.”
But again: how can a believer perish, and yet God be true? God has said
“When thou passest through the rivers I will be with thee, and the floods
shall not overflow thee.” Now, if they should overflow us, how can God be
true? “When thou passest through the fires thou shalt not be burned,
neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.” Then if we could ever find a
believer consumed, we could prove God’s promise broken. But we cannot
do that. God is with his children, and ever will be. Besides has he not said,
“I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any pluck them out of my hands?” Ay, beloved, how can God be God, and
yet his people plucked out of his hand? Surely he were no God to us, if he
were unfaithful to a promise so oft repented and so solemnly confirmed.
Besides, mark ye this. If one saint should fall away and perish, God would
not only break his word, but his oath, for he hath sworn by himself,
because he could swear by no greater, “that by two immutable things, in
which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation,
who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.” No, an
oath-breaking God, a promise-despising Jehovah, were an impossibility;
and therefore a perished child of God is alike impossible.

But we need not fear, beloved, that we shall ever perish, if we love the
Savior for the last reason is all potent. Will Christ lose that which he has
bought with his own blood? Yes, there are men with judgments so
perverted, that they believe Christ died for those that are damned, and
bought with his own blood men that perish. Well, if they choose to believe
that, I do not envy them the elasticity of their intellects; but this I conceive
to be but an axiom, that what Christ has paid for so dearly with his own
heart’s blood he will have. If he loved us well enough to bear the
excruciating agonies of the cross, I know he loves “well enough to keep us
to the end.” If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the
death of his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his
life.” For I am persuaded that he that spared not his own life, but delivered
it up for his people, will not withhold aught that Omnipotence can “ire.
And now I close by addressing myself for a moment or two to ungodly
persons present. Thinking persons they must be, or else what I say will not
be likely to be noticed by them. When I was a boy I remember having a
meditation something like this: “Now, I should not like to be a thief or a
murderer, or an unclean person.” I had such a training that I had an
abhorrence of sin of that sort. “And yet,” thought I to myself, “I may be
hung yet; there is no reason why I should not turn out a thief,” because I
recollected there were some of my schoolfellows, older than I was, who
had already become very eminent in dishonesty; and I thought, “why may
not I?” No one can tell the rapture of my spirit, when I thought I saw in my
Bible the doctrine that if I gave my heart to Christ he would keep me from
sin and preserve me as long as I lived. I was not quite sure of it — not
quite certain that was the truth of the Bible, though I thought so; but I
remember when I heard the minister of some small hyper chapel utter the
same truth. Oh! my heart was full of rapture; I panted after that gospel.
“Oh!” I thought, if God would but love me, if I might but know myself to
be his!” For the enchanting part of it was, that if I were so he would keep
me to the end. That made me so in love with the gospel, that boy as I was,
knowing nothing savingly about the gospel, it made me love the thought of
being saved, because, if saved, God would never turn me out of doors.
That made the gospel very precious to me in my childhood; so that when
the Holy Spirit showed me my guilt and led me to seek a Savior, that
doctrine was like a bright star to my spirit. I always looked forward to that.
I thought, “Well, if I can once look to Christ, and cast myself on him, then
he will grant me grace that I shall to the end endure.” And oh! that doctrine
is so precious to me now, that I do think if anybody could possibly
convince me that final perseverance is not a truth of the Bible, I should
never preach again, for I feel I should have nothing worth preaching. If you
could once make me believe that the regeneration of God might fail of its
effect, and that the love of God might be separated from his own chosen
people, you might keep that Bible to yourself; between its cover there is
nothing that I love, nothing that I wish for, no gospel that is suitable for
me. I count it to be a gospel beneath the dignity of God, and beneath the
dignity of even fallen manhood, unless it be everlasting, “ordered in all
things and sure.”

And now poor trembling sinner, thou that knowest thy sins, believe on
Christ this morning, and thou art saved, and saved for ever. Do but this
moment look to him that died upon the tree, and, my brother, my sister,
give me thine hand, and let us weep for joy that thou believest, and let our
joy accumulate when we remember that the pillars of the heavens may
totter, the solid foundations of the earth may reel, the countenance of the
heavens may be astonished, the sun may be turned into darkness and the
moon into blood, but nought shall pluck thee from the strength of Israel’s
hands. Thou art, thou shalt be infallibly secure. Come, O Holy Spirit, bless
these words; for Jesus sake. Amen.

Oh dear this church billboard is global news right now:-

I must admit, personally I’m not offended by this in the least and it did make me smile a little, and yes I do believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, however, Jesus also had brothers who were conceived in the normal way.

UPDATE: Oh, perhaps there is something wrong with me, because Cranmer has got the right hump about this. Folks are really ticked off, one of the posters had brown paint thrown over it and I believe another has been attacked with a knife! Is it me…..?

Reuters

WELLINGTON (Reuters Life!) – A billboard sponsored by a local Anglican church that shows Joseph and Mary in bed has set tongues wagging in New Zealand, with the Catholic Church condemning it as others found it funny.

The controversial billboard, erected by St Matthew-in-the-City Church in Auckland, shows a dejected-looking Joseph under bedcovers beside a sad Mary. Underneath the image, a caption reads: “Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow.”

(Church website here)

Church archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the billboard was intended to lampoon the literal interpretation of the Christmas conception story and highlight the real significance of the festival.

“What we’re trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about,” Cardy told local media.

“Is it about a spiritual male God sending down sperm so a child would be born, or is it about the power of love in our midst as seen in Jesus?”

The billboard has so far drawn the ire of the Catholic Church in New Zealand, which called it “inappropriate” and “disrespectful”. It was also condemned as offensive by family values group Family First.

“The church can have its debate on the Virgin birth and its spiritual significance inside the church building, but to confront children and families with the concept as a street billboard is completely irresponsible and unnecessary,” Family First director Bob McCoskrie told news website stuff.co.nz.

The website also showed a picture of the billboard daubed in brown paint, saying it had been defaced a few hours after it was put up outside the Anglican St Matthew-in-the-City Church.

Archdeacon Cardy said the church had also received several emails and phonecalls about the advert, which he said was exactly what it had been intended to do — provoke debate about one of the most important festivals on the Christian calendar.

“The true importance of Christmas is in the radical hospitality Jesus offered to the poor, the despised, women, children, and the sick, and says: ‘this is the essence of God’,” Cardy said.

As if the Christian Copts in Egypt do not have enough persecution to deal with, I have been watching news come in from Egypt, that tells of the recent additional persecution of the Egyptian Christian Copt minority, which is being meted out by Muslim extremists in response to the Swiss ban on the building of further Minarets in their country.

Here is a good letter from the New York Times that talks of some of these issues.

Complaints of Bias Can Go Both Ways in Egypt

On a side street in the far northeast Cairo suburb of Ain Shams, the door of a five-story former underwear factory is padlocked.

This is, or was supposed to be, the St. Mary and Anba Abraam Coptic Christian Church. The police closed it Nov. 24, 2008, when Muslims rioted against its consecration. Since then local Copts have had to commute to distant churches or worship in hiding at one another’s homes.

While Muslim leaders criticized the Nov. 29 vote in Switzerland that banned construction of minarets, the distinctive spires on mosques that are used for the call to prayer, they don’t support Christians who want to build churches in some Islamic countries. Restrictions in Egypt have exacerbated sectarian violence and discrimination, say Copts, a 2,000-year-old denomination that comprises about 10 percent of the population.

The day after the Swiss vote, Ali Gomaa, one of Egypt’s top Muslim clerics, called the decision “an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside of Switzerland.”

Copts quickly said that neither he nor any other Islamic leader mentioned the Christian situation in Egypt.

“Without the merest attempt to put our house in order, are we in any position to taunt others to put theirs?” Youssef Sidhom, editor in chief of the Cairo-based Egyptian Coptic weekly newspaper El-Watani, said by telephon. “They should be ashamed.”

Read More

I’ll be honest, I am no fan of Tony Blair and so I quite enjoyed the comments of Hugh O’Shaughnessy over at the Guardian (Comment is free). I didn’t watch the interview with Fern Britton, but then again, who would want to? The Iraq war has had one profound consequence and that is the decimation of the Iraqi Christian population. Well done Tony.

Previous posts on Tony Blair:-

Tony Blair’s PC Political Christianity

Last night Tony Blair warned against the “dark side” of religion and said the world’s faith community had issues it must “confront and overcome”.

Many people are discomfited by the thought of Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation working in schools. It smacks of religious propaganda, and is tied to the name of a prime minister remembered for leading the country into a bloody and controversial war.

Blair is EU president candidate

Tony Blair and Barack Obama, angels or demons

Tony Blair is not someone worthy to trust on religious matters

Cardinal will not join Tony Blair Faith Foundation

Tony Blair talks about his Philanthropic efforts

TOUGHER INTERVIEW FOR TONY BLAIR THAN COSY HTB CHAT-SHOW – Mr Blair’s interview with Alpha founder the Revd Nicky Gumbel at London’s Holy Trinity Brompton

Vatican: Tony Blair is ‘probable future president of the European Union’

Tony Blair Faith Foundation Inc: where has all the money gone? The former prime minister has colossal earning power and – with his own foundations to maintain and hefty mortgage payments – he needs it. But where exactly is the money going, asks Robert Mendick

Really great little article over at Israpundit, relating to the dangerous EU desire to divide Jerusalem.

The E.U.’s “East Jerusalem” Christmas Gift

By Moshe Phillips, AFSI

Christmas came early for Israel’s enemies this holiday season. On December 1 a “draft statement” from the European Union calling for the immediate restart of negotiations leading to a “viable state of Palestine…with East Jerusalem as its capital” made worldwide news.

And this is very curious because, after all, “East Jerusalem” does not actually exist. At least not yet. Let’s remember that “East Jerusalem” is what the Bible means when it refers to Jerusalem.

Words, and especially names, have meaning. Especially in the Middle East. The European Union obviously chose to use the words of Israel’s enemies deliberately.

So, just what is “East Jerusalem” and why is adding the word “East” to describe part of Judaism’s holiest city and Israel’s capital of any serious magnitude?

East and West in Israel are not simple geographic terms as they are in the U.S. Northeast Philadelphia, the Upper East Side in Manhattan and East L.A. are used to denote neighborhoods and sections of a city. In Israel, where Judea and Samaria have been labeled as the West Bank, things are different. The term West Bank was created by Arab propagandists to de-emphasize the area’s inherent Jewishness and to disassociate the land from the State of Israel. East Jerusalem was similarly invented.

What is “East Jerusalem”?

In the Christian Bible every single instance when a specific location in Jerusalem is mentioned it refers to an area that the E.U. would now see given to the Palestinians. The term “East Jerusalem” cannot be found in a Christian Bible. And that is because “East Jerusalem” is about as real as Santa Claus.

Continue Reading

From CCFON:-

The Equality Bill aims to sweep all of the existing law on equality into one Act of Parliament and to eliminate more forms of discrimination than are currently covered.

While Christians believe in the innate worth of every human being, the Bill undermines basic Christian freedoms to adhere to biblical values in the area of employment. The Bill will affect Churches, who will not be able to discriminate on the basis of sexual practice that contravenes biblical values or gender reassignment when employing staff. Only roles that wholly or mainly involve, promoting or teaching religion or leading worship services will be exempt from the provisions of the Government’s Equality Bill. Far from simplifying the law, which the Government promised the Equality Bill would do, the Bill introduces more complex requirements even above and beyond those already within the existing law and the explanatory notes to the Bill state that “the specific exception applies to a very narrow range of circumstances”.

During the Report Stage in the House of Commons, John Mason, MP said:

Let us consider the definition: “wholly or mainly involves…leading or assisting…liturgical or ritualistic practices…or…promoting or explaining the doctrine of the religion”.

Even a full-time priest, minister or pastor would not “mainly” be doing that, because much of their time is spent visiting the sick and perhaps with funerals and so on. In fact, therefore, the definition could exclude everybody.

Mark Harper, MP, Shadow Minister (Disabled People), Work and Pensions, explained this in more detail and added that “If the definition does not even include people who lead worship in their churches, it seems to me that it is a faulty one.”

The Bill’s intention was to ensure that posts such as Church Cleaner or Accountant to the Church would not be covered by the exception, but a Minister or Priest would be. There are other posts that this change would affect, including those which may have a pastoral or representative role such as a youth worker.

The current Bill’s wording means that if passed, it would no longer be lawful to require a Minister/Vicar/Priest to be male, unmarried, not in a civil partnership, not a practising homosexual or not transsexual, since virtually no such person would be able to show that their time was “wholly or mainly” spent either leading liturgy or promoting or explaining the doctrines of the religion.

The Equality Bill is due for its Second Reading in the House of Lords on 15th December, when it will be debated. It is provisionally timetabled for Committee Stage on 11th and 13th January 2010, but further days may be announced for Committee Stage. It is at Committee Stage and Report Stage that amendments to the Bill can be considered and voted upon. Now is the time to act. We need to be prepared, because the vote could be as early as the second week in January 2010.

We want to maintain the legal status quo regarding the exceptions that churches can use when deciding who they are prepared to employ. Please help us by writing to Peers to ask them to support amendments to the Equality Bill that will maintain churches’ freedom to recruit suitable people to key positions in churches.

Act Now to Protect Employment Exceptions for Christian Organisations

We are also concerned that although the explanatory notes say that the current law regarding the freedom of Christian organisations to employ only Christians has not changed, the example given of how the new provisions would operate is arguably much more restrictive than the current law. For that reason we would like you to request that during debate in the House of Lords, Peers ask the Government to remove this example from the explanatory notes.

The Equality Bill is a direct assault on the Church’s freedom to employ people who are committed to living with Christian integrity according to the Bible. It also makes it more difficult for Christian organisations to employ Christians and reject applicants who do not share our faith, or who refuse to live according to the Bible’s teaching.

Please click here to see the information pack provided by the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship (LCF), to which you can refer for further information.

You will find suggested bullet points to assist with a letter to Peers on pages 9 to 11 of the LCF briefing, covering these two issues. If you know a Peer, or know he or she lives in your local area please write to them. Otherwise, choose a Peer whose surname begins with the same letter as yours.

Act Now to oppose a Public Sector Equality Duty for “Religion or Belief” and “Sexual Orientation”

We would also like you to consider asking Peers to oppose the application of the Public Sector Equality Duty in the Equality Bill to both “religion or belief” and “sexual orientation”. This is because local Councils would be required by the PSED to promote all religions as equal and all lifestyles as equal in so many of their activities including core business planning.

Please click here for our supplementary briefing pack, which contains points that we suggest you could make in your letter to a Peer of your choice.

Simplified Instructions

We have been asked for details of how to write to Peers and for a more simplified response.

We have advised  to write to Peers who have the same surname as you so that we get a fairly even spread of Peers contacted. It is useful to also contact Bishops who we know support the Christian faith .An alphabetical list of Peers including the Bishops can be found at the following link:

http://www.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/mps_and_lords/alphabetical_list_of_members.cfm

(Please press “biog” for more information adjacent to each Peer).

We do not have a specific list of Christian Peers but it may be that Peers who voted to retain the free speech clause may be more sympathetic:

You can find out which Peers supported the free speech provision by checking their names listed under “NOT CONTENTS” at this link:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldhansrd/text/90709-0009.htm and from the top of the page at this link:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldhansrd/text/90709-0010.htm

Instructions on how to write to Peers (including how to address them) can be found at the following links:

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/members/lords_contact.cfm

and

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/members/lords_contact/address.cfm .

In terms of a simple response, you may wish  to  use the  details outlined above.

There are two basic points on the employment side (but with more details in the LCF briefing):

Firstly, that you would like the current work exceptions for Churches  for it to be lawful to require a person such as a  Minister/Vicar/Priest to be male, unmarried, not in a civil partnership, not a practising homosexual or not transsexual etc to be kept. Since within the Equality Bill, virtually no such persons would be able to show that their time was “wholly or mainly” spent either leading liturgy or promoting or explaining the doctrines of the religion. The existing law already provides a very narrow exception without narrowing it so much with a job description which is so restrictive that  virtually no-one can qualify.

Secondly, you are also concerned that although the explanatory notes say that the current law regarding the freedom of Christian organisations to employ only Christians has not changed, the example given of how the new provisions would operate is arguably much more restrictive than the current law. For that reason you would like you to request that during debate in the House of Lords, Peers ask the Government to remove this example from the explanatory notes.

On the third point on the Public Sector Equality Duty you may find the bullet points at the bottom of the following CCFON article helpful (but with more details in the CCFON/CLC Supplementary briefing):

http://www.ccfon.org/view.php?id=861