Archbishop gets a soaking

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, remained calmly seated with eyes closed in prayer as four topless women attacked him with shouts and curses and doused him with water from bottles formed in the image of the Virgin Mary.

The incident took place at the ULB University in Brussels, where the archbishop was participating in a debate on blasphemy laws.

The four women, representing the pro-abortion and homosexual group FEMEN, took to the stage where they disrobed to reveal black-painted slogans on their chests and backs, such as "my body my rules," and "anus dei is coming." They also held signs reading "stop homophobia."

Le Soir reports that one of the women said of the archbishop: “He was very calm and maintained a position of prayer. I have to believe he was praying for us.”

Hundreds of thousands protested as a law permitting same-sex marriage and homosexual adoption was passed in France. At least 150,000 (40,000, say official police figures; 270,000, say anti same-sex marriage demonstrators) took to the streets for a fourth major rally in Paris. Previous events attracted 300,000, a million and a million and a half.

Some 60 young people who had conducted a nightly sit-in to protest were arrested and held for 17 hours in dirty cells with little water and no food till lunch. Many astonished police by singing grace before their lunch. Streets giving access to the presidential palace, the Elysée, and to the prime minister’s office are heavily barricaded.

Surrogate motherhood is illegal in France, but the justice minister, Christiane Taubira, has said children of French nationals obtained through surrogacy
abroad will be given French status and allowed into the country. A Connecticut surrogacy and egg-donor business, CT Fertility, anticipated demand with a presentation in Paris. One woman was told it would cost $100,000.

In Britain, the same-sex marriage bill will have its third reading in the House of Commons around May 20 and will be debated in the House of Lords iin June. Many people wrongly assume that there is nothing now to stop the bill becoming law. This is a false assumption. There is still a long way to go, and the bill could be defeated.

Critics say the bill's approval would mean a sexual free-for-all and a virtual destruction of marriage. Adultery would be abandoned as a ground for divorce, they say, and there would come demands for marriage of more than two people. They urge protests to politicians and a careful eye on local elections on May 2.

Flourishing in old age

"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day," writes John the apostle in the first chapter of Revelation.

He had been exiled to the isle of Patmos "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ." He is believed to have been an old  man, and hard labour was probably part of his exile. But the Lord Jesus was about to reveal to him the extraordinary revelation which forms the book "to show his servants things which must shortly take place."

The circumstances might appear to have been against John. The Lord's Day wouldn't  be observed on Patmos. But nothing could come between John and his Lord.

Consider:

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree,
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Those who are planted in the house of the Lord
Shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They  shall still bear fruit in old age;
They shall be fresh and flourishing.
To declare that the Lord is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.  Psa 92:12 - 15. 

And again:

We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,

nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Rom 8:37 - 39. 

Nothing - neither authorities nor powers, old age, illness nor infirmity, accident, geographic position nor any other thing - can separate us from God's love. 

Equality quango's 'frivolous nonsense'

Three months ago judges at the European Court of Human Rights decided British Airways check-in clerk Nadia Eweida had suffered discrimination at work because she was told she could not wear a cross.

Following the decision, the Fquality and Human Rights Commission now says druids, vegans and green activists should also be given special treatment at work.

In written guidance to employers, it says employers should consider excusing ecologists from duties that increase CO₂ emissions, and consider giving time off to druids wishing to go on pilgrimages, such as to Stonehenge for the summer solstice.

A vegetarian kitchen worker's sincere request to be excused from cleaning out the fridge if it contains meat should be granted, providing other staff can carry out the task.

It insists Christian rights in the workplace are strictly limited. A magistrate asking to be excused from handling cases involving the upbringing of children by homosexual couples should be refused, as the right of homosexual couples trump her beliefs.

MP Brian Binley said the economy could not afford such "frivolous nonsense." Dominic Raab MP, a former international lawyer, said "This is a recipe for every crank and crazy to take their boss for a ride. The EHRC has become an expensive taxpayer-funded laughing stock."

An EHRC spokesman said "The Commission does not make the law on what is or isn't a legitimate religion or belief. This is set by Parliament. The Commission's role is to provide free, expert advice to employers helping them understand and deal with what can be complex iasues, and helping them avoid potentially costly legal action."

Israel joins gas producers

Natural gas has started pumping from Israel's offshore Tamar gas field to Israel's refineries and the international status of previously energy-poor Israel suddenly changed. The Tamar field has an estimated 10 trillion cubic feet of gas - sufficient to meet Israel's energy needs for decades and allowing surplus for export.

Israel's larger Leviathan field, as yet undeveloped, has an estimated 16 trillion cubic feet of gas. Lebanon, still technically at war with Israel, claims some of the Leviathan field is in its waters.

Other countries, including Russia, the largest gas supplier in Eastern Europe, are interested.

Weeks after he won the Israeli election, Prime Minister Banjamin Netanyahu managed to form a coalition government, retaining control over foreign affairs and national defence.

His problems are many. The nuclear threat from Iran continues, with no evidence of a serious effort to end it. Six or seven months ago, an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites seemed likely. The killing of Iranian nuclear scientists and sabotage attacks at nuclear sites, culminationg in a reported major explosion at the giant underground Fordo plant in January, have bought time.

Israeli strategic affairs minister Yuval Steinitz called for world powers to set a deadline of weeks for military action to persuade Iran to halt its enrichment programme after talks with Iran ended without progress.

Continuing disintegration in Syria is a constant headache. Syria has large stocks of chemical weapons. There are constant fears that these could fall into the hands of people who would use them against Israel - and for international terrorism.

There have been continued rocket attacks from Gaza, riots on the West Bank that could lead to a third intifada, and some attacks from the Syrian side of the Golan. Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza remained armed with tens of thousands of rockets. The Israel-Egypt peace treaty is in the doldrums.

Some 3,000 years ago, King David appealed for people to "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem" (Psa 122:6). The exhortation is as needful as ever it was.

Prison, beatings and unspeakable joy. . .

A further letter has been received from Saeed Abedini, born in Iran and now a naturalised American citizen, serving an eight-year sentence in Iran. I wrote about him here and here. Saeed, who is 32, is in the notorious Evin Prison.

His letter is written in the margins of scraps of newspaper. It says, in part:

Maybe you ask, what is the secret of being so happy in such a hard situation?

Forgiveness and a change in attitude. When we forgive, we become free and we become messengers of peace and reconciliation and goodness.

I forgave the prison doctor who did not listen to me and did not give me the medication that I needed. I forgave the interrogator who beat me. Every day when I would see the interrogator and for the last time when I saw him I forgave him. I smiled at him and with respect shook his hand and I said my goodbye. The minute I forgave them and loved them, that second I was filled with an unspeakable joy. I saw in the eyes of the interrogator that he had come to respect me and as he was leaving, he could not look behind him. Love is as strong as death. . .

The joy of the Lord is my strength.

You can read the full letter here.

In the same prison is Farshid Farhi, a 33-year-old pastor serving a six-year sentence for "actions against national security," "being in contact with enemy foreign countries" and "disseminating religious propaganda."

A letter to his father says:

Dear Dad,

Probably I cannot be with you for a few years. However your word and exhortations are in the ear of my soul. I hope that at the end I will be able to see you. But if the Father calls me to the eternal abode, please protect and support my family more than before, especially my children who are the dearest of my heart.. . . 

In our land the fig tree does not blossom, the produce of olive has failed. The flock is cut off from the fold. Yet we rejoice in the Lord and take joy in the God of our salvation. Because neither the walls nor the barbed wires, nor the prison, nor suffering, nor loneliness, not enemies, nor pain, nor even death separates us from the Lord and each other.

With love and greetings in Christ.

You are asked to pray for them. If you do pray for them, do not pray for them only, but for all who are suffering from the clampdown on Christianity in Iran. God bless you.

Waiting 50 years for a Bible

I was at a conference in Belgium 30 years ago. A young Chinese girl living in the West had returned from China, where she had visited believers in underground churches. She had photographs, one of which is burned in my memory.

"How many of you have Bibles?" she had asked. "Hold up your Bibles." They had held up their Bibles. Their faces were radiant. Their Bibles were two pages torn from an exercise book with several Bible verses written on them in pencil.

In recent years the authorities have permitted Bibles to be printed in China. Times have changed somewhat. But it's reckoned that about half of China's estimated 100 million believers still don't have a Bible. The appropriately named American organisation Bibles for China has just returned, having given out 20,000 copies of the Bible in Mandarin to rural Christians.

Some of the recipients had been following Christ for 40 years without access to the Scriptures. One of the recipients was 91. He had waited 50 years for his first Bible, and was overwhelmed that someone should have travelled so far to give it to him.

You can see a video of Chinese Christians receiving their first Bibles here. The origin of the video is unknown.

Bad behaviour by schoolchildren increases

A survey of teachers suggests a rise in the number of schoolchildren with emotional, behavioural and mental health issues. So says an article in Christian Today.

Almost 80 per cent of the 844 teachers surveyed,  by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, believed the rise in bad behaviour was due to a lack of boundaries set by parents in the home.

Sixty-two per cent said behaviour was worse now than two years ago. Seventy-seven per cent reported verbal aggression, and 57 per cent physical aggression. Some 23 per cent reported students breaking or ruining the belongings of others. Teachers reported being spat at, kicked, punched and scratched by pupils.

The History Channel's 10-part series on the Bible has been a surprise hit in the United States, with viewing figures that have confounded critics.

Not like the situation in Europe, says Cristina Odone, where secularist authorities have created total ignorance of the basics of Christian religion among two generations.

"Schoolchildren today know that they should take off their shoes when they enter a mosque and what the Diwali Festival is about, but couldn't recite more than two of the Ten Commandments or name the Four Gospels. This ignorance is not confined to schools but blankets university campuses, factories, City trading floors and even BBC newsrooms. . . 

"Maybe the Coalition should make the History Channel's compulsive series compulsory viewing in schools. . . and at the Beeb."

Are the two subjects connected? They certainly are.

Former Cabinet minister Ann Widdecombe says she was asked to take part in a scene for the BBC's family show for Comic Relief that was "so grossly offensive that it should have been unthinkable to approach an elderly practising Catholic, but they don't think, believing naively that their humour is universal and that everyone seeks fun in filth.

"BBC bosses believe that raising money for charity justifies anything."

And Peter Hitchens at MailOnline deplored "the embarrassingly bad lines, full of coarseness and crudity," mouthed by Rowan Atkinson  on Comic Relief.

"Even ten years ago, these events would have caused an enormous row, not the mild media tremor they actually brought about. We have been shocked so much that we are numb. What worries me is this: if this could happen in 2013, what will be considered normal in 2023?"

Good question.

For God so loved the world

When man sinned, God had a problem. God is not only love, God is also just. He has to punish sin. We are all sinners. We have all done things we shouldn't have done, and not done things we should have done.

God's infinite justice demands that He punish our sin. God's infinite love wants to find a way to avoid punishing us. The only way round the impasse would be to find someone who was without sin who would take our punishment for us. Someone who voluntarily chose to do that.

That someone was Jesus, who came down from heaven, lived a life that was without sin, then allowed His life to be taken in your place and mine.

 The greatest fallacy that man believes is that he is good enough to be forgiven - good enough to get to heaven. That if he does enough good deeds, the bad deeds will be overlooked, and he will somehow be allowed in. It isn't true. If man has sinned against an eternal God, he deserves eternal punishment. Heaven is perfect. Heaven is where God is.

 Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). That's because it's true.

If it were possible to get to heaven by any way other than by trusting Jesus, then God had Him die for nothing.

But here's the thing. God loves us so much that He won't force us to accept Christ. Despite all that it cost, He holds out the offer, but gives us the right to refuse.

The choice is yours - and mine.

Because He lives. . .

The work that Christ did at His crucifixion wouldn't have been complete if it hadn't been for His resurrection. He didn't just die for my sins; He rose from the dead for my justification.

And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it.

His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.

And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.

But the angel answered and said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified.

"He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay." Matt 28:2 - 6. 

Christ's resurrection is one of the best attested facts in history. He appeared a number of times to His disciples. One one occasion, He appeared to 500 people at once.

(You don't believe in Christ's physical resurrection? Have you examined the evidence?)

He ate food with His disciples. He showed them His hands and His feet. "Handle Me and see," He said, "for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."

There's a beautiful song, written a few years ago, about Christ's resurrection that goes something like this: 

Go ahead, drive those nails in My hands;
Laugh at Me where you stand.
Go ahead, and say it isn't Me;
The day will come when you will see.

'Cause I'll rise again;
There's no power on earth can tie Me down.
Yes I'll rise again;
Death can't keep Me in the ground. 

The wonderful thing is that because my Redeemer was resurrected, one day I will be resurrected too. Not to condemnation, but to the same eternal life that He has. 

Go ahead, and mock My name;
My love for you is still the same.
Go ahead and bury me;
But soon I will be free.

'Cause I'll rise again,
There's no power on earth can tie Me down.
Yes I'll rise again;
Death can't keep me in the ground.

 Jesus said He would rise from the dead. And He did it. He also promised He would come again for His people. He will do that too.

One day, the Bible says, the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of a trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise, then those believers in Christ who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. "And so," says the Scripture, "shall we ever be with the Lord."

Go ahead, and say I'm dead and gone;
But you will see that you were wrong.
Go ahead, try to hide the Son;
But all will see that I'm the One.

'Cause I'll come again;
There's no power on earth can keep Me back.
Yes I'll come again;
Come to take My people back.

What a day! What a prospect!

History's greatest victory

When Adam and Eve disobeyed in the Garden, it didn't take God by surprise. Right then and there He promised a Saviour.

He told the serpent:

I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise his heel.  Gen 3:15.

The seed of the woman, you will notice. Not the seed of the man. Jesus was to have no earthly father.

From the moment the promise was given, the powers of evil in this world did everything they knew to stop it being fulfilled. They sought to destroy the line from which the Saviour would come.

Cain was persuaded to kill Abel. There was an attempt to prevent Abraham from having a legitimate heir. Pharaoh ordered the death of all male Hebrew children. There were attempts to kill all the children in the royal line. Haman sought to kill all the Jews in the captivity. Herod killed all the young children in Bethlehem. There were attempts on Jesus' life in Nazareth, and on Galilee.

Finally, the Jewish religious leaders plotted His death. Judas agreed to give Him up. Pilate was persuaded to condemn Him.

It's not hard to imagine a colossal number of demons gathered around the cross. Did they say "We've got Him!" as the soldiers hammered the nails through His hands?  Did they say "We've won!" as Jesus gave His last cry and yielded up His spirit?

If they did, they were going to be disappointed.

As we shall consider in the next several days, what appeared to be the greatest defeat in history was about to become history's greatest victory.

The man who wanted to fly

From being a boy, Larry Walters dreamed of going up into the clear blue sky in a balloon. Years went by, but he never lost his dream.

One day, he decided to do something about it. He went to an army surplus stores and bought more than 40 seven-foot wide weather balloons and some tanks of helium. He fastened the balloons to an aluminium garden chair and tethered the chair by two nylon leads to a car in his girlfriend's back yard.

His aim was to go a few hundred feet up, sit and admire the view for an hour or two, then shoot out one or two of the balloons and drift back to the ground.

He packed some peanut butter sandwiches, a large bottle of pop, a CB radio and a pellet gun. He sat in the chair. Friends unfastened one of the leads and the other came loose. The contraption shot up like a rocket, so fast that he lost his glasses.

Up and up it went, until Walters was three miles above the earth. He tried shooting out one or two of the balloons, but lost his gun overboard. He drifted into the incoming flight path at Los Angeles International Airport. A Trans World Airlines pilot and a Delta Airlines pilot saw a man and some balloons floating past at 16,000 feet.

After a very scary time, the flying chair drifted back to earth and Walters was able to get off unhurt. Unfortunately, the balloons tangled with some power lines on the way down and plunged a neighbourhood into darkness.

Asked in a newspaper interview later why he did what he did, Walters is reported to have replied "Well, you can't just sit there."

You know, he's right. Life is short, and time is passing at a surprising rate. Life is over almost before you know it. Then each one of us will have to stand before our Maker.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.  2 Cor 5:10.

Most people imagine they will go to heaven, but the truth is that heaven is perfect, and we are all sinners, if only because we haven't given God His rightful place in our lives.

God has provided for the situation. His only Son lived a perfect life and died an agonising death to pay for your sin and mine.

All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  Isa 53:6.

But God forces His forgiveness on no one. We need to believe on Him, and accept His offer of salvation. Tell Him you're sorry for the wrong things you've done. Ask His forgiveness. Invite Him to come in to your life. Tell Him you'll give Him control of your life, and you'll follow Him.

Don't put it off. Do it now, while you have the opportunity.

A right to kill? Read this and weep

For years pro-abortion campaigners pretended that what was growing inside a mother with an unwanted pregnancy was not a baby. They called it the products of conception, a blob of tissue, or a clump of cells.

With ultrasound technology more common now, they can't do that any more. Ultrasound pictures show clearly that it is a baby, and that the baby is alive.

So now pro-abortion advocates on both sides of the Atlantic are saying clearly that it is a baby - but that it's OK to abort the baby anyway.

One of the latest is Mary Elizabeth Williams. In a post (appropriately titled So what if abortion ends life?) on an American blog she writes:

Throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that's what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn't make me one iota less solidly pro-choice. . .

A fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She's the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always. . . 

I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time - even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is still a life. A life worth sacrificing.

So it is a baby, but it's all right to kill the baby if it doesn't suit your convenience.

It really is enough to make you weep.

A romance that went on and on

Ray and Anne Ortlund met at a prayer group they both attended. "You can learn a lot about a person's heart just by listening to them talk to God," says Anne.

Two weeks after they met, Ray asked Anne out on their first date - a moonlit horseback ride. As they rode along on a lovely mild night, Ray began to sing an old hymn. Anne joined in. She didn't know he could sing and he didn't know she could sing, but the harmony they made together was quite something. That night they fell in love.

Shortly before Christmas that year, Ray proposed. It was 1944. He just had time to hand over an engagement ring before he was posted overseas for 18 months.

On his return, they were married. Their romance lasted for 60 years.

When they were in their fifties, they were eating in a restaurant one day. Ray looked at Anne, put down his fork and began to cry. "What's the matter?" she said. "You're so beautiful," he said.

When Ray preached during his ministry years, he would often lean over the pulpit and  say to Anne "Do you have any idea how much I love you?"

One of the reasons they chose a high-rise flat for their later years was that the building had a lift, and they had realised what lifts were for - for kissing, they said, when nobody else was in the lift.

Ray died five years ago. Occasionally Anne still finds a love note he hid around the house for her to find later. She still talks to him - because she misses him.

She recognises that they won't be married in heaven, but prays they will still be dearest friends. She is aware that the marriage there will be between Christ and His church. "That wedding," she says, "will be off the charts."

More details of their story here.

Tackling teen sex problems

Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Western Europe. Rates of sexually transmitted diseases are rising.

School nurses can give out the morning-after pill to teenage girl pupils at some schools in England. Dr Anne Connolly, chairman of the Primary Care Women's Health Forum, has called for all school nurses to be able to give out the pill.

In Scotland, the Sexual Health Lead Clinicians Group has told the Scottish Government that the morning-after pill should be made available in schools there. "Why is emergency contraception not available in schools?" it says. "Why are condoms and contraception not accessible? Why can't pregnancy and. . . STIs be prevented?"

Peter Saunders points out that an American study revealed that making the morning-after pill available free without prescription does not decrease pregnancy or abortion figures, and increases rates of sexually transmitted infections.

A British study found that making the morning-after pill available free of charge did not alter pregnancy rates for girls under 16 but increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases by 12 per cent.

What is needed is not something to encourage teens in a promiscuous lifestyle but something to tackle teens' promiscuous behaviour in the first place.

Dr Saunders suggests that organisations like Love for Life, Love2last, Challenge Team, Romance Academy and Lovewise are getting great results and have a great deal of wisdom to pass on.

The website addresses of these organisations are www.loveforlife.org.uk, www.love2last.org.uk, www.challengeteamuk.org, www.romanceacademy.org, and www.lovewise.org.uk.

So why not visit some of these websites and find out what you can do to help?

Does abortion law discriminate against disabled unborn?

Andy Stephenson, a young Christian from Worthing in Sussex, saw his daughter "flailing around" on an ultrasound screen at 12 weeks into pregnancy. Shortly afterwards he saw a picture of an aborted child of the same age, and couldn't get the picture out of his mind.

As a result, he founded Abort67, a pro-life organisation that is making its mark in the South of England. His aim, he says, is not to harass women, but to help people understand just what abortion involves.

Last week he had a full-page interview in the Brighton Argus. An interesting read. You can see it here.

I have previously described how pro-abortion activists have forced pro-abortion positions and affiliations on student unions at the expense of pro-life students (for instance, here and here.)

Last week Edinburgh University's Life Society won their battle against a motion to renew student union policy to "support a woman's right to choose and affiliate to abortion rights." The motion was defeated after a debate.

Said Life Society president Vanessa Reith: "We at Edinburgh University Life Society would encourage other universities facing pro-choice motions to stand up and be counted. It's scary, and it's daunting, but if you take a stand (and do so with compassion and a thought for the people who are voting the other way) then you are already being a witness to the pro-life movement in the UK."

Fiona Bruce MP has launched a parliamentary inquiry into abortion, with particular reference to whether or not current abortion law discriminates against babies with disabilities.

You might well think that it does. Legal abortion is allowed in Britain up to 24 weeks - unless there is a risk that the baby may be disabled, when abortion is allowed up to birth. Should abortion be easier to obtain if a baby is thought to be disabled? Are the lives of disabled babies worth less than the lives of babies without disability?

You can make a submission to the inquiry by e-mail - but it has to be in by 5pm on March 6, so not much time. You can find details and submission form here (you don't have to answer all the questions), a Christian Medical Fellowship briefing paper here, and a longer briefing paper here.

Saeed Abedini: 'in chains for the Gospel'

Saeed Abedini, who was training to become a suicide bomber, was converted to Christ in his native Iran and became a leader in the house church movement.

In 2005 he moved to the United States and became a US citizen. Last year, on a trip to Iran to visit family and help build an orphanage, he was arrested.

I wrote about him here on the day he was to appear in court in Iran charged with "actions against the national security of Iran." In the event, he was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. He is now in Teheran's notorious Evin Prison, and is said to heve been tortured.

Recently, his wife received a letter from him. It said, in part:

The conditions here get so very difficult that my eyes get blurry, my body does not have the strength to walk, and my steps become very weak and shaky. . . 

The psychological warfare, almost a year of not seeing my family, physical violence, actions committed to humiliate me, insults, being mocked, being confronted with extremists in the prison who create another prison within the prison walls, and the death threats. . . 

I see all these difficulties as golden opportunities and great doors to serve. .

They are only waiting for one thing. . . for me to deny Christ. But they will never get this from me. . .

Yesterday when I was singing worship songs, the head of my cell room attacked me in order to stop me praising but in response I hugged him and showed him love. . . He was shocked. . .

I Love Him. He is Gracious, Merciful and Righteous to me. I now know that I have not been forgotten and that we are together in this path. God gives me Grace. . .

Pastor Saeed, servant of Jesus Christ in chains for endurance of the Gospel. I love you all.

You can read the whole letter on video here.

Tell a big enough lie often enough. . .

This week - although the dates for the week vary a little from country to country - is Israeli Apartheid Week. If you are not familiar with the term, perhaps a little explanation is called for.

This is the week when film shows, lectures and public meetings are held in towns and cities, above all on university campuses, to demonstrate that Israel is an apartheid state.

Except that Israel isn't an apartheid state.

The word apartheid was used to describe the situation in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, when blacks there couldn't vote, hold political office or mix with whites, and had to live in segregated areas.

By contrast, the one-and-a-half million Arabs who live in Israel - 20 per cent of the population - can vote, like any other Israeli, own businesses, work in the professions, practise as lawyers and judges, work in the diplomatic service, serve in Israel's parliament and become ministers in the Israeli Government.

Because Israel is a democracy, Arabs in Israel have rights Arabs in Arab countries don't have. In fact, 82 per cent of Arabs living in Israel say they would rather live in Israel than in an Arab country.

So why do we see Palestinian Arabs from the so-called occupied territories queueing at Israeli checkpoints? Because they are not Israeli citizens and Israel has to prevent terrorists from entering the country.

What about the security fence that Israel built? It was built to prevent terrorists entering Israel at a time when  bombers were blowing up Israeli citizens in buses, on the streets, and in restaurants. And it worked, reducing terrorism inside Israel almost to nil.

The Palestinians have made it clear that if ever they are granted their own state, no Jew will be allowed to live there. So are they castigated as supporters of apartheid? Dear me, no.

So why is Israel called an apartheid state?

Because those who hate Israel want to convince people who don't know any better that Israel has no right to exist.

'Waiting for Jesus'

Frances Ridley Havergal was born in Worcestershire in 1836. She was the youngest of six children of an evangelical Anglican clergyman, himself the author of about a hundred hymns.

Frances could read at three years old, and wrote her first poetry at seven. From six years old, she longed to find forgiveness in Christ, but it was only at 14 that she found peace in Him. "I committed my soul to the Saviour," she said, "and earth and heaven seemed brighter from that moment."

Although not able to go to school for long periods, she was proficient in several modern languages, as well as Latin, Hebrew and Greek. She was a sweet singer and a gifted pianist, playing Handel, Mendelssohn and Beethoven, often from memory.

By the time she was 22, she had learned the Psalms, the book of Isaiah and almost all the New Testament off by heart. She went on to memorise the Minor Prophets. (Do they make Christians like that any more?)

Whilst in Germany, she saw a picture of Christ during His passion, bearing the inscription "I did this for thee; what hast thou done for Me?" It appears to have made a considerable impression.

Despite long periods of illness, Frances wrote books, articles, poetry, a considerable number of hymns - some of them well known - and a number of hymn tunes.

She died of peritonitis at 42 years old.

At the beginning of her last illness, she asked her doctor "Do you think I have a chance of going? If I am going, it is too good to be true!"

Towards the end of that last illness, although in agonising pain, "It is all perfect peace," she said. "I am only waiting for Jesus to take me in."

Clearly, though faintly, she sang the whole verse of one of her hymns. She looked up steadfastly, her face radiant, as though she saw the Lord. For 10 minutes, said her sister, the family watched her almost visible meeting with her King.

She tried to sing again, but after one sweet high note, her voice failed and she was gone.

Her favourite bit of Scripture, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin," was inscribed on her coffin and on her gravestone.

May I be allowed to ask you a question? It's the same question she was faced with. He died for you. What have you done for Him?

Is atheism reasonable?

Atheists will find it difficult to convince other people that there is no God. For two very good reasons.

First, the Bible says (in Psa 19:1): "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows his handiwork." The best evidence for the existence of a Creator is His creation. And the evidence of His creation is all around us.

Atheists see the structure and beauty and the order and influence of the heavenly bodies, says Matthew Henry, but say "There is no God." They see the effect, yet say "There is no cause." The heavenly bodies could not exist from eternity, he says, because succession and motion must have had a beginning; they could not make themselves, which is a contradiction; they could not be produced by a random hit of atoms, which is an absurdity. Therefore they must have a Creator.

If you stand at the back of your house on a clear night and look up at the millions of stars shining above you, you might have difficulty supposing that God doesn't exist.

Second, the Bible says "Since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse" (Rom 1:20).

Deep down in every man there is an awareness of God. Atheists might deceive themselves into thinking it is not so; but deep down in every man that awareness is there.

I am no scientist, but the people who claim to know these things tell me, as evidence of the existence of a Creator, that there are more than 120 anthropic constants in the universe. (An anthropic constant is something that has to exist to allow life to be possible on the earth, like an exact quantity of oxygen in the atmosphere; an exact amount of atmospheric transparency to allow the correct amount of solar radiation to reach the earth; the exact degree of tilt at which the earth rotates; the exact force of gravity on the moon compared with the force of gravity on earth; an exact amount of water vapour in the atmosphere; etc.) The lack of any one of these constants would be expected to make life on earth impossible: but every one of the 120-plus constants is in place.

Donald Page, of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, has calculated that the odds against the universe randomly taking a form suitable for life are 10¹²⁴ to one. The figure of 10¹²⁴ is a figure so large it is practically impossible to imagine.

Atheists would say it all happened by chance. They would argue that there might be an infinite number of universes, and this one might be the only one where conditions for life were right. There's one thing wrong with that argument: there is no evidence of any other universe.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, took part in a debate with Britain's best known atheist, Dr Richard Dawkins, at Cambridge University two weeks ago. Dawkins sought to prove that "religion has no place in the 21st century." He described religion as "a cop-out."

"It is a betrayal of the intellect, a betrayal of all that's best about what makes us human," he said. "It's a phony substitute for an explanation, which seems to answer the question until you examine it and realise that it does no such thing. . . it peddles false explanations where real explanations could have been offered."

He failed to convince his audience. The motion was defeated by 324 votes to 136.

You can see a report of the debate here.

Fried chicken, anyone?

Col Harland David Sanders opened a service station and started to serve ham and steaks cooked in his home nearby. (This is the man with the glasses and goatee beard. Kentucky Fried Chicken. That Col Sanders.)

The first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened in 1952. The company grew until the colonel was unable to manage its growth. He sold it for £1.5 million in 1964.

Now his face appears in 17,000 towns and cities in 105 countries. The company sells 114 million hot wings each year in Britain alone.

One night an American preacher knelt beside the colonel and asked: "Would you like to get born again?" "I really would," said the colonel. "Do you think that Jesus could save me to the point where He would take away my cussing?" "God is going to save you tonight," said the preacher, "and you'll never cuss again."

Col Sanders accepted Christ that night and never again took the Lord's name in vain. He was baptised in the River Jordan.

According to a biography written by Bob Rodgers, the preacher's son, the colonel was once needing surgery for a growth in the colon. The same preacher went to the hospital and prayed for him. When the surgeon operated, there was no growth there.

"God has been so good to me," said Col Sanders.

He died in 1980, aged 90.

'Ten times error' in abortion figures

You may remember the brouhaha there was 11 years ago when Joanna Jepson, later a Church of England minister. went to court to challenge the legality of an abortion that had been carried out at 28 weeks because the baby had a cleft palate.

European researchers now say that more than 10 times as many abortions take place for cleft lip in the UK than are recorded in Department of Health statistics.

According to the Telegraph, Eurocat, which was set up to register congenital abnormalities in 23 countries, claims 157 unborn babies were aborted for cleft lip and palate in England and Wales between 2006 and 2010. The Department of Health records only 14.

In the same period, according to Eurocat, there were 205 abortions for club foot, another problem that can normally be corrected by surgery. Department of Health records put the figure much lower.

Eurocat also claims that the number of babies aborted in 2010 for Down's syndrome was almost double the number officially recorded - 886 compared to 482.

The difference is believed to be because of sources of data. The European group tracks what happens when the unborn baby has been identified as having an abnormality, obtaining the information from foetal medicine specialists, ultrasonographers and genetic testing laboratories. The Department of Health figures come from forms filled in by doctors carrying out abortions.

Doctors are said not to be recording the true reason for the abortion, either to spare the woman's feelings or avoid controversy.

Dr Joan Morris, national co-ordinator for Eurocat and professor of medical statistics at Queen Mary, University of London, said "Babies are aborted for Down's and they still don't put that on the abortion form, so if they can't do it for Down's, why would they put cleft lip?"

A Department of Health spokesman said "We are aware that there is a potential discrepancy in figures and are looking into this in further detail."

Eighty years married

Whatever you think about it and whatever the cause, there is a move to destroy  marriage. (Dr Dave Landrum of the Evangelical Alliance said yesterday the Government wants to "reduce marriage to a lifestyle choice - like fashion or joining a club," with minority groups defining marriage for themselves.)

So time to mention a few positive things about marriage.

Today is the first day of National Marriage Week - seven days leading up to Valentine's Day. It will be launched with a meeting at Westminster today, with local events, like marriage courses and Valentine's Day meals, during the week.

In Canada, same-sex marriage has been legal since 2005, and strange things happen there. In one primary school, I'm told, eight-year-olds "married" their (same-sex) best friends, with cake and ice cream to follow.

But Canada's Supreme Court has decided that couples who live together outside of marriage should not have the same privileges as married couples. Couples who choose to marry, it said, choose the responsibilities and the protections associated with it. Couples who choose not to marry avoid the responsibilities and the protections.

In the United States, this week is a special time for John and Ann Betar, who have been married for 80 years.

They lived across the street from each other, and John used to drive Ann to school in his Ford Roadster. Ann was supposed to marry someone in a wedding arranged by her father, but John and Ann eloped to New York State and were married on November 25, 1932. "Some people said it would never last," John is reported to have said. "We showed them."

Ron and Judy Pekny, of an organisation called Worldwide Marriage Encounter, are travelling to John and Ann's home town of Fairfield, Connecticut, for a ceremony in their honour this week.

Nice to honour people who have been faithful to each other for so long. Don't you think?

Truth stood on its head

David Cameron's bill to redefine marriage and legalise same-sex marriage passed its second reading in the House of Commons last night with 400 voting for and 175 voting against.

Some 135 Conservative MPs voted against the bill, with 126 voting for and many more abstaining. It has been described as the biggest Tory rebellion in history.

The most common word among proponents of same-sex marriage in the six-hour debate appeared to be "equality."

Marriage between a man and a woman and a homosexual relationship cannot be equal because they are different. According to the bill, homosexuals would have a choice between marriage and civil partnership while a man and a woman would have the choice of marriage only; adultery would be grounds for divorce in a heterosexual marriage but not in exclusively same-sex relationships; and it would certainly not be equal for the children of the two types of relationship.

Truth has been stood on its head. Unfortunately, supporters of same-sex marriage have presented themselves as champions of equality and fairness, while people with Christian principles are portrayed as haters of homosexuals, bigots and religious fanatics.

 Cranmer described it the other day: "Everyone knows that the Bill is a dog's breakfast of 'quadruple locks,' random exemptions, religious straitjackets and false assertions of equality. Anyone with half a brain will understand that its religious assurances are provisional and its locks are eminently pickable. Equality is the new state orthodoxy: there can be no lasting exemptions, no conscience considerations and no organisational opt-outs. All must conform, or face the consequences of inquisition and suffer the same historic fate of heretics."

The bill will now be considered by a committee and have its third reading before going to the House of Lords.

No 'slippery slope'? Don't you believe it

This week Lord Falconer announced that he is going to introduce another bill in the House of Lords seeking to legalise assisted suicide.

While such things are in the news, it is perhaps appropriate to mention (in case you didn't see it in the newspapers) the case of Marc and Eddy Verbessem.

The Verbessem brothers were 45-year-old identical twins living in the village of Putte, not too far from Brussels, in Belgium. They were born deaf. They were unmarried; they had lived together all their lives, and worked as cobblers. When they discovered they were suffering from a form of glaucoma that was expected to leave them blind, they feared losing their independence, and asked for euthanasia.

Euthanasia is legal in Belgium "if the patient is in a medically futile condition of constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated, resulting from a serious and incurable disorder caused by illness or accident."

The Verbessems were not terminally ill, and were not in physical pain. Doctors refused them euthanasia because they did not accept the brothers were suffering unbearable pain. Needless to say the Verbessems were able to find doctors who disagreed, and the twins' lives were ended by lethal injection.

Now Belgium's ruling Socialists have announced plans to amend the law to allow euthanasia for children and people suffering from Alzheimer's.

Once the door to legalised killing is opened, it will remain open - and the conditions required to qualify for legalised killing will become wider and wider.

Peter Saunders says that in Belgium half the cases of euthanasia go unreported, half of Belgian euthanasia nurses have killed people without request, one third of euthanasia cases in at least one region are involuntary, and euthanasia cases are now being used as organ donors.

"A report published late last year," he says, "by the Brussels-based European Institute of Bioethics claimed that euthanasia was being 'trivialized' and that the law was being monitored by a toothless watchdog. After 10 years of legalised euthanasia and about 5,500 cases, not one case has ever been referred to the police. . . 

"These latest developments are a chilling reminder of how incremental extension will happen inevitably once the law changes and the public conscience is eroded."

Legislators in Britain would do well to bear this in mind as pressure from proponents of euthanasia continues.

Remembering six million dead

Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army.

In the Holocaust, apart from gypsies, homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses, six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany. Old men and old women; young men and young women; babies, boys and girls. Of the Jews who died, something like a million and a half were children.

Extermination camps were built. Killing squads followed the German Army into Soviet Russia. Jews were shot and buried. Some had to be dug up and burned. Others were shot and burned, but that was slow work. Then came mobile gas vans; finally, gas chambers and crematoria.

In Auschwitz, more people died than the British and American losses in World War II combined. More than a million perished in Auschwitz, 90 per cent of them Jews.

The largest gas chambers each held 2,000 people at a time. By 1944, 8,000 were being gassed at Auschwitz every day. About 400,000 Hungarian Jews were exterminated there in three months.

On January 27, 1945 the Red Army entered Auschwitz to liberate several thousand prisoners, including 180 children suffering from acute frostbite. The only reason the children had survived was because they were required for Josef Mengele's medical experiments. Three thousand twin children had entered the camp. Fewer than 200 survived to tell of its horrors.

Yesterday an Israeli government study presented to the Israeli cabinet showed a rise in antisemitic attacks over the past year. The biggest increase in attacks was in Europe. Parliamentary victories by a number of far-right antisemitic parties in Europe, it said, was a worrying trend.

The US-based Anti-Defamation League reported "dangerously high levels" of antisemitism in Europe last year, with antisemitic beliefs held by almost a third of the people surveyed. In France, 24 per cent of the population had antisemitic attitudes, compared to 20 per cent in 2009; in Spain, 53 per cent, compared to 48 per cent; in Hungary, 63 per cent, compared to 47 per cent. In the UK, antisemitic attitudes were up to 17 per cent, compared to 10 per cent four years ago.

Never again?

Same-sex marriage: the battle intensifies

David Cameron and Nick Clegg appear determined to push through legislation redefining marriage in order to allow same-sex marriage. ("David just won't be told," the Prime Minister's mother, Mary Cameron, is reported as saying.)

The bill outlining the change had its first reading on Thursday and was published yesterday. MPs will have a debate and vote on it for the first time on Tuesday, February 5.

The Government says there will be adequate protection for religious bodies who do not want to hold same-sex marriages and for teachers who do not want to teach homosexual marriage as part of sex education. Opponents deny this; they say such protection or lack of it will be in the hands of European judges, who have already shown that people with a conscientious objection to homosexual marriage can lose their jobs.

It is not certain that the bill will be passed. Considerable numbers of MPs say they are ready to vote against it, and if the House of Commons passes it, it is said to be likely to have a hard time in the Lords.

Christians say marriage has been between one man and one woman throughout history, and is the basis of a stable society. They suggest the proposed change will not give homosexuals rights they do not already have with civil partnerships, and will have the effect of destroying traditional marriage.

It is remarkable how Christians came together to fight the proposed change. They quickly formed the Coalition for Marriage, which organised a petition that gained a record-breaking 600,000 signatures, which the Government is now trying to ignore.

Organisations including the Christian Institute, CARE, Christian Concern and the Christian Medical Fellowship have now called a national day of prayer on the issue for Sunday, February 3 - a week tomorrow. Suggested prayer topics can be seen here. Voice for Justice UK says that although the Government will place all its resources behind the bill, the result is not yet sure. "If something is right, it remains worth fighting for."

The organisations continue to ask people to write to their MP, asking him or her to vote against the bill. A CARE briefing, Twelve compelling reasons for rejecting same-sex marriage, can be downloaded here.

The World Prayer Centre in Birmingham calls the bill "an attack on the social and spiritual life of our nation." It points out that the following prayer has been said every day that Parliament has been in session since the 17th century:

Lord, the God of righteousness and truth, grant to our Queen and her Government, to members of Parliament and all in positions of responsibility, the guidance of Your Spirit.

May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals; but laying aside all private interests and prejudices, keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind.

So may Your Kingdom come and Your name be hallowed.

Amen.

Christianity 'the world's most persecuted religion'

Imagine the unspeakable fury that would erupt across the Islamic world if a Christian-led government in Khartoum had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese Muslims over the past 30 years. Or if Christian gunmen were firebombing mosques in Iraq during Friday prayers. Or if Muslim girls in Indonesia had been abducted and beheaded on their way to school, because of their faith.

Such horrors are barely thinkable, of course. But they have all occurred in reverse, with Christians falling victim to Islamist aggression.

So wrote Rupert Shortt in the Telegraph.

A couple of months ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world. Shortt, who has been responsible for writing biographies of Archbishop Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict, has now written a report titled Christianophobia, published by the UK think tank Civitas. In it, he agrees with her assessment.

Christians, he says, are targeted more than any other body of believers. An estimated 200 million Christians are socially disadvantaged, harassed or actively oppressed for their beliefs.

Shortt lists atrocities in Egypt, where whatever the results of the Arab Spring, "Copts remain deeply concerned about the future of their battered Church"; in Iraq, where the number of Christians has fallen from 1.2 million in 1990 to less than 200,000 today; in Pakistan, with its blasphemy laws; in Nigeria, where thousands, including children, have been caused to disappear, hacked to death, burned alive or pulled off buses and murdered; in India, where Hindu extremists have killed or displaced thousands; in Burma, and in China, where more Christians are imprisoned than in any other country in the world.

"One reason," he says, "why Western audiences hear so little about religious oppression in the Muslim world is straightforward: young Christians in Europe and America do not become 'radicalised,' and persecuted Christians tend not to respond with terrorist violence."

In addition, "Parts of the media have been influenced by the logical error that equates criticism of Muslims with racism, and therefore as wrong by definition."

His conclusions: "The Qur'an does not set out specific punishments for apostasy in this life. The notion that converts to other religions should be killed fed into all the main branches of sharia law via later collections of teaching, especially the Hadith. . . Muslim attitudes should not be considered immutable."

Christianity has evolved, he says, and there are reasonable grounds for thinking Islam will do so too.

But "there is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands."

I greet his conclusions with some scepticism. I am reminded that Christianity's founder said that He would build His church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it - and that Christianity has a habit of flourishing under persecution, painful though it is.

You can read the 41-page report here.