Words to remember

The royal wedding is over. Prince William and Catherine Middleton, now Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are man and wife. The rain stayed away. The dress was beautiful. Everything went well.

On reflection, one of the day's most evocative moments was the Bishop of London's advice to the couple, in the words of Catherine of Siena:

"Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire."

Could there be better advice to the newly-married pair than that?

Your part in the story

A dear Christian lady named Ruth Wood writes a blog called Comfort Cafe.

In one blog post she remembers hearing Billy Graham say that history is really His story - and she recalls how God writes people into that story.

She considers one or two Bible characters - seemingly ordinary people whose influence did not become altogether apparent until after they were gone. And then one or two more modern examples. . .

"Oswald Chambers travelled and lectured, never famous during his lifetime. After his death, his wife spent the rest of her life publishing her husband's spoken words which she had recorded verbatim in shorthand. My Utmost for His Highest was published ten years after her husband died. During his lifetime, Chambers remained unaware that he had authored a classic that God would use in countless lives.

"Ever heard of Christian Wolfkes? This godly Rumanian cherished a fervent love for Jews and prayed for years that he might win one for Christ even though there were none in his village and he was too ill to travel. Around 1937 a young Jewish man and his wife arrived. The old carpenter prayed many hours for their salvation, gave them a New Testament and eventually won Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand to Christ.

"This couple later stood up to the communist government, and after suffering many years in prison for their faith, Richard wrote the well-known book, Tortured for Christ, and founded Voice of the Martyrs.

"Christian Wolfkes only saw himself as a carpenter who wanted to win a Jew to Christ. He never learned the impact his investment in the Wurmbrands had around the world."

Leaving God to decide where He fits us into the divine narrative, she suggests, gives us freedom from the stress of trying to be spiritually productive. And if we're stressed about how our life is turning out, it might be an idea to wait for the last page of the book.

So. Would you want to live a selfish life, taking every decision with an eye to your own benefit? Or would you prefer to yield your life to the Master Storyteller, allowing Him to fit you into the divine narrative in a way that will bring blessing to others and glory to Him?

It's the Biased Broadcasting Corporation

As a publicly-funded public service broadcaster, the BBC is supposed to be impartial. The BBC claims it is impartial. How it manages to do that in view of the fact that its bias is so obvious is a little difficult to understand.

The corporation is notorious for its bias against Israel. It commissioned a study on its coverage of the Middle East conflict which resulted in the Balen Report. After chiefs read the report, the BBC refused to make its contents public, and is reported to have spent £200,000 in legal costs so far defying an order to make its contents public under the Freedom of Information Act. It is hard to imagine why it would do that unless it were that its contents condemn the corporation for its bias.

On another front the BBC has recently been accused of acting as cheerleader in the campaign to legalise assisted suicide.

On his website, Dr Peter Saunders, of Care Not Killing, gives the background to the charge. The BBC has recently filmed a man killing himself at the Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland for a documentary to be screened this summer. The programme will be presented by author Terry Pratchett, a patron of Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) and a campaigner for legalised assisted suicide.

The programme will be the fifth produced by the BBC in three years, says Dr Saunders, presented by a pro-euthanasia campaigner or sympathiser and specifically designed to portray taking one's own life in a positive light.

A BBC Panorama documentary fronted by Margo MacDonald MSP in the lead-up to tabling her euthanasia bill in the Scottish Parliament was screened four times. A 90-minute docudrama starring Julie Walters, telling the story of the death of Bath GP Anne Turner at Dignitas was screened seven times.

The 34th Richard Dimbleby Lecture featured Terry Pratchett making the case for assisted suicide for patients, like himself, with Alzheimer's disease. A hand-picked audience in the Royal College of Physicians signalled their approval as he described himself ending his life by nonchalantly sipping poisoned champagne in his back garden.

BBC East Midlands featured a confession by producer Ray Gosling to smothering a homosexual lover with AIDS. The story turned out to be pure fantasy - "but not until after the BBC machinery had blown it up into a massive international news story just prior to the Director of Public Prosecutions reporting on his assisted suicide prosecution criteria.

"I am also aware of a sixth 'documentary' currently being put together, again presented by a keen advocate of legalising assisted suicide, news of which has not yet entered the public domain.

"During this three year period there has not been one BBC programme presenting the opposite point of view. This is in spite of the fact that all three parliamentary bills attempting to legalise the practice in the last five years have been heavily defeated and despite the continuing robust opposition to legalisation from disability rights groups, medical professionals and faith groups. . .

"What is somewhat ironic about this whole process is the fact that there are strict codes about media coverage of suicide, not only from bodies like the World Health Organisation, but also from the BBC itself (on covering both suicide and criminal acts), which are constantly and repeatedly flouted . . .

"Concerns about the well-documented phenomenon of suicide contagion, especially following suicides carried out by celebrities. . . are simply not part of the narrative when the BBC covers these issues. Instead it has adopted almost a campaigning stance.

"No one is denying that the debate about assisted suicide is crucially important. This is a free democratic society and those who wish to see a change in the law are fully entitled to express their views in the public square. Furthermore it is to be expected that private media outlets will want to pursue a specific editorial line.

"But with an issue as important as this one, campaigners should not have the added advantage of being able to spread their propaganda by using the publicly funded national broadcasting corporation effectively as a private public relations company and press office."

The BBC spends an almost incredible amount of money. In these days of economic difficulty, perhaps something needs to be done about that too.

Just one word made the difference

When Mary Magdalene went to the tomb on the morning of Christ's resurrection and found it empty, she was distraught. Rough hands had taken Him and killed Him; now someone had even taken His body.

Mary stood in the garden, weeping. Through her tears, she saw a man she supposed was the gardener. "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." The man spoke just one word: "Mary." That one word changed everything.

First, Christ's resurrection is not just a fairy tale. It's one of the best attested facts in history. The Jewish leaders would have loved to have disproved His resurrection. All they had to do to disprove it was to produce His body. They didn't, because they couldn't.

Jesus appeared to His disciples numerous times after his resurrection. On one occasion He appeared to more than 500 people at once. His disciples travelled the world preaching His resurrection, and lost their lives because of their preaching. You don't give your lives for something you know isn't true.

Second, Jesus isn't alive in a general sense. He's alive personally. He knows you by name. If you don't know Him - personally - make His acquaintance. Invite Him into your life.

You may have a problem. Grief, disappointment, rejection. Perhaps more than one. Just remember. One word from Him can make all the difference.

His death and subsequent resurrection is the ultimate proof that God cares.

"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation" (Rom 10:9, 10).

"As many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name" (John 1:12).

"Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt 11:28).

A question of days

Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday. It's interesting that every one of the four Gospels makes the point that it was early on the first day of the week that the women came to the tomb and found it empty. The first day of the week, of course, is Sunday.

Jesus had to rise from the dead on a Sunday. He couldn't have risen on a Monday, or a Tuesday. In the beginning, God created the universe in seven days. He worked six days in creation, and rested on the seventh. Jesus rose from the dead on the eighth day: the first day of a new creation.

It is pretty certain though that Jesus was not crucified on a Friday. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that He was crucified on a Friday. People assume that it was Friday. The Bible says it was the day before the sabbath: His body had to be taken from the cross and buried hurriedly because the sabbath was approaching. But there were two sabbaths that week. It was Passover.

Passover always began on the even of the 14th of the Jewish month Nisan, irrespective of what day of the week that date fell. The following day was always a sabbath, in which work was forbidden (Ex 12:16; Lev 23:5 - 8; Num 28:16 - 18). John 19:31 makes it clear that the day following Christ's crucifixion was a high sabbath: the sabbath in connection with Passover.

We could perhaps work out on what day the 14th of Nisan fell in that year - but we don't know for sure in which year Jesus died.

The Old Testament contains many prophecies about the death of the Messiah. They were all fulfilled in exact detail. Jesus Himself prophesied of His death. He told the scribes and Pharisees: "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt 12:40). If you count the first day and the last day, you can call Friday to Sunday three days. But there is no way you can fit three nights in between Friday and Sunday.

Some Bible scholars believe Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday. The women rested on the Passover sabbath on Thursday, bought spices and ointments to anoint Christ's body on Friday (Mark 16:1; Luke 23:56), rested on the weekly sabbath on Saturday, and went to the tomb early on Sunday.

Others prefer to believe that Jesus was crucified on Thursday, with the Passover sabbath on Friday and the weekly sabbath on Saturday. That way, Christ's body would be in the tomb for three days - from Thursday to Sunday - and three nights - Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday night.

Although the Passover lamb was not killed until the 14th of Nisan, it had to be chosen on the 10th of Nisan and examined to see that it was without blemish (Ex 12:3 - 6). Jesus, our Passover lamb, was presented to the people as He rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. After examination by the Jews, Herod and Pilate, he was crucified four days later.

So what day of the week did Jesus die? I don't know. The Bible doesn't say. It isn't important. If it were important, the Bible would say. What is important is the fact that He died.

We were all sinners. We had all fallen short of God's standard. We were separated from God. God needed someone who would live a life without sin and give that life in our place, that God's righteousness and God's justice might be satisfied as well as His love. That need was met in Jesus.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

"Scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom 5:7, 8).

There's love for you. When I didn't know Him and didn't want Him, He died in my place.

Giving in to tyranny

Last year a Florida pastor named Terry Jones planned to hold a burn-a-Koran day on the anniversary of 9/11. After leaders the world over condemned the idea, he agreed he would not burn copies of the Koran, then or later.

Not so long ago, however, he supervised the burning of a Koran by another pastor, one Wayne Sapp. Afghan president Hamid Karzai denounced the incident and called for the pastor to be brought to justice. Following Karzai's announcement, riots erupted all over Afghanistan.

In Mazar-i-Sharif, a mob of 3,000 protestors overran the United Nations compound, killing Gurkha guards and shooting dead and slitting the throats of UN staff. As a result, the Florida pastor faced widespread condemnation.

I do not agree with burning copies of the Koran. Before joining in the condemnation, however, there are a couple of things to be borne in mind. First of all, the people murdered were not only innocent of burning a Koran, they were not even Americans. "For radical Islamists," said the New York Daily News, "anyone will do. The randomness of the crime underscores the utter irrationality of those who committed it, not to mention the masses that tacitly lend them support. . .

"It is one thing to say that Jones' Koran-burning was a stupid and offensive thing to do. . . It is another thing entirely, however, to move to the accusation that Jones is culpable for the murderous acts of people half way around the world. People who riot and murder at the burning of a book do not need a pretext to act like savages. That's exactly what they already are."

Enraged over the burning of a Koran in Florida, wrote Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, Muslims have murdered about 20 people in Afghanistan and five in Pakistan - none of whom ever burned a Koran or had any acquaintance with the men who did.

These killers are monstrous. They have assassinated innocent people for something they couldn't conceivably have had anything to do with. And yet instead of calling them monstrous and demanding that Islamic leaders stop inciting and approving of such behavior, Western government and media elites are blaming not the murderers and rioters, but the man behind the Koran-burning. . .

Thus Guardian editor Matt Seaton explained that Jones was to blame because his Koran-burning was "done knowingly involving reckless endangerment, and quite possibly wishing for this kind of bad result." This assumed that the Muslims who were rioting and killing over the burning of a book half a world away had no control over their reactions, and thus could not be held accountable for them. . .

Barack Obama reacted the same way when Jones threatened to burn a Koran last year. He said "this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women who are in uniform. Look, this is a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaeda. You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan". . .

Obama could have said "While I disapprove of this Koran-burning, in America we believe that freedom of expression is a fundamental bulwark against tyranny and the hallmark of a truly free society, and it requires us to put up with things we don't like without responding with violence". . .

He could, in short, have used Jones' barbecued Koran as a teaching tool to demonstrate why free societies are preferable to sharia states. But instead, Obama and the media are effectively reinforcing the principle that violent intimidation works. . .

Those who censor themselves today to keep from offending Muslims may wish in the not-too-distant future that they had stood up more robustly for the freedom of speech when it was threatened. But by then, there might be no chance to get that word out.

Giving in to tyrants never was a good idea.

So will the NHS survive?

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley wants a revolution in the way the National Health Service is run - and he is meeting opposition. Left unreformed, one newspaper says this morning, it is impossible to see how the NHS could survive. But would a change in the way it is run alter the disasters routinely occurring throughout the service?

According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council, serious complaints about nurses have doubled in two years. The eighth annual staff survey of some 165,000 employees showed widespread concern about standards of care.

A Daily Mail review of a book shortly to be published - How We Treat the Sick, by Michael Mandelstam, said to be an expert on the NHS - provides a litany of neglect and abuse in hospitals.

A 17-year-old with meningitis was moved to two different wards by bed managers until the doctors treating her couldn't find her. She died. One woman died after being treated for six days with drugs meant for another patient. Twelve doctors failed to pick up the error.

Once upon a time patients didn't have bedsores. Now they are endemic. Between four and 10 per cent of patients develop at least one; with elderly patients with mobility problems, the figure can be as high as 70 per cent. An 86-year-old ex-serviceman was left screaming in agony in a Leeds hospital with multiple bedsores, one the size of a fist. His hip bone was exposed.

At least 400, possibly 1,200 patients at the mid-Staffordshire Foundation Trust died through lack of care.

Matrons have been abolished; ward sisters, whose word once was law, have lost their authority. The problem, suggests the reviewer - himself a doctor - is not doctors and nurses, but chief executives carrying out Department of Health orders about finance.

Would someone please come along and save our NHS?

Better dead than old?

Nan Maitland travelled from Britain to Switzerland, it transpired this week, to avail herself of the services of a suicide clinic. She was 84. She was not terminally ill. She suffered from arthritis, but was active. She decided to kill herself to escape the "horrors" of old age.

She was one of the founding members of an organisation called the Society for Old Age Rational Suicide.

Accompanying her to the abortion clinic was Dr Michael Irwin, another founder of the society. He was struck off the medical register six years ago for attempting to help someone commit suicide. He is said to have helped nine people kill themselves, and appears to have done everything he can to push the limits of current legislation.

Campaigners would have us believe they want assisted suicide to be legalised in Britain to help people with terminal illness who are in intractable pain. Not so. They want assisted suicide for whoever wants it, whenever they want it.

It's not too long since America's Washington state legalised assisted suicide. BioEdge reports the results of the first year under the state's Death with Dignity Act - and some concerns that the law is not operating with the safety and true voluntary choice that were promised.

Of those who died in the first 12 months, serious pain did not seem to be a great concern. Ninety per cent were concerned about lack of autonomy, 64 per cent about lack of dignity and 87 per cent about losing the ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable.

No doubt the number of people taking advantage of the law and the reasons they are permitted to do so will both increase, because that's what happens.

Which is why - as well as the fact that vulnerable old and sick people would feel pressured to opt for their lives to be ended - that the legalisation of assisted suicide must not happen here.

Death of a lovely lady

In my last post I mentioned a Scottish evangelical Christian who was killed by a terrorist bomb last week in Jerusalem. Let me tell you a little more about her.

Mary Jean Gardner, born in Kenya, moved to Scotland in her teens. She studied at St Andrews University and the Bible Training Institute in Glasgow.

A quiet, gentle woman, she had worked for Wycliffe Bible Translators for 20 years in Togo, translating the New Testament into a local language. She arrived in Israel in January to take a Hebrew course at the Hebrew University before returning to Togo to translate the Old Testament.

One day last week was a day off. Mary travelled by bus into Jerusalem to meet a friend who was visiting Israel. Late at night, she had not returned to the place where she was staying.

Halvor Ronning, director of the Home for Bible Translators, telephoned the hospitals to see if her name was on the list of people wounded in the bomb blast. It was not. Police took him to identify the dead woman. It was Mary.

"Her face was untouched and natural," he said. "She had absorbed much of the impact and protected the others who were hurt but not killed.

"All major newspapers in Israel carried Mary's story, also on their websites. Israeli radio and television mentioned Mary as well. Suddenly Bible translation was world news.

"It has been amazing what an impact Mary's death is having here in Israel on the Hebrew University students and personnel, the media, even the usually cynical reporters as they consider Mary's dedication to the translation of the Bible.

"Several of the teachers came to be with the students for a number of hours. One of them came for the scheduled Hebrew class but only to read psalms together with them in Mary's memory.

"One of the lecturers said 'I have never sensed a stronger witness to the power of the Scriptures to influence lives than by Mary Gardner's attitude to the Bible and her commitment to the translation work.'"

Wycliffe executive director Eddie Arthur, who described Mary as "a lovely lady," said "I cannot tell you how highly regarded she was. She was an extremely gutsy person, highly intelligent, with huge drive and the ability to stick with the project for 20 years in far from comfortable conditions."

Mary, who was in her fifties, was unmarried. Her parents Tony, aged 82, and Jean, aged 81, still living in Scotland, said they were devastated by the loss of their daughter in such a tragic and unexpected way.

"Mary was a very special person and we thought the world of her. She was devoted to her work and was well liked wherever she went. We are proud of her and all that she has achieved in her life and feel truly blessed to have had her in our lives."

Terrorism on the increase

A terrorist bomb exploded at a bus stop in one of the busiest parts of Jerusalem last week. It was detonated as children were on their way home from school. A Scottish evangelical Christian was killed in the blast. More than 30 people were injured, some seriously, including some children.

During the past two weeks there has been an increase in the number of rockets and mortar bombs fired from Gaza at towns and cities in southern Israel, with 50 mortar shells fired in a period of about 15 minutes one morning.

Israeli ministers warned that Israel must retaliate soon.

Why do Palestinians fire rockets from Gaza at civilian centres in Israel knowing that Israel will retaliate? Because it's good publicity for the Palestinians. When Palestinians fire rockets into Israel, the Western media don't report it. When Israel retaliates, the story is all over the Western media and Israel appears to be the aggressor.

Which brings to my mind an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu broadcast by the BBC two years ago, the last time Israel responded to thousands of rockets fired into Israel with a major military incursion into Gaza.

The interview went as follows.

Interviewer: How come so many more Palestinians have been killed in the conflict than Israelis?

Netanyahu: Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?

Interviewer: Why not?

Netanyahu: Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima. Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the RAF tried to bomb the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83 little children. Perhaps you have another question?

Some positive news from a terrible tragedy

Even with all the pictures and the yards of reporting, it's difficult to imagine how the Japanese are coping with the loss of loved ones, loss of homes, loss of possessions and the threat of radiation, not to mention the terrible cold.

More than 9,300 deaths have been reported, with 13,786 people still missing. The World Bank this week estimated the damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami at $235 billion.

The mainstream media will report all the crises and catastrophes, but it will have little to say about the spiritual climate. The Japanese are traditionally resistant to the gospel; of Japan's 127 million population, only a tiny percentage are Christians. But there are reports from Japan that there is a change now in centuries-old attitudes.

Said Warren Janzen, international director of the Christian organisation SEND International: "The governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, stated publicly that the disaster was a punishment from heaven because the Japanese have become greedy. To have a public figure of his stature make a statement like that opens up a public discussion on spiritual things.

"Some of our missionaries are going out on the street, talking to random people, talking about the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear situation there. People are engaging in spiritual conversation with strangers. That's just not typical."

The leader of a Japanese Christian aid organisation sent this plea to Barnabas Aid: "Pray for the churches in northeastern area. Many churches lost their pastors, members and buildings. Pray that they can stand strong in faith in Christ who stood on the raging water and who calmed the sea. This could be a wide open gate for the Gospel. We will conduct our rescue/relief mission through local churches. Need a lot of prayers from Barnabas Aid. Thank you so much."

People who have followed the news will know of "the Fukushima 50," the 50 workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant who chose to stay behind when everyone else left and have worked around the clock to cool overheating reactors. Five are believed to have died already; 15 are injured. Others of them have said they know the radiation there will kill them.

One of them, a project manager named Naoyoshi Sato, who has been overseeing the laying of 5,000 feet of power cable in Number 1 nuclear reactor in an attempt to get a cooling system working again, is a Christian, reportedly from Fukushima's First Baptist Church. He has already been exposed to lethal radiation levels.

If these murderers aren't savages, then what?

Bear with me for a moment while I recall the details.

At Itamar, near Nablus in Israel, intruders got into the home of Rabbi Udi Fogel (36), his wife Ruth (35), and their six children. In the main bedroom, the intruders found Udi and his three-month-old baby daughter Hadas asleep. They slit their throats.

Ruth came out of the bathroom, saw what was happening, and was stabbed to death. In another bedroom they found 11-year-old Yoav, who had been reading in bed, and stabbed him to death. They killed his four-year-old brother Elad with two stabs to the heart.

Somehow they failed to notice a six-year-old and a two-year-old, who were asleep elsewhere in the house.

A 12-year-old daughter Tamar, who was out at the time, returned home and found the front door locked on the inside. She persuaded one of the children missed by the terrorists to open the door, went inside and discovered the bloodbath. The two-year-old was covered in blood, saying "Wake up, Daddy, wake up."

The girl reportedly ran from the house screaming. She later promised to be a mother to the other two surviving children.

When news of the murders reached Gaza, there was celebration. Members of Hamas gave out sweets in the street.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the so-called moderate Palestinian party Fatah, released a pamphlet taking responsibility for the attack, but then retracted it.

Members of the Brigades' leadership said the perpetrators of the attack belonged to Hamas. The attack was not sanctioned by the Fatah leadership, they said, but Brigades leaders had planned the attack and aided the Hamas operatives' escape.

Reporting the murders on her blog at the Spectator, a horrified Melanie Phillips wrote of "the moral depravity of the Arabs" and the difficulty of a peace agreement with "such savages."

Now guess what. A certain Inayat Bunglawala of Muslims4UK, said to have been set up "to celebrate the UK's democratic traditions and promote active Muslim engagement in our society," has complained about her remarks to the police. ENGAGE, an organisation described as dedicated to promoting greater media awareness, political participation and civil engagement amongst British Muslims, has complained about her remarks to the police, the Press Complaints Commission and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Miss Phillips is to be investigated.

The way we're going, it won't be long before not only Muslims won't be able to complain about Muslims, but non-Muslims won't be able to complain about Muslims either.

Love is the difference

According to tradition, John, the disciple who wrote John's Gospel, spent his last days at Ephesus. When he was very old, the disciples there used to carry him into their meetings. When asked if he had anything to say, he would say "Little children, love one another."

In John 13, that same disciple wrote "Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end."

The thing about Jesus is that He will love you to the end. His love is without conditions. Nothing you can ever do will make Him love you more, and nothing you ever do will make Him love you the less.

The same chapter tells how He washed the disciples' feet, including the feet of Judas Iscariot, who He knew would betray Him.

Later in the same chapter, Jesus told His disciples "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

That's what makes Christianity different from everything else. And Christians - true Christians - different from all others.

It's time to do something about jihad

Over the past decade, some 30 Muslim graduates or students at British universities have been involved in Islamic-inspired terrorism.

Writes Melanie Phillips:

So why is it that, with the Security Service periodically issuing chilling warnings that it's monitoring more than 2,000 dangerous Muslim fanatics and dozens of terrorist plots, Britain is still failing so dismally to curb its home-grown industry of Islamic terrorism and extremism? . .

Most of the British establishment is in denial about what it is up against. Our leaders know there is a major threat of terrorism.

But they remain wilfully blind to the fact that the terrorists' ultimate aim, the Islamisation of Britain and the West, is being pursued by Islamic groups that are not violent, as well as those that are. . .

The establishment is so heavily imbued by a deadly cocktail of political correctness, multiculturalism and 'human rights' law that, far from curbing Islamic extremism, it has actually fanned the flames.

Over the past decade and more, the judges have made it all but impossible to police Britain's borders against undesirables or throw extremists out of the country.

Universities have shamelessly refused to crack down on extremists on campus, even though countless Muslim students are being radicalised there by Islamist speakers with no fewer than four university Islamic Society presidents having been involved in major acts of terrorism.

Idiotically, politicians cravenly attempting to defuse Islamic rage by appeasing the Muslim community have funded organisations that have turned out to be extreme.

Even more extraordinarily, to this day the Government is employing radical Islamists in Whitehall as political advisers on curbing Islamic extremism.

The core reason for this supine approach is that the establishment refuses to acknowledge that Islamic terrorism is rooted in religious fanaticism - an extreme interpretation of the religion that dictates Muslims must impose Islamic law throughout the world.

While most British Muslims most certainly do not accept this interpretation, it is rooted in theology and history, and is supported by the major religious authorities in the Islamic world.

So truly moderate Muslims cannot make their voices heard. The extremists therefore have the whip hand. And the way they intend to achieve their ends is through a pincer movement comprising both terrorism and cultural infiltration to gain social, economic and political power.

The threat of violence makes it more likely they will succeed in infiltrating British institutions. And that in turn makes it even harder to curb radicalisation. It also galvanises the extremists, who perceive correctly that the society they have in their sights has no stomach for the fight. . .

Because our political and security establishment has defined extremism as involving violence, it is blind to the steady process of Islamisation that is taking place.

Astonishingly, it is tolerating - and even encouraging - the relentless incursion of Islamic religious law. Yet this is inimical to British values, and not just because it denies the human rights of women, homosexuals or anyone who wants to renounce Islam.

Fundamentally, it does not recognise the superior authority of the law of the land, against which it therefore asserts itself.

But it is a fundamental principle of a democratic society that there must be only one law for all. And yet in Britain today, blind eyes are being turned to sharia courts meting out not just family law judgements that oppress women, but even criminal sanctions, too.

In addition, there has been in this country an enormous growth of Islamic banking - despite the fact this serves as an umbrella for the financing of Islamic terrorism and is a vehicle for putting yet more pressure on British Muslims to subject themselves to sharia law.

Almost every week, more examples surface of the way in which British culture is giving way to Islamic practices. As a recent BBC Panorama programme demonstrated, some Muslim schools are teaching their pupils to hate 'unbelievers' - all under the nose of Ofsted, the schools watchdog organisation. . .
In short, Britain is being steadily Islamicised, and the establishment appears paralysed like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

It's time to do something about jihad. While there's still time to do something about it.

Good news and bad news

What a week it's been! Thousands killed by earthquake and tsunami in Japan. A state of emergency in Bahrain. Fierce fighting in Libya. All sorts happening in the UK.

There isn't time to talk about it all, but I can mention one thing that, for me, is a concern.

Two months ago I wrote here about graphic, sexually explicit literature approved by some local authorities for use in sex education for children as young as five years old. That same literature has now been exposed by the Daily Mail and the Telegraph.

Brenda Almond, a professor of moral and social philosophy, wrote in the Daily Mail as a consequence: "It is parents who best understand what their children need to know - and when - not people with improbable ideas about education, and certainly not government ministers. . .

"Sex education needs to be taken out of primary schools altogether and responsibility for it should be handed back to parents. Children, after all, belong to their parents; they are not the property of the state.

"We need to stop assuming that early sexual activity is inevitable and accept that too much sex education - delivered too early - might actually be encouraging it.

"Only then will we be able to get back to the really important thing: letting children be children. They'll grow up fast enough as it is."

Education Secretary Michael Gove has now said he will not accept attempts to change the Education Bill to introduce compulsory sex education to primary schools. That's the good news.

The bad news is that the Government is devising a new sexual health strategy which it is said will go even further than the approach by the last Labour Government. One of the team devising the strategy will be Brook's national director, Simon Blake, who is in favour of a young people's sexual free-for-all. The Government is also reviewing its sex education guidance for schools, and is working closely with the homosexual campaign group Stonewall.

Write to your MP and point out that more and more sex education at younger and younger ages is not lowering rates of teenage pregnancy and sexual infection, but having the reverse effect.

If you have children at school, let me repeat my previous advice: ask their school what they are being taught in sex education and ask to see materials used. If you have concerns, talk to the head teacher or school governors. Don't rant and rave; express your concerns politely and ask for change. You may be surprised at the effect it will have.

Remembering Fat Tuesday

Russell Moore is an American Bible teacher who grew up in Mississippi, where some of the folks were Catholic, and some Baptist.

"Around me," he writes, "I saw Catholic casino night fundraisers and Baptist business meetings, and neither looked much like the Book of Acts. When it came to the divide between Catholics and evangelicals, we knew there were some big differences which resulted in the Protestant Reformation and all, but day to day those differences seemed to my friends and me to amount to little more than who had a black spot on their foreheads once a year and whose parents drank beer right out in the open."

Much of the differences between Catholics and Baptists, he says, were summed up on what the British call Pancake Tuesday and Americans know as Mardi Gras. Or Fat Tuesday, if you prefer.

"Some of the older Baptists in my community," he says, "downright hated the whole idea of Fat Tuesday. They knew that Mardi Gras was the day before Ash Wednesday. After Mardi Gras was the beginning of Lent, the forty days of fasting rooted in Jesus' time without food in the wilderness temptations. And they saw this party as blasphemy.

"'Those Catholics, they just go out and get as drunk as they want to, eat till they vomit,' I remember one neo-Puritan naysayer lamenting. 'They're just getting it all out of their system before they have to get all somber and holy for Lent.'

"As the years have gone by, I've concluded that we Baptists had Mardi Gras too. This phenomenon was seen in Baptist churches dotted all over the South. Mardi Gras Protestantism didn't celebrate a day on the yearly calendar, but on the calendar of the lifespan.

"The cycle went like this. You were born, then reared up in Sunday school until you were old enough to raise your hand when the teacher asked who believes in Jesus and wants to go to heaven. At this point you were baptized, usually long before the first pimple of puberty, and shortly thereafter you had your first spaghetti dinner fund-raise to go to summer youth camp. And then sometime between fifteen and twenty you'd go completely wild. . .

"After a few years of carnality, you'd settle down, get married, start having kids, and you'd be back in church, just in time to get those kids into Sunday school and start the cycle all over again. If you didn't get divorced or indicted, you'd be chairman of deacons or head of the Woman's Missionary Union by the time your own kids were going completely wild.

"It was just kind of expected. You were going to get things out of your system before you settled down. You know, I never could find that in the Book of Acts either."

British evangelicals are a bit like that. (I hope I don't get too pointed here.) They buy a Bible for each of their children and take them to church for an hour each Sunday. Then when the children get to 13 or 14, they decide they are not going to church any more, and parents are left with some years of heartache trying to win them back again.

Some youngsters will do their best to kick over the traces no matter what. If you are parents with rebellious teens, don't feel condemned. I understand. I feel for you.

But it does take more than the gift of a Bible and an hour's exposure to Christian doctrine each week to keep them on the straight and narrow. It takes love, it takes discipline, it takes personal example, it takes personal instruction, and it takes patience. Christian friends can help too.

Whatever young teens may think, God made us. He made us to worship Him. Because He made us the way He did, the only thing that will satisfy is a life of personal relationship with the living Lord. Without that, there will still be an emptiness inside.

Do continue bringing up those youngsters to a life of relationship with Him. They are infinitely precious. They deserve to have lives that are effective; lives that satisfy.

Why Christians should pray for Israel

One thing that has caused incalculable damage both in the Christian church and in the world outside it is replacement theology. Replacement theology, also known as supersessionism, is the idea that the Jews are no longer God's chosen nation, Israel has been replaced in God's purposes by the church, and God's promises to Israel are now transferred to the church.

To some people it might seem reasonable, but it has one great drawback: it isn't true.

The Bible makes it abundantly clear - for instance, in Romans 11 - that God has not cast away His ancient people. Many, it is true, are away from Him because of unbelief, but God has kept a remnant for Himself. When the Jewish leaders rejected their Jewish Messiah, God did not cast them away. He used the occasion to allow Gentiles into His salvation.

Romans 11 uses the olive tree as a picture of the blessings, first promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, now available for both Jew and Gentile (vv15 - 25). The Gentiles' ministry is now to provoke the Jews to jealousy (v11). Alas, we Gentiles have never been good at that.

One day, nevertheless, God will turn to the Jews with a national salvation (vv25, 26). That will be something. Meanwhile, God's promises to Israel still stand (v29).

Rather than denigrate the Jews, Christians should pray for them, for a variety of reasons. Here are some:

1. The Bible commands it (Psa 122:6).

2. We owe an incalculable debt to the Jewish people. The patriarchs were Jews. The Old Testament prophets were Jews. Jesus is a Jew. The New Testament as well as the Old was written by Jews (with one possible exception). The early apostles, who not only risked their lives but gave them to bring us the gospel, were Jews. All the knowledge of God that I have has come to me, directly or indirectly, through the Jews. But for the Jewish people, I would have no Bible and no salvation.

3. When the Jewish leaders finally rejected their Jewish Messiah, He told them "You shall see me no more till you say 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'" (Matt 23:39). We may be taken to be with the Lord, but Jesus will not return to earth at His Second Coming until the Jewish leaders are ready to receive Him - and receive Him they will (Rom 11:26). Because He will not return until the Jewish leaders are ready to receive Him, praying for the Jewish people, apart from all the other reasons, is in Christians' self-interest!

Goodbye to Christian Britain?

The newspapers have gone to town with the case of Owen and Eunice Johns, a Christian couple who were not allowed by their local authority to continue as foster parents - to children under 10 years old - because they were not willing to promote a homosexual lifestyle to a young child temporarily in their care.

The High Court was asked for a ruling.

Two judges decided that if children were placed with foster parents with traditional Christian views there might be a conflict with the local authority's duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children;

that equality laws concerning sexual orientation should take preference over laws regarding freedom from religious discrimination;

that a local authority can require positive attitudes to be demonstrated towards homosexuality;

that the Johns were not being religiously discriminated against because they were excluded from fostering due to their moral views on sexual ethics, not their Christian beliefs; and

that Article 9 of the Human Rights Act provides only a qualified right to manifest religious belief, particularly so where a person in whose care a child is placed wishes to manifest a belief that is inimical to the interests of children.

The Telegraph called it "the new Inquisition" and "a disgrace." Michael Kelly at the Scotsman called it "downright insulting to traditional Christians and their beliefs." Melanie Phillips called it "a grotesque judgment" and "utterly appalling."

Said Andrea Williams, of Christian Concern: "If Christian morals are harmful to children and unacceptable by the state, how many years do we have before natural children start being taken away from Christians?

"Britain is now leading Europe in intolerance against religious belief."

Under a heading "Christianity isn't dying, it's being eradicated," Cristina Odone wrote on her Telegraph blog: "It's official. Britain is no longer a Christian nation. In banning Eunice and Owen Johns, a devout Christian couple, from fostering children, Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson declared that we live in a secular state, and the Johns' religious convictions disqualified them from raising citizens of that state. . .

"As the judges wagged their fingers about the secularist principles that, they claim, define the nation (and which 'ought to be, but seemingly are not, well understood'), they were not describing the status quo: a strong majority of Britons still consider themselves to be Christian. Instead, they were making clear their desire to steer this country in a direction of their own choosing - one that matches the views of an increasingly strident group that is determined to scrub Christianity from public life. . .

"According to our learned judges, 'the aphorism that "Christianity is part of the common law of England" is now mere rhetoric.'"

This is, says Ms Odone, "excruciatingly unjust." Unfortunately, she doesn't offer a remedy.

Waiting for Mummy to come home

The ability of human beings to live a purposeful, worthwhile life under the most difficult of circumstances is amazing.

Unborn babies are aborted because of trivial physical handicaps - yet a young girl with three limbs amputated - after meningitis, as I recall - was playing happily a few months later as though nothing had happened.

One of the most difficult conditions to cope with must be locked-in syndrome, where people are mentally aware but unable to speak or move, in chronic cases, except to blink their eyes. French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby, who was able to move just one eye, dictated a book a letter at a time by blinking to indicate the letter he wanted as friends recited the alphabet. The book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, received rave reviews.

A recent survey of chronic locked-in patients in France - 65 of them - showed that seven per cent were interested in euthanasia. Ninety-three per cent were not. Only 28 per cent were unhappy.

The Daily Mail found a 27-year-old locked-in patient near Stockport. Michelle Wheatley, who has two young children with her partner Rick Blease, was feeding one of the children breakfast two-and-a-half years ago when she started to scream with pain and have fits. She was taken to intensive care and put into an induced coma.

A neurologist diagnosed a brain stem stroke, decided the damage was irreversible and said Michelle would die. She is in a nursing home, fed by a tube into her stomach and fitted with a tracheotomy tube to drain fluid from her chest.

She opens her eyes for "yes" and closes them for "no," and "speaks," like the Frenchman, by blinking to choose a letter at a time. Asked if she is happy, she opens her eyes wide. Yes, she's happy. Asked if she has ever wanted to die, she closes her eyes tight. Never? She closes her eyes again.

"Nobody should say that another person's life isn't worth living," she spells out. "You don't know, until it happens to you, how you'll feel.

"I do feel happy most of the time. I enjoy music, films, seeing the children. Most of the time, life is good. We all have our off days, don't we?"

"She's determined to get well again," says Rick. "And already we are seeing massive improvements. Right from the start I refused to accept she would die. I knew she'd improve and she has. The children know their mummy is very poorly - but they also know she'll come home."

A life well lived

Maxine Hargreaves, wife of the Rev George Hargreaves, leader of the Christian Party, has died, aged 50, after several years of serious illness.

She had stood as a Christian Party candidate for a local council, the Greater London Assembly, Westminster and the European Parliament, sometimes while seriously ill, believing that she had to stand for Christ "no matter what."

Andrea Williams wrote on her blog at Christian Concern shortly after attending the funeral service:

At the service we heard a recording from her saying 'The type of Christianity that Jesus died for wants our blood, our everything.' I knew Maxine a little. I wish I had known her more. There were 1,000 people at the service. Her life and her ministry changed a community. She modelled how to live and how to die. She modelled that we, Christ's followers, must pour ourselves into His service and that from such obedience will follow transformed lives and communities because of Him, the source of life and joy.

What was the message from the service? 'Precious to the Lord is the death of His saints.' In this context, precious means excellent, worthy and honourable. It is hard to fathom why Maxine died so young. But her good friend who spoke at the service, Celia Collins, said 'Follow this God with faith or reason Him out with doubt. We walk by faith and not by sight. Maxine is in a better place.'

Maxine started Hephzibah Ministries. . . this ministry reached out to the community in Hackney, providing food, shelter, counsel, internet cafe. She pastored a church with George. She started the East London Christian School. . . The children from the school sang and recited poetry. They were a great testimony to the work of Maxine.

Over and over again people spoke of her love and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, her stand for truth, her courage and determination, her thirst for righteousness. Her challenge was 'You're not here on earth just to be blessed by God, you've got business to do. Don't compromise truth. Get ready because you do not know the moment you will die. God wants us to think like Him, not how we think.'

I am moved. I am humbled. I am in awe and stand amazed at a life well lived. She was a hero.

I didn't know Maxine Hargreaves. But as I read Andrea's tribute, I had tears in my eyes.

The world could do with a few more people willing to live for Jesus like that.

We've been suckered

A 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl named Hena Begum was raped by a 40-year-old married man. She was sentenced to 100 lashes for having engaged in an "affair." After 80 lashes, she fell unconscious and was taken to hospital, where she died.

A 23-year-old Saudi woman who was gang raped by five men was sentenced to 100 lashes and a year in jail. Also in Saudi Arabia, a 19-year-old girl gang raped by seven men was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail.

That's sharia, Islamic law - cruel, barbaric, inhumane.

Radical (and not-so-radical) Islamists want to impose sharia law worldwide. Islamist expansionists are not content to see Islam sit alongside other religions. Islam must dominate.

The way Islam is taking over in the United States, in Britain, in Europe, is not by accident. We've been being prepared for it for years, and we haven't noticed.

We've been suckered.

In a remarkably perceptive piece, David Kupelian, managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com, explains how it's happened. Using a brilliant two-pronged strategy. . . No, I mustn't say more. He explains it best.

Do read the article. It's a must read. You owe it to yourself to read it.

You can see the whole thing by clicking here.

A tale of a mother's love

It's a sad, sad world. A world full of bad news. So here's some good news for a change.

Victoria Webster, from Birmingham, who is 33 years old, had a routine blood test when she was 21 weeks pregnant. She was found to have chronic myeloid leukaemia, or cancer of the blood.

Doctors said she had a good chance of recovery because they had caught the disease early, and wanted her to start chemotherapy immediately. There was a problem. Chemotherapy would kill her unborn daughter.

"To me, there was no decision to make," she said. "I had already bonded with my baby while she was growing inside me and as a mum, I had to protect her. Doctors kept telling me I should have a termination, but I had made up my mind. My husband supported me."

Mrs Webster opted for a less aggressive treatment. During the last three months of her pregnancy, her blood was drained from her body each week, "washed" by machine and replaced. "I was terrified," she said, "that even my milder treatment would have harmed Jessica."

But when her daughter was born, she was perfect. "We bonded straight away. Holding her in my arms was truly an amazing moment."

Mrs Webster, who also has a four-year-old son, began chemotherapy after the birth. She is responding well, and hopes soon to be in full remission.

"It's the best decision I have ever made," she said. "I can't imagine life without my daughter. I might have risked my life for her, but she was worth it."

Now: making a mockery of marriage

Marriage is wonderful, because God invented it.

Way back in Genesis, He laid down how it works. One man, one woman, one new family, one faithful, lifelong relationship.

When there's a picture in the paper of a toothless old couple, all smiles and hugs as they celebrate 70 years of marriage and tell how they've loved one other and always been faithful to each other, why do people say "Ah"? Because it's right, that's why.

The UK Government announced four days ago (along with an announcement that it will permit same-sex civil partnership ceremonies to be conducted in places of worship) that it is to "formally look" at redefining marriage so that homosexual couples can be married and get the same marriage certificate as a married man and woman.

Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone wrote to supporters that she was "so pleased," "delighted" and "thrilled" that the Government was taking this action.

It is not the general public who asked for this - but just some homosexuals who want to destroy the family and redesign society. According to Government figures, one per cent in total of the population is homosexual (and 0.5 per cent bisexual). And the Government is bending over backwards, as usual, to accede to their every ideological fancy.

Conservative MP Edward Leigh said he was "astonished and disappointed" that the Government intended to do away with traditional marriage.

The right of homosexual couples to get on with their lives, he said, "does not extend to mangling the language of marriage so that, for the sake of a tiny number of gay people who prefer marriage to civil partnership, everyone else in society must have the definition of their own marriage altered forever.

"Once we have departed from the universally understood framework of marriage, there is no logical reason why the new alternative institution should be limited to two people. Why not three? Or 33?

"Same-sex couples already have all the rights of marriage in the form of civil partnership. Why must they also have the language of marriage? No doubt because it is an important symbol to them.

"But it is also an important symbol to many other people. Must the religious and cultural heritage of the whole nation be overturned to suit the demands of a minority even of the gay community itself?"

Wrote Melanie Phillips: "We are fast reaching the stage where upholding Biblical sexual standards will become the morality that dare not speak its name.

"We have to wonder at the way in which a politically motivated faction within a tiny minority of the population - for many gay people do not approve of this ideological gay rights agenda - is now running public policy.

"Cameron's latest idea proposes to make a mockery of marriage."

Redefining marriage from biblical marriage to a marriage crafted to suit homosexual ideology by politicians mad on "equality," if it succeeds, will be the biggest social engineering experiment, and one of the most disastrous, since who knows when.

So here's the question: Will the Christian church fight this issue, or will it sit silent in a self-induced daze?

A 'bizarre' attack on Christian GP

After Dr Hans-Christian Raabe - I wrote about him here - was appointed by the Home Office to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, people outside the Home Office realised he was a committed Christian who did not minimise the effects of illegal drug use, but believed in promoting drug abstinence.

A month later, before he had attended his first meeting with the council, he received a letter from the Home Office cancelling his appointment.

The reason given was that he had failed to disclose that he had co-authored a report in 2005 - nothing to do with drugs - expressing concern that paedophiles, according to research, included a disproportionate number of homosexuals. The report was freely available on the internet.

Peter Saunders points out that Dr Raabe was not alone in his concern. There have been a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals expressing similar views.

It now turns out that one of these was cited approvingly by the Home Office in 1998. In other words, Dr Raabe was sacked from the council for expressing a view that the Home Office had itself expressed.

"This is quite hypocritical and very bizarre indeed," said Dr Raabe. "I volunteered for unpaid public service and feel as though my personal and professional reputation has been shamefully destroyed by the Government for saying something it says itself."

According to the Independent, anti-drugs campaigners are calling on the Home Secretary, Theresa May, to apologise for "an unjustifiable personal and professional attack by her ministry."

David Raynes, of the National Drug Prevention Alliance, described the sacking as "a vicious and personal witchhunt orchestrated by pro-drugs campaigners." He added: "There remains a cabal of people on the committee who are sympathetic to the legalisation of all drugs. It can ill afford to lose people who act as a balance against this view."

A statement by the Home Office said Dr Raabe's failure to disclose the report raised concerns about his credibility to provide balanced advice on drug misuse issues and "impacts on the smooth running of the ACMD."

That last phrase perhaps gives a clue to the whole episode.

Elderly dying in NHS for lack of care

The National Health Service was once Britain's pride and joy. It is now a national disgrace.

Reports during the last 18 months tell of patients left in beds in corridors, offices, storage areas, kitchens, bathrooms and mop cupboards. Inspectors found filthy wards, blood-spattered walls, mouldy bathrooms and soiled furniture.

Up to 1,200 patients died needlessly in mid-Staffordshire, in part through "appalling" standards of hygiene. Up to 400 patients died in another hospital trust area because of an "appalling" lack of care. It was estimated that more than 3,000 patients could be dying needlessly every year.

Dehydration is said to contribute to the deaths of more than 800 hospital patients every year. Many succumb to malnutrition because of unappetising food, food left on tables out of reach of patients and nurses being too busy to help frail or elderly patients to eat.

It is not claimed that these things are standard in every hospital or with every patient: but the fact that they happen at all is bad enough.

A report by the Health Service Ombudsman published this week, scathing in its description of NHS care for the elderly, gives details of 10 of the large number of cases investigated by the ombudsman in a 12-month period.

One man with advanced stomach cancer was left for hours in agonising pain, without water, without toilet facilities, unable to summon help and so dehydrated he couldn't speak.

One woman was not given a bath or a shower during 13 weeks in hospital, did not have her wound dressings changed and was denied food and drink.

As a result of their suffering in the care of the NHS, the 10 had been transformed from alert and able individuals to people who were dehydrated, malnourished or unable to communicate. In many cases, their suffering was ignored. Nine of the 10 died while in NHS care or soon afterwards.

Said the ombudsman, Ann Abraham: "The findings of my investigations reveal an attitude - both personal and institutional - which fails to recognise the humanity and individuality of the people concerned and to respond to them with sensitivity, compassion and professionalism. . .

"These accounts present a picture of NHS provision that is failing to meet the most basic standards of care."

Michelle Mitchell, charity director of Age UK, said the inhumane treatment described in the report was "sickening."

Experts brought in to television studios to discuss the report spoke of the need for more training. But it doesn't need training to know that patients need food and water and need to be clean and comfortable.

The NHS budget has tripled in a decade and there are now almost more managers than beds. So will things improve?

Evidently not. This week's report says extra resources would not help because of the "casual indifference" of staff and their "bewildering disregard" for people's needs.

A health correspondent said on television the trouble is the culture in the NHS.

What does that mean? I can't do anything single handed, so there's no point trying? No one else bothers, so why should I? Whatever's wrong, it's somebody else's fault?

This could not possibly have happened 60 years ago.

Might I be permitted to suggest a deeper, more fundamental cause? This nation is a nation away from God, and a nation away from God breeds an uncaring people.

People who really care should be praying for the day this nation turns back to its Maker.

But what about the babies?

A few days ago I wrote that Conservative MP Nadine Dorries had complained of a lack of support she had had from the churches for what she had done in Parliament regarding abortion.

There are many church leaders who never mention abortion in their churches for fear of upsetting some in their congregations. There are committed Christians in Bible-believing churches who, for lack of teaching, have no idea where they stand on the issue of abortion as far as the Bible is concerned. There are, I believe, born-again Christians who have abortions because they believe it is purely a social issue on which they are free to choose.

The Evangelical Alliance has published the first of a series of reports on the beliefs and habits of evangelical Christians in the UK. It is based on a survey of more that 17,000 Christians who are, it claims, as representative as possible of evangelical Christians in the UK in the 21st century. (You can read the details of the survey here.)

The report turns up some interesting figures. Ninety-six per cent attend a church service at least once a week. Ninety-three per cent strongly agree that the Bible is the inspired word of God and 91 per cent strongly agree that Jesus is the only way to God. Eighty-eight per cent strongly agree that their faith is the most important thing in their life.

Ninety-six per cent pray at least a few times a week; 77 per cent pray daily. (Only 77 per cent?) Eighty-three per cent strongly agree that the miraculous gifts of the Spirit did not come to an end in the first century.

But when it comes to belief on the matter of abortion, there is a significant change in the figures. Asked if they believed that abortion can never be justified, 20 per cent agreed a lot, and 17 per cent agreed a little. That leaves at least 63 per cent who presumably are prepared to allow abortion.

Perhaps it was the phrase about never being justified. Perhaps some would allow abortion in the event of suspected disability, or in the event of rape.

If you believe in abortion for suspected disability, let me ask you to do something. Seriously. Next time you see someone who is disabled, ask them if they would rather be dead. Ask if they would rather someone had taken their life rather than allow them to live. See what they say.

And abortion in the case of rape? It is unusual for women to conceive in the event of rape. But it does happen.

Women who have been raped have suffered a terrible, horrific experience. They deserve all the love, all the care and all the help they can get.

What they do not need is the additional trauma of having the baby torn from their body. Once a woman is pregnant, the most natural thing in the world is for the baby to come to term. A most unnatural thing is for the baby to be suddenly removed.

Abortion is the deliberate taking of human life. Even people in favour of abortion admit that. Abortion does not just make a woman unpregnant. It makes her the mother of a dead baby.

The woman did not want to be pregnant, certainly under such circumstances. To be sure, half the baby is the father's. But remember: half of the baby is hers. Given time, she can come to love that baby.

One more thing. That baby did not ask to be conceived in such circumstances. Why should an innocent baby have to die because of its father's sin?

I have been criticised - by some Christians - for the stand that I take on abortion. Our job, I have been told, is to preach the gospel. When people come to Christ, things like abortion will sort themselves out.

There is one thing wrong with that. Six hundred unborn babies in the UK will die by abortion today. Another 600 will die tomorrow. And a further 600 the day after that.

Knowing that abortion claims the lives of 200,000 babies in the UK each year - and that apart from the number of early abortions caused by the morning-after pill - am I to say nothing about it? Not even to offer women positive help at the most vulnerable time in their lives?