Paul the apostle was a monster before his conversion to Christ, seeing Stephen stoned to death and dragging people off to prison. God changed him. He became a man who loved people and a man people loved.
The last time Paul saw elders from the church at Ephesus, he warned them that teachers of false doctrine would appear in their church (Acts 20:28 - 31). He wrote to Timothy, who was at Ephesus, warning him of false teachers in the church there and encouraging him to preach sound doctrine, resisting "profane and old wives' fables" and "useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds" (1 Tim 1:3 - 7, 18 - 20; 4:6, 7; 6:3 - 5; 2 Tim 2:14 - 18; 3:13, 14; 4:1 - 4).
It seems like the elders at Ephesus did a good job. Years later, when John the apostle had the revelation that became the book of Revelation, Jesus told him to write to the church at Ephesus, letting them know what He had to say about them: "I know your works, your labour, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them to be liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have laboured for my name's sake and have not become weary" (Rev 2:2, 3).
Unfortunately, something else had occurred that needed their attention: "Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love" (v4). Yet Jesus gave them a promise: "To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God" (v7).
Maybe a Christian is reading this just now who has battled for years against some particular thing and has won. But something else has cropped up and you feel it is all too much and you feel like packing in. Don't do it. Jesus says "I know your works, your labour, your patience. . . "
Jesus has a promise for you. "To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." Stay faithful, and one day we will fellowship with the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the angels and all the saints in the New Jerusalem, where righteousness rules and there is no sickness, no pain and no sorrow.
Keep on battling on. It will be worth it all.
The politically correct children-must-have-more-sex-education-at-all-costs brigade is still going full tilt.
(A report by Ofsted complains that schools are failing to consult parents about the content of lessons, teaching pupils all they need to know about the biology of sex but placing little emphasis on the importance of marriage, failing to discuss the possibility that children can say no to sexual intercourse, and exposing children to materials inappropriate for their age. About time too, you might think.)
Family and Youth Concern reports on the experience of Mrs Lisa Bullivant, a young mother from Lincolnshire. She received a brief letter from her daughter's Church of England primary school saying the children would be having sex education lessons but giving no details of materials to be used. Some of the children had recently turned seven. She assumed the materials would be appropriate for the children's ages.
Says Mrs B: "How wrong I was. My daughter came home and tearfully informed me that she had learned about sex and that it had frightened and upset her. . . The effects of what our children had been taught became alarmingly apparent. Children were found simulating sex on top of other children and some children were telling much younger children what they had learned, much to the horror of their parents. Still others were openly stating to their parents that they now wanted to have sex.
"Some children, including my daughter, became very upset and worried about the whole matter. She was not emotionally or mentally able to cope with this information. She would often burst into tears if she started to think about it and I had to spend a lot of time comforting her and talking to her, trying to repair the damage that this DVD had caused to her innocent young mind."
The DVD was Channel 4's Living and Growing.
"I managed to find out what DVD the school had used and I and other parents watched it on the internet in horror. It was so graphic and the narrative was appalling. It promoted sex as a wonderful feeling and exciting - no wonder some of the children now wanted to try it.
"A number of parents made formal complaints in writing to the governing body and the local authority. . . We were fobbed off at every point. Our request for a meeting with the school's complaints committee was not even acknowledged and a final letter I received was inconsistent and full of false claims. The local authority backed these claims and said they were satisfied that the school had acted properly."
Morally deformed individuals in positions of authority are messing up the lives of innocent children, which makes me very angry. And very sad.
Richard Rudd, a 43-year-old coach driver from Kidderminster, having heard that a friend had become a paraplegic after an accident, once told his family that he wouldn't want to be kept alive if that ever happened to him.
Nine months ago he was riding his motor bike when he was in an accident with a car. He was thrown 20 feet, suffered severe spinal injuries and later developed a blood infection and a bout of pneumonia. He lay in hospital unable to move.
His family, convinced there was no way he would want to live with his injuries, agreed that his life support should be switched off.
Then Professor David Menon, of the neuro critical care unit at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, noticed that Richard - the father of two teenage girls - could move his eyes. It became clear that he was aware of what was happening and that he could answer questions by moving his eyes to the right or the left.
Asked several times if he wanted to continue to be treated, he clearly indicated that he did.
Although he is not expected to recover completely, he can already move his head a little, smile and make facial expressions.
What a person says when he is fit and well and how he feels when he is in a life threatening situation are two very different things.
Richard's father put it well. "We all sit round and talk in the pub or at work and say 'If this happened to me, turn the machine off.' It's all hypothetical and you don't know until it happens to yourself.
"But now Richard's in the situation where that's actually happened. It's real life - it's not pretend. He is in that situation.
"Making a living will could be detrimental to your own health. Imagine if you changed your mind and you couldn't communicate it.
"If that person can't decide for themselves, sometimes you feel you can decide for them. You probably have no right to do that.
"For my part, I'm glad he's alive."
Richard's moving story, Between Life and Death, filmed by the BBC, can be seen on YouTube. You can watch it by clicking here.
An article about abortion in the Times has caused something of a storm.
Antonia Senior, who wrote it, was once out-and-out for abortion rights. A woman's body, her choice, end of story.
While pro-lifers, she says, insisted that a baby is a life, with rights, from the moment of conception, people in the pro-choice camp, like her, insisted that an embryo is not a person: we were talking only about a potential life, with no rights.
Then something happened to Antonia: a baby came along. And her moral certainty about abortion began to waver. Her absolutist position came under siege. "Having a baby," she says, "paints the world an entirely different hue. Black and white no longer quite cut it.
"What seems increasingly clear to me is that, in the absence of an objective definition, a foetus is a life by any subjective measure. My daughter was formed at conception, and all the barely understood alchemy that turned the happy accident of that particular sperm meeting that particular egg into my darling, personality-packed toddler took place at that moment. She is so unmistakably herself, her own person - forged in my womb, not by my mothering.
"Any other conclusion is a convenient lie that we on the pro-choice side of the debate tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better about the action of taking a life. That little seahorse shape floating in a willing womb is a growing miracle of life."
So far, so good. But then comes the shocking bit.
Antonia came to consider if there was any cause she was prepared to die for. She decided there was one: a woman's right to be educated, to have a life beyond the home and to be allowed by law and custom to order her own life as she chooses - and that included control over her own fertility.
"The answer lies in choosing the lesser evil. The nearly 200,000 aborted babies in the UK each year are the lesser evil, no matter how you define life, or death, for that matter. If you are willing to die for a cause, you must be prepared to kill for it too."*
In other words, even if you believe the baby within you is a living human being, you ought to be prepared to kill it if convenience demands.
The article caused a stir because people are asking if this signals a change in the abortion debate. Are people who are in favour of abortion going to admit freely that the baby is a human person but that the woman has a perfect right to kill it anyway?
If this is the case, what, then, will be response of the pro-life community?
*There are in fact more than 200,000 abortions in the UK each year. The figure of nearly 200,000 is for England and Wales only.
I wrote here about Jack Kinsella's suggestion that if you are in conversation with an atheist, he is likely to challenge you to prove that God exists, lest he is asked to prove that God doesn't exist (because he can't).Jack Kinsella is at it again. Seeking to disprove atheists' arguments, that is. One of the most formidable obstacles atheism must contend with, he says, is the existence of its principal tool - the ability to reason.
Knowledge is attained by reasoned thought and by reasoned thought, the atheist has concluded that he knows there is no God. . .
What is the evolutionist's explanation for the ability to reason? They argue it is the result of chemical reactions in the brain. But chemicals react - they don't think, or reason, or plan.
It is a bedrock principle of science that an effect cannot be greater than its cause. A chemical reaction cannot generate morality, immorality, reason or rationality.
A reaction is the result of an action. Reason, on the other hand, is the analysis of that action. . .
The ability to reason can only come from one of two sources. It was either the product of intelligent design or it was the result of mindless chance.
Since the mindless cannot create the mind, there is only one reasonable explanation - that the mind was created by intelligent design and implanted with a divine moral code.
Just as a chemical reaction cannot explain reason, reason cannot explain a moral code. . .
If a deer population in a particular area grows too dense, conservationists will hold a 'deer cull' - a special hunting season on deer to reduce the population and ensure the survival of the species.
The morality of taking a deer's life is not at issue when the alternative is the needless suffering, starvation or death of the whole population. Why is it immoral to do the same with human beings?. . .
Even if a chemical reaction could explain how we know right from wrong, it doesn't explain why culling deer is right and culling humans is wrong.
What is the objective standard? Upon what basis do we form such profound judgments?. . .
If they are nothing more than the mindless product of random chance chemical reactions in the brain, how can we KNOW anything?
We can't. The effect cannot be greater than the cause. Knowledge is greater than random chemical reaction.
You can't be an atheist without having faith in your own reason and judgment, but the basis for your faith cannot be explained apart from the Creator God that you are sure (based on your God-given ability to reason) does not exist.
Of course, recognizing intelligent design is not the same thing as recognizing a loving God Who sent His only begotten Son to atone for the sins of mankind at the Cross.
But it's a start.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Recent news has not been good news for those people who want to see euthanasia and assisted suicide legalised in the UK.
Cases of euthanasia in the Netherlands have increased by 13 per cent in the past year, prompting the health ministry there to open an inquiry. In Belgium, where euthanasia is also legal, provided it is carried out by a doctor and with the patient's consent, 120 nurses admitted to researchers that they had taken part in euthanasia where patients had not asked for their lives to be ended.
Large numbers of urns containing human ashes were found dumped in a lake near the Swiss suicide facility Dignitas, where British people have gone for assisted suicide. A former employee said for Dignitas to dump human ashes there was common practice. Dignitas is under investigation for allegedly ignoring the mental condition of a patient - a paranoid schizophrenic - in helping him to die.
And an investigation by a Swiss publication has suggested that the assisted suicide business has made Dignitas' founder, Ludwig Minelli, a millionaire. He apparently claimed to have no taxable personal fortune in 1998, when Dignitas began, but was worth more than £1 million by 2007. Mr Minelli denied any wrongdoing.
In the UK, euthanasia and assisted suicide remain illegal, though it looks like prosecutions are increasingly less likely.
Michael Irwin, a former chairman of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society and a former GP, is said to have helped at least eight people to die. He was struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council in 2005. He wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, admitting he had travelled to the Dignitas clinic with cancer patient Raymond Cutkelvin and paid £1,500 towards the cost of Mr Cutkelvin's death, and inviting the DPP to prosecute. He is not, however, to stand trial.
Despite the fact that there is sufficient evidence for a case, Mr Starmer says it would not be in the public interest to prosecute, evidently because the case does not fulfil enough of the criteria he has published under which cases will be brought.
Dr Peter Saunders, of Care Not Killing, writes on his blog: "This sort of 'legal sanction' is exactly what first happened in the Netherlands and led to an eventual change in the law in that country - legalisation by stealth."
The danger in the UK at this time, it seems, is not that the law will be changed, but that the law will be ignored.
John Wesley was the founder of Methodism; he and his brother Charles were the spiritual fathers of the Methodist movement. Both shared God's love for the Jewish people and believed the many Bible promises that the Jews would be restored to their promised land (including the area known today as the West Bank and East Jerusalem).They instructed the Methodists that they must speak tenderly to the Jewish people. The softest and gentlest prayers from Christians are the key, they said, for God to bring life from the dead to Israel, and through them to the church and the whole world.Charles Wesley, who had an almost incredible gift for writing hymns, some of which, like "And can it be that I should gain," "Hark the herald angels sing" and "O for a thousand tongues to sing" are still in use today, wrote hymns about God's heart for the Jewish people and about those Bible promises.One says, in part:Of all the ancient race
Not one be left behind,
But each, impelled by secret grace,
His way to Canaan find.
We know it must be done,
For God hath spoke the word:
All Israel shall the Saviour own,
To their first state restored;
Rebuilt by his command,
Jerusalem shall rise;
Her temple on Moriah stand
Again, and touch the skies.
Send then thy servants forth,
To call the Hebrews home;
From East, and West, and South, and North,
Let all the wanderers come;
Where'er in lands unknown
The fugitives remain,
Bid every creature help them on,
The holy mount to gain.
On June 30 this year the UK Methodist Conference discussed Israel. It was asked to approve the Kairos Palestinian document, written by Palestinian Christians,
which says that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is a sin against God and humanity.
It says "fundamentalist Bible interpretation" supports unjust political options with regard to the Palestinian people, is used to deprive Palestinians of their rights in their own land, and brings death and destruction. It calls for liberation of Palestinian territories from Israeli occupation, which, it says, severely restricts religious liberty, disregards international law and violates human rights.
It claims that there would be no Palestinian resistance if there were no occupation, and that if Israel ends the occupation, there will be security, justice and peace. The Israeli occupation, it says, is an evil which must be resisted. Resistance in the face of the Israeli occupation is a right and duty for the Christian.
The conference decided to boycott all goods and services produced in Judea and Samaria (what today's media call the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the conference calls "illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories") and to encourage Methodists across Britain to do the same.
The Methodist Conference has never previously issued a boycott against a country. It is not now issuing a boycott against any other country. Just Israel.
The conference also called for a full arms embargo on both sides in the conflict. The secretary of the World Council of Churches, Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, wrote to congratulate the Methodists on their decision.
If the Wesley brothers came back to the Methodist Conference, they wouldn't recognise it.
I am grateful to Avner Boskey, a theologian and director of Final Frontier Ministries, for pointing out Charles Wesley's hymns about Israel's restoration. In an attempt to draw a comparison between the revival spirit which accompanied Methodism's beginning and the state of the Methodist church today, he says:
Who will intercede with the God of Jacob so that "Ichabod" will not be written over the archways and entranceways of the churches of the United Kingdom?
Who will get up on the wall and pray that vintage evangelical fire, courage and commitment to biblical truth will again fall in power upon the pulpits and conference podiums of England?
Who will again raise up a Wesleyan standard of burning love, tender intercession, courageous vision and meaningful practice towards the Jewish people and their regathered state?
All right, who?
Christians make mistakes.
They are misunderstood. They are persecuted because of what they stand for. Apart from the usual problems and difficulties of life, it seems they have trials and testings all of their own.
The good news is that God can use them all. "We know," says Paul, "that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose" (Rom 8:28). For the Christian, God will bring good out of the worst situation.
Besides, the difficult things we go through equip us to empathise, to draw alongside, to help others going through the same sort of situation.
Selwyn Hughes describes it beautifully:
Christians are to follow in the steps of Jesus and turn their sufferings to good account. The way in which this is to be done is beautifully illustrated by the experience of the oyster, into whose shell there comes one day a grain of sand. This tiny piece of quartz lies there imposing pain and stress - so what shall the oyster do?
There are several courses open. The oyster could, as so many men and women have done in times of adversity, openly rebel against God. The oyster, metaphorically speaking, could shake a fist in God's face and say, 'Why should this happen to me?' Or it could say, 'It can't be true; this is not happening to me. I must not permit myself to believe it.' It could say also, 'There is no such thing as pain. It is an error of the mind. I must think positive thoughts.' But the oyster does none of these things.
What, then, does it do? Slowly and patiently, and with infinite care, the oyster builds upon the grain of sand layer upon layer of a white milky substance that covers every sharp corner and coats every cutting edge. And gradually. . . slowly. . . by and by, a pearl is made. The oyster has learned - by the will of God - to turn grains of sand into pearls. And that is the lesson we must learn along this pilgrim way. Surely it is something more than a simile when the Bible says that the entrance into the New Jerusalem is through a gate made of pearl. It is pointing out that the way into the city of God is through a wound that has been healed. Let God help you turn your pains into pearls, so that others can walk through them into joy and encouragement.[1]
[1] Selwyn Hughes. Every Day with Jesus, March/ April, 2010. Farnham, Surrey: CWR, 2009. Used by permission of CWR.
Did you read about the man who tried to train his budgerigar to eat through a straw?
It didn't succeed.
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Will you permit me to record another love story that will warm the cockles of your heart?
Vernon McAlister and Sue, who was to be his wife, met while both were working on Vernon's father's farm in South Carolina. They married when he was 20 and she was 15.
The years passed by. When he was 92 and she was 87, Vernon fell and broke his hip. Doctors at the hospice where he was taken said he would not live long.
Then Vernon had a dream. In the dream, his wife Sue was in a room decorated with lace. She stood near a window, bathed in sunlight, dressed in a lace gown and veil, waiting for him to marry her again.
He asked the nurses to help him stay alive a few more days, so he could celebrate his 72nd wedding anniversary with his wife.
The day after his anniversary, said IndependentMail.com, they had a second wedding ceremony. Vernon lay in bed dressed in a smart shirt and tie. His wife stood by the bed in a pink gown and white veil, carrying a bouquet of roses. With their five children looking on, they renewed their wedding vows.
Said Vernon: "My father told me she would make a good wife. I couldn't have imagined how right he was. She is just purely wonderful. She is a jewel."
Said Sue of her husband: "He has taken care of me my whole life. He has loved me and respected me and cherished me the way he said he would when I was just a young girl and he was just a young man.
"We have not always had an easy life. But if you put God first, you can endure and your marriage can endure."
Retired pastor Bill French, a friend of the family who conducted the ceremony, said they were an example to the world. "When you took those vows all those years ago, no one could have known how long that walk together would be. You have fulfilled your promise, and God is smiling."
A few days later Vernon McAlister died, his wife at his bedside.
Sex education is an ideological battlefield on which a war is being waged for the hearts and minds of children. Behind the innocuous-sounding words used by the sex education lobby, there is a definite agenda at work to undermine the role of parents and to tear down traditional moral standards. The need for parents to be alert and vigilant has never been greater.
Who says so? The Family Education Trust (otherwise known as Family and Youth Concern), whose aims are to uphold marriage and traditional family life and promote young people's welfare.
And with good reason. NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which advises on medicines and health issues - its chief role is to ration NHS drugs - has issued draft guidance on sex education suggesting that all children should be taught about sex and relationships starting at five and continuing into early adulthood.
The Labour Government legislated to make sex education part of the schools' national curriculum for the first time for pupils from the age of five upwards, but because of opposition Schools Secretary Ed Balls scrapped the sex education provisions in order to get the remainder of the Children, Schools and Families Bill into law in the limited time available before the General Election. Members of the sex education lobby were said to be furious, and attempts to reintroduce such provisions were expected.
The NICE draft guidance contains positive points, which might cause some people to be confused. But it also says
Research evidence does not support use of an approach to sex and relationships education that only teaches abstinence. Evidence shows that this does not help prevent the initiation of sex, or reduce the frequency of intercourse or reduce the number of partners a young person may have. Rather, such an approach may increase early sexual activity and its consequent risks.
(There is ample evidence that abstinence education is effective.)
It says school governors, teachers, nurses and community groups should
Reassure parents that sex and relationships education does not promote early sex, increase rates of sexual activity or increase the likelihood of sexual experimentation. Rather, it helps children and young people to resist pressure to get involved in activities that might damage their health. It also gives them the skills and confidence to delay sex until they are ready to enjoy a responsible and mutually loving relationship.
(Until they are ready?)
All involved in education should
Promote awareness of and sensitivity to diverse faith and cultural beliefs, and encourage understanding of different beliefs and practices, for example, in relation to alcohol use, sexual orientation and abortion. Discrimination and prejudices should be discussed and challenged.
(Prejudices against homosexual relationships and against abortion?)
It says that
A planned programme of sex and relationships education (SRE) that includes information and opportunities for discussion about sexual health, sexually transmitted infections, methods of contraception, pregnancy and abortion can help children and young people to delay sexual activity until they are ready. It does not cause them to have sex at an earlier age, or to have more sex, or sex with more partners, nor does it increase the number of unwanted or teenage conceptions and abortions.
(There is no explanation of why the more sex education there is, the more unwanted pregnancies and the more abortions increase.)
and
An overemphasis on concerns about the potential negative consequences of sex for young people, including teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, has sometimes led to an unbalanced approach to SRE that ignores the importance of consent and mutually rewarding sexual relationships for individual wellbeing.
(No mention, you will notice, of the context of sex within marriage.)
Norman Wells, of Family and Youth Concern, said "The team that drafted the guidance included lobby groups with an agenda to break down moral standards and redefine the family. Organisations with a commitment to marriage and traditional family values were not represented."
The draft guidance (you can read it in full here) is open for comment via the NICE website until July 15. Submissions will then be considered, and final guidance is expected in January.
Christian Concern for Our Nation is appealing for parents, teachers and school representatives to respond to the consultation.
Will you write and express your concerns? You should use the form here.
Famous Tuscan tenor Andrea Bocelli, who has sold 70 million records, interrupted one of his performances because, he said, he wanted to tell a little story.
A young pregnant wife had been admitted to hospital with appendicitis. After she was treated, the doctors suggested she abort the child. It would be the best solution, they said, because the baby would be born with some disability. The young woman decided not to abort, and the child was born.
"That woman was my mother," said Bocelli, "and I was the child. Maybe I'm partisan, but I can say it was the right choice."
Bocelli was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma as a baby, and has been blind since he was 12.
A video of Bocelli telling the story has been uploaded on www.youtube.com, and has had 150,000 viewings in three weeks.
While we're on the subject of abortion, the UK Government recently published figures for abortions during 2009. There were 195,743 abortions in England and Wales and 13,005 in Scotland, making a total of 208,748. After years of increasing figures year by year, the 2009 total was slightly less than the previous year - but it's still 16,000 unborn children killed each month. That's 4,000 each week. Or 600 each day.
In England and Wales, 34 per cent of abortions were on women who had had at least one abortion previously. In Scotland, 28 per cent of the women were having an abortion for at least the second time. Around half of all teenage pregnancies now end in abortion.
Meanwhile, a request under the Freedom of Information Act revealed an item of information that was not previously in the public domain: an average of 80 abortions are carried out in England and Wales each year on women who have become pregnant through IVF treatment.
It's hard to imagine how women who have undergone the stresses of IVF in order to become pregnant can then decide they don't want their baby after all. It shows, at the very least, a colossal disregard for human life.
In case you haven't heard, the UK's National Secular Society has instructed lawyers to take Bideford Town Council to the High Court. The reason: the council begins its council meetings with prayer, and the NSS doesn't like it.
The society says it has had a complaint from a Bideford councillor, one Clive Bone, who is an atheist. He says the prayers are "embarrassing," and he knows people who might have become council candidates, but are put off by prayer.
The society says it wrote to the council without satisfactory result, and it wants a judicial review of the situation. It will argue that prayer at the beginning of council meetings contravenes human rights legislation.
Keith Porteous Wood, the NSS's executive director, is reported as saying that the majority of people in this country do not enter a church, except perhaps for weddings and funerals, from one year's end to the next, and it is not appropriate in modern-day Britain for councillors to be put in the uncomfortable and embarrassing position of being subjected to "this archaic practice." The council's purpose was to provide local services, not church services.
George McLaughlin, clerk to the council, said the issue of prayers at the beginning of council meetings was a national one, not a local one. He did not know why the NSS had picked on them. In fact, the society, or its supporters, has approached some 140 councils regarding their habit (or not) of opening proceedings with prayer. The case, if it comes to the High Court, could set a precedent.
The council, which has been opening meetings in prayer since the days of Queen Elizabeth I, has voted by a majority to continue to open its meetings with prayer in the meantime.
A holiday is indicated. For this reason, there will be no new additions to this blog for a short time.
Please do continue to call by. Normal service will be resumed, as they used to say, as soon as possible.
Israel maintains a naval blockade of Gaza to prevent arms being delivered by sea to the terrorist organisation Hamas, which is now in control in Gaza, and which is sworn to Israel's destruction.
A "freedom flotilla" of six ships, carrying aid for Palestinians in Gaza and 600 passengers, at least some of them political extremists with terrorist connections, sailed for Gaza in an attempt to break the blockade.
Israel said the ships would not be allowed to go to Gaza, but offered to let the ships dock at Ashdod and offered to transport the aid overland to the Palestinians. The offer was refused, and the ships continued to sail to Gaza, evidently intent on confrontation.
On Monday, when Israeli naval commandos boarded one of the ships, they were attacked by a waiting group of men with iron bars, knives and at least one pistol. Some of the commandos were badly injured. Only when their lives were threatened did the commandos open fire.
The cry went up from the ship: "As soon as the Israelis landed on the ship they began to fire indiscriminately at unarmed civilians." One passenger said the Israelis began firing while still in helicopters hovering over the ships.
A number of lives were lost. But the activists obtained something they wanted more than they wanted to deliver aid to Palestinians: an opportunity for Israel to be vilified across the world.
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Erdogan said the assault was a "bloody massacre" and must be punished. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel. There were accusations of massacres and genocide. Politicians around the world called for the blockade to be ended.
A resolution presented to the UN Human Rights Council called for an independent international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law. Israel was guilty of "violations of international law," you will notice, before any fact-finding mission began.
Caroline Glick, deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post and a former adviser to Israel's Prime Minister, said that the Free Gaza website published a list of some 222 organisations from the four corners of the earth that endorsed the Gaza-bound "freedom flotilla." It is hard to think, she said, of any cause other than Israel-bashing that could unite such disparate forces.
And last Friday at the UN's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, 189 governments from 189 countries came together as one to savage Israel. There is, she said, no other issue that commands such unanimity. The conference demonstrated that the only way the international community will agree on anything is if its members are agreeing that Israel has no right to defend itself.
Israel, she added, is the target of a massive information war that is unprecedented in size and scope.
According to Bible prophecy, the world's final battles will be fought in Israel. Perhaps that's why the Bible also says "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem" (Psa 122:6).
The New Yorker, of all things, has published an article about Jesus.
Its author, Adam Gopnik, essayist, commentator and New Yorker staff writer, appears to be an outsider looking in. He comments on recent books published by Diarmid MacCulloch, Paul Johnson, Paul Verhoeven, Bart Ehrman, L. Michael White, John Dominic Crossan, Philip Jenkins and Philip Pullman, almost all of whom delight in rubbishing the gospel record.
"The more one knows," says Gopnik, "the less one knows." Scarcely surprising, after reading books like that. Mark's Gospel, he says, makes intolerable demands on logic.
His conclusion seems to be that after this length of time, Jesus' life, if not a myth, is a mystery "never to be entirely explored or explained."
Albert Mohler points out that it all depends on whether you hold to the divine inspiration of the Bible. If you don't, then the Bible is just a piece of ancient literature, and you can believe or disbelieve which bits you choose.
Either the Bible is just an ancient book and we have no real knowledge of Jesus or the Bible is the word of God and the Bible demonstrates a Jesus who can give forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.
C. S. Lewis, who was a believer in an inspired Bible, puts it rather well in Mere Christianity: "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
The only observation I want to make is this. Is it not interesting that people who do not believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be are still fascinated by Him? Is it not remarkable how people who don't believe in His deity still can't leave Him alone?
I have one or two heroes, and one or two heroines. One of my heroines is a lady named Ilora Finlay. Please don't tell her. She would probably be embarrassed.
Ilora Finlay is a member of the House of Lords. A baroness, no less. She opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia, and argues eloquently against their legalisation.
What some people didn't know as she vigorously opposed an assisted suicide bill in the House of Lords a few years ago was that her 84-year-old mother, who had advanced breast cancer that had spread to large areas of her pelvis and lower back, was lying in a hospice wanting to die.
The old lady didn't want to be dependent. She didn't want to be a burden. And if assisted suicide were legal, it was clear, she would go for it. The situation, Lady Finlay said, was tearing her in two.
I'm a professor of palliative care. I have dedicated my career as a physician to improving the care of the terminally ill - and yet here was my dreadfully sick mother, stopping just short of asking me to help her die. . .
It was the hospice chaplain who unlocked the door. Wise enough to realise there was no point talking about God to this agnostic lady and experienced enough to know we all have a story, he quietly and patiently asked Mum to tell him hers.
And so he sat, this quiet, unassuming man, and listened, soaking up the years, as she told him her views and philosophy on life.
And it was in this telling that it dawned on Mum that her decrepit body still held an active mind. Suddenly, she realised that if she wasn't going to be allowed to kill herself, she had better make the most of what time remained. . .
Day by day, she took more pain relief, which first enabled her to get out of bed and then to take a few tentative steps with a Zimmer frame. Every day, she tried to take a few steps more. . .
And then, almost miraculously, the radiotherapy began to work, her pain disappeared and she was able to leave the hospice and go home.
My mother would go on to live for another four years and it's no exaggeration to say that those four years were almost more precious than the 84 that had preceded them. . .
Carers came every day. Friends visited, took her out, shared meals, laughed with her as she decided to get out of her wheelchair, using it as a walker and then dispensing with it altogether. She remembered that she had a story to tell, and began to tell it to her children for the first time.
She saw the birth of her first great-grandson, and relished playing with him. She was determined to stay involved, reading story books to him about steam engines and teddy bears. Then she cradled her second great-grandson in her arms.
Eventually illness came back, and she had to return to the hospice. But this time there was a difference: While she did, on occasion, long for the end, Mum did not ask for help to end her life this time. Any anger at her dependence and illness had gone and now 'Thank you' was her most uttered phrase.
Eventually death came. Says Lady Finlay: Of course, there are regrets - of times not spent together, of disagreements, of unappreciated times, of failing to call, of speaking in anger and in haste.
But I will never regret that our law protected her; preventing her from ending her life when she was vulnerable to despair.
Those four years we shared were the most precious gift. Without them, Mum would have missed what she described as some of the richest times in her life and we would have missed understanding just what an amazing person she was.
I'm so grateful for the fact she was 88 when she died and not 84. But best of all? So was she.
You can read the full account, originally published in the Daily Mail, right here.
It used to be called Whitsuntide, and it used to be a public holiday. The UK Government did away with the name and they did away with the holiday. But they can't do away with its significance. Tomorrow, 49 days after Easter Sunday, is Pentecost Sunday, when we remember how those early Christians were filled with the Holy Spirit.
On the evening of the day Jesus rose from the dead, He appeared to His disciples. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord (John 20:20). Thomas wasn't there on that occasion, but he was there a week later.
Then he said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at my hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing."
And Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed" (vv27 - 29).
What does the Bible say are the things necessary for salvation? 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 (Rom 10:9). Can anyone doubt that those disciples were believers at that point?
But they did not yet have all that they needed. They were to tarry in the city of Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49), for, said Jesus, you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now (Acts 1:5).
They waited from the days of the Jewish feast of Passover, when Jesus died and rose again, to the Jewish feast of Shavuot, or Pentecost. And when the day of Pentecost had fully come. . . and they were all in one place. . . there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind. . . and forked tongues, as of fire. . . and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1 - 4). Frightened believers were transformed into believers ablaze for God.
Peter explained that the promise of the Holy Spirit is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call (v39) - not just to the disciples there at that time, but to future generations, to people in other places, to every one who is called to God's salvation.
Some say that you have everything when you are born again, regenerated, come to faith in Christ. Don't believe that.
There's more. Oh yes, there's more!
There are people in the UK who are continually pushing for the legalisation of euthanasia. Whenever they speak of legalising euthanasia, they say there would, of course, be adequate safeguards.
On the subject of safeguards, bioethicist Wesley J. Smith points out on his blog Secondhand Smoke two things that are happening in Belgium, where euthanasia is legal. First, only something like 25 per cent of cases of euthanasia are being reported, as the law requires. Second, last year there were 40 per cent more reported cases than the year before.
He says:
This is what happens when a country jumps off a vertical moral cliff.
First, the euthanasia numbers are climbling dramatically. Secondly, the guidelines become virtually meaningless. As we have seen in the Netherlands, once a society countenances medical killing by doctors, the [doctors] tend to do anyone they think should be euthanized regardless of the guidelines, and then just don't report their own lawbreaking.
We are told that legalizing euthanasia makes it all so transparent. We are told it will be strictly restrained by legalization to only the most intractable cases. The pretense is clearly not working in Belgium. But will that cause the country to backtrack? Not on a bet. Once medicalized killing is accepted, the details cease to matter.
So much for adequate safeguards.
The Bible tells (in Gen 25:27 - 34) how Esau fell to temptation:
Esau was a skilful hunter, a man of the field: but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents.
And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary.
And Esau said to Jacob, "Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary." Therefore his name was called Edom.
But Jacob said, "Sell me your birthright as of this day."
And Esau said, "Look, I am about to die; so what profit shall this birthright be to me?"
Then Jacob said, "Swear to me as of this day." She he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob.
And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
The stupid man, you might say. How ridiculous! Fancy going and doing a thing like that!
Esau's thought at the time was probably something like "I'm dying of hunger here. I've got to have some of that, and we'll worry about the consequences later."
(There were consequences, of course. You will remember that the Bible says later of Esau, in Heb 12:17: You know that afterwards, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.)
We need to understand a little about temptation. Can we say that temptation is a deliberate attempt to entice us to do something that we know God does not want us to do? The enemy will carefully arrange a time when we are not at our best, place something in front of us, perhaps unexpectedly, which is very attractive to our carnal nature, and ask for an instant response.
Says Selwyn Hughes: "Temptation involves a definite enticement to immediate self-gratification. The dictionary says 'To tempt someone is to beguile them to do wrong, by promise of pleasure or gain.' Temptation motivates a person to be bad by promising something that appears to be good."
You don't want to fall for that? Decide you are going to hate sin because God hates sin. Make a firm decision that you are going to produce a loud and definite "No!" when temptation comes. And here's an important key, in the words of Rom 13:14:
Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil its lusts.
Don't let yourself get into a state where you're likely to be tempted. Don't allow yourself to be in a situation or a place where you're likely to be tempted.
Remember that what the tempter tempts you with is never worth a fraction of what he's trying to get from you.
And don't be too quick to condemn Esau. There's a bit of Esau in us all.
The Christian man arrested in Workington, Cumbria, and charged with a public order offence for saying that the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin - about whom I wrote here and here - has had some good news.
The Crown Prosecution Service has written to Dale Mcalpine (and his name is spelled Mcalpine and not McAlpine - newspapers please note!) saying the case has been dropped because of a lack of evidence. Mr Mcalpine says he is relieved.
Simon Calvert, of the Christian Institute, which has been assisting Mr Mcalpine, says the police must be held to account.
"Cumbria Police can't just walk away from this," he said. "They have arrested and charged an innocent man for no other reason than that he has peacefully expressed his Christian beliefs. And it's happened in other parts of the country too, so there is clearly a problem with the system, and it has to be put right."
There are a number of questions still rolling round in my mind. Like - for example - would the case have been dropped if Mr Mcalpine had not had an organisation to fight for him? And would the case have been dropped - and so promptly - if details of the case had not been all over the media on both sides of the Atlantic?
Christians have been everybody's Aunt Sally for long enough. That Christians are beginning to fight back is nothing if it's not good news.
David Toma, the 12th child of a Christian mother, was a detective on the vice, narcotics and gambling squad in crime-ridden Newark, New Jersey. He became a master of disguise in order to infiltrate drugs gangs.
He made thousands of arrests without ever firing his gun, though he was himself hospitalised numerous times with shot and stab wounds. He had a 98 per cent conviction rate. He was given the title "The World's Greatest Cop" by fellow policemen. Two series of television programmes were based on his experiences.
He has spent countless thousands of hours speaking to audiences about the dangers of alcohol and drugs. He has received numerous humanitarian awards and several honorary doctorates.
Denny Hartford quotes on his blog something of what David Toma has to say about teenage pregnancy:
Kids are having kids! Eleven year old, twelve year old and thirteen year old kids are having babies! Why? Because they are having sex! Unfortunately they don't think that having sex will lead to getting pregnant. Kids don't think about their consequences, they just want to have sex. And that's the problem.
My 50+ years of experience, talking to millions and millions of kids, tells the story: teen sex leads to babies, teen sex leads to unwanted pregnancy, teen sex leads to suicide, teen sex leads to drug addiction, teen sex leads to alcoholism, teen sex leads to Aids and HIV, teen sex leads to STDs. Teen sex is not only a moral issue, it's a health issue and it's a national health issue! . . .
Parents, what are you going to do about this national crisis? School administrators, what are you going to do about this national crisis? Local government and health agencies, what are you going to do about this national crisis? Some 'experts' preach non-abstinence based on the theory that kids will have sex anyway, so why not teach them to have safe sex. These experts haven't seen what I saw on the streets as a detective. They haven't heard the personal stories, thousands of them, that I heard while a beat cop in Newark, New Jersey.
Parents have given up on teaching total abstinence to their kids. They take their daughters to the doctor to get them birth control pills, so they won't get pregnant. Well guess what? They get pregnant anyway! There is no birth control pill that is 100% safe, and many have dangerous side effects, like blood clots that lead to death! Condoms are not 100% safe either. Protected sex is not the answer, total abstinence is. I am a parent and now a grandparent and guess what my wife and I taught our kids and are now teaching our grandchild? Total abstinence. Was it easy? No! But I will not surrender to complacency. I did whatever it took to make sure my kids knew that premarital sex was not an option. . .
The 40,000,000 (that's right, forty million!) kids I have talked with over my career gives me the expertise to tell you that absolute abstinence is the only thing that works. I have heard personally the horror stories of back alley abortions that went wrong. I have personally visited kids in the hospital who tried to kill themselves and their unborn babies because they were too scared to tell their parents they were pregnant. Imagine being so afraid to tell your parents you were pregnant that you would rather kill yourself and an innocent growing inside you! I have held young girls in my arms as they died from Aids which they contracted from having oral sex. They thought that oral sex was safe sex! I have counseled thousands of girls who were gang raped because they had a reputation for being easy.
My twenty years on the streets as a cop and then as a detective made me see things I still have nightmares about: mothers throwing their babies off bridges into freezing rivers, babies killed by their teenage mothers because they wouldn't stop crying, babies in dumpsters, babies thrown away like garbage! We are in a throwaway society and we throw our babies away too! I have seen it all!!!
Don't tell me that non-abstinence and sex education are the answer, because you are dead wrong. The only answer is absolute abstinence. . .
I have preached absolute abstinence for over 50 years. I will not surrender to popular theories by people who are supposed experts who don't have my background and don't know what they are talking about. I can absolutely guarantee you that your child will not get pregnant, will not get Aids, and HIV, will not get STDs, will not end up killing themselves when you teach your children the value of a strong moral code of conduct. . .
Let me tell you that when I talk to kids at schools about absolute abstinence, I get a standing ovation. They want to hear more about how to live a good clean life and how to live the right way. They want someone to love them and discipline them. They know I love them, and they know I know what I am talking about. Your kids want your guidance, your kids want your love. Love your kids enough to teach them absolute abstinence.
Well, you can't argue with that, can you?
Incidentally, you'll find David Toma's website at www.davidtoma.com.
Some heartfelt words from Jerusalem from journalist Stan Goodenough. He quotes Isa 66:10 - 13, with its command to rejoice with Jerusalem and its reminder of the city's eventual glory. He goes on:
Children from across the nation descended on Jerusalem Tuesday - filling the parks, crowding the sidewalks, clambering up the slopes of Mount Zion and flooding in through the gates of the Old City.
Their presence added reams of youthful color and vibrancy to the many-thousand-strong crowds of Jews and their friends here to celebrate 43 years (by the Hebrew calendar) since the Six Day War saw their ancient capital returned to Jewish hands.
And it will be festive: The next 24 hours will be marked by ceremonies and speeches on Ammunition Hill and in the Tower of David, hora dancing in the city's public squares, marches through the streets, all night music concerts and prayer meetings at the Western Wall.
Organised tours will show off the massive development and growth that has taken place in the city under Israeli sovereignty. Modern high-rises, new residential developments and ambitious transportation projects will vie for attention with the famous historical sites and legendary biblical landmarks that make Jerusalem an engrossing magnet for millions, nay billions on the planet.
But while it enthralls multitudes - there is only one nation that loves this city, only one people that has longed to return here and remained faithful in devotion to Jerusalem for thousands and thousands of years.
The Jews' veneration of Jerusalem hugely outstrips the feelings any other nation has for its capital. This can be said without exaggeration or apology.
Which other people has acclaimed a single city for 30 solid centuries - or even a third of that time? What city has Chinese or Russians or Britons, or Norwegians or Indians or Africans or any other nation or people group prayed daily for generation after generation to return to? What other nation - violently driven from its land, and enduring hundreds of years of what it calls "captivity" in exile - clung to, and drew hope from, their belief in their ultimate restoration to that land, and to the pulsating city that was its heart?
Indeed, the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, followed by the return of Jerusalem to the Jews, should be reason for rejoicing by all men and women of goodwill.
But as music fills the air and drumbeats echo off the golden walls across the valley from my home, people in other capitals around the world are watching these celebrations through glowering, resentful, even hate-filled eyes.
Jerusalem Day 2010 has been preceded by intensifying gentile efforts to force Israel to stop building here. Spearheaded by the increasingly openly hostile Obama administration, the international community is galled by the "effrontery" of Jews' administering, developing and growing their own flagship city.
Israel's claim to Jerusalem flies in the face of the world's plans to turn half the city into the capital of a new Arab state called Palestine. Instead of acknowledging that Muslim violence, threats and incitement against Jews is the primary reason for the failure of their "peace process," the world blames the Israeli government for building up its own home.
As I write, US special envoy George Mitchell is here, trying to get some form of shuttle diplomacy under way in order to "jump start" the repeatedly discredited diplomatic process with the Palestinian Arabs.
In an attempt to get some traction, Mitchell claimed last week that the Israeli government had agreed to freeze building in northern Jerusalem for two years. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat have denied that there is any freeze on construction in the city.
As Israel tries to resist the pressures of its "friend and ally" across the Atlantic, Washington - which has realigned the once pro-Israel United States with the Arab/Islamic world - is expected to get nasty.
Let it. The superglue of their entire history holds the Jews to Jerusalem. Any nation trying to remove it from them will only injure itself.
Badly.
Whether his name is Mcalpine or McAlpine is a mystery still. But his arrest in the Cumbrian town of Workington became international news, with reports and comment both sides of the Atlantic.
Dale McAlpine (or is it Mcalpine?) is a Christian. From time to time, he preaches from a stepladder in Workington's shopping precinct. When he isn't preaching, he hands out Christian leaflets to individual passers-by, with perhaps a few words of conversation. "He is not aggressive or threatening," said a shopworker in the precinct. "He is gentle. He hands out leaflets, he says his piece, and then he leaves."
The story, as I understand it, is this. While handing out leaflets one day Mr McAlpine had a conversation with a woman shopper about his faith. He mentioned a number of sins listed in 1 Corinthians, including fornication, adultery, homosexuality and drunkenness.
As the woman walked away, she was approached by a police community support officer, who spoke with her briefly. The PCSO walked over to Mr McAlpine and identified himself as a homosexual and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender liaison officer for Cumbria police. He said a complaint had been made. Mr McAlpine admitted he did sometimes say that the Bible says that homosexual behaviour is a sin. The PCSO warned Mr McAlpine he could be arrested for using racist or homophobic language.
Mr McAlpine began his sermon - during which he did not mention homosexuality. While he was preaching a wagon arrived with three policemen, he was arrested, placed in a police cell for seven hours and charged with an offence against the Public Order Act. He appeared before a magistrates' court and is awaiting the date of a full hearing.
Sam Webster, a solicitor-advocate with the Christian Institute, said case law had ruled that the orthodox Christian belief that homosexual conduct is sinful is a belief worthy of respect in a democratic society. "The police have a duty to maintain public order but they also have a duty to defend the lawful free speech of citizens. It's not for the police to decide whether Mr McAlpine's views are right or wrong."
Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the USA, made some interesting comments:
The Telegraph's report includes the ironic and chilling explanation that Dale McAlpine was arrested for saying that homosexuality is a sin and for doing so "in a voice loud enough to be heard by others." Is not the purpose of any speaker to be heard by others? Are we to assume that the British police would suggest that Dale McAlpine hold fast to his beliefs, but mutter them only under his breath?. . .
We are witnessing the constriction of Christian speech and the criminalizing of Christian ministry. The Bible clearly condemns homosexual behaviors, and the Christian church has been clear about this teaching for twenty centuries. But now, the statement that homosexuality is a sin can land a preacher in jail.
We will soon learn which nations truly believe in religious liberty and freedom of speech. Cases like this are inevitable when the logic of hate speech and special rights for "sexual minorities" prevails.
Do not for a moment think that this troubling development is of consequence only for street preachers in Britain. The signal sent by this kind of arrest reaches right into every church and every nation where a similar logic takes hold. . .
We will soon learn which nations honor religious liberty - but we will also soon learn which preachers are determined to honor God's truth, whatever the cost. Paul's command to preachers to preach the Word "in season and out of season" is about more than when preaching is more and less popular. It may well mean preaching the word in jail or out of jail.
Just ask Dale McAlpine.
So where will the next attempt come to silence the Christian voice in public? It's difficult to know. But it will be interesting to see.
I have long said that if there were no God, it wouldn't be necessary for atheists to try to disprove His existence.
I like the way Jack Kinsella puts it. He says that if you speak of the things of God to a sceptic, one of the first things he will do is to challenge you to prove that God exists in the first place.
And he says that is the wrong way round: because if there is no Creator, then we came from nothing - and the one thing we know does NOT exist in the physical world is nothing. Nothing, you see, is the absence of something.
We live in a material universe. . . But the entire argument from the point of atheism is that nothing - which cannot exist in a material universe - is responsible for the existence of the material universe. . .
A sceptic cannot prove God does not exist, because that demands proving a negative. God could exist, therefore it cannot be proved He does not. Conversely, nothing cannot exist, a philosophical, scientific and logical principle long established to be true. . .
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good" (Psalms 14:1). The sceptic's blanket statement that God does not exist stands as sufficient testimony to the truth of the Psalmist's words. So do all of the sceptic's arguments, when broken down into their component parts.
To begin with, none of them are in support of their own position, to wit, "nothing is responsible for creation." They can neither defend nor explain the existence of "nothing." Instead, the sceptic's argument MUST come in the form of an attack on Something, to wit, a Creator God. . .
Make no mistake, they also believe in God in some sense, or logically, there would be nothing on which to base the discussion. They just don't want to believe and they are seeking justification for that disbelief.
The atheist needs to sucker you into the positive position of proving God exists, because he cannot prove the negative proposition. . . The sceptic's argument doesn't offer alternative answers - it only raises questions in the hope you can't answer them either. . .
There are libraries full of books attempting to prove the existence of God or to argue against the existence of God. There aren't very many books that attempt to prove the existence of nothing.
The very concept of nothing is something. Since the concept of nothing is itself something, the existence of nothing is therefore disqualified. . .
Does God exist? Well, if He didn't, there would be nothing to debate. And nobody debates about nothing.
Isn't that something?
You can read the whole thing right here.
Gary McFarlane is a Christian who worked as a relationship guidance counsellor for Relate. When he qualified as a psychosexual therapist, he raised concerns about a potential clash between his work and his Christian views. He was unwilling to give sex therapy to homosexual couples.
A lawyer concerned with his case said Mr McFarlane wanted his religious beliefs to be accommodated by his employer, "which in the specific facts of the case was not unreasonable." Instead, he was sacked.
He complained to an employment tribunal, which decided he had not suffered religious discrimination. Mr McFarlane, who said that his treatment was "without a doubt" an example of Christians being persecuted in modern Britain, asked the Appeal Court for permission to appeal the employment tribunal ruling.
Last week permission was refused. Lord Justice Laws said legal protection for views held on religious grounds was "deeply unprincipled."
"In the eye of everyone save the believer," he said, "religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence. It may of course be true, but the ascertainment of such a truth lies beyond the means by which laws are made in a reasonable society.
"Therefore it lies only in the heart of the believer, who alone is bound by it. No one else is or can be so bound, unless by his own free choice he accepts its claims.
"The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, a preferring of the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary."
Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, concerned with other senior church leaders that in past cases judges had disparaged Christianity and had in effect called Christians bigots, had asked that the case be considered by judges with an understanding of religious issues. The judge rejected his request also.
Lord Carey said the judgment heralded a "secular" state rather than a "neutral" one. "It says that the sacking of religious believers in recent cases was not a denial of their rights even though religious belief cannot be divided from its expression in every area of the believer's life.
"While with one hand the ruling seeks the right of religious believers to hold and express their faith, with the other it takes away those same rights."
Andrea Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre, said the judgment was "alarming" and in effect sought to rule out Christian principles of morality from the public square. It seemed a Christian who wished to act on his Christian beliefs on marriage would no longer be able to work in a great number of environments.
Melanie Phillips, writing in the Daily Mail, said the judge arrived at his conclusion by cherry-picking human rights law. He said human rights law conferred upon believers the right to "hold or express" religious views, when in fact the European Convention on Human Rights gives people the right to manifest "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" through "worship, teaching, practice and observance."
Writing in the Telegraph, Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester, said Lord Justice Laws' judgment "has driven a coach and horses through the ancient association of the Christian faith with the constitutional and legal basis of British society.
"Everything from the Coronation oath onwards suggests that there is an inextricable link between the Judeo-Christian tradition of the Bible and the institutions, the values and the virtues of British society. If this judgment is allowed to stand, the aggressive secularists will have had their way.
"We have already had a rash of cases involving magistrates unable to serve on the bench because of their religious beliefs, registrars losing their jobs because they cannot, in conscience, officiate at civil parnerships, paediatricians unable to serve on adoption panels. . . Will this trickle gradually become a flood, so that rather than conforming to the Church of England, the new discrimination tests will involve conforming to the secular religion as promoted by Lord Justice Laws? . . .
"I fear that we are entering an absolutist era where there is no room for believers."
The day after news of the judgment came news of a 21-year-old Muslim's appearance in court for defacing a war memorial in Burton-on-Trent with graffiti proclaiming "Islam will dominate the world," "Osama is on his way" and "Kill Gordon Brown." The court was told his actions had nothing to do with religious belief and he was given a conditional discharge for criminal damage.
Then Dale McAlpine (described in some newspapers as Dale McAlpine and elsewhere as Dale Mcalpine) was arrested in Workington, about which more shortly. . .
Some political commentators are predicting war in the Middle East before the end of the summer.
I think what has held war back, said one, is that Israel is unwilling to provoke an enemy that is armed to the teeth, and the Arabs are so busy building up their armoury of missiles they don't have time to attack Israel. That might sound flippant, but it might contain more than a little truth. The general concensus of opinion is that never in its history has Israel faced a threat of such magnitude.
Israel needs the United States. It is evident that President Barack Obama blames Israel for the Middle East problem. Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been appallingly treated on his visits to Washington. Leading figures in the Obama administration have gone so far as to say that Israel's insistence on new building in Jerusalem is endangering US lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US is reported to be insisting that Israel bans all construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the forseeable future, that Israel must make more concessions to the Palestinians (without the Palestinians being required to make any concessions, including recognition of the Jewish state), and that Israel must not attack Iran's nuclear facilities without US permission. Meanwhile President Obama is doing nothing about preventing the nuclear threat from Iran, widely considered to be the greatest single threat to world peace.
President Obama is said to have thought better of his idea of imposing a solution on the Middle East problem and to be leaving Israel and the Palestinians to sort it out between them. He said in a speech, possibly with the intention of placating Jewish Democrat voters in the US, that the friendship between the US and Israel was safe. Israelis were unimpressed.
The situation is certainly a dangerous one. Hamas is reported to have rockets that can reach Israel's nuclear facility in Dimona. Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets in Lebanon. Syria is thought to have the most powerful scud missiles in the world and to have passed scud missiles to Hezbollah. (One writer said Israel's Prime Minister faces danger on so many fronts, he must have the hardest job on the planet. I would be hard pressed to disagree with that.)
God has made some remarkable promises to preserve Israel, and those promises have not been annulled. Look at 2 Ki 21:7; Isa 43:1, 2; Amos 9:14, 15; and particularly Ezek 28:25, 26.
What would you do if someone tried to touch your eyeball? Zech 2:8 says that he who touches you touches the apple of God's eye. It wasn't speaking to the church. It was speaking to Israel.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Paul the apostle was a monster before his conversion to Christ, seeing Stephen stoned to death and dragging people off to prison. God changed him. He became a man who loved people and a man people loved.
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