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.
A few weeks ago I wrote about Rom Houben, a brain-damaged Belgian man in a coma for 23 years who began to communicate, and who had apparently been conscious the whole time.
Now the story appears to be not quite as good a story as it first appeared.
Rom is still physically disabled. A speech therapist was holding his finger as he moved from letter to letter to spell out words on a keyboard. More extensive tests have revealed that the therapist had unwittingly been projecting her own thoughts, presented as the patient's.
But doctors still believe he is conscious. "We'll simply have to find another way to him," said the doctor in charge.
Then came news that researchers had discovered how it was possible for patients in a so-called persistent vegetative state to communicate, giving responses to simple biographical questions.
The brain signals for "yes" and "no" are complicated, so a team headed by Dr Adrian Owen of Cambridge and a Belgian neurologist asked a PVS patient to think of playing tennis for "yes", and think about moving around the patient's home - which causes activity in a different part of the brain - for "no."
Using a hi-tech functional magnetic resonance scanner, they picked up the resultant brain activity. The patient's responses were correct every time.
The researchers believe 17 per cent of PVS patients will be able to communicate with doctors.
Then there is the story of Martin Pistorius.
At 12 years old, Martin developed meningitis and tuberculosis of the brain and was left in what doctors said was a vegetative state. His parents refused to consider withdrawing food and water and clung to the hope that he would recover.
In fact Martin was conscious - just unable to communicate. "I was locked inside my body, my brain screaming for relief, feeling overwhelmed and utterly powerless. There were times when I was really, really frightened. All I looked forward to was death."
It was a good day if a fly walked across the ceiling. At least it gave him something to look at.
When he was 26, an aromatherapist who came to give Martin massage "saw something in his eyes" that told her he was conscious. She talked with Martin's parents, who agreed he should be assessed at a specialist centre.
He was asked to gesture to indicate his choice between objects. He couldn't gesture, but they could tell from the way that his eyes focussed that he understood and was trying to respond.
His mother gave up her job to help him. He had intensive physiotherapy and operations to correct deformities caused by his spastic condition. He regained the use of his hands and learned to use a speech synthesiser similar to the one used by Stephen Hawking.
Martin still uses a wheelchair to get around. But he is working as a website developer, studying towards a degree in computer science - and married to a beautiful young lady. They are deeply in love, and looking forward to a long and happy life together.
"Helping people to die" is not the answer. Human life is infinitely precious. Caring, not killing, needs to be the aim.
Nine days to go to the election - and the BBC has been asking Will Christians swing the 2010 UK election?
The fact that the question is being asked at all is evidence that something is happening. Christians are waking up. They are recognising that they have a responsibility in the world out there and that they need to make a difference. They are taking an interest in this parliamentary election in a way that certainly hasn't been seen in recent years.
The Christian Party is putting up more than 100 candidates. The Christian Peoples Alliance is putting up a further 18. The Westminster Declaration 2010, upholding Christian belief and Christian conscience, has been signed by more than 38,000 people in just over three weeks.
The Christian Institute, which has had 10,000 copies of its 48-page election briefing downloaded and is posting out 40,000 printed copies this week, says there are three touchstone issues for Christians at this election: religious liberty, the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of human life.
People have suggested Christian voters should find out whether candidates are genuinely interested in moral issues, whether they would put moral issues above party, and whether they seek election for self-interest or in the interests of others.
A number of organisations, like CARE and Christian Concern for Our Nation, suggested Christians should hold hustings - meetings to which parliamentary candidates would be invited so they could be questioned about their stance on moral issues.
More than 260 hustings are now being advertised, which means that they will be held in more than one in three of the total of 650 constituences and hundreds of candidates will be asked where they stand on matters of Christian concern.
Unlike the United States, where candidates for public office are expected to have some Christian background, public confession of Christian faith here has been looked on as political disaster. But things, it seems, are beginning to change.
What difference will the Christian vote make this time? Zoe Dixon, of the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum, said it could make a difference in marginal seats. Elizabeth Berridge, of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, said while there might generally be a low turnout at the polls, some 80 per cent of Christians could be expected to vote.
Meanwhile Scotland's Catholic bishops are urging voters to back candidates who oppose abortion, embryo research, homosexual marriage, homosexual adoption and assisted suicide.
They suggest Catholics ask candidates to answer a questionnaire on these issues, and consider which candidate will best respect their religious freedom and freedom of conscience.
"When you vote, make your faith count," the bishops say.
And according to leaked Government plans, Labour plan a reformed, all-elected House of Lords in which the number of Church of England bishops would be cut by half. The bishops would have a voice, but would be allowed to vote only on specific Church of England legislation.
"In an age where the role of religion in shaping social and moral attitudes is increasingly recognised to be highly significant," said a Church of England spokesman, "the idea of shaping the Lords on a purely secular model would be a retrograde step."
If you need proof that the world has gone mad you would find it in one of the daily newspapers this morning.
It tells how householders in Newcastle-under-Lyme have each been provided by the local council with no less than nine differently coloured containers - irrespective of whether or not they have room to keep them - in which they are required to place their refuse.
A silver bucket is for food waste inside the house, a green bin is for food waste outside the house, a blue box is for glass, foil, tins and aerosols, a pink bag is for plastic bottles and a green bag is for cardboard.
Then there is a white bag for clothing and textiles, a blue bag for papers and magazines, a wheelie bin with a brown lid for garden waste and a grey wheelie bin for everything else.
Another article on the same page tells how children as young as eight have been offered free condoms in the street by youth workers from a taxpayer-funded charity based in Hull.
The mother of a 13-year-old girl who found condoms the girl had been given in the girl's bedroom was fuming. "I feel she is being encouraged to have sex," the mother said.
"My daughter's sexual health is my responsibility. She's my daughter. She's not the Government's daughter, the council's daughter or the youth centre's daughter. They will not care about my daughter if anything happens. It's my responsibility."
Does anyone remember when Britain was Great Britain?
According to Bible prophecy, there is going to come a time of tremendous suffering on the earth.
Some people call that time the tribulation; some call it the Great Tribulation. Jesus referred to it as a time of tribulation "such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And if those days had not been shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened" (Matt 24:21, 22).
Those who love Jesus need not worry. According to Scripture, He will return to take them out before that terrible time comes. Says 1 Thess 4:16 - 18: "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
"Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words."
Jesus said "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:26, 27).
Those verses are generally understood to mean that conditions on the earth when He comes will be similar to conditions in Noah's day, and no doubt that's true. But it's interesting to notice that judgment didn't come until Noah and his family were safe in the ark.
Jesus also said "Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:28, 29).
Again, that's understood to mean that conditions at Christ's return will be similar to the conditions in Lot's day. But again it's interesting that judgment didn't begin until Lot and his family had left. Do you remember the angels who came to destroy Sodom told Lot they could do nothing until he and his family were safely out of it? (Gen 19:12 - 29).
We need to be ready for His coming.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, attended a meeting on Mount Herzl, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, on the eve on Holocaust Remembrance Day last Sunday evening. Others have reported what he said, if only in brief, but I wanted to mention it too.
I. . . visited the Wannsee Villa in Berlin, he said. When I was there, I saw the original invitation for the meeting of high-level Nazi officials, during which they decided on the destruction of the Jewish people. On the invitation that was sent by the Deputy Head of the SS was written: "The chief of the Reich main security office, Reinhard Heydrich, cordially invites you to a discussion about the Final Solution to the Jewish problem. Breakfast will be served at 09.00."
This is how, in an elegant villa on the shore of a pastoral lake, over breakfast and glasses of cognac, 15 men sat and decided how to destroy our people. No one batted an eyelid; no one expressed any doubt regarding the mission, either its necessity or its justness. Immediately after the meal, they began their work to erase the seed of Abraham from the earth.
As I was walking through the villa, moving from document to document, I felt myself becoming filled with helpless rage, and the feeling continued to grow until it became a flood. At the end of the tour, my German host asked me to write something in the guest book. I sat in the chair and the sadness and the anger rose up and started to overflow. And because of the storm of emotions I wrote three words: Am Israel Chai (The People of Israel live).
Tonight at Mount Herzl, I say it again: Am Israel Chai. The people of Israel will continue to live. It re-established its country, gathered its exiles, built its army, settled its homeland and reunited its capital, Jerusalem. . .
Within several decades, the state of Israel has become one of the most advanced countries in the world. Israeli products help cure illnesses and feed millions of people; Israeli developments help irrigate fields and orchards on every continent; and Israeli ideas help save energy in every corner of the globe. Israel is a rich source of innovation for the world and is looking to the future. . .
The historic failure of the free societies when faced with the Nazi animal was that they did not stand up against it in time, while there was still a chance to stop it.
And here we are today again witnesses to the fire of the new-old hatred, the hatred of the Jews, that is expressed by organisations and regimes associated with radical Islam, headed by Iran and its proxies.
Iran's leaders race to develop nuclear weapons and they openly state their desire to destroy Israel. But in the face of these repeated statements to wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth, in the best case we hear a weak protest which is also fading away.
The required firm protest is not heard - not a sharp condemnation, not a cry of warning. The world continues on as usual and there are even those who direct their criticism at us, against Israel.
Today, 65 years after the Holocaust, we must say in all honesty that what is so upsetting is the lack of any kind of opposition. The world gradually accepts Iran's statements of destruction against Israel and we still do not see the necessary international determination to stop it from arming itself. . .
I call on all enlightened countries to rise up and forcefully and firmly condemn Iran's destructive intentions and to act with genuine determination to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The following morning, sirens sounded in towns and cities across Israel. Traffic came to a standstill. People got out of their cars and stood in silence to remember the destruction of something like six million men, women and children in the most horrific circumstances. After two minutes' silence, sirens sounded again. . . and life went on.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey says senior judges in the UK should be prevented from ruling in religious rights cases because they are biased against Christianity.
He claims that some have made disturbing and dangerous rulings that could lead to Christians being banned from the workplace, and that they should stand down from Court of Appeal hearings involving religious rights to make way for judges with an understanding of religious issues.
Writes Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail: As an insult to some of the biggest wigs in the land, this could hardly be exaggerated.
By throwing down the gauntlet to the judiciary in this way, Lord Carey is mounting a full-frontal challenge to some of those who most influence our society.
The last of several final straws for these clerics [Lord Carey has the support of other church leaders] was the case of Lilian Ladele, a registrar who was sacked by Islingtron council after she refused to conduct civil partnership ceremonies because they were against her Christian beliefs.
Led by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger - the second most important judge in England - the Appeal Court ruled that it was unlawful for her to refuse to do so.
It might be argued that these judges were merely ruling on the basis of anti-discrimination law and that they were right to do so.
But in fact, these judges had discretion to rule in Ms Ladele's favour because the law upholds not one principle relevant to this case, but two - and they compete with each other. For enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights is the right to exercise religious conscience.
Why, then, did the judges in this case set aside the Human Rights Convention, which they normally revere as Holy Writ? Because, said Lord Neuberger, it only protected those religious beliefs which were 'worthy of respect in a democratic society and are not incompatible with human dignity.'
So what the Master of the Rolls effectively seemed to be saying was that Christian beliefs are unworthy of respect in a democracy, and incompatible with human dignity - a truly preposterous claim, since Judeo-Christian precepts invented the concept of human dignity upon which Western civilisation is based.
Indeed, such a ruling comes very close indeed to criminalising Christianity. For if putting Christian belief into practice is outlawed, it won't be long before Christian believers find themselves outlawed.
This issue is particularly topical because Gary McFarlane, formerly a Christian relationship counsellor for Relate, is due to appear at the Court of Appeal today to appeal against an employment tribunal ruling that upheld his sacking for refusing to give sex therapy to homosexual couples.
Lord Carey has prepared a witness statement in support of Mr McFarlane, and will back an application by Mr McFarlane's lawyers for the case to be heard by a panel of judges with understanding of religious issues.
Melanie Phillips again: No wonder Lord Carey and his colleagues have been galvanised into militant action. For under the guise of promoting 'tolerance' and 'liberal' social attitudes, anti-discrimination law is deeply intolerant and illiberal.
That's because it has nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with ideology. It is innately on the side of minorities on the basis that they are by definition vulnerable to the majority. So in the hands of the judiciary, it has turned into a fearsome weapon against Britain's mainstream attitudes and faith.
The result is that Christianity is now in danger of being turned into a despised and marginalised creed practised only by consenting adults in private.
Christians are already being forced into renouncing their religious beliefs if they want to remain in certain jobs.
This is simply intolerable in a liberal society where freedom of religious conscience is a bedrock value.
Ironically, news of Lord Carey's stand came the same day that it was reported that the Department of Health will allow female Muslim doctors and nurses to wear long sleeves to protect their modesty - despite the fact that guidance that all staff should be bare below the elbow was introduced after long sleeves were blamed for spreading MRSA.
New guidance says staff can wear long sleeves provided they roll them above the elbow to wash and when on the wards. Those wanting to stay covered on the ward can use disposable over-sleeves. Sikhs are also to be allowed to wear Kara bangles.
Said Shirley Chaplin, the nurse who got into trouble with the NHS for wearing a cross she had previously worn every day for 38 years without problem: "It seems like life is stacked up against Christians these days."
Christianity is under siege in this country. Britain's national religion has never been so marginalised and derided, especially by the public institutions that should be defending it.So says Dr Taj Hargey, imam of an Oxford Islamic congregation and chairman of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, writing in a national daily newspaper. (You can read the full article here.)The case of nurse Shirley Chaplin, he says, who has been banned by Devon and Exeter NHS Trust from wearing her crucifix while caring for patients, is a graphic illustration of this insidious trend.
Indeed, it is surely an affront to the very concept of religious liberty, which was once regarded as a cornerstone of our democratic, respectful and tolerant nation.
For make no mistake, a new form of virulent secularism is sweeping through society - and its target is Christianity.
I am a Muslim. But even as a non-Christian, I can see all too clearly the shameful way in which Britain's national faith is being eroded. Indeed, banning a crucifix makes a mockery of our treasured right to religious freedom.
With a typically bureaucratic mix of arrogance and authoritarianism, the Devon and Exeter Trust has claimed that the ban is not an attack on Christianity because wearing a crucifix is not an essential requirement of the faith.
But who appointed these quangocrats to pronounce on matters of religious doctrine? What right do they have to lecture a devout woman about her cherished beliefs?
And why can't they accept that Ms Chaplin's deeply religious convictions, which she chooses to express by wearing the crucifix, also inspire her compassionate work in the NHS?
As a Muslim, I am filled with despair at the attitude of our politically correct officials towards Christianity. . .
It is no coincidence that as Christianity is repeatedly attacked, so the social fabric of Britain becomes increasingly frayed. As we lose our strong moral compass, family breakdown and violent crime are at record levels, while our once famous sense of community spirit is evaporating. . .
Without the restraining, selfless morality that ultimately stems from faith, the triumph of either social anarchy or totalitarianism becomes a worrying possibility.
But what is sickening about this case is the PC brigade's outrageous hypocrisy.
For in the public sector, normally so hypersensitive to allegations of prejudice against ethnic minorities, it is unimaginable that bureaucrats would wade in with the same bullying ferocity against a Muslim or Hindu nurse who wanted to wear a symbol of her faith in the workplace. . .
Many schools have been sidelining Christianity, while celebrating other religions, so much so that in some areas we have a generation of pupils who know more about the Hindu festival of Diwali than about the religious meaning of Christmas. . .
These politically correct busy-bodies don't even have the courage to be open about their fanatical loathing of Christianity.
Instead, they often cravenly cite 'health and safety,' that catch-all term so often clutched at by bureaucrats when they want to shut down something they disapprove of. . .
Too often the PC brigade support overt demonstrations of faith by minority religions, while coming down hard on quiet religious gestures by Christians.
This must change. Mutual respect is the only way forward for Britain - and that has to include respect for Britains's ancient Christian civilisation. . .
And it takes a Muslim to tell us this?
As part of the Children, Schools and Families Bill, the UK Government was set to make sex education from the age of five a compulsory part of the national curriculum for schools.
Decisions on sex education would be taken out of the hands of parents and school governors and placed in the hands of Government officials.
Teachers would be required by law, irrespective of personal conviction, to present homosexual partnerships and unmarried sexual relationships as being on a par with marriage. Religious as well as secular schools would be required to teach children where to get contraceptives and how to access abortions.
The bill also provided what lawyers called a draconian regime for home education, where parents who wanted to teach their children would have to be licensed, there would be regular visits by inspectors and parents could easily lose their right to continue.
No longer. At the end of a Government's term of office, there is always a period of horse trading between political parties so the Government can push through remaining legislation before Parliament rises. It is understood that the Conservatives objected to proposals for sex education and the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to proposals for home education legislation.
Schools Secretary Ed Balls this week dropped the proposals on these two issues so the rest of the bill could go through. One newspaper suggested that he ditched his sex education reforms in a fit of petulance rather than compromise on one of the Conservatives' key demands. Whatever the reason, it was certainly an answer to prayer as far as some people were concerned.
A word of warning though. Labour have promised to being the proposals back in the summer if they are re-elected.
One more thing: the Government recently passed legislation making "incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation" a specific offence. Lord Waddington successfully proposed the addition of a freedom of speech amendment which would ensure people were not taken to court for simply criticising homosexual conduct or expressing the belief that homosexual behaviour is wrong.
The Government tried four times to remove the amendment, but lost in the House of Lords each time.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that the next Labour manifesto will include a commitment to reverse the Waddington amendment, and Labour would use the Parliament Act to overturn the Lords' decision if necessary.
"Are Christians Being Persecuted?" was the title of an hour-long documentary, presented by Nicky Campbell, on BBC TV on Easter Sunday.
Christians in the title, of course, referred to Christians in the UK. The programme looked at cases of Christians being suspended or sacked for offering to pray, wearing Christian symbols or talking about God at work. For 99.9% of its time, it seemed to be trying not to express an opinion of its own: but some of the people interviewed had some interesting views.
"Rights," said Britain's Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, "are a good thing. They arose really in England in the 17th century. . .
"The major question was how can people of strongly conflicting religious beliefs live peaceably together. People stopped saying 'Religious faith is supremely important, therefore everyone should have my religious faith' to saying 'Religious faith is supremely important and therefore everyone should have the right to the faith that they in conscience believe,' and with that one simple move religion turned into a friend of liberty instead of being its enemy.
"That's why it becomes ironic when rights themselves become a threat to religious liberty."
Said the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, referring to religion and secular ideology: "One way in which to understand the tensions around equality legislation is not to think that one is a matter of doctrine and the other isn't.
"Secularism is a doctrine and it can be as forceful and it can be as narrow minded as the worst of a doctrinaire Christian position."
Professor Roger Trigg, of Oxford University, commenting on the case of the Christian registrar at Islington Council who got into trouble for asking not to conduct same-sex civil partnerships, had this to offer: "Principle wise, they were against discrimination, but they were against discrimination of people on grounds of their sexual orientation.
"They weren't, it seems, very concerned about discrimination on grounds of religion. And yet that is just as crucial. It seemed to me in that case there is a balance between two different things; but they didn't see it that way, they just only saw discrimination on one side.
"There is a kind of view among some people that would say if you don't like it, you are free to give up your profession: you must do as you are told.
"I think that kind of overriding of deep feelings of conscience is very dangerous. Indeed I think democracy depends on these deep feelings of conscience; if people actually in democracy are not acting basically in accordance with what they believe is right, it all just becomes a power struggle between people of different ideas, with no idea that anybody is acting for the common good. And that will destroy it."
In the closing seconds of the programme came the programme's verdict: "So, are Christians being persecuted? No, they are not being tortured and killed, like Christians in Pakistan and the Sudan. But a minority believe they are being sidelined and victimised. By the standards of a liberal society, that can feel like persecution."
Some people would think differently.
Conservative Party leader David Cameron said recently that schools should teach children that homosexuality is normal and that homosexual civil partnerships have as much value as marriage. In an interview with a homosexual magazine, he is recorded as saying that "our Lord Jesus" would back equality and homosexual rights if he were alive.
Apart from the fact that the first chapter of Romans makes it clear that to indulge in homosexual practice is to exchange the normal use for that which is against nature, someone should tell David Cameron that Jesus is alive.
There must be a lot of people who would claim to be Christians who don't believe that Jesus is alive - yet both Christ's crucifixion and Christ's resurrection are basic and essential to the Christian faith.
Now going around saying that Jesus is alive won't make you popular. People will say that you're crazy, that you've gone over the top, that you're taking your faith too seriously. They will try all sorts of ways to explain away Christ's resurrection, although there will still be one thing they won't be able to account for: the fact that the tomb was empty.
The apostle Paul went everywhere preaching that God had raised Jesus from the dead. He explained to the Roman governor Festus that Jesus was alive. "Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?" he asked King Agrippa (Acts 26:8). Why? Because it's important.
"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus," says Rom 10:9, "and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Better to be saved than to be lost.
Examine the evidence. Recognise that Jesus is alive. Ask Him into your heart and let His love change your life. You won't regret it. Ever.
One English translation of the Bible says that in the days of His flesh, Jesus "offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety" (Heb 5:7). "Because of his piety" doesn't convey a great deal.
I am grateful to Derek Prince for pointing out something that I had not noticed. That phrase in the New International Version of the Bible is translated "because of his reverent submission."
Picture Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He knew what was going to happen the following day. Did He want to be crucified? He did not. He prayed if it were possible for that ordeal to be taken from Him. But then He prayed "Nevertheless not my will, but yours, be done." Reverent submission means that if my will and God's will conflict, God's will takes precedence.
Jesus didn't have to go to the cross. He told Peter "Do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels?" But He was submitted to His Father's will.
His disciples would not have understood at that time. They would have expected deliverance for Jesus, not death. Sometimes God fails to answer our prayer because He has something better.
So it was here. God ignored the first part of Christ's prayer in the garden because He had something better. He was prepared to sacrifice His Son so that He could have millions more sons and daughters in His family. And Jesus was willing to be sacrificed.
He died that I might live. What sort of love is that?
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.
