Because He lives. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What a day! What a prospect!

History's greatest victory

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

He told the serpent:

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

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

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

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

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

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

If they did, they were going to be disappointed.

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

The man who wanted to fly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A right to kill? Read this and weep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It really is enough to make you weep.

A romance that went on and on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More details of their story here.

Tackling teen sex problems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does abortion law discriminate against disabled unborn?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saeed Abedini: 'in chains for the Gospel'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can read the whole letter on video here.

Tell a big enough lie often enough. . .

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

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

Except that Israel isn't an apartheid state.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So why is Israel called an apartheid state?

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

'Waiting for Jesus'

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

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

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

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

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

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

She died of peritonitis at 42 years old.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is atheism reasonable?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can see a report of the debate here.

Fried chicken, anyone?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He died in 1980, aged 90.

'Ten times error' in abortion figures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eighty years married

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

So time to mention a few positive things about marriage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth stood on its head

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Remembering six million dead

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Never again?

Same-sex marriage: the battle intensifies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So may Your Kingdom come and Your name be hallowed.

Amen.

Christianity 'the world's most persecuted religion'

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

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

So wrote Rupert Shortt in the Telegraph.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can read the 41-page report here.

Letters from an Iranian prison

Saeed Abedini, recruited in high school in Iran by a radical Muslim group, was being trained as a suicide bomber. The more he tried to be a devout Muslim and the more he went into training, the more depressed he became.

When he was 20 years old, he was converted to Christ. He loved evangelism, and became a leader in the house church movement. In 2005, he moved to the US, where he and his wife are now US citizens.

On a vist to Iran in 2009, he was arrested and threatened with death for having converted to Christianity. He was released, his wife says. after signing a written agreement that he would not be charged and would be allowed to visit Iran provided he gave up house church activities.

Saeed, now 32 and the father of two young children, was on a visit to Iran last year to visit family and help build an orphanage, which had no religious affiliation. He was taken off a bus by Revolutionary Guards, subjected to "intense interrogation" and placed under house arrest.

In September he was transferred to Teheran's notorious Evin Prison, placed in solitary confinement and reportedly badly beaten by guards. Transferred to a communal cell, he was severely beaten by fellow prisoners who claimed to belong to al Qaeda.

In a letter, Saeed wrote:

Prison is a test of faith. I was always worried that the storms of this life would break the ship of faith, but when you stand in the steadfast ship of faith, the storms are like a nice breeze. Nothing can break the ship of faith. These walls have created more fervor for me to love others through sharing the Gospel, but more than that, the walls have deepened my love for my Savior. I feel the prayers of all who are praying for me.

In a letter brought out of prison by relatives, he says:

When I think that all of these trials and persecutions are being recorded in heaven for me, my heart is filled with complete joy. . . 

I always wanted God to make me a godly man. I did not realise that in order to become a godly man we need to become like steel under pressure. It is a hard process of warm and cold to make steel. The process in my life today is one day I was told I will be freed on bail to see my family and kids on Christmas (They are all lies) and the next I am told I will hang for my faith in Jesus. One day there are intense pains after beatings in interrogations, the next day they are nice to you and offer you candy. . . this is where you learn you can love your enemies with all of your heart. . .

I am looking forward to the day to see all of you who are behind me with your prayers. . . 

Saeed is due to appear before a court today charged with "actions against the national security of Iran," a charge which can lead to a long period of imprisonment or possibly the death penalty.

Christian authorities in the US have appealed for prayer.

Not much help for UK Christians in Europe

UK Christians didn't find much help at the European Court of Human Rights yesterday.

Lillian Ladele, a registrar, was disciplined by Islington Council for asking to be excused from conducting same-sex civil partnership ceremonies on the grounds of religious conviction. She lost her claim for discrimination on the basis of freedom of conscience and religious belief.

Gary McFarlane, a Relate marriage counsellor dismissed for gross misconduct after suggesting he might not be able to counsel same-sex couples because of his Christian faith, also lost his claim.

Nadia Eweida, a British Airways check-in clerk sent home by her employers after refusing to remove a necklace with a small cross, won her case. The court ruled the UK had failed to protect her freedom to manifest her faith in the workplace.

The judges said that manifesting religion was a fundamental right. This was because "a healthy democratic society needs to tolerate and sustain pluralism and diversity, but also because of the value to an individual who has made religion a central tenet of his or her life to be able to communicate that belief to others."

Shirley Chaplin, a nurse ordered by her hospital to remove a small cross on a chain she had worn for some 30 years, lost a similar claim. The judges said the hospital should be able to refuse permission to wear a cross on health and safety grounds.

The Telegraph said in an editorial: "Instead of the application of a little common sense, we have seen protracted and costly legal action, followed by a judgment that severely curtails people's rights to manifest their faith at work. This is part of a wider trend to nudge religion to the margins of society. People of faith are depicted as being not part of the mainstream, as being quirky and different.

"We are not only a Christian country, we are a tolerant one - but it seems the new secularism has no room for toleration."

Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute, said "What this shows is that Christians with traditional beliefs about marriage are at risk of being left out in the cold. If the Government steamrollers ahead with its plans to redefine marriage, then hundreds of thousands of people could be thrown out of their jobs unless they agree to endorse gay marriage."

Turtle Bay and Beyond, a blog covering international law, said it was not proportionate to dismiss an employee when he could have been accommodated in other positions or tasks. The refusal to accommodate the applicants was merely an ideological sanction meaning that, as a question of principle, there was no room on the staff for "intolerant Christians."

Canon Chris Sugden, of Anglican Mainstream, said homosexual rights were stifling the rights of people to live lives of faith openly. "Human rights were introduced to protect minorities but not to give them supervening rights over the rest of society. Gay rights have now become a separate privilege and a specially protected group of rights which trump all others, including freedom of conscientious objection and to hold religious conviction without fear of discrimination."

Dr Dave Landrum, of the Evangelical Alliance, said "Christianity is not about a set of rules, but a God that brings people into a new life of freedom. This new life is then lived out 24-7, and cannot ever be restricted to just our private lives.

"If UK courts are going to protect religious freedom more fully in the future they need to better understand the nature of Christian belief. . . We need solutions that will allow for the reasonable accommodation of the expression of religious belief."

Do Christians have human rights too?

Yesterday I wrote on this blog about Open Doors' World Watch List of countries where the persecution of Christians is the most severe.

A blogger at God and Politics in the UK decided to investigate how much the British Government paid to those countries in international aid. The UK Department for International Development website shows that in a year £146million was paid, for instance, to Afghanistan, £101million to Somalia, £162million to Nigeria, £212million to Pakistan, £324million to Ethiopia, £139million to Tanzania and £284million to India. All those countries appear on the list.

The writer says that the UK Government has the potential to exert huge pressure on some of these countries over the persecution of Christians if it chose to do so.

On the occasion of a conference promoting the right to freedom of religion or belief for all, the UK Government said: "Promoting the right of freedom of religion or belief is a key human rights priority for the British Government. Freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief is one of the fundamental freedoms that underpins other human rights and is a key building block of any democracy."

Some months ago it was reported that Prime Minister David Cameron had threatened to withhold UK aid from governments which continued to ban homosexuality. He said those receiving UK aid should "adhere to proper human rights" and that "British aid should have more strings attached."

I am not personally aware of any similar threat with regard to the treatment of Christians. Are Christians of less worth than homosexuals?

I have written to Mr Cameron as follows:

The Rt Hon David Cameron MP,
10 Downing Street,
London SW1A 2AA

Dear Prime Minister,

Some months ago you were reported as having threatened to withhold UK aid from governments which continued to ban homosexuality, saying that those receiving UK aid should adhere to proper human rights and that British aid should have more strings attached.

Countries like Somalia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Tanzania and India, all of them recipients of generous UK aid, are also countries where Christians are severely persecuted.

Would you please use your good offices to alleviate the severe persecution of Christians in these lands?

Yours sincerely,

Would you like to write to Mr Cameron too? His address is above. Trying to write to him by e-mail is not recommended.

Where Christians are dying for their faith

Open Doors has published its annual World Watch List of the 50 countries where the persecution of Christians is most severe.

For the 11th successive year, North Korea tops the list as the most difficult place to be a Christian. In North Korea, Christians face arrest, detention, torture and public execution. One prison camp alone reportedly holds 6,000 Christians. Despite severe oppression, there is a growing underground church movement of an estimated 400,000 Christian believers.

Second is Saudi Arabia, where conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by death. Evangelising Muslims and distributing non-Muslim materials are illegal. Public Christian worship is forbidden. Worshippers risk imprisonment, lashing, torture and deportation.

Third is Afghanistan, where there are no church buildings, even for expatriates, and gatherings in private houses require extreme caution. Both foreign and local Christians are subject to kidnapping, abduction, killing and having to flee the country.

Persecution of  Christians generally has increased during 2012, most dramatically in Africa. Violence in Mali increased after a coup in March. Christians are being killed by the Islamist organisation Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Islamism has increased in every country that experienced the Arab Spring, with massively increased pressure on Christians in the Middle East and North Africa. Tens of thousands of Christians have fled Syria in recent months.

Western governments need to be reminded of their responsibility to stand up against religious persecution in other countries. Christians should pray for persecuted believers - and seriously consider giving financial help to organisations providing aid for the persecuted.

Making up the 20 at the top of the list with North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are Iraq, Somalia, Maldives, Mali, Iran, Yemen, Eritrea, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, Libya, Laos, Turkmenistan and Qatar.

You can see the list, and details of how the placings are arrived at, here.

Questions that demand answers

The oldest man in Britain died in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, last week. He was 110 years old.

Rev Reg Dean was born in Tunstall, Staffordshire, in 1902. He was ordained to the Church of England ministry as a young man, and was a Church of England minister and later a minister in the United Reformed Church until he was 80. At 80 he took up painting, and in his mid-eighties founded an award-winning male voice choir.

He had been married three times.

In World War II he was an Army chaplain in Burma. He told his son that at one point he was surrounded by Japanese. They taunted him, shouting "Johnny, we will come and kill you tomorrow." He spent the evening in prayer. The following morning, all the Japanese had disappeared.

In 2011, speaking (at his 109th birthday party?) to an audience of elderly people, he told them: "There are three questions you must learn to try to answer. One is 'Who am I?' Two is 'Why am I here?' And three is 'Where am I going?'

Spot on. Those are questions that plague all of us at one time or another. Those questions do have answers. It's so important before you go right through life and tumble into eternity that you're sure you've found them.