There was a sad little piece in The Scottsman yesterday (9 December) concerning a 7-year standoff by a group of four parishioners in Shropshire over a redundant church building. They have been given an ultimatum by the diocese to hand over the keys or be taken to court.
Oh that the church would put the same passion into advancing the Kingdom of God as it does into wrangles over old buildings and the like. When we stand before him, I don’t believe he will ask us about bricks and mortar or whether we were ‘right’. He may well ask us if we did as he told us through – “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations”.
eTA Canada
The Sun Newspaper (9 December) has started a campaign to save Christmas from “politically correct meddling”. Nativity scenes are banned from official cards, decorations cannot be put up […]
The murder of the film-maker, Theo van Gogh on 2 November was a tragedy on several levels. There is the obvious tragedy of loss to his family and […]
Anjem Choudary, a spokesman for Al-Muhajiroun, an extreme Islamicist group, told a press conference that a Muslim flag would fly over Downing Street and that the 9/11 attacks […]
Ake Green, the pastor of a Swedish Pentecostal church in Kalmar, Sweden, has been sentenced to one month in prison by a Swedish court, for inciting hatred against homosexuals under the Swedish “hate crimes” law passed last year.
Green was prosecuted in January for “hate speech against homosexuals” for a sermon he preached last summer where he quoted Biblical references to homosexuality. The prosecutor in the case, Kjell Yngvesson, justified the arrest of a pastor in the church newspaper Kyrkans Tidning. (5 July 2004)
Many western countries are passing similiar legislation to this and this case may only be a foretaste of what is to come. The Bible’s moral teaching is coming under pressure. Are we ready to stand up for truth and at the same time love others as Jesus loved them?
Wake Up
Jesus said, “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.” Many things in our society show that the times are changing. The easy life the church has been used to may not last long.
This blog is a wake up call to the church….
