What's Wrong About Being.....

 

From a Biblical, Christian, view-point,  what's wrong about being.....

Gay? - here's a list.....

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Trans? - here's a list.....

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Hetero? - here's a list.....

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What?  No lists, from a Biblical point of view?  We are always hearing lots about what the Bible says about stuff, and and often in a very direct way.  Please stay with it for a moment.

What's wrong about being.....

Disabled? - here's a list.....

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Black? - here's a list.....

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Brown? - here's a list.....

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White? - here's a list.....

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etc... etc... etc...

Are you getting the drift yet?  You wouldn't expect that there would be a list of things wrong about a person being Disabled, or Black, or Brown or White or any other colour. Why?  The answer is simple - that's the way they were born, or perhaps in the case of someone who is Disabled, something that happened to them later on.

The Bible, right at the beginning, tells how creation went wrong.  It tells how it then continued to go wrong, and how the whole of creation, which includes every living thing, including Humans, went wrong:  it is broken.

How we are as Humans is a result of creation being broken.  BUT.....How we act, and the things we do, these are in our hands, they are the responsibility of no-one but ourselves.

For instance, whether we are Kind, or Cruel; Loving or Hateful; Honest or a Liar, a Giver or a Thief, a Healer or a Murderer, etc., is in our hands and is our responsibility.

[An aside..... People who suffer from Mental Illness, and have, perhaps, diminished control over what they do or say are, of course a different consideration.]

So, in the Bible there is no condemnation about how we feel, although the Bible does encourage good and pure thinking,  but what we do with our feelings, how we act, because that is our responsibility, and this is what the Bible teaches us about living.   

There are, of course, numerous things the Bible says we shouldn't do: Stealing, being Cruel, Lying, Murder, Hating, giving in to Temptation, etc., and numerous things that we should do, BUT, what the Bible doesn't say is that it is wrong to be Gay, any more than it is wrong to be Hetero,  or it is wrong to have different coloured skin compared to someone else.

What the Bible does say however, whether your feelings are Straight or Gay, is not to be Sexually Immoral:

*For a Straight Hetero person this means waiting until you are married before you have sexual relations.  

*For a Gay person this means not having sexual relations with a person of the same sex.  

Of course this has, and does, and will undoubtable continue to be, a cause of great debate.  But if a person professes Christian Faith, and to be a follower of Jesus, there are biblical rules to follow, and the Bible is clear about what those rules are.

Following those rules can be hard, but Christians look to, and depend upon, the Lord to be able to guide their thoughts and behaviour and not to depend on themselves.  Of course, you may not be a Christian, or a follower of Jesus.  You might, therefore, consider these rules of behaviour in the Bible do not apply to you.  But they do.

Thoughts on the parable of the Talents [Matthew chap. 25 v14-30]

God’s power at work in our world, to defeat evil, will only be seen where God’s people, in whom He has invested His power through His Spirit, are at work in the world.  God hasn’t filled us with His Spirit, raised us up as an army, dressed us in the full armour of God, to have us sit on the side-lines while He does the job himself. 

 We are the means by which God is at work in our world. We are lights in dark places.  We are Salt. If we are not seeing God in action in our World, Our Countries, our Cities, our Towns, our Villages, our Neighbourhoods and our Communities, it is because God’s people are not at work.  As long as we sit on our backsides doing nothing, nothing is what we will see being done.

 If you think being a Christian is solely about going to church regularly, about performing your religion to the satisfaction of yourself and others, about quoting scripture to impress with your knowledge and as a result, feeling pleased with yourself, then you are like the servant to whom the master of the house gave the one Talent.

 It is only when we move out in real prayer, in real power, in real action and in real Love, that God will be seen to be at work, and will be at work through His people, who are at work. It is, of course, essential to be in God's power and that the action is what God wants.

 If we are to come against the dark tide we need to know God's power is stronger than our feeble efforts, like David’s battle against Goliath.  The Philistine Champion had been taunting Israel’s troops for 40 days.  Then David comes on the battlefield and challenges the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.  This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.  All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”  Take special note of what David says. ‘I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty’. 

 If we fail in this, we will continue to feel powerless, helpless, frustrated, discouraged and impotent to do anything against the dark tide of evil which has already engulfed so much of the world around us, the World we live in. 

 It is to us the question will be asked, ‘What have you done with what you were given’.

 
[The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for Good Men and Women to do nothing ~ Anon, but attributed to Edmund Burke]

Our Relationship with God

 The power of our relationship with God, as our Father and our Sovereign Lord, is not based on our feelings at any particular moment, nor is it proportional to whether we’ve had a ‘good’ service in church, nor a ‘good’ quiet time, nor a ‘good’ worship time, nor how much we are ‘doing’.

 The Power of our relationship with God is based on fact: undeniable fact, unarguable fact, that through Christ we are Children of God: not that we shall be, nor that we were, but are not any more, but ARE, both now and forever.

 To return to our feelings: a Soldier is still a soldier, whether in the front line fighting, or in training in boot camp. That soldier is always, at any moment, likely to be flung into battle. The Christian ‘soldier’ is always on the front-line of the Spiritual Battle, whatever the current state of the battle may ‘appear’ to be, or whatever our ‘feelings’ are.  Feelings and emotions ebb & flow, but our relationship with God our Father is unmoving, solid, and totally dependable.

 When all appears quiet, or there does not appear to be much happening in our particular strategic placement, we must not allow ourselves to think that nothing is happening.  We must always live all out in the reality that, our relationship with God does not depend solely upon what we are ‘doing’ or what we are ‘feeling’ or what we ‘see’ around us.

We ARE Children of God, both now and forever.

Why we stopped, ‘going to church’.

Before we talk about stopping going to church, it’s useful to add context about how we started going to church in the first place.

Jan’s Intro..... 

I was brought up in a Christian family going to a Brethren church, in fact it wasn’t called a church but an ‘assembly’.  There were three services on a Sunday; Breaking of Bread (communion) back home for lunch then, Sunday School in the afternoon, back home for tea and then the evening, Gospel Service, where it was hoped people who were not Christians would be there to have ‘the Gospel’ preached to them.  Of course, there were also meetings during the week; Bible studies, Ladies meetings, Prayer meetings and often, on a Saturday, Missionary Meetings where a person who had been abroad would come and tell their story with photos, film etc.  So I grew up with this being the normal thing to do.

I became a Christian when I was five, through a Baptist Church minister at Christmas, but I had always felt the presence of the Lord in my life before then – going to church was just what you did to be with other Christians. I didn’t feel any closer to God if I was in a ‘church’ building.

During my teenage years I joined a home Bible study (run by a couple who attended the Assembly) and also went to other Brethren meetings in the area I lived in.  The Bible study was where I met Dave, my husband, but the study also helped my faith.

Dave’s Intro..... 

I went to church for the first time aged 5 yrs old.  My Aunt decided this would be good for me.  It was many years later that I learned she was actually my Godmother! The only thing I remember about that church visit was getting a picture card of a blond blue eyed Jesus. I remember being unimpressed and never went again.  

When I was 7yrs old my Parents separated and we moved around quite a bit.  Then at 18yrs old. a friend persuaded me to go to the 1966 Billy Graham event in London, and I became a Christian.  I started going to my friend’s church for a few weeks, but didn’t own a suit, felt out of place and quit.  It took another year to re-engage with the whole ‘going to church’ thing, via a young peoples’ Bible study group in the home of a truly wonderful couple.  It was also where Jan and I met, which was an added incentive.

I (Dave) had joined a Team of Christians who ran a Christian Coffee Bar in a small Essex Village.   The Coffee Bar was a meeting place for local teenagers/twenty somethings and Christians would meet with them and chat about their faith.  I (Jan)  went along to be with Dave and also got involved.  It was then that, on meeting other Christians who had different ways of expressing their faith, I began to see that there was more that the Lord had for me.

So, What Happened Next?.....

During the next few years after we got married, we realized that there was so much more to Christian life than ‘just going to church’ – the Holy Spirit moved on so many people at this time, including us, and this led to feeling called to full time Christian work and Bible College.  Big physical changes led to further spiritual changes and at the Bible College we met and fellowshipped with people from all over the world – different types of worship and experience led by the staff who also shared their faith in different ways from different churches.

During the following years, God led us to many places and involvement in many different churches, and when we moved to Wirral [Merseyside] in 1988, we joined a local Evangelical Church. Over the next 11 years we were involved in Sunday School teaching, Worship Band and Worship Leading, Deaconate, Home Group Leadership.  Everything except Eldership.  

Then the fellowship’s pastor retired and the church went through horrendous leadership upheavals.  God kept telling us to stay, and we were often caught in the middle of things as we wouldn’t take sides.  After the final upheaval, which saw the new Pastor of just one year, sacked, God said it was time to go.  We left but didn’t realise, nor could we have possibly imagined, how this would lead to us not being a member of a particular building-based church,  but to being simply a member of, The Church.

We did initially join a new fellowship (house style), but it didn’t last as the leader moved away to the NE and it folded.

Then an unexpected thing happened.  In January 2001, when we found ourselves without a fellowship to attend, God said to us, very clearly, not to join another church. WHAT!?  REALLY!?

A Different Journey

However, for the next two years we continued to try to join another church as that was what we still felt Christians did, but the experiences we had all pointed to us ‘not attending a building church’ but meeting with Christians and non Christians where ever they were. 

It took us those 2 years to really believe this was what God wanted, and during that time numerous things happened to show us this really was what God wanted, including Jan once being asked to leave a Cathedral.  

I (Jan) was in a town and bought a Big Issue Magazine from a street vendor then went into the Cathedral.  I popped into the loo and when I came out into a side part of the place it looked empty of other people.  The organ was playing and I stood for a moment enjoying the music when a man appeared (maybe an usher or sides person) to tell me in no uncertain terms I couldn’t stand there and would have to leave!  I had no idea what he was talking about as the Cathedral was open to the public all day.  

Suffice to say he got quite nasty when I questioned why I had to leave – he got very close and angry saying it was an organ recital and people had paid money for seats – everyone else had to leave.  To avoid further unpleasantness I left, puzzled at this behavior.  Outside I found crowds of people who had also been sent out – one group from Italy who had come to pray in the Cathedral!  I was more than upset for everyone and walked off down the road with tears in my eyes asking the Lord what was this all about.  

I got out my street map to get to my next stop, and then the Big Issue seller was suddenly there asking if I needed any help (the difference in attitude was very healing).  He was so helpful and as I was standing talking to him on the street corner I felt the Lord’s Presence around me and the Lord said, ‘This is where I want you, on the street, where people are’.  I realized finally that the Lord really wanted us to share our faith in the places He took us to, meeting inside and outside buildings of all sorts where ever He wanted us to be.  

Two or three similar things happened to one or the other of us during this times Including both of us being, not exactly welcomed, by an individual at another Cathedral.  

Suffice to say we eventually got the message!

Being, Church where there is no Church.  

This was the start of a very different mindset for us and quite a different life – yes we still meet with Christian friends, yes we may sometimes attend a service in a building but we know that wherever we are, we are part of the Body of Jesus, ‘The Church’. 

At a meeting with friends, a Prophetic word was given to us, which re-emphasized  that we were to be, ‘Church where there is no Church’.  This, of course, applies to the whole Body of Christ, whether you attend a building or not.  We are meant to reach people who may never enter a building for whatever reason. In other words, take Church into the Community.  

After 23 years living in Birkenhead. God led us to New Brighton, where we had the bright idea of holding informal Bible related meetings in our flat.  God simply said, ‘Nah’, and then we quickly became involved, without really trying (God again!) in the local community as: Beach Rubbish Pickers, Part-time Pirates and a number of other community related things including Jan’s photography.  This gave us the chances to pray with people who would never pass a conventional church threshold and to simply be there for folks.  It has been an interesting journey, and is not over yet!

At this point it would be a good idea to talk about ‘church’ and ‘Church’ in a little more depth.

Church and church

As a word, ‘church’, can mean a great deal of things to many people. To some it is a physical place where they meet with others, during the week and particularly on  Sundays, to corporately take part in acts of worship and fellowship. 

To others, ‘church’, is a complete mystery and plays no part whatsoever in their daily lives or thinking.

In a Christian context, ‘church’ is neither of the above. Rather it is, or should be, ‘Church’ (note the capital letter) which is the name given to those who follow Jesus Christ, and have become, ‘born again’ (and there’s another abused phrase!).  Church is NOT a place, it is NOT a building, it IS a people. That is the true biblical meaning of the word, and once we accept that, it radically alters how we think about, and what we think of as, ‘church’.

No longer can we say, we are, ‘going to church’, and mean a building; or, ‘what church do you belong to?’, and mean anything other than the complete Body of Christian Believers.

We can begin to view the physical infrastructure of ‘church’; the meetings, the endless ‘activities’, and the politics, as being what they really are – a Man-Made deception and a diversion from the true calling of, The Church. That calling? To go into all the world and spread the good news of the Gospel of Christ.

Concerning how the Church should be, James Thwaites, in his book, ‘The Church Beyond the Congregation’, puts it like this:

“It is (this) concentration of 98% of the ministry gifts in and around congregational settings that sets the agenda….. We need to look beyond the local church community to see the eternal purpose towards which they are all meant to be working. These things are not given to just build the church localised and organised; they are given to build the church as the fullness of him who fills all in all. That Church exists in marriage, family and work. It cannot live and bear the fruit that God intends within programmes, buildings and meetings. The Church gathered must ultimately exist to equip and resource the body of Christ with a view to the saints coming into their fullness in, through and over the ‘all things’ of creation. It simply cannot be the other way around. "

[© 1999 Paternoster Press]

Jesus didn’t die on a cross to give us ‘religious meetings’, nor to create a Christian (using the term loosely) commercial sub-cultural ghetto where we idle our lives away amusing each other, preaching to the converted, and encouraging each other to, ‘be blessed’ , or to ,‘have faith and be rich and healthy’. We are not called to be busking by the queue for Hell. Rather we are called to be pulling people out of that queue.

But we need to clear our vision. We need to re-discover (or perhaps discover for the first time) what, The Church, is really all about, new ways of being Salt and Light to a dark and dying world, new ways of worshipping and serving God. We are tired of having our minds moulded by dead orthodoxy and false, Man-made Religion. We want to free our minds through being living sacrifices, which is our real worship (The Bible-Romans chapter 12).

We are strangers in a strange land; passing through on a journey to that celestial city. We should stop living as though our calling is to be ‘something’ in this world, to put down roots and take up permanent residence. Let’s regain our focus, re-commit our lives to following Christ and spreading the word.

Jesus died to set us free, not imprison the Good News behind bricks and mortar, being suffocated by Man-Made Religion.

[Dave & Jan Peddie(c)2020]

What is Truth?

Watching a recent Mark Kermode series about cinema and films, he got to the episode about Spy films.  In his introduction, he used the phrase, ‘... in this, post-truth world...’.  An interesting phrase, which struck me as more significant than perhaps initially perceived.  A phrase which genuinely raises the question: are we now living in a ‘post-truth’ world?

Of course, the deliberate laying aside of ‘Truth’, is not a recent phenomena.  Another well know phrase, ‘The first casualty of War is Truth’, would indicate that for long as there has been war, there will have been the casualty of Truth.  And of course, there has been ‘war’ for as long as humans have lived on this world.

So, I was left questioning why that phrase, ‘... in this, post-truth world...’, seemed to resonate so deeply.

Firstly we need to ask ourselves, ‘what is Truth?’  a phrase that will ring some bells as it’s a question that occurs in the Bible (John’s Gospel, Chapter 18 verses 37-38).  Jesus has been arraigned before Pontius Pilate.   ‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate.  Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’  ‘What is truth?’ retorted Pilate.

So, some 2000 years ago that deepest of questions was asked.  What is Truth?  It remains a formidable and heart-searching question to this day.

Members of the Flat Earth Society fervently believe that the Earth is, well, flat.  Conspiracy theorists may believe that the Apollo Moon landings were put together in a film studio for American propaganda house points.  There are those who insist the 2nd World War Holocaust never happened, but the Loch Ness Monster is real.  Indeed the list is almost endless.  It can equally be said that, one person’s Truth, is another person’s Lie.

So, where does that leave us in the 21st century, currently in the grip of a world-wide viral pandemic called COVID-19 [aka Coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2] - or are we?

In the last 25 years, with the growth of on-line communications, be it via email, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, TikTok, Skype, Facetime, Zoom etc., etc., we have a communication situation which is unprecedented in human history,  where anyone with a Computer, Tablet or Smartphone has the ability to ‘talk’ to the rest of the World.  Just think about that for a moment.  At the end of WWII in 1945, the only way you knew this had happened was via Radio, Newspapers and Newsreels in cinemas.  And it was only a one-way communication.  And you had to trust what you heard because that was the only information source.
Leaping back to the modern day, we now have the newly named phenomenon of, ‘Fake News’, not just from one or two sources, but from Millions of sources.  Fake News/Information is now used for a myriad things:  Scams, Propaganda, Ego-boosting, Influencing, Deceit, Misguidance, and general misdirection.

So then, how does anyone know, ‘What Is Truth?’.

There are two fundamental approaches to the question:
1 - Assume everything is not true, until proven otherwise, or
2 - Assume everything is true, until proven otherwise.

The former is, in some senses, the safest route.  It will always protect you, but in the process you stand a good chance of missing some potentially valuable and important piece of information.

The latter will ensure you hear every bit of news that comes your way, but leaves you potentially very vulnerable.

Sadly there is no single answer.  No-one can possible know the veracity of every single piece of information that comes their way.   So this is where the old fashioned attribute called, ‘Wisdom’, comes in.  Combine this was the well known Bon Mot, ‘If it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is’, and you will be on your way to not getting sucked, or suckered, in but some scam or other deceit.

Does this therefore mean we really are living in a Post-Truth world.  No it doesn’t,  Truth does exist, it just takes, in many cases, some time to filter the good from the bad, the dust from the specs of real Gold, the honest from the dishonest.  It can be a tough task, a lifelong task, and sometimes a heart-breaking task.

Pontius Pilate had the Son of God, Jesus, standing in front of him, and didn’t know what was truth. He made the wrong decision.  Be careful that you don’t, perhaps, make the wrong decision.

But They're Not Like Us

There has always been an attitude within certain sectors of Society, both Globally, Nationally and Locally, that if someone is different to, 'me', there must be something wrong with, 'them'.

Down through human history this has led to conflicts, sometimes terrible conflicts, resulting in massive loss of life.

These differences can arise for a number of reasons: place of birth, colour of skin, the language spoken, different beliefs, different philosophies, etc.  The list is almost endless.  The saddest incidents of these 'differences' arises within the very arena where they should be rarest:  the arena of Christian belief.  Let me explain.  

Christianity, as a faith-based system, is rooted in the Holy Bible, a Book of books:  actually 66 books in all, telling the story of creation, the stories of God's and Creation's interaction through Millennia which lead to the Ultimate interaction, that of God sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the redemption of a broken creation having turned bad as personified in the Human Race.

From the moment that the first humans disobeyed God, and Sin entered the world, it has infected our Humanity, our very DNA, and there has been conflict.  Even, sadly, where the two Sons of those first humans had a conflict, and one Son killed the other.

That first act of, free-will rooted disobedience, resulted in the whole of creation being broken, from that moment.  And it is this broken creation, in which we all live, which causes all the conflict we see every day.  And it is this broken creation which seems to be constantly over-looked when we come to consider all our conflict initiating differences, and none more tragic than how we treat each other.

OK, so now we come to the core of this article.  How we Christians, view, respond to, and treat those we find are different to ourselves.  How the, 'Me' is different to the, 'Them’, particularly, in the 21st Century, how we view certain groups of, 'Them', the ‘Others’.

One of the favourite targets, and there are others, of certain Christian groups are members of the LGBT+ community.  An example being the Westboro Baptist church in America, one of whose favourite placards proclaims, 'God Hates Fags'. This church also targets many other groups, as well as other churches.  It really is a hate group.  Sadly though, their hate-filled rhetoric and messages towards the LGBT+ community, in particular, seems to have influenced many churches, and many  Christians groups.  But of course, this hatred towards, ‘Others’, this ‘otherness’ is not new.

So lets start with the question: Does God Hate People?

Being part of a broken creation, we are all born into a sinful world.  Sin lives in us all, and it is who we are.  And it is this Sin, this terrible disease if you like, that fills us and leads us to do sinful things.  And that is what God hates.  And the only way to deal with this disease of Sin that consumes us was to offer his Son as a sacrifice, which is what happened when Christ was hung on a cross to die more then 2000 years ago.  And all this happened because God Loves us and wants us to be free of the disease of the Sin he hates.  He did it not because he hates us, but because he hates what has become of us because of Sin and because he loves us and wants to rescue us from that which he hates.  God does not hate us. God loves us.

But we are still part of a broken creation, and we still do things that are wrong.  But because God loves us, and Jesus died for us on that cross, we have a pathway to be washed clean of all the horrible things that Sin can still do to us. 

You may have come across the argument used by many people to condemn people who are Trans-sexual (or Trans), Homosexual (Gays) etc. and you may often hear the argument, 'God made them Male and Female - END OF!’  But what those people forget, or have failed to understand is that, the moment Sin came in, ALL of creation,  I repeat, ALL of creation became broken.

From that point onwards everything we did, thought, said, wished for etc., became tainted.  Nothing was, or is, how it should have been, nor how it should be.

And this leads us to another very important consideration.  Not only is the whole of creation broken Spiritually, it is also broken Physically and Biologically and some of that is down to us.

In 1996, some 30 years after Rachel Carson's book, 'The Silent Spring' was published, another book was published, called, 'Our Stolen Future'. One of the outstanding things in the book was the discovery that Man-made chemical hormone changing molecules have now permeated every living person on the planet.  Even isolated and remote Northern Inuit peoples are contaminated.  This had led to, in some people, deep psychological, physiological and Biological changes.  So people may be born with bodily defects that are a direct result of these human made chemical contaminations.

So it is really no surprise that a person may be born 'Male' and yet feel they're  'Female', or vice versa.  Or they may be born with two sets of genitalia, or none.  And the list goes on.

Because we are all part of a broken creation, we should not be judging, criticising, ostracising or condemning anyone.  As Christians, or as I prefer to say, Christ Followers, we need to heed Jesus' words in the Bible: Matthew chapter 7 verses 1-3 'Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

It is humbling to acknowledge that we are all broken people, and in no position to set ourselves as judges of others.

Remember, as Christ Followers, Love Others. 

A good way to do passwords

A good friend recently had a scam scare, so needed to change her passwords. It can be a mammoth task.

The big question:  Is there an easy way to have different passwords for everything, yet at the same time still be able to remember them all?

The answer is, YES!

Here's the way it works:

1 - take a word that you will easily remember, for instance = 'coconuts'

2  - then do a standard number substitution for some of the letters (o=0, s=5) turning coconuts into,  c0c0nut5.  
[Other good general number substitutions are: i=1 and e=3 b=6]

3 -  now add a symbol to either end - $c0c0nut5$

So far so good, but that would still be the same password for everything, but here comes the clever bit.

Include the first 2 or the first 3, letters relevant to the website you are logging in to.

For Instance - Amazon.
The password is now...
(1st two letters) $c0c0nut5am$ or
(1st three letters) $c0c0nut5ama$ 
(or use the last 2 letters) $c0c0nut5on$. 

You could even go for the whole word:
 $c0c0nut5amazon$
Or even reverse the website name:
 $c0c0nut5nozama$. 

Of course, depending how your brain works this might be a step too far!

You can also add a special year. $c0c0nut5am1987$

In the same way, if it was Twitter, the password would be,
$c0c0nut5tw$, or
$c0c0nut5twi$ , or
$c0c0nut5er$ or
$c0c0nut5twitter$
etc, etc.

Imagine doing it for a phrase.  For instance  'I love ice cream', would be,
I=1
love=l0v3
ice=1c3
cream=cr3am,
which becomes (for Amazon) $1l0v31c3cr3amam$

Get the idea? Hope that helps.

PS - did you know that one of the most common words people use for a password is, 'password'.  PLEASE DON’T!

The Question Of Visibility.

I've already nailed my colours to the mast in an earlier blog - being a Biker.

Being a Biker means accepting the fact that riding two wheels is more dangerous than driving four wheels. It's just the way it is, and this is the reason I am not longer on 2 wheels.  But I believe this particular Blog is still important, which is why I have updated it.

There are ways to be safer on the road; extra training like BikeSafe Courses, is a very good way. Taking Advanced Training is another. But one of the accepted techniques, received wisdom if you like, is that by having your headlight on during day-light hours, makes you more visible and hence, safer.

I want to challenge this particular thinking because I believe, in some circumstances, it makes the situation worse.

When I started riding a Motorbike in the mid-1960's, the issue of having your headlight on during the day never arose; you didn't have it on. Nobody did.

Then there was a time when you rode with your headlight on but covered with an orange diffuser. This was the beginning of the move towards full headlights during the day. It wasn't questioned because, of course, having your headlight on means you are more visible and so, more likely to be seen, and so.... safer.

However, over the last 2 years, I have been riding a Honda Deauville, and have found that there seems to have been a rise in the number of drivers who pull out on me, particularly, from side-roads. The scale of the problem was that, on a eight miles commute to work (16 miles round) there was a 100% certainty that at least one driver would pull out on me on each leg of the trip journey. When I say 'pull out' I mean a potential collision situation, not a mere nuisance.

This came to a head in April 2010, when a woman in a white convertible pulled out on me, at a bad junction, when I was about 20 feet away. Because it was a bad junction I was going cautiously. So when this half-blind Muppet pulls out, I braked and sounded the horn. She is, by now, completely across my side of the carriageway. At the sound of the horn she visibly jumped and her eyes widen in shock as though I had been suddenly beamed down from the Enterprise. What was even more disturbing was that all the while she had been looking directly at me and my bike. But she simply had no idea that I was there. At least, as I later thought about the problem, I believe she had seen my headlight but had no idea I was as close as I was.

So, why was this? Here is my theory.

A single point of light, which is the Motorbike's headlight, makes the judgement of distance from source very difficult. For example, an experienced road-user, if seeing a car in the distance with its headlights on, has the distance between the left and right light to judge width of the approaching vehicle and therefore the spatial ability to judge distance from source reasonably accurately. This is not true for a single point of light.

Of course, I can hear you say, 'but a motorbike is not just a headlight, it's a large lump of vehicle with a person riding on it,' and of course this is correct. But it is only correct if it can be seen so that road-users can then spatially judge how far away it is because people know how big humans are and roughly how big a motorbike is. But if the headlight dazzles the road-user (even partially) they are no longer able to clearly see the bike or rider and there is then no way for the road-user to accurately spatially judge the distance between them and the motorbike.

I believe this is the problem. So to test this theory, on 6th March 2010 I started riding during daylight hours, with the headlight off. Since that time, on my regular commute, and on other trips, I have covered (to date: 27-July-10) 1025 miles and only experienced 2 pullouts as against an estimated potential 104; an approximate reduction of 98%.

I think that is very interesting.

Of course, there have been studies in America and other countries which suggest that riding with a headlight on is safer. But there never seems to have been a definitive study carried out in the UK, and road conditions and road attitudes in other countries do not translate accurately to this country. Also, headlight positioning on motorbikes is a factor concerning dazzle.

What I have found is not necessarily true for other motorbikes; I can only relate what I have discovered experientially. On these grounds I want to challenge the notion that riding a motorbike with your headlight on is always going to mean that you are going to be safer.

So, if it is not necessarily safer to ride with your headlight on, what can be done to make motorcyclists more visible? Well for one thing, it would help if other road-users learnt to improve their observation. Then the old excuse, 'Sorry mate, I didn't see you', might become a thing of the past.

Co-incidentally, the latest knee-jerk ideology within certain police forces is that bikers need to be more visible and should all wear Hi-Viz at all times.

But it doesn't matter how visible you make yourself if you don't register with other road-users.
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The Conflict of Light and Dark

Ever since the first episode of Star Wars lit up the cinema screens (that would be Star Wars iv), and audiences almost universally had a sharp intake of breath, theological controversy has dogged the heels of the saga.

I clearly recall learned Christian articles, and a few books, that were written around the time, as dismissing the concept of a ‘Force’ being made up of the ‘Light’ and the ‘Darkness’, in a constant struggle to bring a ‘Balance’, as dodgy Eastern, Yin & Yang philosophy.  Pretty much all of orthodox Christian thought dismissed Star Wars’  theological universe as un-Christian, un-biblical and, well let’s say, spiritually unhealthy.

But, as a Christian, of some 50 years at time of writing, the debate has long intrigued me.  From an early age, I have always enjoyed Sci-Fi: Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Van Vogt, John Wyndham, Star Trek, etc., the list is long and glorious, but when I became a Christian in 1966 at one of the Billy Graham meetings in London, Sci-Fi was laid aside as the Bible became my main reading. 

Later (1980) my wife and I went to Bible College, and the irony is that the intense Bible studies led me to places in the Bible along paths less trod; places rarely ventured, and verses rarely, if ever, preached upon.  And it was here, in the somewhat dusty corners of the book of Isaiah (45^th Chapter, 7^th verse) that I was effectively smacked in the face by this: 

I form the light and create darkness,

I bring prosperity and create disaster;

I, the Lord (aka God), do all these things.

I underlined the words in my Bible, knowing there was something contained within them, something extraordinary, which I couldn’t get my head round at the time, and even now, all these years later, still rocks me to the core of my faith. I tried to shut them out, but they kept coming back to challenge me, and I kept trying to ignore them.

The reason I desperately tried to ignore these words in Isaiah was because of this date, some three years earlier: Tuesday 27th December 1977, the day Star Wars was released in the UK.  Naturally, when it came to our local cinema in Essex, some time later, early 1978 I think, we (my wife and I) went to see it, and, yes, we had a sharp intake of - w0w - at the opening scene. 

Of course, the film was amazing.  Loved every moment of it.  Acknowledged the Yin & Yang philosophy, ignored it, as it went against the last 11 years of Christian teaching I had received, and got on with life, hoping the next film wouldn’t be too long in coming.

This Christian teaching (I am no theologian by the way) can loosely be summed up as follows:  the Lord God is high over all, God is good and God created everything and is in control of everything.  Evil (aka Sin, Darkness) entered the world because an Angel, Lucifer, aka The Devil, rebelled against God and he and his followers were banished to Earth from Heaven.  To sort out the resulting mess, God sent his Son, Jesus, to die for all our Sin.  All those who follow Jesus will be saved and live forever.  Yes, I know we could discuss this for a century or two, and many have and do, but let’s move on.

Indeed let’s move on, and go back to the future (another great film!), and those words in Isaiah’s book.  ‘I form the light and create darkness,  I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord (aka God), do all these things.’

Brain freeze, red alert, DEFCON 5........

As a child grows, and as they eventually make their own way in the world, they will discover for themselves what they believe to be true about everything; the world, the universe, body, mind spirit and soul. Sometimes they will naturally rebel against the core beliefs of those who raised them.  I found that, being faced with something which is in the Bible, but fundamentally shakes that core belief, leads to conflicting possibilities:  If the Bible is true, then it conflicts with everything I had been taught about everything.  So I choose to ignore that which caused this fundamental conflict.

But, as I have said, it kept on coming back over the years, and still does. 

Here then is the tough bit.  If, as Star Wars’ philosophy, which is basically rooted in Eastern Philosophy, contends, there is a ‘Force’ and that there is a ‘Darkness’ and there is a ‘Light’, and these two ‘sides’, Light and Darkness, are in constant conflict, do not those words begin to look very much like those words from the Bible’s book of Isaiah?  Are they not, indeed, saying the same thing, just under different names?

This view, if we go with it for a moment, makes a lot more sense of what we see and experience of the world around us:  the goodness balanced against the badness, The Light balanced against the Dark.  It also starts to put a different perspective on why doesn’t God simply stop all the bad things from happening?  Why?  If there is the need for a world both of Light and Darkness, in the same way that there is Day and Night, if this need is fundamentally part of the whole thing, then the significance might just blow all our home-brewed Christian theologies and philosophies clear out of the waters of our fundamental Christian belief.

There is an interesting moment in the first Matrix film.  Morpheus is confronted by Agent  Smith.

Agent Smith: “Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery.”

Maybe we are, at a deep and fundamentally level, only able to function within  a world of conflict between Light and Dark.  Is this what those shocking words in Isaiah mean?

Where then is Christian faith?  I still, in the face of this, deeply believe in Jesus as my Saviour.  I still believe there is a God, who made the Universe, and who loves me at a level I have no hope of truly understanding.  

Everything I have experienced in the last 50 years proves, deeply in my very being and soul, that God loves me.  Do I understand it all, how it all fits together and what are the deeper implications? No, and I would venture to suggest that after some 2000 years of debate and learned theological discourse, of myriad writings, of a million songs and of untold questioning, that no-one else does either. 

In the Bible, The Book of Hebrews, 11^th Chapter 1^st verse are these words - Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  

The whole chapter is about what can be done, and was done, because of faith, even when people didn’t understand what was going on and could only see darkness rather than light.

And that is what faith is really about, isn’t it?

  

What If You Reach Your 'Best Before' Date?

It was inevitable that a society, committed to killing the unborn, would turn its attention to the other end of the age spectrum and look at ways of ridding us of those who are, because of ill health or old age, an unnecessary drain on resources. Those considered well past their ..... Sell By Date.

When Nazi Germany embarked on its horrific eugenic cleansing of the Jewish and other minority races, who would have dreamt that before the century was out the UK and other European Union countries would be considering similar courses of action?

In 1967 when the UK passed a law that would effectively condemn millions of unborn children to death by abortion, a door was opened which has led the UK steadily towards legalising euthanasia.

Euthanasia: n. bringing about a gentle and easy death, particularly in the case of painful and incurable disease [Gk, eu = well; thanatos = death]

Sounds so reasonable doesn't it, almost benevolent? Well, have no doubt about it, this is no benevolent ideology, but rather a malevolent and dark course which we are on, because we are not simply talking about an individual's personal choice to end their life, but the wholesale governmental termination of certain sections of its citizens.

But first let us look back along the path.....

In July 1999, the UK Government unveiled plans that Social Workers, appointed by the courts as 'managers' will be given the right to make decisions on behalf of those no longer to make decisions for themselves. Who are those who will be thrown into the 'merciful' hands of these new breed of 'managers'? The mentally incapacitated. In extreme cases these 'managers' will have the right to decide whether to stop a patient being given food and water. In other words, they will have the right to decide whether a fellow Human Being is denied the basic requirements to sustain life; the right to murder them legally.

The scheme, dreamed up by the Lord Chancellor's Department, will, of course, by couched in legal jargon; 'extended Power of Attorney', and 'Courts of Protection' etc., etc..

Family campaigner, Dr. John Campion, commented, "There is great danger here. There is so much pressure from within the medical profession and the courts. The courts have already described giving food and water as, 'treatment', when in fact it is basic care."

Does no-one else find the irony seriously disturbing that it is certain sections of the medical profession which is pressurising for euthanasia? But should we be surprised? It was inevitable. Since the UK National Health Service is now a business, with increasing pressure to balance the books rather than cure the diseased and heal the sick, anyone who is seen as a drain on these resources; the old, the long-term incapacitated, the inconvenient, is going to be looked upon as a financial liability to be off-loaded, rather than someone in need of care.

Sadly the euthanasia movement is even further down the road in at least one other European country. In July 99, a government Bill was delivered to the Dutch lower house of parliament which proposed that doctors should have immunity from prosecution when performing euthanasia. The Dutch have tolerated 'mercy killings' for a number of years, but this Bill would remove the legal grey areas.

So just what does our medical hierarchy really think in the UK? The British Medical Association's Ethics Committee issued a report (July 1999) that states, 'artificial nutrition and hydration can be withdrawn from patients on the decision of doctors alone, and that doctors should not routinely be obliged to seek court approval before withdrawing such nutrition.

In December 1999 the government condemned any form of so-called voluntary euthanasia which deprives elderly patients of food and drink. Speaking at question time in the House of Lords, Junior Health Minister Lord Hunt of Kings Heath said any such action by NHS doctors would be "quite wrong".

In January 2000, a Private members Billl, launched by Tory MP Ann Winterton, called for a tightening of the law on euthanasia. Mrs Winterton's Medical Treatment (Prevention of Euthanasia) Bill was prompted by allegations that the NHS was denying treatment to the oldest and sickest patients in order to free beds. The objective was to make it clear to doctors that they cannot bring about the deaths of their patients either by a positive action, or by an omission, such as withholding or withdrawing life-prolonging treatment, or withdrawing food and drink for the terminally ill. The Bill received its second reading after MPs voted to close the debate by 113 votes to two, a majority of 111. In April 2000 the Bill was effectively killed off after being blocked by MP's.

The common law precedent was the Tony Bland case. Tony Bland, severely injured in the Hillsborough stadium disaster of 1989, was left in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS). He was not dying but had no cognitive ability. After a long and protracted haul through the courts by the Bland family, the final ruling from the House of Lords was that this form of murder-by-starvation was to be permitted in PVS cases such as Tony Bland's, but future cases had to be overseen by the courts.

Because of this case, the medical and legal taboo has been broken. It's now medically and legally OK for the old, the sick and the dying to be hastened on their way, whether they want it or not, by the deliberate with-holding of the basic need of nutrition and hydration - food and water to you and me.

The case of Diane Pretty, the motor neurone disease patient who went to court to seek the right to die elicited enormous public sympathy. She sadly died in May 2002 having lost her right-to-die court challenge in the European Court of Human Rights.

As in the case of abortion and all the rhetoric in 1967, which categorically said we would never have a situation of 'abortion-on-demand', we do have. It will be no different with euthanasia. In less than a generation it is quite feasible that we will be living in a society which routinely kills the old, sick and infirm on nothing more than a scrawled signature on a crumpled form.

On the 6th June 2003, the UK House of Lords gave a second reading to Lord Joffe’s "Patient Assisted Dying Bill", commomly known as, "The Voluntary Euthanasia Bill", which would have legalised Dutch-style euthanasia throughout Britain for "competent, terminally ill individuals.". Although this reading meant the Bill took one more step towards become law in the UK it eventually failed through lack of parliamentary time.

Over the ensuing few years, various attempts to clarify the law have been made. In 2009, a landmark decision was made when Debbie Purdy won the right to have the law clarifies as to whether her husband would be prosecuted if he helped her end her life in Switzerland.

full story here

Attacking the decision, Phyllis Bowman, executive officer of Right To Life, said Much as we sympathise with Ms Purdy, we are extremely concerned about the manner in which this will leave the vulnerable - that is the disabled, the sick, and the aged. Without exception, every disability rights group in the country, are completely opposed to any changing of the laws on assisted suicide and euthanasia."

full article here

We will doubtless continue to see attempts to open the door leading to legalised euthanasia in the UK, which if successful, as in the case of the Abortion Bill, will see us yet again swept away by the flood. If this does happen, and it is almost inevitable that it will, how many steps away will we be from the situation of doctors becoming executioners?

In Dec 2013, The Dean of the Faculty of Law at a Belgian University warned that laws permitting euthanasia cannot be introduced without endangering the lives and safety of patients, and that safeguards and controls introduced in any such legislation will not work.

Speaking at a press conference in Quebec, Professor Etienne Montero explained that it is difficult to maintain a strict interpretation of safeguards in a way that is consistent with the intentions of the legislator, and that once euthanasia is legalised, the boundaries of what is acceptable become wider. full article here


In November 2014, speaking in a personal capacity, Dr Kailash Chand, the deputy chair of the British Medical Association (BMA), has thrown his weight behind Lord Falconer’s private member’s bill, which would offer assisted dying to terminally ill patients who are deemed mentally capable and are likely to have less than six months to live.  He commented further that, 'A change in the law that will allow terminally ill people to be helped to end their lives is inevitable and will happen within as little as a couple of years'.  full article here

As we march inexorable towards the slippery slope of legal euthanasia, the question remains: once mutually consensual euthanasia becomes legal, how long will it be before society judges that those who no longer contribute 'worth' to the society:  the terminally ill, the disabled and the old, those who are using up precious financial resources which would better be spent elsewhere, should be 'removed'?    

Our 'Best Before' dates might be a lot closer than we would like to think.

"I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and
judgment, but I will never use it to injure or wrong them. I will not give
poison to anyone though asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a plan…
But in purity and in holiness I will guard my life and my art."
(excerpt from the Hippocratic Oath) R.I.P.

(C) David A. W. Peddie 2014

My Anosmia was a Nutty Experience

anosmia: n - loss of, or lack of, sense of smell 

It’s rather difficult to point-point exactly when my anosmic experience began. What I can say is that it was around the time our family moved from the Isle of Wight, in the UK, to Birkenhead, Wirral. Birkenhead is a town in the North-West of England, and displays most of the typical traits of that kind of environment. Higher than average cardio-pulmonary disease, crime, poverty and other inner-city afflictions.

 About 18 months after moving I began to notice that my sense of smell was diminishing, and simply put this down to the change from sea-air to city air. I also developed an intermittent nagging cough. I talked to my new GP about this. He asked where had we recently moved from, and I replied, ‘the Isle of Wight’. He suggested we should perhaps, move back there. Clearly, he was well acquainted with the local, endemic health issue of where we now lived.

 Eventually my sense of smell vanished completely. I didn't bother taking this development back to my GP. However, If we went on holiday, and we always tried to go somewhere near good surfing beaches and good sea, after a couple of days, I found my sense of smell returned. As good as new, as it were. I logically put this done to the transition from, bad air, to, good air. Because within 2 days of going home, back came the anosmia.

This was a pattern that pretty much continued over the years until, about 5 years ago, when the wonders of the British seaside no longer had any effect and my sense of smell seemed now to be permanent. But during this time, for unfathomable reasons, on odd occasions, I would wake to discover, out of the blue, my sense of smell had returned. Alas, at best, it would be for a few hours, or perhaps a day, and then it vanished again. Confusing.

Two years ago, we moved again, not far from Birkenhead, to a corner of Wirral called, New Brighton. A seaside resort which, over the previous 30 years, had fallen on hard times, as many UK seaside resorts had done. It had though, had an investment stimulated re-birth, and was becoming quite a desirable place to live. One morning, I walked outside to my car, and could smell wood-smoke, and all that day my sense of smell had, once more mysteriously return. It stayed for two whole days before bidding goodbye again. While it was back, I was able to walk into our staff room at work, and tell who was eating soup, what flavour the soup was, smell someone walking by with a coffee, etc. I was, by this time, resigned to the mysteries of the random, and un-heralded. return of my 5th sense.

In September, this year, we went on holiday again, not too close to the sea, but to Northumberland with the intent of visiting, Lindisfarne (Holy Island). Within 2 days of arriving my sense of smell had returned. It was a nice surprise, but I figured it wouldn't last. 4 days in, and it hadn't vanished. Now whilst I wasn't thinking about it in any great depth, my brain was obviously ticking over: what was causing this? what had changed just coming on holiday? What is different? So in something of a ‘light bulb’ moment, in the middle of a fairly interesting TV programme, my brain metaphorically tapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear, ‘Peanuts’. Now I eat mixed nuts, almost daily, and have done for years. Biggest ingredient in most packs of mixed nuts? Peanuts. Thinking about this, I was puzzled because, in my ignorance, I imagined the Peanut problems meant extreme allergic reactions possibly leading to death.

Could Peanuts be responsible?

One way to find out. I bought some peanuts the next morning, ate them (and, sadly, enjoyed them) and by the next day my sense of smell had gone. It took a day to come back. Since then I have not eaten a single Peanut. And what of my sense of smell? Still going strong as I write this (early December 2014). An added bonus is that I can also breath very much better through my nose than I have done for years. I imagine that an ENT specialist would have a good explanation for all this, but for me the Peanut connection is very clear.

So, if you have anosmia, and eat peanuts, think about it. Peanuts took my sense of smell away, and maybe they have had the same effect on you.

Finally, most mornings when I get up, I go into the kitchen to make breakfast for my wife, unscrew the top of the Ginger Preserve jar and have a good sniff. Very pleasing indeed!

(C) David A. W. Peddie 2014

Making Me Cross

I am a Christian, and I have been since 1966, but I don’t wear a cross. Never have done. Wearing a cross is not a requirement of the Christian Faith. In fact, Christianity is not concerned with the wearing of certain garments or jewellery as a symbol of that faith. We need to be clear, before moving forward, that Faith and Religion (in its many Christian forms), are not the same thing, and much of the religious trappings of garments, vestments, etc., which surround Christianity are man-made and therefore irrelevant to this argument.

What is relevant, in the UK especially, is that there is a clear, deliberate, cowardly and mendacious policy emerging within both personal, corporate and governmental society, to marginalise and undermine the Christian Faith and those who hold to that faith. This is currently focussing on the wearing of crosses as a symbol of a person’s faith.

Now we have already said that wearing a cross is not a requirement of the Christian Faith, so where is the conflict? The conflict is occurring because, whilst the wearing of the cross is not a faith requirement, it is a tradition that goes back more than 2000 years to the very heart of the Christian Faith; the Crucifixion of Christ. From that time the cross, as a symbol of Christianity, was forever implanted within the heart of believers. It became the prime, the foremost and most important icon of everything that Christianity means, of what the Christian faith is, at its heart, and what it will always be about both philosophically, religiously, ideologically and personally.

Which brings us back to the argument. If a Christian chooses to wear a cross, whether as a necklace, badge, brooch perhaps even as a tattoo, they do so as a testimony to what they personally believe, as a testimony to their faith; the Christian Faith. That it is not a requirement has no bearing on the fact that the cross is what it is; a 2000 year old, deeply rooted symbol of Christian Faith, and to strike at its significance, to say that the wearing of the cross means nothing because it is a not requirement of the faith, is to insult 2000 years (and counting!) of Christian tradition, 2000 years of faith and 2000 years of deep, deep significance.

Those who dismiss the cross thus, are insulting 2000 years of Christian faith, all those who would call themselves Christians and the basic belief of Christianity; that Christ died on a cross for the redemption of the human race.

The Infection of Christian Faith.

The recent High Court ruling against Eunice & Owen Johns, where the judge regarded Christian faith as an 'infection', continues to be extremely disturbing. Although the wording was later, 'regretted', it was said in one of the highest courts in the land, and indicates worrying prejudicial, and legal, bias against the Christian faith in the UK.

It is only a very small step away from the rhetoric employed by the Nazi party in 1930s Germany, regarding the Jews. In many Nazi writings, the Jews were referred to as an infection. An infection that needed to be 'cured'.

Horrific and unthinkable as it is, has the judiciary in the UK, made a step along that road, in its decision to deny Eunice & Owen Johns the legal freedom to foster children?

If this were an isolated incident, we could, perhaps, simply regard it as the mendacious ramblings of a semi-senile judge for whom retirement should have beckoned some years ago. But this is not an isolated incident.

In March 2010, a Christian nurse, Shirley Chaplin, was barred from work for wearing a cross. She won support from seven senior Anglican bishops. Dr George Carey, said this was a fresh example of discrimination against their faith.

Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, The NHS trust involved allows exemptions from its uniform policy to other faiths, including allowing Muslim nurses to wear headscarves.

In October 2006, Nadia Eweida, a Christian employee of British Airways, was asked to cover up a necklace which depicted a Christian cross. She was wearing the necklace on the outside of her uniform, contravening BA's uniform policy, and yet Sikh and Muslim employees are not prevented from wearing religious garments at work.

There are numerous other examples where, in small, but increasingly common ways, Christian Faith is being marginalised.

The problem is not confined to the UK. Across Europe, Christians find that expressing their faith as part of their everyday life, in public, his become more difficult.

A new report has voiced concern over the ability of Christians in Europe to publicly express their faith.

The Nov 2010 report from the Vienna-based Observatory of Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, warns that discriminatory laws were preventing the equal exercise of freedom in the areas of speech, conscience and religion, while the introduction of equality legislation was leading to “side-effect discrimination”, against Christians, and that, “Hate speech legislation has a tendency to indirectly discriminate against Christians, criminalising core elements of Christian teaching”. read the article here

A here are a couple of other articles.

Street preacher wins wrongful arrest case

Council worker looses appeal

What therefore should we say to this. Religious persecution, in a sense, comes with the territory of faith. Indeed, history records that at various times, different branches of the Christian faith were at each other's throats. In the 16th Century, Protestants and Catholics were, by turn, burning each other at the stake. Indeed, religious persecution has been, and continues to be, so wide-spread that countless books have been written and websites put online.

What makes the events of the last few years deeply significant, is that the marginalisation of the Christian faith is taking place in, what used to be called, a Christian country whose very basis of law is from the Bible, the Christians' Holy book. And also, that the marginalisation is isolated to the Christian faith; no other UK faith group being treated in such a way.

This is completely unacceptable. This concerted marginalisation, persecution and anti-Christian discriminatory ideology must end.

The DEDD Blog calls on the Government, the UK judiciary, and faith leaders to take action to end this situation.

Faith Journey

A piece I wrote on the Faith Journeys website.

It's the early 60s. The Beatles were the new kids on the Merseysound block, I had just started an engineering apprenticeship and had met my first Christian. Of course, I didn't know he was a Christian. As far as I was concerned he was a religious nut who blathered on and on about God and Jesus. However, although I didn't realise it at the time, meeting him put my feet firmly on the faith path, and my first destination was just over the horizon.

Two years later he had nagged me into submission and I went along with him, and a whole coachload of young people, to hear Billy Graham at Earls Court, London. It is 1966, and reluctantly I find myself standing in front of the charismatic American saying the sinner's prayer. The Holy Spirit had fished another one from the waves.

Going to the small Brethren hall for the first time was a cultural shock. I managed a few weeks, but I didn't own a suit, and I felt uncomfortable in this weird environment. I left and joined the young conservatives (not such a cultural shock!) learned guitar, formed a folk duo and managed to avoid God stuff for a year. But the Holy Spirit still had his fish-hook in me and began reeling me in. The folk duo split and the attraction of the Young Conservatives faded. So after a year of invites to a young people Bible study, I RSVP'd a, yes, and got back on the faith-track.

It was at that Bible study I began to learn what being a Christian was about. It was also the place where I met my future wife,Jan. At the time of writing (2010) we have been married 38 years! Nice one God!

The next few years saw me involved in a coffee-bar evangelistic team, a couple of local churches, getting engaged, an outreach rock band, getting married, buying a house and then.....

..... all our furniture is stacked around us. We're sleeping on the floor of an old house in Birmingham. Our house is sold, the bridge is burnt and we're at Bible College. How did we get here? Another destination along the path, and this path is straight up a really steep learning curve. The journey along this bit of the path was, and remains, 30 years later, a priceless spiritual experience at the feet of men and women of God who led us to places we would never have visited in a local church situation.

Faith in God is easier when things are going well. Real faith grows when you have nowhere to turn, except toward God. Many times at College we find ourselves praying that our Father will meet our different needs. Money to buy food; we never go hungry, healings, guidance, spiritual insight, courage.

The water of a number of different jobs and different churches flows under the bridges over the next few years. We now have a Son, Joel. We work together at a Christian outdoor centre and then we move to the North-West, to the Wirral, and I work for a few different Christian charities. In the local church we belong to, we are involved in home-group leadership, diaconate, worship group, worship leading, preaching, teaching, sunday school. The steep learning curve in Birmingham pays dividends.

Then the local church falls on hard times. There are three huge leadership splits and traumas. We wonder should we stay. God says stay. We stay, but often find ourselves caught in the middle as people take sides. But from the middle, sometimes, the view is clearer. We are able to see things others don't, but it doesn't prevent the traumas, but God does reveal some of the spiritual truth behind what is happening. At the end of it all God says it is time to go. We join with the ex-Pastor building a new fellowship; a fellowship which will do things differently. The difference lasts a few months. It isn't working. We leave.

But now our pathway starts to lead in a strange direction. For the first time in decades we realise our path is leading away from the institutionalised church we have been used to, have been an integral part of, and could never imagine being outside of. And this is where we find ourselves now, still continuing along the path of faith, still following Jesus, still fellowshipping with other Christians, but not aligned to a building, denomination or institution. We are openly involved with the body of Christ - which is what 'Church' really is - but not behind brick walls, not under some man-made idea of 'church'.

The journey continues. Already there have been new and interesting destinations, but the ultimate destination is still over the horizon. But in the dark sky of this fallen world, its glow is now brighter as each day passes, and we keep our eyes fixed in that one direction. End of the path? The New Jerusalem!