The former head of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington, has accused the Labour Government of turning Britain into a 'police state' by cynically exploiting the public's fear of terrorism. She cited, among other things, the intention to bring in identity cards, which she said would be of little value, unless immune to forgery.
The intended identity cards would carry a wealth of personal information about the individual and would be an intolerable intrusion by the state into people's private affairs. Under the guise of protecting out liberties our freedom is being steadily eroded.
These trends have a special resonance for Christians as we see the state at national and local level discriminating against those who adhere to Biblical standards. A nurse, since reinstated, was suspended from her job because she prayed with a patient. A colleague informed on her to her superiors. Only for the huge public outcry and the publicity given to this and other cases by the Daily Mail, she would have probably lost her job.
Another example is that of a foster carer, who has cared for eighty children during her career, found herself removed from being allowed to foster by the local council because a Muslim girl of sixteen converted to Christianity while in her care. This was entirely the girl's choice without any pressure being applied by the carer.
Other Christians have lost their jobs in the police and social services because they would not kow tow to the sodomite lobby.
There are so many examples of Christians being harassed in the work place that it is quite obvious that an orchestrated campaign is being waged against them.
At the same time, the Government is bending over backwards to placate the Moslems. When a group of Moslems broke away from a demonstration against the bombing by Israel of Gaza some sixty police turned their backs, yes, turned their backs and ran. Contrast this with the police actions against the Tibetan demonstrators during the visit of the Chinese Premier. The papers had pictures of a burly policeman with his two foot baton raised over the head of a little Tibetan women. It makes one sick to see what is happening in our country.
The beginning of this week (16-2-09) saw the banning of a right wing member of the Dutch Parliament from entering the country. He had been invited by some members of the House of Lords to show a seventeen minute video containing passages from the Koran which call for violence against infidels and pictures of the resulting atrocities. It also contains footage of Muslim preachers calling for violence to be used to overthrow democracy in the West. The contents of this video are factual but in order to propagate the lie being promoted by the UK and USA Governments that Islam is a peaceful religion, the truth is suppressed. A Muslim member of the House of Lords threatened to bring 10,000 people to protest outside the Parliament buildings.
Perhaps the most awful event that has happened in recent times occurred in Edinburgh, Scotland. Two children, whose mother is a heroin addict, were put up for adoption. The grandparents were willing to adopt them. The mother and the children were in agreement but what did the Gestapo social services decide? They said that the grandparents, aged 59 and 48 respectively, were too old to adopt so they decided that a sodomite, yes a sodomite couple could adopt them. When the grandfather protested he was told that if he continued to protest he would never see them again.
The mother was allowed to take the children out for one last time. She took them to the Zoo and told them she would never see them again. The little girl, who is four, was clinging to her leg. What sort of heartless harridans are in charge of these cases?
In the event the grandparents went public over the whole episode and once again the Daily Mail put the story on the front page two days running. There was a huge public uproar. However, the social worker in charge, who is an unmarried mother of two children, told the grandparents that because they had gone public they would never see the children again.
A millionaire has offered to pay all the grandparents legal expenses should they wish to fight the social services through the courts.
Another horrendous case of recent days concerns a couple who had their three children taken from them because they were suspected of abusing one of the boys who had suffered a broken limb due to a fall. Subsequent evidence revealed that the boy is suffering from a condition that makes his bones brittle. A recent court case cleared the parents of wrong doing but they still can't have their children back because they were adopted two years ago. The couple have a fourth child and live in Ireland where they fled to prevent that child being taken from them also. It is hard to believe that this is happening in our country but it is.
If God does not intervene soon in revival power there are going to be more and more horror stories similar to the few, of many, recorded in this article.
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Anglican Church In Turmoil.
As long as a homosexual partnership is "faithful and lifelong," it presents only the same ethical questions as a natural marriage, wrote the head of the Church of England in a series of letters, dating from 2000 and 2001, that have only just been made public.
The London Times revealed this weekend that Dr. Rowan Williams, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, made the statements in a series of letters to Deborah Pitt, a psychiatrist and evangelical Christian living in his former archdiocese in South Wales, while Williams was still the archbishop of Wales.
"I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness," Dr. Williams wrote in one of the letters.
Dr. Williams said he had reached this "definitive conclusion" after 20 years of study and prayer. Although he had once opposed homosexual activity, he said, he had changed his mind while a university professor.
In his letters, Williams said that he "drew a distinction" between his personal views as a theologian and his position as the titular head of the Established Church of England.
Williams' comments came to light at the same time as ongoing discussions among senior Anglican bishops came to a standstill at a five-day meeting of senior bishops held in Alexandria, Egypt. The meeting was intended to tackle the divisions in the Anglican Communion over the acceptance of homosexuality by the liberal factions in the church.
At that meeting Dr. Williams said that "the willingness to find reconciliation has been very much in evidence," while admitting that there are "deep divisions" in the Communion.
David Virtue, a conservative Anglican journalist, reported from Alexandria that the response of the orthodox Anglican primates was more forthright. He quotes Archbishop Peter Akinola, the head of the Anglican church in Nigeria, saying that those pushing for acceptance of homosexuality are "trivializing" their religion.
"It now seems increasingly clear that without a radical change of behaviour on the part of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada the only possible outcome of such a process is acknowledgement of a bitter truth that the differences ... are irreconcilable," Akinola said.
Akinola recently commissioned a report by the American Anglican Council and a group of orthodox Canadian Anglicans, to clarify the situation of the church in those countries. The US report provides a minutely detailed record of the efforts of the "leadership of the Episcopal Church," which it says "has been systematically destroying the foundations of Anglican Christianity within the United States."
The report said that the ECUSA leadership has "denied Jesus as the only way to the Father, denied the divinity and uniqueness of Jesus Christ, denied the Resurrection, denied heaven and hell, denied salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ, denied the authority of Scripture, denied the Creeds and denied biblical standards for human sexuality."
The report also said that the "fruits" of this "new theology" include "the promotion of abortion, weakening traditional marriage, promoting same sex blessings and other sexual aberrations, communion for the unbaptized, and accelerating litigation by TEC [the Episcopal Church] against the orthodox."
A similar report, dated January 26, 2009, by orthodox Anglicans in Canada, expressed their gratitude to the doctrinally orthodox primates who have been "willing to cross jurisdictional boundaries" to provide oversight for Anglicans unwilling to go along with the pro-homosexual agenda of the leadership of the Anglican Church of Canada [AcoC].
"Their support, in spite of the hostile reactions of the ACoC and TEC, has been a blessing and witness that has given many faithful Anglicans hope and a reason to remain within Anglicanism. Without their support, many more faithful Anglicans would have been lost as they departed for other denominations or ceased going to church altogether," the Canadian report said.
Meanwhile, the branches of the Anglican Communion that have retained and vigorously defended Christian teaching are reportedly increasing rapidly. David Virtue reports that new dioceses are being formed in Rwanda, Nigeria and Uganda every few months. It is already widely acknowledged, on the other hand, that the membership of the Anglican churches in most western countries is in freefall, with congregations aging and churches closing and being sold in Canada, the US, Britain and Australia.
Modernists, like the Archbishop of Canterbury, are bringing, not only the Anglican Communion into disrepute in the eyes of the public, but Christianity as a whole. The average person, in the United Kingdom at any rate, is only too ready to tar all Christians with the same brush. Here is a man who has sworn to uphold the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England which, among other things, upholds the supremacy of Scripture, brazenly going against what the Bible teaches regarding sodomy. He obviously isn't alone in such views.
How heartening to see how steadfast the African bishops are and the fact that God is blessing them while the death dealing influence of Modernism is emptying the churches in the West. It is also encouraging to hear that there is a godly remnant in the Occident.
The London Times revealed this weekend that Dr. Rowan Williams, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, made the statements in a series of letters to Deborah Pitt, a psychiatrist and evangelical Christian living in his former archdiocese in South Wales, while Williams was still the archbishop of Wales.
"I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness," Dr. Williams wrote in one of the letters.
Dr. Williams said he had reached this "definitive conclusion" after 20 years of study and prayer. Although he had once opposed homosexual activity, he said, he had changed his mind while a university professor.
In his letters, Williams said that he "drew a distinction" between his personal views as a theologian and his position as the titular head of the Established Church of England.
Williams' comments came to light at the same time as ongoing discussions among senior Anglican bishops came to a standstill at a five-day meeting of senior bishops held in Alexandria, Egypt. The meeting was intended to tackle the divisions in the Anglican Communion over the acceptance of homosexuality by the liberal factions in the church.
At that meeting Dr. Williams said that "the willingness to find reconciliation has been very much in evidence," while admitting that there are "deep divisions" in the Communion.
David Virtue, a conservative Anglican journalist, reported from Alexandria that the response of the orthodox Anglican primates was more forthright. He quotes Archbishop Peter Akinola, the head of the Anglican church in Nigeria, saying that those pushing for acceptance of homosexuality are "trivializing" their religion.
"It now seems increasingly clear that without a radical change of behaviour on the part of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada the only possible outcome of such a process is acknowledgement of a bitter truth that the differences ... are irreconcilable," Akinola said.
Akinola recently commissioned a report by the American Anglican Council and a group of orthodox Canadian Anglicans, to clarify the situation of the church in those countries. The US report provides a minutely detailed record of the efforts of the "leadership of the Episcopal Church," which it says "has been systematically destroying the foundations of Anglican Christianity within the United States."
The report said that the ECUSA leadership has "denied Jesus as the only way to the Father, denied the divinity and uniqueness of Jesus Christ, denied the Resurrection, denied heaven and hell, denied salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ, denied the authority of Scripture, denied the Creeds and denied biblical standards for human sexuality."
The report also said that the "fruits" of this "new theology" include "the promotion of abortion, weakening traditional marriage, promoting same sex blessings and other sexual aberrations, communion for the unbaptized, and accelerating litigation by TEC [the Episcopal Church] against the orthodox."
A similar report, dated January 26, 2009, by orthodox Anglicans in Canada, expressed their gratitude to the doctrinally orthodox primates who have been "willing to cross jurisdictional boundaries" to provide oversight for Anglicans unwilling to go along with the pro-homosexual agenda of the leadership of the Anglican Church of Canada [AcoC].
"Their support, in spite of the hostile reactions of the ACoC and TEC, has been a blessing and witness that has given many faithful Anglicans hope and a reason to remain within Anglicanism. Without their support, many more faithful Anglicans would have been lost as they departed for other denominations or ceased going to church altogether," the Canadian report said.
Meanwhile, the branches of the Anglican Communion that have retained and vigorously defended Christian teaching are reportedly increasing rapidly. David Virtue reports that new dioceses are being formed in Rwanda, Nigeria and Uganda every few months. It is already widely acknowledged, on the other hand, that the membership of the Anglican churches in most western countries is in freefall, with congregations aging and churches closing and being sold in Canada, the US, Britain and Australia.
Modernists, like the Archbishop of Canterbury, are bringing, not only the Anglican Communion into disrepute in the eyes of the public, but Christianity as a whole. The average person, in the United Kingdom at any rate, is only too ready to tar all Christians with the same brush. Here is a man who has sworn to uphold the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England which, among other things, upholds the supremacy of Scripture, brazenly going against what the Bible teaches regarding sodomy. He obviously isn't alone in such views.
How heartening to see how steadfast the African bishops are and the fact that God is blessing them while the death dealing influence of Modernism is emptying the churches in the West. It is also encouraging to hear that there is a godly remnant in the Occident.
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