HUSBAND AND WIFE

This week has seen the publication of the Government’s Consultation on Marriage, and it calls for comment. The issue of extending marriage to encompass same sex unions really is of grave importance and needs to be pursued – its passage will totally change the relationship landscape, as its proponents realise only too well. It’s a point of no return.

A week or so ago the editor of the Times produced a leading article in classic free thinking, liberalised style saying that the newspaper supported the changes, and that it represented progress. It has not said much since. In contrast, the Daily Mail, in its rather more sensational manner, produced two days ago a massive front page display with the words, “DON’T USE THE WORDS HUSBAND AND WIFE”, and went on to report that much official literature “must be rewritten so that it no longer assumes that a married couple is a man and a woman”. It really got to the heart of the matter. It pointed out also that “private companies will be told to overhaul paperwork and computer data bases containing the words”. It also notes that marriage certificates could change and the terms bride and bridegroom face redundancy. Husband and wife would be infra dig terms.

Is such a change in terminology really that important? Yes, it most certainly is! Such a change re-defines the whole landscape and will hugely change the future public outlook. The essential nature of real marriage between a man and a woman will be completely obscured and the door opened to worse liberalisation of the marriage union. The Daily Mail has picked up a crucial point in its own inimitable way. It did not reflect on the kind of terminology that might replace the age old terms, and that was probably wise, since the kind of politically correct jargon that is likely to emerge defies imagination.

A more sinister aspect of the whole business has emerged in the case of a senior M.P. who is a Christian, and who has been sent scores of intimidating e-mails and messages (including hate mail and death threats) over his opposition to gay marriage. He has been forced to send the material to the police, not, as he said, because he feared for himself personally, but because he was deeply concerned about the curtailment of freedom of speech and the vitriol that poisons any proper discussion. The gay lobby has, unfortunately always had this violent strain in some of its militant followers. The M.P., Tony Burrows, fears that such activists will not hesitate to put pressure on teachers and others who try to act out of Christian conscience.

The government seems to be quite blind to this sinister side of things, though one suspects that it is more bullied by the militancy of the gay lobby than it is ready to acknowledge. It keeps referring to “safeguards for conscience” for Christians and traditionalists but more and more it is becoming evident that such safeguards in legislation can be easily challenged and overcome by militants. Lynne Featherstone, the Minister for Equality, who is so determinedly pushing through the legislation for marriage change, is not too far behind the militants. She has declared that anyone who disagreed with the government’s changes could be “fanning the flames of homophobia”. That smacks of bullying. “Homophobia” has been the unpleasant, evocative and meaningless cry of the militants all along. Such a remark from a government minister seems quite inexcusable at the beginning of consultation; even if it is in her mind a consultation of the “how” and not the “whether” about change.

And still, at the very bottom of all this controversy, is the simple fact that there has been no general call from the nation as a whole for such a change in such a crucial area. Most people on this issue are sensibly traditional. From start to finish it has been the promulgation of a minority, who have been vocal and demanding in their agenda. That is not unusual, of course, when it comes to affecting change. But it is to be hoped on this issue that there will be a general reaction against what is highly dangerous and fundamental social change. Those who wish gay relationships have all they need legally in the civil partnership legislation already active; the coping stone of integration into marriage is unnecessary.

Pray on. It is so crucial to fight this battle.

Bob

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"A LIGHT TO MY PATH"

When I was converted to Jesus, I was given a powerful longing within for a godly and upright life. I was also given a natural desire to pray. Thirdly I was given a clear inward recognition that my bible was the word of life and would be an essential guide for my life. These I believed (and still do) were the vital operations of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer. They have been the key of my Christian faith and of my experience of God. They are the proven truths of my life. It has always seemed to me very clear that they were actually the very same spiritual foundations that underlay the life of Jesus himself.

The truth uppermost in my mind at the moment is that of the bible as the word of life. The modern world and modern society is knocking harder than ever at the recognition of the bible as the word of life and the guide for life. To try to argue from the bible in public debate is more and more a non-starter. It simply meets with the contempt and arrogance that is reserved for the foolish and the unlearned. This is no more evident than in the current debate on the nature of marriage.

That debate takes for granted the liberal humanistic agenda that “same-sex” physical relationships are in order and to be welcomed, even dubbed as marriage. It is considered self-evident civilised thinking. We are not to be allowed to make the point strongly that this is not in the least condoned by biblical standards; that biblically it is retrogressive rather than progressive. We have to argue from the humanistic platform to avoid scorn. And there is plenty of scorn and vituperation ready to be poured on opponents of the same sex bandwagon.

Holding to biblical truth is, however, critical for our own lives as Christians and it is critical for our witness in the world. Whether we are scorned or not our calling is to be faithful to the word of God and not to weaken in our own standards no matter how much pressure is exerted on us. My great fear is that many Christians will compromise and weaken.

The prophets were given a clear mandate; they were to speak the truth of God, whether or not people would listen. And they were to speak openly as from Him. No threats or despite were to stop such plain speaking. They prophets were appallingly handled but they had the approval of God. They were also eventually vindicated.

These thoughts about the need for strong personal conviction in the word of God, and particularly in this current national debate, came to me whilst reading through Psalm 119, and I have listed below one or two of the salient verses that stood out as I was reading. Meditation on such truth is very crucial in our generation. It is not a co-incidence, I’m sure, that Psalm 119 is by far the longest psalm in the book.

v46-47 “I will speak of your statutes before kings and will not be put to shame, for I delight in your commands because I love them.”

vv 51-52 “The arrogant mock me without restraint, but I do not turn from your law.
I remember your ancient laws, O LORD, and I find comfort in them.”

v59 “I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes”.

V69 “Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep your precepts with all my heart.”

v126 It is time for you to act, O LORD; your law is being broken

Have a look at the psalm if you have time.



Bob


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THE SECURITY OF ISRAEL

The Israeli Prime Minister has been in Washington for talks with President Obama this week. The subject for discussion was Iran’s growing nuclear threat. The Israelis want an assurance that the U.S. will not go soft on stopping Iran getting a nuclear bomb. President Ahmadinejad of Iran openly denies the historicity of the Holocaust and equally openly preaches the cause of the total obliteration of Israel. His rival political figure, Supreme Leader Khamenei, takes a similar line. It’s a very jittery time for Israel, with half its people calling for a “strike” on Iran and half of them dreading the consequences. Is such a strike actually feasible? Would it backfire? It’s a situation that looks well beyond human wisdom.

It’s the sort of situation, however, that Israel has been in before in its sixty year history. At the nation’s inception in 1948, at a point of extreme vulnerability, it was attacked by overwhelming Arab forces but survived. In 1967 the same happened and again in 1973. All these deliverances had a distinct feel of the miraculous about them.

Arguably more striking than even those deliverances, however, was an event widely remembered last month. Seventy years ago in January, 1942, in Germany, 15 senior Nazis, with the support of the Grand Mufti Arab leader, were planning the “Final Solution” for the extermination of European and Middle Eastern Jewry. The threat was enormous and of serious intent, even if it the plan looked like megalomania. Hitler’s unbeaten armies were poised to conquer Egypt and overrun Palestine; they were also poised to conquer Russia. Victory on both fronts would be used to destroy Jewry, and victory looked all too possible. Within three years, however, Hitler’s Reich was utterly destroyed as victory turned to abject defeat, and the Jews found the superpowers sympathetic to their return to the “Promised Land”!

Most political analysts of the time saw that return to Palestine as marking the end of such anti-Semitic megalomania and as solving “the Jewish problem”. The Jews certainly believed that. Unfortunately nothing could have been further from the truth. Anti-Semitism did not die. It transmuted into a much more focussed and virulent strain to become Anti-Zionism. The violence and hatred were once again to be seen and heard. We have now had sixty years of it, and it is not diminishing. I am in fact writing at this moment about a new peak in its threatening history.

Despite the world’s explanations, this violence and hatred is not a social or a political problem; it is a spiritual problem. It is to be explained only in categories which this humanistic and “enlightened” world despises and rejects. It is a spiritual problem because its causes are spiritual; that is to say we are looking not at human forces of hatred at work but supernatural spiritual forces. I find this most clearly presented in an “apocalyptic” prophecy in Revelation. John saw in his Revelation (Chapter 12) a picture of a woman giving birth to a child. The woman unmistakably represented Israel. A dragon, equally unmistakably representing Satan and the Powers of Evil, sought to devour the child. The child, however, who was obviously Jesus, was swept up into heaven. The dragon then went to war and sought to destroy the woman (Israel) and her other “seed” which are the followers of the child Jesus. The woman was, however, kept safe “in the wilderness”, despite frequent floods from the Dragon’s mouth to drown her.

Apocalyptic is hardly a modern idiom, but any serious student of Jewish history will recognise immediately that this vision is profoundly in tune with what actually happened to the Jews in the following 2000 years. They were caught up in a supernatural battle. Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism defy any other convincing analysis.

At this juncture of history one of the most relevant aspects of this revelation is to be found simply in the prophesied safety of the woman (Israel). Nothing could be clearer, and nothing more demonstrable from history than its amazing preservation both from violence and from assimilation by other nations . Floods of all sorts over two millennia, though inflicting much loss of life, have not destroyed Israel. The reason for that is that God has a purpose for the nation. That purpose remains, and the purpose is that Israel has a significant part to play in the Lord’s return.
Israel remains the key to the turmoil in the Middle East. I find it fascinating that two of its worst opponents, Iraq and Syria, are now in complete disarray after years of threats against Israel. Iran in its turn is now no more an obstacle to God than they have been. And God is very much on the field. These are extraordinary times. They may be violent and vicious times, but the battle in the Middle East must inevitably go God’s way. Rest assured!

We can, therefore, be confident, but that does not mean complacent – it means watching and praying. But God’s victory is sure.


Bob


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