MOVING A BIG BOUNDARY STONE

Lynne Featherstone is the Government Equalities Minister. She has recently got David Cameron onto her side to “push everyone from allies to adversaries to recognise what we know to be true”, namely that same sex partners have a right to be married. She has set out a timetable to bring it about by 2015.

Marriage is probably one of the biggest boundary stones we have for delineating the way we live. Now, after at least fifteen centuries (possibly from time immemorial!) this big stone is to be wrenched out of its position. The Romans and, before them, the Greeks, certainly knew about same sex relations, but I do not recall reading anywhere that they ever brought that sort of relationship into the category of marriage (which was well known, and established and honoured). I suspect that would have been anathema to them. They were too streetwise about the damage it might do to society. It’s astonishing that “what we know to be true” according to Ms. Featherstone has actually remained unknown for so long! Interestingly enough, according to the National Statistics Office, two thirds of people in the nation are reluctant to seeing such legislation enacted. They do not think it appropriate and are evidently not as convinced as the Minister might imagine!


The motive for this new development is largely in order that the legal benefits that are available in a marriage might be conferred on the partners in a same sex relationship. So, to gain this purely legal end, everything else that is wrapped up in the concept of marriage is to be ignored. This “everything else” is in fact very much more important than the legalities. At the very centre of marriage is the crucial concept that it is a union of one man and one woman, and that it is the union in which children are naturally born and nurtured with a balanced input from a man and a woman. It is a place where a child knows both its father and its mother. It is the place where the natural biological (and psychological) differences of man and woman find their proper fulfilment in a bond of love and family. Life long commitment is an essential part of this union. It is a creation ordinance of God, not a convenience of man. To play fast and loose with such an ordinance is to invite much trouble. It is a fundamental foundation of society and life. No, marriage is not just about legalities.


It is a very sad thing that Lynne Featherstone cannot see how deep the issue is. Sadder, still, that David Cameron, probably on a political wicket where he must find some points of contact with the Lib Dems, has to choose to support this issue. It was good to hear that a Church of England spokesman said, “Our view remains that a marriage is a lifelong relationship entered into by a man and a woman”. Unfortunately, at the same time, rather than cleave to its view, we learn that the Church has committed itself to a wider look at its approach to same sex relationships, and is ambivalent on whether it will allow its clergy to “marry” same sex partners in church. These caveats really mean that eventually we could see a capitulation by the Church rather than a fight for the real truth. The real danger is, of course, not from outside the Church but from opinion within. The outlook is not good.


The boundary stone of marriage has taken some severe knocks over recent decades simply by virtue of the fact that it has been neglected by a society which is both fearful of a possible negative outcome to marriage and also reluctant to take a committed responsibility. Instead it has opted to co-habit. That at least left the idea of marriage intact for those who wish to embrace it. This latest move, on the other hand, makes a mockery of marriage, and empties it of all its essential meaning. It simply makes the boundary stone irrelevant.


A few good well written letters to the Equalities Minister would not be out of place!



Bob


To make a comment: click on word “comments” below, write your comment in the white box which appears and add your name and e mail address (if you wish), choose “select profile”, click “anonymous” and then continue.


To print this column: click on the date of this column in the archive list on the right of this page. This will give you this column on its own. Then print.

THE PROPHETIC SIGNIFICANCE OF 9/11

Once again I’m persisting with something which the blaze of the media spotlight has left, namely 9/11. Things get dated too quickly sometimes in the rush for the latest “spectacular”! I’m very happy to buck that trend, and particularly so because I said in last week’s column that sadly the prophetic aspect of 9/11 had received very little comment and I wanted to say something about it.


It seems very clear to me that whatever way you look at 9/11, and whatever you may see of courage and heroism etc. in it, it remains prophetic of the judgement of God. I pointed out in the new booklet that the destruction of the twin towers was a prophetic pointer to what would happen in the economic and financial world of America and the West as the years progressed. I also pointed out that the destruction of part of the Pentagon was prophetic of the military bruising that America and the West would similarly suffer. It was not just a one off event – it cast a long shadow over the future, and we remain under that shadow.


I realise, of course, that for many the very idea of judgement as being expressed in the happenings of that appalling event is anathema. For them such a thought seems to cheapen the human tragedy, the human pain and the horror of it all. It seems too callous, too hard. “If that is God, we don’t want to know”, is the response. Jeremiah, sitting and lamenting in the ruins and devastation of a Jerusalem burned with fire and with unburied corpses all around him, was intensely aware of the human tragedy of which he was part. He was equally intensely aware, however, that the cause of the tragedy was the persistent, godless sinfulness of that city. With a broken heart, he acknowledged judgement. He also acknowledged the utter need of God’s grace in the midst of it. He clung to God closer than ever, as he sat in the midst of the carnage of judgement.


It is fundamental to our Christian understanding of God that he judges sin; there is a present judgement on sin and there will be a final judgement on sin. Every bit of the bible makes that point very clear. It’s on this account Jesus came. But what does that judgement look like? It is here that 9/11 is so prophetic. 9/11 shows, in awful, devastating manner, what it can look like. It came swiftly, out of the blue (literally), when least expected. It came as an appalling cataclysm. It came with fire. It was utterly destructive, a total collapse of both towers. The agency and manner by which it came was utterly bizarre. It had the same characteristics as a Tsunami. This was no mere slap on the hand from an indulgent father; it was a searing, painful lash of the whip, and worse.

Why did it come? Amos is the best guide here. Two things at least stand out; national pride and economic exploitation. Both are abhorrent to God.


All this means that 9/11 brings us a prophetic challenge. It is a searching demand that we face up to the fact that the eternal God is a holy God, and that there is a day of reckoning both for individuals and for nations. Judgement is an awful reality, and will remain so. We have to take judgement much, much more seriously. We have to measure ourselves and our behaviour, not by our own human and earthly standards, but by the standards God requires. Our purpose on earth is not pleasure and riches, but to seek righteousness and integrity.

Unfortunately the prospects of the nations listening to such a challenge are not good. But God remains rich in mercy, even in the midst of judgement.


Bob


To make a comment: click on word “comments” below, write your comment in the white box which appears and add your name and e mail address (if you wish), choose “select profile”, click “anonymous” and then continue.


To print this column: click on the date of this column in the archive list on the right of this page. This will give you this column on its own. Then print.

9/11 - NEW BOOKLET

During this week we will be putting on the website the material which forms a new booklet called “The Contemporary Countdown to Chaos – The Ten Years Since 9/11”. The Home Page will announce when it is actually on the site. You can, however, obtain the booklet now (free) by requesting a copy (give your postal address) at mail@understandingthetimes.org.uk It’s several months since I mentioned in this column a desire to produce this; it has not been an easy process, but at last it’s here.

It takes its inspiration from a pamphlet I wrote in c. 2003 called “Countdown to Chaos”. The pamphlet was a study of what happened to Israel in the intervening years between Amos’ warning of the devastation and exile of Israel, and the fulfilment of that warning some 20 years later. The study revealed a serious deterioration in the moral, political and social life of the nation during the countdown to that cataclysmic event. I suggested it might well point to the kind of deterioration we would see in our own nation, since we ourselves have been under a severe word of warning since the turn of this new century. This new booklet examines the decade from 9/11 to see whether a similar deterioration has been taking place in our own experience. The evidence that we are on such a downward slope is overwhelming.


The scope of the booklet is actually wider that our own nation, arguing that the western world makes up a group of nations all of which are under judgement in the same way that all the nations surrounding Israel were under the same judgement that Amos declared in his day. We see the U.S.A. as the primary nation of the group, and deterioration clearly written in her history.


The biblical features of the deterioration were 1. Futile Foreign Ventures; 2. Accelerated economic and social decline; 3. Political Corruption, Incompetence and Strife. 4. The Exclusion of God and Moral Degradation. The last decade is examined in the light of these features. It is, therefore, something of an historical survey (though brief). I make no apology for that, however, since we are living at a time when it is very important that we have in one hand the Bible and in the other an account of the times in which we are living. If we do not have the latter we may well be blinded to some very important aspects of the former.


I think it is providential that this booklet has been delayed until the tenth anniversary of 9/11. That event was the defining moment of the decade and, at least in one respect, set the agenda for the decade. The booklet looks at that issue. 9/11 was one of the most devastating prophetic statements that one could ever imagine of what was to come in the U.S. and the West. The tragedy is that, whilst it was accurately seen as a defining, world-changing moment, its prophetic significance has never been either seen of acknowledged. I would like to follow up that issue next week.


Bob


To make a comment: click on word “comments” below, write your comment in the white box which appears and add your name and e mail address (if you wish), choose “select profile”, click “anonymous” and then continue.


To print this column: click on the date of this column in the archive list on the right of this page. This will give you this column on its own. Then print.