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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COALITION FOR MARRIAGE

I’m sure a good many of you reading this column will have already been alerted to the launch this month of the Coalition for Marriage. It is an umbrella body representing faith groups, MPs, Peers, academics, lawyers, pro-family organizations and grassroots supporters of traditional marriage in the U.K. and opposed to any attempt to redefine it. CARE trust is part of it and putting its full weight behind it. The Coalition already has over 50,000 signatories. Like everything else these days it has its own code – C4M! But don’t let that put you off. Sign up!

It is a very welcome response to the government’s announced intention of re-defining marriage in order to include same-sex unions. This is to happen this year. The Home Secretary has made it clear that a consultation on the issue before the legislation is introduced will not be about whether the change should happen, but simply how it should happen. This is an astonishing example of blatant political bullying on a most profound issue and without any consensus whatsoever as to whether public feeling is really behind any such change. The Government is in fact attempting to stifle public debate on the issue. Happily C4M is demanding a debate. It’s up to us to support and make sure feelings are properly aired. We need a road block against such an irresponsible Juggernaut.

One of the most disturbing features about modern government is that it simply doesn’t seem to listen to any advice, tries to do everything too quickly and consequently in most cases does it badly. That’s the Achilles Heal of our kind of democracy. George Carey, the former Archbishop, put his finger on the source of the problem when, at the launch of C4M, he said, “The Government – egged on by pressure groups and image advisors, but not the general public – is pressing ahead to re-write the legal definition of marriage”. My reaction is simply, “Image advisors!!” What have they to do with such a serious issue? Is it a case of, “Yes, Mr. Cameron, we must be seen to be progressive; a change in marriage would look OK”? Is that where we have come to? What about substance and principle?

It would be very difficult to overstress the absolute centrality to society of the building block called marriage, in the way it has been defined for millennia. A man and a woman meet, commit themselves to each other, have children and then over the years that follow seek to provide the stability and love for those children to grow up happily. That love and stability comes out of the mutual love of the parents. It provides an essential place of belonging, security and resource with a true male-female balance. The particular man-woman relationship does not become redundant when the children grow up; it can still be fundamental not only to the well-being of the couple but to a growing family which includes grandchildren. The cycle is repeated by their children as they grow up. Marriage is the hub of life. To blur this clear definition is dangerous in the extreme.

Some marriages, of course, do not produce children, for a variety of valid reasons. But there remains at the heart of marriage the simple and natural biological physical engagement between man and woman which underlines their mutual companionship, complementarity and love. With or without children it remains the core ingredient of personal affirmation and social cohesion.

When the family fails (which unfortunately it can), society fails. When the family is broken, society breaks down. When the family fights, violence is found everywhere. The most important task of the powers that be is to strengthen marriage, educate for marriage, encourage marriage, and honour marriage. Government has no warrant to tinker with it in the interests of minority pressure groups who are well catered for. It does not need changing in essence – it was a “given” before governments were thought of.
Same sex relationships have also been known for centuries. What has never been acknowledged is that they can be considered as a form of marriage.

For a Christian, of course, the creation ordinance of one woman given to one man, with complementarities which include an extraordinary sexual complementarity, will always underline the basic relationship we call marriage.


Bob

THE QUEEN and INTER-FAITH

In one of the January columns I spoke warmly of the Christian content of the Queen’s Christmas message, and said that in this Jubilee year we should pray that other occasions might arise when she could speak equally firmly about the Christian faith. Last Wednesday (15th Feb) she was present at a multi-faith reception at Lambeth Palace, hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was, as the Archbishop said, one of her first public engagements to celebrate her Jubilee year. She met with and addressed representatives of eight non-Christian religions – groups from the Baha’i, the Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and Zoroastrian religions. This inevitably was going to be a difficult challenge for her to negotiate. The speeches were short; one from the Archbishop, a response from the Queen and a thank-you from the Archbishop.

The speeches provided a robust affirmation of the validity of religious faith generally over and against the increasingly militant atheism in our culture. The Archbishop paid just tribute to the Queen when he said to her in his opening address, “You have been able to show so effectively that being religious is not eccentric or abnormal” (a common accusation of contemporary secular atheism). He went on to speak of “Your Majesty’s commitment in the name of God to your vocation”, underlining the spiritual dynamic of the Queen’s great sense of duty. These are sentiments which would be endorsed by large numbers of people. Noticeably, however, the Archbishop stopped short of speaking of her Christian faith, speaking only of her “religious” faith. This seemed unnecessarily over-cautious.

The Queen responding made it clear, as Monarch and Head of the Church of England, that there was to be genuine religious liberty in the nation and no intolerance. People can and must work together for the benefit of the whole. Her words were, “The Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all other faiths in this country”, and, “The Church of England has created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely”. That was important statement in a world racked with religious and ideological intolerance. The Christian church has learned over a period of some three centuries of inter-Christian conflict that violence and intolerance was not the way to settle differences, and that tolerance was essential. Christians have learned that the gospel is essentially non-violent and non-repressive; its Founder died on a cross, not on a battle field.

At the same time, however, the Christian gospel can never compromise its distinctive teachings. If the church has a duty to protect religious freedom against repression, it has an equal duty to make plain that there is only one God and only one Saviour. Idolatry remains abhorrent to the Creator God. The gospel simply does not see other faiths as a legitimate route to eternal life. On the contrary they lead to darkness and oppression. Jesus remains the “Light” and the “Truth”. The church has to walk the tight rope of being loving and tolerant to people and yet firm on what it has had revealed to it in Jesus. If it does not speak firmly, then it is not faithful to people and cannot be a vehicle of salvation. The problem here, of course, is that the true proclamation of Jesus and the Cross inevitably brings offence no matter how gracious the church may be.

The Queen had clearly been advised to follow a similar line to the Archbishop and to talk about religious faith as such and not Christianity in particular. No offence was to be risked. But her advisors went too far in this direction and lost the balance. Whilst it was not obviously a setting in which to deliberately cause offence, neither was it a setting in which to affirm the essential validity of other faiths. The general tenor, however, was to do just that.

Perhaps the most obvious example of that affirmation was the invitation to the different faith groups to bring a sacred object pertaining to their faith and around which they each might gather. These objects were seen as a rich and beautiful cultural heritage and commended by the Queen, but unfortunately they included idols and the like. The spiritual naivety of Lambeth in making such an invitation is astounding. The objects were certainly not just cultural artifacts to those who brought them; they were highly symbolic and powerful religiously. It was a totally unnecessary gesture on Lambeth's part, since the gathering would have been perfectly adequate without them. Interestingly enough the Christian religious object comprised two implements used in anointing the Queen at her coronation. These are important in their way and may have been offered as a delicate gesture to the Queen, but they are hardly symbolic of the essence of the Christian faith. Why not a cross? Why not the New Testament? Either of those would have put the Christian exhibit on a par with the faith groups who made no apology for putting on display objects absolutely central to their beliefs, including texts. It is precisely at such a point that the Christian inter-faith stance is seriously at fault in its integrity and its legitimate boldness. It reflects a profound "wooliness" about the true nature of God and about call of the church to witness.

Despite these features I’m so glad that the Queen met the faith leaders. I’m left feeling, however, how much she needs our prayer in her desire to do her Christian duties wisely and with integrity.




Bob

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