God’s Motives revealed

March 8, 2012 Leave a comment

This morning I was reading Ezekiel 36 in which we are given a very early glimpse of the New Covenant (‘…I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you…’ vv26-27). This is in the midst of the promises given to Israel (at this time in exile):

I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land…

Ezekiel 36:24 ESV

But we may wonder why God would do this for His people.

Is it because they deserved it? Certainly not; in fact nothing about the nation itself merited God’s favour. This is self-evident in that the nation is in exile due to its unfaithfulness to God. In fact, this point is emphasised when we have a description of why God chose (or did not choose) His people:

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 7:7-8 ESV

That’s human merit ruled out. So it must be because God loves His people. The verse just quoted shows this to be a truth, but the reasons given in Ezekiel 36 for God’s promise to His people is not His love. It’s this:

It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name…I will vindicate the holiness of my great name…the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes

Ezekiel 36:22-23 ESV

This is a key principle, especially today, because we can very easily become very self-centred (yes, I know that’s hard to imagine amongst Christians!). That is not to doubt for a second that God loves His people and that it is a motivation in His goodness and love towards them, but even greater than the motivation of love is the motivation is the glory and honour of His name – of Himself. This is why when Paul gives his glorious description of what it means to be ‘blessed in Christ with all spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ (Ephesians 1:3-14) he has to pause on three occasions and tell us the motive:

…to the praise of his glorious grace…that we…might be to the praise of his glory…to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14 ESV

Everything God does is for His own glory. The reason why He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die and bear the penalty of the sins of those who trust in and follow Him was, yes, out of love for sinners; but was primarily to bring glory to Himself. If you are a Christian, the remarkable thing is that despite your failings and flaws you can be an instrument by which God is glorified. Perhaps this offers us not only an encouragement to live lives which are honouring to God who saves us, but also gives us a lens through which we can view life in perfect perspective – the perspective that realises God is working all things to His glory.

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It was only a matter of time….

February 29, 2012 Leave a comment

Further to my previous post on gender-driven abortions, an interesting article came before my eyes today. It was (re)published in the Journal of Medical Ethics (part of the British Medical Journal family) last week and written by authors (Giublini & Minerva) with links to universities in Milan, Melbourne and Oxford. You can read the full text here.

The authors advocate the termination of life AFTER birth on the grounds that it is just as valid as terminating a fetus in the womb. Let me quote the study at length:

…we argue that, when circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.

In spite of the oxymoron in the expression, we propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide’, to emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child. Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be.

Another inconvenient, dispensable non-person…?

Their justification for viewing the newborn baby in this dispensable way is as follows:

Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.

Stay with the logic here:

Although fetuses and newborns are not persons, they are potential persons because they can develop, thanks to their own biological mechanisms, those properties which will make them ‘persons’ in the sense of ‘subjects of a moral right to life’: that is, the point at which they will be able to make aims and appreciate their own life…If a potential person, like a fetus and a newborn, does not become an actual person, like you and us, then there is neither an actual nor a future person who can be harmed, which means that there is no harm at all. So, if you ask one of us if we would have been harmed, had our parents decided to kill us when we were fetuses or newborns, our answer is ‘no’, because they would have harmed someone who does not exist (the ‘us’ whom you are asking the question), which means no one.

They conclude:

If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn.

…if something went wrong during the delivery, or if economical, social or psychological circumstances change such that taking care of the offspring becomes an unbearable burden on someone, then people should be given the chance of not being forced to do something they cannot afford.

Now I think we need to acknowledge that these authors demonstrate consistent logic here – their discussion around the issue of a newborn being a ‘potential person’ just like an embryo or a fetus is fully in-keeping with an abortionist stance. But we should also see that the only way such an outrageous practise as killing a healthy newborn baby because the mother “cannot afford” to look after it can be justified is when we diminish our understanding of what life is and how precious (or not) that life is. This is just a logical and natural progression and where does it go next? Personally, I think that this principle (that killing newborn babies is ethically no different from aborting unborn babies) is correct but rather than coming to the conclusion that it’s therefore morally acceptable, hopefully it will open the eyes of many as to the horror of the de facto abortion-on-demand system we currently have in the UK.

The Lord recognises life in the womb (John the Baptist for example):

…he will be great before the Lord…and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb

(Luke 1:15)

Who would have thought we’d now be battling to get agreement on the validity of life outside the womb?

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Pro-choice Hypocrisy

February 28, 2012 2 Comments

Just a quick thought…

Last week the Daily Telegraph, in an impressive journalistic scoop, managed to uncover the fact that not only are some women seeking abortions because of the gender of their baby, but that health ‘professionals’ are obliging in this illegal service. You can find the evidence here.

Now we can understand those who are Pro-Life being offended by this, but abortion in general is offensive to such. But why is it that those who are ‘Pro-Choice’ are so appalled at this? If a woman entered a surgery and said she wanted an abortion because of social circumstances or even just because she ‘had her reasons’, then the law (or the way the law is applied, see below), and therefore the physician, would recognise this as her inalienable right and proceed. However when the request is on the basis that she wants a son instead of a daughter then there’s outcry. I don’t understand why anyone is surprised that this is taking place and the further report which suggests that this practice is widespread should come as no shock. When we have it drummed into us that pre-24 week life in the womb is dispensable if inconvenient, then why not terminate the unborn if they have been as inconvenient as to be the wrong gender?

David Steel - A man with a 45-year-old burden on his conscience?

Also, I would encourage all citizens to look at what the Abortion Act of 1967 actually says about the conditions under which an abortion is permitted – you might be surprised at the latitude with which it is interpreted. It won’t take you long, check out the Act here and for interesting comment on this see here. Bad (and, yes, unrighteous) laws have allowed this scandal to emerge and I dare say the implications for where this denigration of the worth of life shall take us as a society still has a long way to run yet.

The original Hippocratic oath didn’t get it too far wrong:

…I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give a woman a pessary to produce abortion…

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Dying to be a Christian?

February 24, 2012 1 Comment

The Nadarkhani family: Laying it all on the line for Christ

I mentioned in a previous post the danger which faced a Christian pastor in Iran who for years has been the subject of uncertainty as to his fate in the Iranian courts. Youcef Nadarkhani was found guilty of apostasy in 2010 and last year failed in an appeal against the death penalty which he was sentenced to receive for his ‘crimes’. At his appeal trial last year the following dialogue took place, when asked to ‘repent’:

Nadarkhani: Repent means to return. What should I return to? To the blasphemy I had before my faith in Christ?

Judge: To the religion of your ancestors, Islam.

Nadarkhani: I cannot.

This sort of dialogue before the authorities rings in my ears a bit like Martin Luther’s stand at the Diet of Worms. Luther was ordered to recant of the things he had written:

Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other – my conscience is captive to the Word of god. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.

(quoted from: Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther,  p. 144)

That was in 1521 when we think of such hardship on Christians as being commonplace; yet in Iran in 2012 men and women are facing the ultimate penalty for their faith in Christ because there are reports this week that Iranian officials have issued the execution orders for Nadarkhani which means (if true) he could be executed at any time. Even though Barack Obama’s office condemned these actions yesterday (bear in mind, of course, that Iran-bashing is politically expedient for Mr President at the moment), could this possibly be one of the most under-reported forms of religious persecution today? There are news reports at (in no particular order) ACLJ, Jerualem Post, Fox News and Huffington Post; but as for the British media – where are they?

I mention these events here so that God’s people might be encouraged to unite in prayer for this Pastor and his family – prayer changes things! Also, let’s tell people about what is happening to Christians around the world simply for being Christians. Lastly, let’s be inspired by persecuted Christians so that, just as Paul could say in the midst of his persecution:

I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

Philippians 1:12-14 ESV

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Promoting human rights or policing human thoughts?

February 17, 2012 Leave a comment

Chairman of EHRC telling someone else what to think...again

Trevor Phillips: Ears covered, mouth open...

The place of religion in society seems to be getting a lot of column-inches at the moment and  accordingly we were long overdue a round of self-promotional pontificating from the Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (I had to look that up) Trevor Philips. Mr Phillips tends to get the abbreviated title of “equalities chief” in the press and until now I didn’t know what that entailed. He has given us the benefit of his views on the matter of Christians seeking to be exempted from certain of the equality laws on the grounds of conscience. Particularly he has in his sights those who offer services, but conscience does not allow them to give those service to (in this case) homosexual couples. So take for example the owners of a bed and breakfast who were given a criminal record for refusing to allow a homosexual couple to share a double room (recently losing an appeal against their conviction) as well as Catholic adoption agencies which have chosen to shut down because they would not allow homosexual couples to adopt (they were refused an exemption and so would be breaking the law if they continued). Over to Mr Phillips:

Once you start to provide public services that have to be run under public rules, for example child protection, then you have to go with public law and institutions have to make a decision whether they want to do that or they don’t want to do that. You can’t say because we decide we’re different then we need a different set of laws. To me there’s nothing different in principle with a Catholic adoption agency, or indeed Methodist adoption agency, saying the rules in our community are different and therefore the law shouldn’t apply to us. Why not then say sharia can be applied to different parts of the country? It doesn’t work.

(These are his exact words (16/2/2012) – I transcribed them from here [one for the insomniacs])

This is preposterous reasoning and fails to see the key difference between what Christians in these situations are asking for and what something like sharia law would demand. In fact, the way the current equality legislation appears to be set out is more akin to sharia law than anything these demonised adoption agencies or hotel owners are seeking. What is the difference?

Christians in these circumstances are not asking for a law to be re-written, they are asking for freedom to offer their services in a way which does not contravene their Christian conscience. This is not to seek to impose anything on anyone, but only seeks freedom for the individual. It is my view that this does not need to contravene any law, that is provided the law doesn’t stretch beyond the realms it should.  How very different from sharia law – just take a look at the oppression which this places upon poor souls stuck under such regimes. For example, the current case of journalist Hamza Kashkari shows the penalty for apostasy (conversion from Islam) in action – it is an imposition of religion upon its subjects. Moreover it is a system of law which would be completely contrary to many of the laws in the UK. Is this really comparable to an adoption agency not being willing to give children to homosexual couples? No, the issue starts when the sort of laws entering the statute book have sharia-esque flavours. Christians are not rebellious against the law, it is that the law has migrated into the realm of not just dictating reasonable human behaviour, but now dictates to society what it should or should not think. It has the terrible whiff of trying to set up a totalitarian regime – one stray thought and you’re toast! There’s none quite so intolerant as a liberal…

Th apostle Paul encourages Christians to pray for their secular leaders “… that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” (1 Timothy 2:2). Therefore, one thing for which we must pray is that the trend of introducing legislation which legislates against conscience would end. I would hate to see laws which imposed my religion upon others, yet it seems to be a primary means of convincing us all of the merits of political correctness. Much prayer needed…

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self-deluded quotation of the week

February 16, 2012 Leave a comment

The ever-normal Archbishop of Canterbury

“…being religious is not eccentric or abnormal…”

(yesterday at Lambeth Palace, describing the Queen’s example of faith)

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