Politics

What about church politics? The tribal loyalties that have turned denominations, church buildings and ‘ministries’ into gods is a Pagan trait superimposed upon the Christian tradition.

Instead of worshipping the creator God, we sometimes end up worshipping the creation, (denomination etc.), in the same way that Pagans worship the sun,moon, stars, trees, idols, etc..

What about coalition Christianity?

It already exists as a facade in Evangelical groupings and also in Ecumenical groupings, but beneath the surface the core purpose of each denomination and ‘church’ is their own survival, their own structures and status quo.

OK, so what political party will defend the rights of Christians in the UK?

The truth is that there are so many different varieties of ‘christians’, that a politician would go dizzy trying to represent them all and so lip service is paid to the Christian establishment (local and national). The rub is, that the establishment locally and nationally rarely represent the biblical Jesus Christ. Most of the ‘christian’ establishment have either abandoned their first love (Jesus) for a ‘god’ fashioned by their own intellect, or they haven’t the courage to speak in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, because they fear the persecution that the media will orchestrate.

How can it be that in a nation where the majority still regard themselves as ‘christian’, the sensitivities of minority faiths are considered by the political establishment, but the sensitivities of many Christians are trampled under foot?

Whatever the future holds for Christianity in the UK will be determined by what Christian leaders are prepared to say and to do, because most Christians expect their leaders to lead from the front.

It has suited the Christian leaders to be the ‘bosses’ and so they must take the responsibility for the failure to secure special status for Christianity in our laws that defend the Christian tradition. Blaming European laws is a cop out.

Furthermore, the ‘christians’ who hide behind the theology that says ‘follow my leader’, are equally to blame for not speaking out in defence of the Christian tradition.

Death may help the old timers to escape the persecution that is gaining momentum as the anti Christ’s recognise that the Christian leaders are inadequate in mobilising the Christian community. However, the future looks bleak for the Christian Church if it does not equip its members to know their faith and defend it.

So what political party will help the Christian community the most?

The truth is that all the main political party’s pay lip service to our Christian tradition, but the politicians still vote for laws that have diminished it.

Even a local Council such as at the City of Carlisle celebrated the Millennium of Jesus’ birth by commissioning a stone carved with curses and they put a Pagan god on their Logo and but for a public backlash they would also have created a huge glass pyramid.

It was interesting that an established Labour Council of twenty years was turfed out of office for wanting the glass pyramid when the public didn’t due to their ongoing cost to the tax payer.

It shows what public opinion can do when it is mobilised.

The local Labour MP Eric Martlew did not defend the rights of the Christians to their religious beliefs when they wanted the Cursing Stone removed from public display. Instead, he condemned them.

Curiously the ex Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown called a woman a bigot because she was concerned about immigration. Such a lack of sensitivity to the genuine beliefs of good people, one might expect to find in a bar room lynch mob, but for parliamentarians to voice such prejudice, is frightening.

Will Christian leaders mobilise their congregations and denominations to fight for our religious sensitivities to be respected?

One or two have spoken out, but is it too little and too late?

I have heard some Christians blame the age in which we live. Yet the age in which Christ lived was far more brutal. The age in which the Apostles evangelised was murderous, The ages in which the Christian tradition has been carried to us were far more treacherous, where even the so called ‘christians’ killed one another.

The age in which we now live was allowed to evolve because the Christian establishment failed to speak out, failed to lead from the front, failed to boldly proclaim the gospel that they were paid, pensioned and honoured to deliver.

Every age has had evil people and ordinary folk sometimes doing evil and people just looking for the truth.

The truth is that the Christian establishment failed to mobilise the Christian community to ensure that Christianity’s unique place and position in our society was maintained.

Ok, so what can we do now?

We could start loving one another for a start.

If Christians were bound together in fellowship and love, then through that fellowship and love, the Holy Spirit would be encouraged to work His miracles.

“Do good to everyone, but especially those who belong to the household

of believers.” Galatians 6:10

Read what the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to instruct us in 1 Corinthians 13

There are many Christians in the City of Carlisle in need of practical help, or advice and encouragement, or someone to talk to who will listen and understand. There are many Christians in need of a friend and because they are flesh and blood, they need people and not just someone telling them that Jesus is their friend.

Friendship should not depend on them tithing into a particular church (‘club’), or swallowing every bit of indoctrination of that ‘club’, or singing from the same hymn sheet as their fellows.