Coronavirus, nationhood and the spiritual battle over boundaries

Anna Coxon reviews ‘The Virtue of Nationalism’ by Yoram Hazony (2018, Basic Books)

We ignore the basic building blocks of God’s Creation at our peril.

Recently I discovered a booklet lodged between two books on a shelf in my study. I had not seen it for many years. It had been given to me by a colleague in the LSE when I was lecturing in Sociology in London University. Its title is ‘The Gay Liberation Front Manifesto: London 1971’. Here are a few quotes from it.

Under the heading ‘Family’ it says:

The oppression of gay people starts in the most basic unit of society, the family, consisting of the man in charge, a slave as his wife, and their children on whom they force themselves as the ideal models. The very form of the family works against homosexuality.

Under the heading ‘Church’ it says:

Formal religious education is still part of everyone’s schooling, and our whole legal structure is supposedly based upon Christianity, whose archaic and irrational teachings support the family and marriage as the only permitted condition for sex.

Under ‘Compulsive Monogamy’ it says:

We do not deny that it is as possible for gay couples as for some straight couples to live happily and constructively together. We question however as an ideal, the finding and settling down eternally with one 'right' partner. This is the blueprint of the straight world which gay people have taken over.

Under ‘Aims’ it says:

The long-term goal of the London Gay Liberation Front, which inevitably brings us into fundamental conflict with the institutionalised sexism of this society, is to rid society of the gender-role system which is at the root of our oppression. This can only be achieved by the abolition of the family as the unit in which children are brought up. (emphasis added)

In sociological terms, the family is the basic unit in society responsible not only for passing on the culture from generation to generation, but for the stability of society as a whole. Once the family breaks down, all the structures of society are destabilised (it is important to grasp that what we are dealing with here is a foundational social issue, not a critique of a particular minority group).

The family is the basic unit in society responsible not only for passing on the culture from generation to generation, but for the stability of society as a whole.

The Cost of Broken Homes

When family life crumbles the first to be affected are children, who depend upon the family not only for learning the rules of society, culture and language, but also for their identity, protection, security and confidence. Millions of children are damaged every year by domestic violence, the breakup of their parents’ relationship and the upheaval of an unstable home-life.

In 1998 I was one of a group of academics who did a survey of family life in Britain and presented a report to the then-Home Secretary, Jack Straw MP. The report presented irrefutable proof that the heterosexual married couple family is the most stable form of family life and presents the best outcome for children. All other types of family leave children disadvantaged and negatively affect their future life-chances.

Jack Straw responded stating “The family is the building block of society”. He recognised the need to prioritise the married family and promised to publish a White Paper with Government measures to strengthen it. But he ran into problems in the Cabinet because the Blair Government had been heavily infiltrated by LGBTQ+ supporters who were strongly opposed to family and marriage. Straw was never able to publish the White Paper.

Family Matters

The report, ‘Family Matters’,¹ gave strong warnings of what would happen if there were no measures to strengthen the married family. It stated that the number of fatherless children will increase; so too will sexually transmitted diseases among young people. The number of insecurely attached and disturbed children will increase, worsening behavioural and mental health problems among schoolchildren. The cumulative effect of these and other trends will put pressure on the health and welfare services, resulting in a wide range of social problems.

The warnings were ignored - with the result we see today in our daily newspapers and on TV: knife crime, guns and drugs, self-harm (affecting one in five girls aged 13-16), and the rise in the suicide rate among young people, especially teenagers.²

But all this is only the tip of the iceberg of what will happen in the future if we continue breaking down gender differences among children in our primary schools. The level of mental health problems will go through the sky! Gender is a basic building block of God’s Creation which we ignore at our peril!!

Gender is a basic building block of God’s Creation which we ignore at our peril!

Warnings Ignored

We are in a similar position to the people in Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s time, when he sent a strong warning to the King, on a scroll read by a court messenger. King Jehoiakim, instead of taking careful note of the warnings, destroyed the scroll: “Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the King cut them off with a scribe’s knife and threw them into the brazier, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire” (Jer 36:23).

Jeremiah went back before God in his prayer time and heard the response: “I will bring on them and those living in Jerusalem and the people of Judah every disaster I pronounced against them because they have not listened” (36:31). Then Jeremiah took another scroll and dictated similar words and a lot more warnings. As we know from history, the warnings were ignored and Jerusalem was destroyed, with thousands losing their lives.

Even those who are not Bible-believing Christians should be aware that the heterosexual married couple family is the only unit in our culture capable of maintaining the very fabric of our civilisation. If it is destroyed, which is the stated aim of the LGBTQ+ lobby, they will actually destroy the foundational structures of society in the Western nations, which can only lead to chaos.

Deafness in Church and State

Yet politicians and church leaders are deaf to all warnings. Either they are so incompetent that they cannot grasp simple facts; or they are bent on a suicide mission to destroy Western civilisation that will bring about their own demise along with millions of others. The Methodist Church in their Annual Assembly are due to debate same-sex marriage next week. Will the successors of John Wesley uphold his commitment to biblical truth, or will they acquiesce to the powers of darkness seeking the destruction of humanity?

Politicians and church leaders are deaf to all warnings.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has already set down a marker for the ‘Apostate Church’ of the last days by encouraging CofE Primary Schools to promote cross-dressing among little children,³ to prepare them for living in the brave new world that the LGBTQ+ lobby are intent upon creating. Jesus said that it would be better for those who harm children to be thrown into the sea and drowned.

Surely God will bring judgment upon those who distort his word and play havoc with the truth. Billy Graham said that if God does not bring judgment upon America he will have to apologise to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Surely the same applies to Britain. But what will our new Prime Minister do, whether it is Boris or Jeremy (Hunt or Corbyn…)? Will any one of our politicians recognise the threat to the future of our civilisation posed by the destruction of the family and have the courage to reverse the tide of change – and will believing Christians have the courage to hold them to account?

References

1 Download the full report here.

2 E.g. see here and here (p7).

3 The Independent, 13 November 2017.

But its believers have found true freedom

Bearing in mind the brutality meted out against protesters as Hong Kong slips inexorably towards China’s orbit of control, we are reminded by author Kai Strittmatter of the tendency for totalitarian regimes to rewrite history.

“In China, remembering events the Chinese Communist Party chooses to erase from history is a subversive act and thus forbidden and punished,” he wrote in the Daily Mail.¹

For example, reference to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 30 years ago has been gradually eradicated and many under-30s have no idea that it ever took place. “The state’s troops murdered the protesters; the state’s writers murder the truth.”

Erasing the Past

Sound familiar? Yes, such erasure of the past is proceeding apace all over the globe – even in our country, but especially in the Middle East, where Islamist terror groups are hell-bent on turning truth upside-down in order to justify their murderous behaviour.

They even go to the extent of denying that the Holocaust ever took place, and refuting ancient Jewish links to the Holy Land despite the weight of evidence, backed by libraries of documents and multiple acres of archaeological digs.

True, the land was indeed held by the Muslim Turks for 400 years until Britain’s General Allenby effectively won it back for God’s ancient people. But even Jordanian academic Rami Dabbas, in saying that Arabs have everything to gain from ‘normalisation’ with Israel, acknowledges: “The Arabs are the original occupiers, and have no right to deny the return of the Jewish nation.”²

“It is time to solve this conflict, and that begins with us, the Arabs, accepting the Jewish people’s true historical connection to this land. We have everything to gain from so doing.”

Totalitarian regimes are hell-bent on turning truth upside-down in order to justify their murderous behaviour.

Socially Harmonised Subjects

Kai Strittmatter, meanwhile, in his essay, goes on to mention China’s “socially harmonised and politically compliant subjects” whose every move is being increasingly watched by ‘Big Brother’ on an apocalyptic scale, with a staggering 600 million CCTV cameras.

That’s almost one for every two people in a vast country now exporting its surveillance and artificial intelligence technology all over the world in an apparent attempt to expand its global influence.

But before we congratulate ourselves for not succumbing to this extreme form of socialism, consider how a largely compliant British society has been so quickly and easily mesmerised into a politically-correct harmonisation of ideas, ethics and morality – the ‘normality’ of same-sex ‘marriage’ and even the encouragement of transgenderism in primary schools, that effectively amounts to state child abuse.

And who among us dares to question this diabolical form of social engineering, otherwise known as ‘cultural Marxism’? We have been trained like dogs to ‘sit’ and ‘walk’ at the command of our progressive masters. Even pulling at the leash is forbidden, and we are condemned as unloving bigots if we should so much as suggest that there is another, better way.

We Christians are too easily cowed into a corner, opting for reflective navel-gazing or gathering in our holy huddles while the world outside recklessly careers towards the cliff. But there is another side to China, for the same reason that there is another side to England.

Out of the Ashes

With the World Cup cricket tournament currently being hosted here, Hatikvah Films have been promoting CTA’s docudrama Out of the Ashes – the hugely inspiring story of how one of England’s greatest cricketers heard the call of God to China.

Twice achieving the ‘double’ of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a county cricket season (in just 20 and 25 matches respectively), CT Studd was a leading member of the England team that first brought the Ashes3 back from Australia in 1883.

But his missionary endeavours reached much wider fields. As part of the so-called Cambridge Seven, Studd endured years of extreme hardship and deprivation to bring the Gospel to the Chinese people. After giving away his vast fortune to Christian causes, he also went on to serve God in India and Africa, where he founded the World Evangelisation Crusade in 1913.

But it was the China Inland Mission, founded by Barnsley-born Hudson Taylor, that first stirred his heart. And it is believed that, due largely to their efforts, there are more Christians in China today than there are people in Britain. In fact, estimates reach as high as 100 million, but it is difficult to quantify, partly due to the severe persecution that has forced many believers to practise ‘under the radar’ while others have paid with their lives.

We Christians are too easily cowed into a corner.

These brave souls may have been ‘chained’ by Communism (or even slain by the Dragon symbolic of China), but they have been truly set free by Jesus, who said: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31f).

That’s the potential power of the Gospel, and we praise God for men like Taylor and Studd who gave their lives so sacrificially for the Chinese people.

Teeming Millions

So when you think or hear of China again, picture the teeming millions of believers being persecuted for their faith. Pray that they will stand, as this cricketing hero of old stood the test in a fiery trial.

Studd left the comfort zone of fame, fortune and familiarity for foreign fields, for he was convinced that “if Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”

Reflecting further on this, he said: “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” And in a poem he penned, he posed the ultimate challenge: “Only one life, ’twil soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”

References

1 Daily Mail, 15 June 2019. Kai Strittmatter is author of We Have Been Harmonised: Life in China’s surveillance state, Old Street Publishing, £9.99.

2 Israel Today, May 2019.

3 Literally, an urn with the burnt-out remains of a bail, used to keep the wickets in place. The contest came to be known as the Ashes in response to England’s loss to Australia at the Oval in 1882, when a satirical obituary declared that English cricket had died and “the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”.

How the West was lost – and what God's people ought to do about it.

Editorial Introduction: Randall Hardy concludes his interview with Bishop Ashenden, who speaks about how believers can respond in these turbulent days.

Part 2: Paying the Price

RH: Many Christians, from a broad cross-section of Bible-believing backgrounds, are holding on to a hope that the secularisation of the West could be reversed. The bolder ones expect this to be the case. Do you see such hopes to be realistic?

GA: I've spent the whole of my adult life trying to reverse secularism in the West. I've done it energetically and I've done it in its heartland, which is the university where I spent 25 years arguing - enthusiastically and joyfully - for the Kingdom and for belief. I enjoyed tripping up my atheist friends with the weaknesses in their own arguments, but I have to say that no matter how many arguments I won, they didn't often result in the change of the human heart.

If I look at the extent to which the churches have changed human hearts in the West, however, whatever you put it down to, we haven't succeeded very well. So some of us can enjoy scoring points philosophically, but that isn't the goal and it doesn't achieve very much.

We ought to give some thought and pray for discernment to understand why we've lost so many hearts, but I think you have to take into account…the notion of spiritual conflict…and also the inevitable hubris of technological innovation.

I'd like to think that as time [goes] on and secular society [begins] to collapse under the weight of its own ambition and cleverness, we could [make] more impact on hungry human hearts. But long before that will happen, [I believe that] Islam will overtake us and we won't have the opportunity.

RH: For centuries the Western church has considered itself to have a role in governing the state. Do you think this has been helpful in fulfilling its main mission? How do you think Christians can most helpfully engage with the state in the future?

GA: The role of Christians is always to Christianise people and, again, the human heart. The Gospels ought to have taught us the danger of hoping to produce a Christian state, because of the constant danger of imbalance between the life of the Spirit and the life of the flesh, speaking theologically.

So the best Christianity can do is to infiltrate and infect the state for good, but its influence grows and wanes. There have been times when we've done that very effectively, partly because our rulers have been hungry for God, and [there have been] times when we have done it very badly, partly because our rulers have had hard hearts. But it's always ebbed and flowed. The great temptation is to imagine that we can capture the state for the Kingdom of Heaven, and that's a category error.

We ought to give some thought and pray for discernment to understand why we've lost so many hearts.

What we now find is that we live in a period of time when the state [is] resentful of Christianity…to some extent the animus we experience as Christians in [Britain] is driven by hatred and resentment of moral constraints that Christianity offered as an understanding of the virtuous life.

And in that sense we're experiencing a delayed reaction of revenge from a culture that is in rebellion against God the Father and the transformation He calls us to. [The culture] takes some delight in taking that revenge out on a weakened Church.

RH: The rise of secularism in the West and globally suggests that we face a very uncertain future. What advice do you have for Western Christians as they look ahead?

GA: I think the first thing I would say is make sure you understand the history of Islam, and don't believe the propaganda about the convivencia in Spain. The suffering of Christians and Jews in Spain reached the most dreadful scale - until Muslims were driven out by force.

There are only two ways to deal with Islamic ambition in history - and they're either to convert Muslims from Mohammed to Jesus, or to meet force with force. I'm still puzzling and praying about my own response to these two ways. I obviously prefer the first, and I don't know to what extent the second is accessible.

I think if Christians want to preserve any kind of safe space to worship Jesus without interference from the state, we need to enter the public arena with more courage than we've found in the recent past and tell as much of the truth about the human heart, the prophet Mohammed and Jesus the Messiah as we can, in the hope that some secularists will listen and that this will buy us a bit more time.

I think as I look at the history of Islam and the weakness of hedonistic secularism, my own sense is that we have to prepare for a Europe entering a period of darkness in spiritual terms, with the Church having to go underground.

I say that in the appreciation that the Holy Spirit is bringing renewal and new life to people in Russia and in China, and astonishingly within the heart of Islamic culture: Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Whether we are paying the price of our faithlessness as a Church or the hubris of Enlightenment culture, it looks as though Europe is about to enter a period of darkness - so I'm grateful for the light that the Holy Spirit is bringing elsewhere in the world at the same time.

If Christians want to preserve any kind of safe space to worship Jesus, we need to enter the public arena with more courage and tell as much of the truth about the human heart, the prophet Mohammed and Jesus the Messiah as we can.

RH: You've just mentioned that Christians in places such as China and Iran, to name but a few, face intense persecution in various ways. How do you think their experiences can inform our thinking as Christians in nations where freedom is being eroded rapidly?

GA: Christians are always persecuted - even in Europe. As Christian voices have called rulers and populations to account; the Christian voices that have done that, whether they have been Catholic or Protestant, have always faced a reaction of anger and repression from the state.

When Christians aren't persecuted, it may be a sign that they're too deeply steeped in an accommodation to the culture around them. Jesus makes this very clear in the gospels.

So I think that when we look at people who love Jesus paying a very deep price in repressive states around the world, we ought to see them as an inspirational norm and perhaps count it as a privilege that we too may be called to suffer for him in ways that in our more relaxed society we have escaped up until this point.

You can read the first part of Randall's interview with Gavin by clicking here.

Author Biography

Gavin Ashenden read Law at Bristol University, before studying theology at Oak Hill Theological College in London. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1980, subsequently serving in a London parish for 10 years. He spent 23 years at the University of Sussex as a senior lecturer and senior chaplain, lecturing in the Psychology of Religion and Literature.

Over the years he has written occasional newspaper articles and worked for the BBC on a freelance basis presenting a weekly faith and ethics radio programme.

In 2008 he was appointed a Chaplain to the Queen. In 2017 he resigned from this position in order to be free to speak out for the faith in public. Later that year he resigned from the Church of England, convinced that its leadership was replacing apostolic and biblical patterns with the alternative values of Cultural Marxism.

He is now a Missionary Bishop to the UK and Europe in the Christian Episcopal Church.

You can find out more about Gavin’s extraordinary life, journey and ministry on his blog.

When the Church has failed the nation, how can believers pray?

Christians across Britain are gathering for prayer this weekend in meetings in towns and villages, responding to the crisis in the nation. There is no central coordination of these meetings. They are simply a spontaneous reaction to the growing anxiety in the nation to the turmoil in Parliament as we get nearer to the date for leaving the European Union. I am due to speak at an all-day meeting in Wembley Arena, organised by David Hathaway’s Eurovision ministry and which is being live-streamed on the Eurovision website.

The meetings will no doubt bring together Christians who voted different ways in the 2016 Referendum, but the common cause today is to pray for a divided nation and for our political leaders who are striving to find agreement on an acceptable plan for leaving the EU.

Many of our politicians are among the 48% of the nation who voted to remain in the EU and they are still seeking ways to reverse the decision, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that a second referendum would plunge the nation into an unprecedented period of division and uncertainty, possibly even triggering violent confrontation bordering on civil war, stoked by social media.

The Days of Dunkirk

The present crisis is being referred to in the press as something we have not seen since the days of Dunkirk. This is a good parallel because in 1940 the nation recognised that there were no human solutions to the situation facing us, with our army stranded on the continent and the rest of Europe already conquered by the Nazis. Only divine intervention could save Britain from invasion and defeat.

The whole nation was called to a Day of Prayer by the King, joining together to call upon God for a miracle, which Prime Minister Churchill acknowledged in Parliament after an armada of little boats rescued our soldiers from the beaches of northern France.

The difference today is that we are no longer a God-fearing nation and it is only the Bible-believing faithful remnant who will be praying. But God is not a democrat looking for a majority. He loves to work through small numbers, as he did through Gideon’s 300. The big question for Christians today is how do we pray? We know perfectly well that our nation is ungodly and that few of our parliamentarians are born-again believers. So, how should we pray?

The present crisis is being referred to in the press as something we have not seen since the days of Dunkirk.

Record of the Church

I believe the answer lies in looking at the record of the Church in the affairs of the nation over the past decades of social change. In the immediate post-World War II period, the state Church had an Archbishop, Geoffrey Fisher, who was a high-ranking Freemason more interested in the Masonic Grand Lodge of England than in the affairs of Britain. He certainly had no interest in evangelism.

Fisher was followed by Michael Ramsay who was just as bad, and took no interest in the affairs of the nation during his 13 years as Archbishop, while Acts of Parliament were passed of enormous significance in changing Britain’s culture, such as the Race Relations Act, the Abortion Act, the Theatre Act, the Divorce Reform Act and the European Communities Act, which took Britain into the EU. When all these momentous bills were debated, the Church of England was silent. The only bill that Ramsay engaged with in the House of Lords was the measure to legalise homosexual acts, which he publicly advocated.

But Ramsay’s example of political silence was reflected across the whole Church in those days. I have wept before the Lord many times for my own failure to speak about what was happening in the nation. I was the Minister of a large London church preaching to 500 people on a Sunday in the 1960s, but I was not even aware of the Abortion Act that has been responsible for killing nearly 9 million unborn babies. I bitterly regret that I did nothing at that time.

Worse Than Silence

When I was a young man, church leaders were all telling young people not to get involved in politics, which was considered the domain of the devil. This was in total contrast to the Victorian era when the Bible was quoted regularly in Parliament. But in the 20^th Century, evangelicals came to consider social action to be alien territory. We left politics to others so we should hardly be surprised at what we’ve got today. But the Church of England’s record is worse than just silence.

In the 20^th Century, evangelicals came to consider social action to be alien territory: we left politics to others.

In the year 2000 an Education Bill was going through Parliament and a peer introduced an amendment calling for schools to teach that faithful marriage is the ideal form of family. This was fiercely opposed by Tony Blair’s Government who were strongly influenced by LGBTQ+ activists. The vote in the House of Lords was very close - but nine bishops voted with the Government. If they had voted the other way, the amendment would have been carried.

In the report to Parliament The Cost of Family Breakdown,¹ it was noted that the Church’s official representatives had voted against faithful monogamy as the ideal for family life despite massive evidence showing that all other forms of the family give inferior outcomes for children.

Confession and Weeping

Christians who are coming before the Lord this weekend to pray for the nation should recognise that we are all part of the wider Church that has failed to take an active role in getting the Gospel into the affairs of the nation during the decades when the greatest social changes have taken place.

Our prayers should be prayers of confession, weeping before the Lord as Jeremiah wept over Israel in his day, “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for my people” (Jer 9:1).

Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and if we love our nation we too should be weeping before the Lord. The words of the Prophet Joel give us hope for the future: “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing” (Joel 2:13-14).

References

1 See Foreword by Norman Dennis, pp3-4. Download the full report here.

Do not be hasty to point the finger at MPs.

No-one can deny that the nation is in a great crisis. The antics in the House of Commons in the past couple of months have been exposed to the world through television and reports in the British press. It has not been a pretty sight to see all our politicians shouting at each other and no-one listening to anyone else. Passions have been reaching fever pitch, yet no clear majority view has been emerging.

The plain truth is that nobody knows what to do or how to solve the problems that face the nation. Most of our MPs know what they do not like, but they are short on solutions.

The massive majority of the vote to reject Theresa May’s deal brought together people with vastly opposing views; but they were all in agreement on one thing – they did not like what was on offer. Even the Remainers who prefer to stay within the European Union voted against the deal because it would have reduced Britain to the status of having to observe EU rules and regulations without having any say in their formulation.

No Standard of Truth

As we have said many times in these editorials, there are no political solutions to the problems confronting the nation and this is the reason why there is such confusion. Our MPs do not understand the issues, because they have lost the objective standard of truth provided by the biblical foundations of our Judeo-Christian faith that has provided stability and direction for the nation over many centuries.

Without that standard of truth there is no yardstick for measuring different proposals. It allows the propagation of lies and the use of fear to promote proposals that have no basis in truth, such as the fear of leaving the EU with ‘no deal’. It is said that this will collapse the British economy. But less than half of our exports are linked to the European Union and Europe sells us £95 billion more in goods annually than we sell to them!¹ That’s the trade deficit with the EU.

As we have said many times in these editorials, there are no political solutions to the problems confronting the nation and this is the reason why there is such confusion.

It is clearly a pack of lies that our economy will collapse! Once we are free of obligations to the EU, we can do deals with the rest of the world and our economy will flourish if we put our trust in the Lord. But the truth is hidden from the British people by the lies of those who have no trust in God and no understanding of the way he blesses a nation that is founded upon righteousness and the teaching of the word of the Lord.

Lack of Vision

But who is to blame for the fact that our politicians have little or no knowledge of biblical teaching? Why are there so few voices in Parliament championing Judeo-Christian values? And why do only a minority of committed Christians engage in politics?

The simple answer to these questions is that church leaders and preachers do not rightly handle the word of the Lord, so the truth of God’s word does not get embedded in the lives of churchgoers, let alone those who have loose connections with the Church.

This is largely because most preachers lack prophetic vision - they no longer fearlessly declare the word of the Lord in their churches, or prophetically relate biblical teaching to social and national issues. They give nice, cosy little homilies on biblical themes that lack the dynamic thrust of the two-edged sword of the Lord. So, we now have a generation of closet Christians with no mission to transform the nation. If the whole word of the Lord is not heard in church, it will not reach out into the nation.

Silent Church

Let me put a plain question to all those of you who go to church regularly: when was the last time you heard the minister address national issues in the context of the word of God? Do you regularly hear from the pulpit the teaching of the Bible – both the word of God through the Prophets of Israel and the Gospel proclaimed by Jesus and taught by the apostles – expounded and applied, not only to personal and local issues, but also to national issues that our politicians and leaders are having to face?

In your church do you pray for the nation? Do you have intercessions for those in authority (1 Tim 2:2), where you pray for your town council, or your city council, or your Member of Parliament, or the Government, or the Queen?

If the whole word of the Lord is not heard in church, it will not reach out into the nation.

Why is the Church so silent on national issues and so separated from the world in which we all live? When was the last time you heard a sermon unpacking the Bible and applying its truth to current issues? Do you ever hear the preacher explaining the word of the Lord revealed through the Prophets in the Bible – Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel?

When did you last hear the basic teaching of the Torah expounded in your church?

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deut 6:4-7)

This surely shows that responsibility for passing on the faith rests not only with church leaders, but with ordinary believers. Do you impress biblical teaching in your conversation with your children or grandchildren? Do you talk about the word of the Lord at home and when you walk along the street?

We have no right to criticise our Members of Parliament for not knowing biblical truth if we have not rightly handled the word of the Lord in our own family, or among our friends and neighbours.

Reformation Starts with You and Me

Of course, the nation is in a mess; but who is really to blame? In biblical times God always held the preachers and prophets responsible for the nation – as Jeremiah said:

My people do not know the requirements of the Lord…actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely…From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. (Jer 8:7-11)

Can the same charge be levelled at the Church today? Not just the preachers: all of us, to some extent, bear responsibility. Should we not all be weeping before the Lord in repentance? The reformation of the nation does not start in Westminster: it starts in the Church - with you and me.

References

1 Statistics on UK-EU trade. Research Briefing, House of Commons Library, 30 November 2018.

Why at a time of genuine crisis, the Church is conveniently absent.

Our Editorial this week focuses on the contributions of the British Church to our present situation of national confusion, division and existential crisis. By all accounts, there is no united, biblical, prophetic message coming from Christian leaders at this time, though one is sorely needed.

Indeed, there is a strong case for laying the blame for Britain’s predicament (partially if not entirely) at the door of the Church. But how did we get to this point, and where do we go from here?

The furore over Brexit, as we often note on Prophecy Today, forms just one part of a broader, multi-pronged assault on the West’s Judeo-Christian foundations that is telling on nations on both sides of the Atlantic. But while the USA has a strong conservative evangelical wing, well-supported and well-financed, pushing back hard against secular humanism, here in Britain there is no similarly coherent defence of our heritage.

The Christian voice in this country has always been multiple and fractured, which explains why over the past century no united front has been rallied to combat the enemies at our gates. In fact, our gates have largely been left open and unguarded, so the enemy has walked right in and made himself at home.

Shallow Roots

I have been reminded this week that our sorry situation has a long history, going right back to the establishment (or disestablishment) of Anglicanism.¹

Historically speaking, with the notable exceptions of many outstanding individual clergy, theologians and congregants, the CofE’s shallow theological roots have left it unable to withstand the onslaught of centuries of secularisation, two world wars and the pernicious spread of liberal theology. Since the 18^th Century, whilst many revivals have taken place outside church walls, the CofE has gradually become crippled by unbelief and moral and theological incoherence.

Since the 18^th Century, whilst revivals have taken place outside church walls, the CofE has gradually become crippled by unbelief and moral and theological incoherence.

The objective, intellectual and public aspects of the faith have been undermined, tipping the emphasis towards the subjective, the experiential and the private. This has strengthened the notion, popular inside and outside the Church, that faith and politics should not mix and that Christianity should be confined to matters of inner wellbeing, not to the direction of the country.

Thus, the religion of secular humanism, with its false claims of impartiality, has been allowed to ascend to prominence in the public realm, replacing ‘Christendom’, while clergy have been hamstrung by a loss of confidence in their own message. Despite its immensely privileged position, our established Church has been so weakened and divided as to be prevented from speaking the Bible’s wisdom fully and fearlessly, with united voice, into public life.

Joining in the Arson

Canterbury Cathedral.

This loss of confidence in the truth and power of the Gospel has opened up the CofE to all sorts of weird and wonderful theologies and spiritual practices, from New Age labyrinths and meditation to multi-faith celebrations hosting Muslim calls to prayer and pantheistic songs praising Hindu deities.

Instead of using their authority to defend unborn children, the precious covenant of marriage, the authority of Scripture and the unique superiority of biblical ethics, many clergy have been occupied with preaching the green agenda, LGBTQ+ ideology and multi-faith ‘partnerships’. The Gospel has been exchanged for an entirely different message, reframing sin in terms of social and environmental injustice, virtue in terms of ‘tolerance’, and salvation in terms of social service or good works.

In these senses, the established Church is culpable for behaving as Nero legendarily did during the Fall of Rome. Even worse: it has grabbed a torch and joined in the arson.

Warning Signs

And so we arrive at today’s frankly absurd situation where helter-skelters and explicit films are now used in cathedrals to ‘start spiritual conversations’ while genuine evangelists are refused entry.² The CofE’s quest for relevance without the anchor of biblical truth has led it into deep irrelevance.

Tell-tale warning signs – nose-diving membership, worsening splits within the ‘Anglican Communion’ at home³ and abroad⁴ – are ignored or misunderstood. The present Archbishop of Canterbury was last seen appointing a clergyman with big question marks over his views about the resurrection⁵ to lead ecumenical relations with Rome, while the House of Bishops busies itself promoting open celebrations of transgenderism.

The established Church is culpable for behaving as Nero legendarily did during the Fall of Rome. Even worse: it has grabbed a torch and joined in the arson.

Given all this, it is hardly surprising that as the chaos of Brexit unfolds, the established Church is not found reprimanding the country with biblical warnings and reminding it of Gospel truths, but simply telling people to be nice to each other as they disagree and – oh yes – joining in the scaremongering about a ‘no deal’ Brexit.⁶

Other Denominations

It is easy to take aim at the CofE, but other denominations fare little better. The Methodist Church, URC, the Church of Scotland and other long-standing streams have also declined as a result of abandoning truth.

Meanwhile, the smaller networks of ‘new’ churches and the host of independent evangelical and/or charismatic churches that have exploded onto the scene during the last century have failed to galvanise a united prophetic voice to the nation. Many have become institutionalised and remain divided, with their own theological and spiritual problems. Most notably, Replacement Theology has infected churches of all streams, which is not a recipe for right interpretations of Scripture nor for receiving God’s blessing.

So, while there are many instances of individually faithful congregations and leaders, the charge of losing confidence in the truth of Scripture and accepting ‘a different Jesus, a different Spirit and a different Gospel’ (2 Cor 11:4) applies far more widely than just to the CofE – which explains why so many faithful believers today find themselves isolated, unable to find a Bible-believing church.

What Next?

A bleak situation, then. But as we observed last summer with the series ‘Our Book of Remembrance’, God has long had his eye on Britain, blessing and reviving us many times in the past, despite our failures. We do not believe that God has finished with Britain, nor that he is unable to achieve his purposes through-and-despite our splintered, unfaithful, indecisive Church.

What, then, is next? We can all pray for prophetic voices to be raised up to speak Gospel truths into the public realm, but what is also needed is for the faithful remnant to be united and strengthened, for they are currently scattered and divided. For the task ahead, God will need true unity of spirit and purpose, and of brotherly fellowship, to be displayed by his people.

The true ‘ekklesia’ in Britain is no doubt a patchwork collective drawn from many different denominations, as well as prayer groups, house fellowships, isolated believers and new converts. Thankfully, God is more than able to stitch us together in him, by the work of the Holy Spirit, through the prayers of the saints. As one member⁷ of Prophecy Today’s new Facebook community observed this week:

The one very encouraging sign amidst all the confusion and division among both politicians and the public at large, and amidst all the horrendous scare-mongering and media bias on our TV screens and newspapers on an almost hourly basis – is the fact that a good number of Christians all over the country have sensed in their spirits the absolute necessity of being watchmen & women on the walls at this time, interceding before God in heaven for this desperate nation of ours. God IS our only hope in the days ahead, and we cry to Him for mercy. In the beautiful opening words of a revival hymn written by the late Rev Alex Muir of Inverness,

Lord, have mercy on our country
Turn our hearts to You again,
Though we’ve grieved Your Holy Spirit
By our deeds of sin and shame

Though our sins rise like a dark cloud
May our prayers rise even higher
Pleading for divine forgiveness
Pleading for the Heavenly fire.

References

1 See Phillips, M, The World Turned Upside Down, chapter 16 for a useful summary.

2 Exclusive: Evangelical ‘banned’ by Derby Cathedral receives widespread support. Christian Institute, 6 December 2018.

3 Davies, M. More than 100 Oxford clergy criticise bishops’ LGBTI guidance. Church Times, 9 January 2019.

4 E.g. see here.

5 See here and here.

6 See here and here.

7 Tom Lennie, re-printed with permission.

London launch celebrates Dr Hill’s most significant book yet.

We are pleased to report the successful launch of The Reshaping of Britain, a new book by Rev Dr Clifford Hill, Prophecy Today’s Editor-in-Chief and Director of Issachar Ministries.

On the evening of Wednesday 3 October, around 100 delegates at London’s Institute for Contemporary Christianity enjoyed talks from the author and two of his long-standing ministry associates, a Q&A and a book signing, all washed down with canapés and drinks. The event, chaired and organised ably by Wilberforce Publications (the publishing wing of Christian Concern), was supported in prayer by many groups and individuals around the country – for which we are deeply grateful.

Addressed by the author, the audience were treated to the personal story behind the book, gaining an insight into the life of a man brought by the Lord into Britain’s corridors of power to proclaim truth, and to experience at close quarters events and decisions which have accelerated vast changes in our national life. Though The Reshaping of Britain is not a memoir or an autobiography, it is nevertheless deeply personal, traversing 60 years of ministry amongst politicians and church leaders including four archbishops. These 60 years, of course, also happen to cover a period of profound upheaval and transformation in the nation. With such a track record and a background in both theology and sociology, Clifford is likely the only person who could have written a book of such scope.

The audience were treated to the personal story behind the book, which traverses 60 years of ministry amongst politicians and church leaders that also happen to be years of profound national upheaval.

As part of his address, he highlighted the role of Parliament in systematically dismantling the godly heritage of centuries with a steady stream of ungodly laws (listed in the book). But, more than this, he emphasised the culpability of the Church in allowing - even encouraging - the waywardness of the nation.

Not only has the Church failed in its duty to declare the truth in the public realm and call our political leaders to account, but it has often directly blocked moves to promote and defend godliness in the nation. Clifford testified, at times with obvious emotion, of instances when the established Church single-handedly blocked laws that would have protected and promoted causes such as marriage and the family. His evident passion and grief over this gross dereliction of duty was picked up on later by his friend and colleague, David Noakes, who commended Clifford’s testimony warmly as being the weightier because of his evident care for Britain’s welfare, proven time and again over the course of many decades.

David reminded those listening that, to individuals who truly care enough to seek the Lord’s own heart for Britain and listen to his word, God will reveal more and more of his work in the nation – and the good purposes behind it.

Courtesy of Christian Concern / Wilberforce Publications.Ending his address on a positive note, Clifford explained to those present that after 30 years of “stomping the country preaching repentance and warning”, often being disparaged as a prophet of doom and gloom, in the last two months he has felt the Lord start to speak about the possibility of revival – not instead of difficulty and calamity, but coming through it. Eschewing a focus on himself and his own work, he pointed those listening upwards, to the heart of our Creator and Heavenly Father who desires to seek and save the lost.

Taking his cue from this forward-facing finish, ministry advisor Dr Peter Carruthers wound up the addresses with some reflections on the way ahead. He reminded the audience that being men and women of Issachar (a nod to Issachar Ministries) involves not just understanding the times, but knowing what to do about them (1 Chron 12:32).

A short Q&A allowed the audience to voice their thoughts, with questions ranging from the end times through education to Brexit. Then, those attending were free to browse the book stall and queue to have their copies of The Reshaping of Britain signed by the author.

To those who truly care to seek the Lord’s own heart for Britain and listen to his word, God will reveal more and more of his work in the nation – and the good purposes behind it.

Galvanised to reflect - now with an enriched perspective - on both the anguish and the opportunity that mark the times in which we live, the room became alive with faith-full discussion. Meanwhile, the mindless commotion of Oxford Street, just outside the door, provided a relentless reminder of the timeliness and urgency of this important book.

Following the launch, Clifford reflected: “I am so grateful to have the opportunity of sharing some of my journey and I pray that it will encourage others to stand firm for the faith and to declare the truth in love, which I feel sure the Lord will use to bless his people.”

We warmly commend to you The Reshaping of Britain (345pp, paperback), now available for online purchase from Amazon. Also available from Issachar Ministries for £12 plus £2.50 P&P. Click here for more information.

A message for the Church.

No-one who saw the Grenfell fire on 14 June last year will forget it. It was a literal towering inferno that has had ramifications far beyond North Kensington. It cost the lives of 72 people, displaced not only the survivors but also hundreds who lived nearby and broke the reputation of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) as one of the best-run local councils in the country. More broadly, it exposed deep-seated problems of governance that have shaken the nation.

Over the forthcoming months, the Public Inquiry will reveal more that will no doubt embarrass (in different measures) the Fire Brigade, the Council, the Tenant Management Organisation, the 60+ contractors involved in the refurbishment, the Government department responsible for fire safety and standards, and no doubt a few Government ministers, as well as Parliament. Whether responsibility will be pinned on one or a few, or be much more widely spread, is conjecture. But it is clear that there were very many shortcomings, by many different organisations.

Precisely because of its size - it was the largest such tragedy in 25 years (Hillsborough and Aberfan are both comparable in terms of loss) - and the degree to which it dominated politics and the news for weeks after the fire had extinguished itself, Grenfell needs to be seen both politically and spiritually as a national event, raising national questions.

This is all the more so as - quite ‘coincidentally’ – further tower block fires broke out in Lewisham and Glasgow on the very anniversary of the Grenfell fire. Given that the main news on Thursday was the anniversary of Grenfell, it is as if God, in allowing two fires in similar buildings to break out that same day (although thankfully neither with fatalities) is really trying to get our attention.¹ But many may well have missed these news stories.

Grenfell needs to be seen both politically and spiritually as a national event, raising national questions.

Why Did God Allow Grenfell?

Why did God allow the Grenfell tragedy to occur? First, we need to stress that there was nothing particularly bad about those who died. In Luke 13, Jesus tells his listeners that those who died when the tower in Siloam fell were not worse sinners than others who dwelt in Jerusalem (verse 3). However, he is unequivocal in the following verse that his listeners nevertheless need to repent, lest they too perish.

In other words, the collapse of the Tower of Siloam was allowed by God in order to send a wider message of repentance to those looking on. Just so with Grenfell. Too few Christian leaders regularly acknowledge the degree to which we live in a fallen world, and repentance is a neglected concept. God is very holy and we are very much mired in our sin. We desperately need Jesus’s atoning death to pave the way for eternity.

I also believe God allowed Grenfell in order to expose the sin that lay behind the fire and its aftermath. In a previous article on this subject, I noted that if there was one sin of which RBKC (indeed, the UK as a whole) was perhaps guiltier than most, it was pride, itself the root of all sin.

Thousands join a silent march marking one year since the blaze.Additionally, I believe that God wants to get our attention, as believers and also as UK subjects. It is not his delight to punish, but to show mercy – he wants us to seek his face in serious repentance (not just with lip-service), that he might pour out forgiveness and that we might be restored. Undoubtedly, searching questions need to be asked: not just about who was to blame, but about our entire direction and destiny as a society.

For this reason, Grenfell is first and foremost a wake-up call to the Church, which in turn should bear the message of repentance to the nation. How the Church responds (or fail to respond) will have hugely significant consequences for Britain’s future destiny.

Emotion and Injustice

At a local level, the Church has a role to play in the aftermath of Grenfell which the Government simply cannot fulfil. In my previous article, I looked at the historic reasons for the lack of trust, lack of hope, latent anger and hatred which mark communities in and around Grenfell Tower. I explained that decades – even centuries – of deprivation and disenfranchisement now imbue this area with deeply felt emotions, made worse by the incredible affluence on display virtually next door, in the south of the Borough.

Grenfell is first and foremost a wake-up call to the Church, which in turn should bear the message of repentance to the nation.

But while these problems strike at the heart of Government, concerning as they do issues of decision-making, empowerment and stewardship of resources, they also involve complex social and spiritual problems that our secular Government is unable to properly address - and perhaps was never supposed to.

With a relatively narrow remit, we cannot expect the Inquiry to look into these things. This is where the Church must come in: we need to ask what the role of the Body of Christ should be, and how it can bring true hope and restoration into this situation, and more widely.

Re-Commitment Needed Desperately

As a result of wide-ranging criticisms, many RBKC councillors and staff have moved on and a governance review is underway. There is much yet to be done, but few serious observers would dispute that there has already been significant change.

Whether this could also be said of the local Church is a different matter. The churches immediately surrounding Grenfell Tower responded extremely well to the tragedy. However, their ecclesiology, missiology and theology vary so hugely (and in some cases are diametrically opposed), that the question needs to be asked whether they can all be meaningfully and genuinely Christian. This issue strikes at the heart of the direction in which different parts of the Church in Britain are progressing – and implicitly raises the question of what sort of a god they worship.

In my last article, I noted the need for a re-commitment to evangelism from both church leaders and ordinary Christians, all across the country. This point still stands. As the Public Inquiry has shown, many Grenfell Tower residents were Muslims. They need the true Jesus of the Bible just as much as do the wealthier across the Borough – as indeed does the country as a whole: it is the job of all churches to evangelise the lost – from whatever ethnic background or culture they are. Few of us have shared the Gospel as we should have done, with boldness and seizing all opportunities.

What is desperately needed is a wholehearted re-commitment from churches around the nation to God’s word and his purposes.

However, even a re-commitment to evangelism (while welcome) is not enough on its own. What is desperately needed is a wholehearted re-commitment from churches around the nation to God’s word and his purposes. This would transform not only our evangelism but much else besides – and empower the Church to respond to this tragedy prophetically, declaring its lessons to the nation, as well as serving locally.

The hour is late; the time has come for fearless proclamations of truth, made in the power of the Spirit of God, as well as demonstrations of God’s kingdom purposes - to say nothing of his love. The future of churches – indeed, entire denominations - that refuse this mandate is at stake, for “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 7:19; also John 15:2).

A Wake-Up Call

While much else besides, Grenfell was a wake-up call to a slumbering Church which has lost its way. The true Church – the Bride of Christ - needs to discern the wider significance of the tragedy and the necessity of repentance just as much as those not yet in the Kingdom.

Many churches local to Grenfell have given fully of themselves and are still doing all that they can. But given that this is a national tragedy, it should be the case that churches across the country are also willing to help as needed – one obvious way being in helping to carry the burden of prayer and intercession: for hope and healing, for repentance and forgiveness, and for the fullness of God’s purposes to be worked out, including through the Inquiry.

The cost of the fire will be borne by survivors until they themselves die, and will continue to mark our society even after. But if Grenfell’s stark warnings about the nation’s precarious position before God cannot be learned and applied soon, it is undoubtedly the case that further destruction will follow. If we do not listen to God’s words, we will have to endure his works: the former may be challenging - the latter much more so.

Leading the way here, declaring the warning and holding out the offer of mercy to a lost nation, should be the true Church of God! If the Church senses the great urgency of the hour and responds as the Father wills, there is yet opportunity for great positive transformation in Britain that would, in some measure, mitigate the indescribable loss of Grenfell.

References

1 See news articles from the BBC, The Guardian and The Telegraph, for example.

Further Reading

Previous article on this subject: Reflections on the Grenfell Tower Fire. Prophecy Today UK, 15 December 2017.

Everett, A, Rev, 2018. After the Fire, Finding words for Grenfell. Canterbury Press, Norwich.

O'Hagan, A. The Tower. London Review of Books.