Why the Princess should have avoided a deadly encounter with a spirit medium.

Amidst all the hype and nostalgia over the 20^th anniversary of the tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales, I feel a duty to point something out that political correctness has deemed the great unmentionable (though not quite an elephant in the room, because few among our biblically illiterate mainstream media are aware of its seriousness).

I well remember the concern I felt in the summer of 1997 when it was reported that Diana and her lover, Dodi Al Fayed, were visiting a spiritist medium in Derbyshire. They arrived by helicopter and there was much press coverage, as was always the case when the so-called ‘Queen of Hearts’ was involved.¹

The Paris car crash in which the couple were killed just over a fortnight after this deadly encounter in Derbyshire should have served as a warning to the millions of others dabbling in the dark world of the occult. I will explain what I mean by ‘deadly encounter’ in due course.

The Paris car crash should have served as a warning to millions dabbling in the dark world of the occult.

Meanwhile Dodi’s father Mohamed concocted a bizarre conspiracy theory around the tragedy – claiming that it was an assassination engineered by Buckingham Palace and MI6 in order to deal with the supposed unsuitability of a possible Muslim match with royalty. Others blamed the chasing paparazzi for causing the crash as an apparently drunk ‘chauffeur’ drove at nearly 100mph to get away from them.

Spurning Advice

In looking back, most of our media paint a glossy picture of Diana as a tragic victim of so much misunderstanding – and indeed she was; a beautiful woman rejected by her husband, her insecurity driving her to search for love in the wrong places. Yes, very much the story of our age, hence the great outpouring of grief as millions, including myself, could identify with her (in fact, the evidence of my family tree even suggests an ancestral connection with the Spencers).

While it is right and proper to extend compassion to Diana’s sons William and Harry over their grievous loss of an evidently wonderful mother, it was refreshing to get a somewhat different perspective from Daily Mail columnist Dominic Lawson, who revealed that the Princess had spurned his advice about keeping away from the Fayeds.²

In Dominic’s own words, Mohamed Fayed was “nothing but trouble”, citing for example “the almost toxically controversial nature of the Egyptian (then owner of Harrods) and the fact that having been condemned eight years earlier in a 752-page Department of Trade report as a serial liar and fantasist, he was not a suitable holiday host either for her or her sons.”

More serious still was her spurning of warnings given in God’s Word, the Bible, described as “the most valuable thing this world affords” at our Queen’s coronation. Warnings against consulting mediums are repeated throughout the book on which our democracy – and indeed monarchy – has been built, such as: “Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God” (Lev 19:31). See also Leviticus 20:27, where death is the result, and Deuteronomy 18:11, where it is described as “detestable”. And in 1 Chronicles 10:13, we see that it was in part the cause of King Saul’s death!

Warnings against consulting mediums are repeated throughout the Bible.

Sexual Promiscuity and the Occult

The New Testament contains a most illuminating passage on the subject, which involved a female fortune-teller who earned a great deal of money for her owners. She followed the disciples, shouting: “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days until St Paul got so annoyed that he commanded the spirit to come out of her “in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 16:16-18). It did, and that was the end of her owners’ business.

The interesting thing is that she actually told the truth. But the devil also knows who Jesus is. The problem was that she was not serving God, but the devil. She was enslaved by the evil one and her freedom brought trouble – and jail – for Paul and his companion Silas, because a money-making racket based on a forbidden activity had been stopped. The authorities sided with the owners of the occult practice, just as often happens today. Could this be why apparently little effort is being made to prevent so-called kinky sex festivals taking place on the doorsteps of protesting neighbours in Kent? One such festival, in woodland near Tunbridge Wells, was billed as a chance for hedonists to “fulfill fantasies on a mystical site where witches’ covens have met for centuries”.³

Sexual promiscuity and the occult go together. Occult in all its forms – and that includes horoscopes – can be bracketed under the general heading of witchcraft. It is demonic, deceptive and disastrous.

The Whole Truth

According to the Derby Telegraph, Diana’s visit to psychic Rita Rogers in Lower Pilsley was not a one-off, as she kept in regular touch. Rita apparently warned Dodi to avoid France for fear of an accident in a tunnel and had earlier predicted Diana meeting a man with the initial D on water (they met on his yacht).

So there could well have been elements of truth that drew Diana and her lover into a deadly trap. This is where dabbling into the occult leads, and why unsuspecting Britons need to be warned to avoid it, and instead pursue the beautiful truth personified in Jesus, who said: “I am the way and the truth and the life; no-one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Fortune-telling enslaves you, because it ties you to the course dictated by whatever ‘revelation’ has supposedly been given rather than freeing you to make your own decisions and trust God to lead you in his “paths of righteousness” (Ps 23:3).

Fortune-telling enslaves you, tying you to the course dictated by whatever ‘revelation’ has supposedly been given.

Of course I can’t say for certain whether Diana ever read the passages I have quoted or was aware of them. But the Bible is God’s word to us. It is not just a history book. It contains a vast breadth of advice and wisdom on how to live our lives. Ignorance on the day when we will all have to give account of our lives will be no excuse (2 Cor 5:10).

The fulfillment of many ancient prophecies, particularly those concerning the coming of Messiah Jesus as well as the more recent extraordinary re-gathering of Jews to their promised land from every corner of the globe, is surely proof enough that the Bible can be trusted absolutely.

Prophecy vs Fortune-Telling

Prophecy – the forth-telling of God’s will, ways and purposes – is one thing. Consulting mediums is quite another, an activity strictly forbidden by the Lord. It’s about seeking secret knowledge in order to feel in control by delving into a future that God has chosen not to reveal. He wants us to live by faith – that is, by trusting him for our daily needs. “Without faith it is impossible to please God…” (Heb 11:6). It is not for us to know precisely what lies ahead (see Deut 29:29).

Prophecy – the forth-telling of God’s will, ways and purposes – is quite different to consulting mediums in order to gain secret knowledge, an activity strictly forbidden by the Lord.

Dabbling with darkness will invite all kinds of trouble to our lives. God wants us to live in the light, and he has shown us the perfect way by sending Jesus, His Son, “the light of the world” (John 8:12).

One of the most famous passages of Scripture is preceded just a few verses earlier by this question: “When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God?” (Isa 8:19). The former leads only to distress, darkness and fearful gloom… (v22)

Nevertheless…”The people walking in darkness have seen a great light…For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:1-6).

Notes

1 Quinn, S. Anniversary of Princess Diana's visit to Derbyshire psychic Rita Rogers. Derby Telegraph, 14 August 2017.

2 The Daily Mail, 28 August 2017 – Princess Diana was godmother to Domenica, the Down’s Syndrome daughter of Dominic Lawson and his wife Rosa Monckton.

3 The Independent, 14 August 2017.

Christians ascend Welsh heights in support of Israel.

Teenager’s 26-mile trek over mountains inspires worldwide production of Bibles.

At this time of Shavuot (also known as Pentecost), when we celebrate the giving of the Law through Moses¹ 50 days after the exodus from Egypt, and its ultimate fulfilment in Yeshua (Jesus), consider how a young Welsh girl inspired a global explosion of God’s word.

In the year 1800, 15-year-old Mary Jones completed a marathon walk over the mountains to purchase a Bible, which was to become her most treasured possession.

A weaver’s daughter from a poor community, Mary lost her father to asthma when she was very young and was living with her mother in the tiny hamlet of Llanfihangel-y-pennant (near Dolgellau) in the shadow of the Idris mountain on the edge of Snowdonia.

Bibles were hard to come by in those days, especially copies in the Welsh language. Mary became a Christian, aged eight, through attending her village chapel and subsequently saved up for six long years – carrying out various errands like sewing garments and selling eggs – before she finally had enough to buy her own copy of the Scriptures.

Mary Jones completed a marathon walk to purchase a Bible, which was to become her most treasured possession.

So she set off barefoot on a 26-mile trek over mountain tracks to the town of Bala, where she knocked on the door of Rev Thomas Charles, who was so profoundly moved and inspired by her efforts that he and others were determined to make the Bible available to everyone at an affordable price – not only in Welsh,² but in every tongue.

Epic Journey

This led to the founding within just four years of the British and Foreign Bible Society (now known simply as Bible Society), which has since published millions of Bibles in hundreds of languages, and has branches all over the world including Israel (on Jaffa Road, Jerusalem), from whence God’s word had first been proclaimed.

Mary’s epic journey has thus helped to bring God’s light – and salvation – to every corner of the globe, and has given new meaning to the ancient Scripture: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, and a light for my path” (Ps 119:105).

Who knows but that the eternal fruit of Mary’s marathon may have partly contributed to what the Book of Revelation describes as “a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Rev 7:9).

Historical records indicate that the village where Mary grew up was strongly influenced by the 18^th Century Methodist revival. Bala had certainly been experiencing fresh heavenly fire in the years immediately preceding her extraordinary shopping expedition.

Running to Win

With the immense popularity of marathon running today, many will be familiar with the distance Mary walked, equal to that covered in ancient Greece by the herald who ran all the way to Athens to announce victory at the Battle of Marathon.

But Mary’s feat would be hard to beat, because it was to bring good news of the victory of Jesus over death and sin, and revolutionise the lives of millions down the ages.

Mary’s epic journey has helped to bring God’s light – and salvation – to every corner of the globe.

In a generation when parents drive their children to school, perhaps less than a mile away, perhaps it’s time to re-educate our kids about what really matters in life? Teaching the precepts of God is not only good for the soul, but health for the body (Prov 3:7f).

St Beuno’s Church, Llanycil, home of the Mary Jones World and burial place of Rev Thomas Charles.The Bible says “physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” And it adds that we should “run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus…” In addressing the need for self-discipline, St Paul challenges: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” Perhaps Mary was urged on by Paul’s motto: “…forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 4.8; Heb 12:1f; 1 Cor 9:24; Phil 3:13f).

Power from On High

Bible Society is now helping to raise the profile of Mary’s story, and made an excellent start in 2014 with the opening of Mary Jones World at Llanycil, just a mile to the west of Bala, alongside the beautiful lake of the same name. A disused church has been renovated (even with underfloor heating) and now houses a superb state-of-the-art exhibition, enabling visitors to spend several hours discovering more about the Bible as well as engaging with an inspiring story that shook the world.³

At Shavuot we remember how Jesus came to fulfil the Law (Matt 5:17) and how it came to be written, not just on tablets of stone, but on the hearts of those who believed as they were endued with power from on high (Acts 1:8; Luke 24:49; Acts 2:4; 2 Cor 3:3; Ezek 36:26).⁴

Perhaps it’s time to re-educate our kids about what really matters in life - the precepts of God!

My personal Pentecost took place on 3 April 1980. I spoke in tongues with some difficulty, but I have no doubt that I was endued with power from on high as I received an emboldening to share my faith as never before.

Chapels can be seen almost everywhere you look in Wales – sadly many have been turned to other uses such as homes and shops, but they remain signs of several significant revivals over recent centuries which have shaken the world, and for which Christians on all continents can be truly thankful.

Do it again, Lord! Send your fire on our newly-restored altars of sacrifice as we honour, worship and proclaim your name among the nations (see 1 Kings 18:16-40).

Notes

1 Summed up in the Ten Commandments.

2 Bishop William Morgan translated the Bible into Welsh in 1588, and this significantly helped to save the Welsh language, which was in danger of dying out as it began breaking away into a number of different dialects.

3 For more information on the work of Bible Society, see bydmaryjonesworld.org.uk or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

4 Shavuot also celebrates the wheat harvest and ripening of the first fruits, so the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1) was the perfectly appropriate time to witness the ‘firstfruits’ of the new-born Church.

Welsh Christians honour blood of the martyrs.

A group of British Christians are planning to honour the memory of 1,200 believers who paid with their lives for refusing to stop celebrating the Passover.

A special Passover celebration will be held at Bangor-on-Dee in North Wales on Monday (10 April) as a memorial to all who have died in obedience to the Lord and as a sign that there are still those who refuse to bow the knee to any other god.

The event is being organised by the Father’s House congregation at Shotton, Deeside.

Ancient Communities of the Faithful

Like their Jewish forbears of the early Church, Christians in the British Isles continued to celebrate the biblical feasts until bishops from Rome – under orders from the emperors of the time – demanded they switch the Sabbath to Sunday and Passover to Easter, both in honour of pagan gods.

Christians under the influence of St Patrick and St Columba had long continued the tradition of marking the appointed Feasts as outlined in Leviticus 23, all of which point to Yeshua (Jesus, the Messiah), especially in the case of Passover which was clearly seen as fulfilled by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, who plainly stated that he had not come to abolish the Law (Old Testament commands) but to fulfil it (Matt 5:17).

Christians under the influence of St Patrick and St Columba had long continued the tradition of marking the appointed Feasts outlined in Leviticus 23.

But from 644 AD onwards, after the Christian community established by St Columba on the Scottish island of Iona were duped into changing the days and names of the Feasts, a new era had begun apparently designed to distance Christianity from its Hebraic roots.

And in 722 Rome tried to enforce this new practice on believers in Wales, but were met with stiff resistance as the Welsh Christians refused to comply. This led to the slaughter of 1,200 believers in one day at the village of Bangor on the banks of the River Dee.

Restoring True Worship

Father’s House leader Mike Fryer said the enforced changes were “rooted in the anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism of the newly-appointed bishops of the Empire, put in place by the emperors themselves”.

It had started in 321 AD with Constantine ordering worship of the ‘Unconquerable Sun’ on Sunday and exchanging Passover for celebration of the fertility goddess Oestre.

But the unadulterated message of the Gospel survived this spiritual onslaught and spread to faithful believers elsewhere including the British Isles, where they discreetly continued to keep the Feasts for the next 500 years.

From 644 AD onwards, a new era began designed to distance Christianity from its Hebraic roots.

“Every credible historian and theologian accepts there was a strong anti-Semitic motive behind these mass murders and it is agreed that these motives were also the seeds of both the Inquisitions and the Holocaust,” said Mike.

“Indeed Christendom has been anti-Semitic throughout its history. I have been teaching this aspect of the history of the early church in the British Isles for 15 years and our congregation has been celebrating Shabbat, Passover and all the biblical feasts.”

He said he had been inspired by the example of King Hezekiah who, by restoring true worship and the keeping of Passover, brought great blessing on Israel.

If you wish to know more, or would like to attend the celebration, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Clifford Denton, whose wife Christine's family come from Aberfan, comments on the tragedy from a personal perspective.

On Friday 21 October 1966 I was travelling home from Cornwall on weekend leave from the RAF to visit my parents in South Wales, when the news on my car radio was dominated by the report of the Aberfan disaster. There are many disasters to face in the world but this was one that shocked our entire nation.

On the long car drive I resolved to go up to Aberfan, just an hour away from my parents' home, and join in the relief effort. This was especially poignant because my fiance's aunt had until quite recently been the headmistress of Pantglas Junior School, which suffered most in the catastrophe.

By the time my fiance and I arrived in Aberfan to join the hundreds of others who threw a spade into their car boot in order to do what we could, it was pitch black at night - to add to the black of the dark slurry that had engulfed this mining village. The darkness was only punctuated by the lights here and there where earth-moving machinery was operating. We did our best with our spades, in the slippery slurry on that wet night, but it was literally only scratching the surface in an emotional gesture. It was the professionals who completed the task over the next few days but it was all too late to save any lives, and the death toll mounted.

We went to Auntie Flor's house in Merthyr to wash the coal from our weary bodies, staying the night to bring some consolation to her as she remembered teaching staff with whom she had taught over many years and recalled many of the children who had died. Through the night, as we lay on our beds trying to rest, the clock she had received as a retirement present from the school chimed each hour.

We did our best with our spades, but it was literally only scratching the surface in an emotional gesture.

Looking Back

Since that day we have visited Aberfan a number of times. It is where my wife's family grave is situated, not far from where all those children from the disaster are buried.

Auntie Flor spent the last days of her life living with us in Banbury and I talked to her very much about life in Aberfan when she was a child in the early 1900s. Her family lived in a typical miner's cottage. She spoke of the Welsh Revival and of how every Sunday in those days every single person, except the sick and bedridden, went to Chapel – a river of people filling the streets on their way to Sunday Service.

Her father had been a deacon in Merthyr Vale Baptist Church and worked as a supervisor on the pithead of the local mine – the very mine that decades later would build up tip number 7, the fateful tip that was unsafe due to accumulation of water.

"When did all that end?" I asked her once, referring back to the picture of all those mining families moving as one to Chapel on Sunday. "Oh, it all changed after the Great War", was her answer. All communities of Britain suffered shock in that terrible war, and outward expressions of faith faded. How often this happens - doubts creep in about the Living God when trials hit us severely. So it is that the Aberfan disaster was and still is, 50 years on, a challenge to faith.

Why Does God Allow Such Things?

The question, "Why suffering?" is asked in every generation, especially when a disaster strikes of the immensity of that which came to Aberfan, when a generation of children was all but wiped out in one horrendous blow. Where was God on that day? Why did he allow it to happen?

We can all give opinions on the answer to these questions, but they challenge most deeply when we ourselves or our family, or indeed our entire community, is the subject of devastation. Did we do something wrong? The question is even harder to answer when a large percentage of the 116 children who lost their lives attended local churches. What do we learn?

Aberfan enjoyed revival in the early 1900s, but this all changed after the shock of the first world war.

The answer is clearer from the Bible than we often think. It is nevertheless a difficult truth to hold on to in times of trouble. We live in a fallen world where mankind exercises free will. God's purpose is to restore to himself for eternity those who seek to walk with him. That walk is in an alien world until the time that the Kingdom of God will come in fully. Then, but only then, will all pain and suffering cease.

Nevertheless, God has not left us isolated. He spoke to us through the prophets of Israel in ways that are recorded in our Bibles. His greatest commandments are to love him and to love one another. Our love for one another sets a high priority on care for one another. He makes it clear that neglect of care can leave blood on our hands for the lives of others.

More than this, he has shown that he shares in our pain. When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, seeing what would come on his people following a large-scale rejection of him, he showed that our pain is also his pain. If this was not enough his suffering on the cross, so that all who would believe would have a place reserved for them in heaven for all eternity, proved his great love for us.

Every one of the people who died in Aberfan was known individually by God and he knows their eternal destiny. His sorrow for the neglect of the mine-owners, who created an unsafe tip cutting corners on safety for financial reasons, matches the sorrow of the bereaved.

When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and then endured the Cross, he showed that our pain is also his pain.

Tests of Faith

As well as testimonies of doubts springing from the disaster of Aberfan there are also many testimonies of faith despite the pain. We can be thankful that God knew those many children who regularly attended the local churches and chapels and who had just come from their school assembly having sung the hymn 'All things bright and beautiful' prior to their deaths. Some from the community continue in our day to speak of good that came from the disaster, looking back over these 50 years. Though there is pain, continuing to reach out in trust to God is the good and right thing to do.

Those who suffer most in such disasters are the immediate family members, but surely next to them would be surviving teachers who had everyday contact with many of the children.

I can say for retired headmistress Miss Florence Havard that her faith never failed her right through her life. She died well into her 80s and she was always a beacon of light in the Christian community – in fact she was quite a character especially loved by children. She was able to balance, grow and maintain that faith that was born in the Welsh revival and matured through days of trial, through wars, national depression (which hit mining communities as strongly as any) and also a major disaster in her home town of Aberfan.

We Must All Take Responsibility

There is another twist in this story, however. The local MP, SO Davies, was a personal friend of Miss Havard. Mr Davies would often call around to her bungalow in Merthyr - one can only conjecture whether they had ever discussed that tip which hovered over the community, threatening to fall one day. At the tribunal, Mr Davies said he had often thought the tip was unsafe but been reluctant to bring it up officially, knowing there would be consequences for the work of miners in the community.

Following the disaster, it also came to light that the local Council had been warned about the tip in 1964 by one of its Councillors. The following year, two parents who also recognised the warning signs petitioned the then headmistress of Pantglas Junior School. She faithfully raised this at succeeding council meetings, but to no avail. Sadly, both the headmistress and children of those two parents all lost their lives in the disaster.

However small a contribution to the responsibility for not averting the disaster, does this not speak of shared responsibility much wider than the main colliery leaders and politicians involved? From the bottom to the top of society we must listen to one another and work together for the care and safety of all – this is in fulfilment of the second Great Commandments to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Can we learn something about this for the days ahead? Are we not corporately responsible for the safety of one another in our communities? Should this not be of the highest priority, especially when the world is becoming more and more unstable, when leadership is weakening and when finance is driving decisions more than care of one another?

Is it not God's intent that we all learn something from the lives that were needlessly lost and the families so sadly bereaved 50 years ago in Aberfan?

As well as testimonies of doubts springing from the disaster of Aberfan there are also many testimonies of faith despite the pain.

God Did and Does Speak

I would like to conclude by drawing attention to two poignant comments.

They both bring tears to the eyes - perhaps God still speaks to us through them this very day. We know from the story of Isaiah that God is not always to be found in the earthquake, fire and storm, but if we walk closely with him, he will be found speaking in the still quiet voice – a voice that comes prophetically from sometimes unexpected sources. Surely the following indicates that God did speak prior to the Aberfan disaster.

The first is the well-known story of Eryl Mai Jones (which has often been interpreted wrongly as psychic insight):

In early October 1966, a ten-year-old Welsh schoolgirl named Eryl Mai Jones had something important to tell her mother.

"Mummy," she said, "I'm not afraid to die."
"You're too young to be talking about dying," her mother said. "Do you want a lollipop?"
On October 20, Eryl Mai woke up after having a memorable dream.
"Mummy, let me tell you about my dream last night," she said.
"Darling, I've no time now. Tell me again later."
"No, Mummy, you must listen," she said. "I dreamt I went to school and there was no school there. Something black had come down all over it".¹

Her mother thought nothing more about the dream...Eryl Mai went off to Pantglas Junior School that day as usual. Nothing unusual happened. The next day, Friday, October 21, she did the same. But at 9:15 that morning, the coal tip gave way, sending tons of coal sludge, water, and boulders onto the village below. The avalanche mowed down everything in its path, including stone houses and trees, and swept toward the Pantglas School, where it crushed the back of the school.

In answer to the question, "Where was God on that day?" the answer is surely, both warning us and with us through this troubled world, offering help where needed, suffering with us on this journey to the day that is not yet but one day will be, of a New Heaven and a New Earth.

The second quote is, to me, both metaphor of shared sufferings which God was fully part of, shared by God and expressed through human love at its highest level midst the trials of this earth. Quoting from the website of Richard Poole, who lost a cousin in the Aberfan tragedy:

144 people died in the Aberfan disaster: 116 of them were school children. About half of the children at Pantglas Junior School, and five of their teachers, were killed. In one classroom 14 bodies were found and outside mothers struggled deep in mud, clamouring to find their children. Many were led away weeping.
The deputy head teacher, Mr Beynon, was found dead. "He was clutching five children in his arms as if he had been protecting them," said a rescuer.²

References

1 Precognition: The Aberfan Disaster. James M Deen, with reference to Barker, J.C. Premonitions of the Aberfan Disaster. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, December 1967: 168-181.

2 Ray Poole's Family History: Merythr Vale and Aberfan.

This week a number of our articles remember the Aberfan tragedy. In his editorial, Clifford Hill thinks particularly of those who lost their faith that day.

50 years ago today, at 9:15am on Friday 21 October 1966, 144 people died in Aberfan near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. 116 of them were children, who were just beginning their lessons when their school was hit by a mountain of mud sliding down from a coal slag heap towering over the village.

The mudslide hit a farm cottage first, then hit the school and a row of houses before stopping. About half the children and teachers in the Pantglas school were killed. They had just reached their classrooms after leaving morning assembly, where they had been singing 'All things bright and beautiful', praising God for the beauty of the countryside.

The pathos of this tragedy still brings to tears to the eyes of those who remember that tragic day in the history of the valleys, and it can hardly fail to move those who today, 50 years later, read the accounts of eye-witnesses and survivors.

Decent Men Led Astray

There had been many warnings that the tip was unsafe due to the presence of a spring underneath, and heavy rainfall triggered the sudden slide. A board of enquiry was set up that concluded that the National Coal Board was largely to blame and legal liability for compensation was not contested. The report stated:

The Aberfan disaster is a terrifying tale of bungled ineptitude by many men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted, of failure to heed clear warnings, and of total lack of direction from above. Not villains but decent men, led astray by foolishness or by ignorance or by both in combination, are responsible for what happened at Aberfan.¹

The pathos of this tragedy still brings to tears to the eyes of those who remember that tragic day.

No one faced criminal proceedings, but those named (and others cleared) had to live with the disaster on their consciences for the rest of their lives. But it was not only officials in the National Coal Board whose lives were affected - everyone in the valleys will remember that day to the end of their lives. Many of them lost their Christian faith on that day. Typical of the comments on the BBC website is the following:

I was 14 at the time of the Aberfan disaster.
My school was very religious, and I had been trying to decide how much I believed in God. When the disaster struck it was the talk of the school, and in many of the classes we found ourselves discussing it with our teachers.
We particularly wanted to know why God would allow so many children to die.
The teachers had no answer. I turned away from the idea that there is a God. And that's my view, to this day.
John Adams, UK²

What is the answer that should have been given to John Adams and all the others who were asking similar questions? Today there are millions asking the same thing, not only of the Aberfan tragedy but of the terrible events we see on our TV news - such as what's happening in Aleppo, where human lives are being deliberately destroyed by bombs dropped upon women and children - not only killing but causing life-changing injuries.

Why doesn't God intervene? Hundreds of books have been written on the subject of human suffering, but the only authentic answers are to be found in the Bible.

The Power to Intervene

The Bible clearly teaches that God has given us freedom of will - to choose the truth, or to be driven to destruction by our own selfish and violent human nature. The Aberfan tragedy was created by human greed and mismanagement in creating a mountainous pile of coal slag and ignoring warnings about its unsafety. Also in this week's issue, Greg Stevenson lists alerts given before the disaster which were ignored, and Clifford Denton notes that God sent prophetic warnings ahead of time.

Many people lost their Christian faith on that day, asking why God didn't intervene.

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God gave warning after warning to the people of Jerusalem that disaster would strike the city unless there was a drastic change in the behaviour of the people. They all believed that they could do what they liked and there would be no bad consequences because God would defend the city from the Babylonians. They ignored the warnings with disastrous results.

God Shares Our Distress

When we wilfully ignore warnings we should not be surprised when tragedy overwhelms us. But incredibly, when that happens, God does not desert us. Isaiah expresses this emphatically; "In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old" (Isa 63:9). God actually enters into our tragedies alongside us and shares our distress.

This is the teaching of the God of the Bible: that when we bring disaster upon ourselves and cry out to him for help, he responds in love and compassion. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you...Do not be afraid, for I am with you." (Isa 43:2-5).

In the Midst of Trial

This does not mean that nothing will ever go wrong, or that we will not suffer hardship - but that in the midst of trial, God will never desert us. Jesus promised to be with his disciples for ever. "I will never leave you alone," he promised (John 14:18).

Jesus himself lived the message of God's love. He knew that his Father would not intervene to save him from a cruel death at the hands of evil men - but that by not intervening, God would actually use this suffering to work out his purposes of salvation to be available for all human beings.

God actually enters into our tragedies alongside us and shares in our distress.

Of course, I'm aware that the thoughts expressed on this page cannot possibly answer all the questions about human suffering. But I hope they may stimulate some of our readers to offer thoughts on this subject which may be a help to those who are struggling to understand why tragedies such as Aberfan occur. For myself I can affirm the words of the Apostle Paul, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life...nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8:38-39).

References

1 The Aberfan Disaster – Inquiries. The National Archives.

2 1966: Aberfan - A generation wiped out. BBC Witness, On This Day.