Genesis 2:18-25: Eve Revealed

Family, community and marriage

God is preparing a people for himself.

Mixed messages on same-sex provided BBC with an excuse

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.

Frances Rabbitts reviews ‘Same-Sex Parenting Research: A Critical Assessment’ by Walter R. Schumm (2018).

In a week when a former magistrate has lost his appeal over his right to express (even in private) Christian views about same-sex adoption, it seems especially pertinent to review this 2018 book from Wilberforce Publications on academic understandings of gay marriage and parenting.

In the second of two gold standard studies commissioned by the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life (the first was published in 2014 as The Marriage Files), US Professor of applied family science Walter R. Schumm provides a comprehensive review of the academic social science literature on the politically charged issue of same-sex parenting. In so doing, he challenges the claim, presented so often as incontrovertible, that same-sex partnerships are no different to heterosexual partnerships when it comes to the raising of children.

Schumm sets out to ‘follow the evidence where it leads’, unwilling to accept brazen claims of absolute academic consensus on this issue at face value. Undeterred by the many powerful enemies this has made him, Schumm not only presents a fair-minded review; he also levels a devastating critique at academia’s co-option by LGBTQ+ dogma, leading one scholar to label the book the “social science parallel to Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses being nailed to the Wittenberg Chapel door”.

Incorrect and Over-Blown Claims

The book is organised into 15 relatively short chapters grouped into six sections, making it easy to use for reference purposes. The main body of the research is contained in sections 2-5, with each chapter organised into ‘What has been claimed’, ‘What we know’, a critical assessment of the existing literature and a short conclusion. As the book progresses, a pattern quickly becomes evident: “the facts on the ground do not support many of the so-called ‘consensus’ claims” (p229) about the issue of same-sex parenting.

Part 1 is given to background information, including a summary of the LGBTQ+ challenge to traditional marriage, and social science theory on sexual morality, marriage and happiness. Part 2 starts with assessing the number of children raised by same-sex parents in the US. Here we gain an astonishing insight into the way academics can get their most basic facts wrong, rushing to echo wildly incorrect but convenient claims without due consideration: Schumm traces the oft-cited figure of 6-14 million children back to an unsubstantiated newspaper article, with the real figure more likely to be about 200,000.

Schumm challenges the claim, presented so often as incontrovertible, that same-sex partnerships are no different to heterosexual partnerships when it comes to the raising of children.

Other chapters confirm that academic claims about the benefits of same-sex parenting have also been vastly over-blown, with many gaping holes in the literature and lesser-known studies indicating that the real picture is more complicated. For instance, some research suggests that children of same-sex parents may be vastly less likely to enjoy a stable family home, and that children may act as destabilising factors in same-sex marriages (cf. they act as stabilising factors in heterosexual marriages).

Parts 3 and 4 focus on the impacts of same-sex parenting on children’s sexuality, gender identity, mental health and value systems. Schumm challenges the flat academic denial that same-sex parenting is any different to heterosexual parenting, citing newly emerged studies but also recognising the lack of research into this issue. In Part 5, we are given some insights into the potentially negative consequences of same-sex marriage and parenting on society as a whole, before Part 6 offers some conclusions.

Science ‘Thrown Under the Bus’

Schumm is obviously an expert in his field who balks at his profession being corrupted by politically-motivated claims that cannot be backed up by sound empirical evidence. He challenges anyone to conduct a wider-ranging and more scholastically sound review of the literature than he has managed here (his bibliography runs to 31 pages, a tenth of the book), with the same willingness to consider all the evidence - even that which doesn't fit the given narrative.

But he has done more than review sociological understandings of this issue: he provides an eye-opening account of how social science has largely capitulated in the ideological battle for Western culture, throwing itself “under the bus” (p225) to advance the LGBTQ+ cause.

Schumm points to the increasingly totalitarian atmosphere of higher education, with scholars who dare to deviate from the consensus position ignored, ridiculed, silenced or sacked. His epilogue and appendices are dedicated to reflecting on this professional cost of dissent, including his personal defence against his critics, and testimony about his own and colleagues’ experiences of being discredited and shut down.

Readers begin to understand that behind the culture wars in the West being fought in the courts, the papers and the schools, lie the hallowed halls of our universities, where most of the radical anti-Christian ideas that are now transforming our society were conceived and incubated.

Schumm is obviously an expert in his field who balks at his profession being corrupted by politically-motivated claims that cannot be backed up by sound empirical evidence.

Honest and Refreshing

Schumm’s devotion to scholarly excellence is refreshing, allowing the literature to speak for itself rather than imposing his own value judgments. He is not afraid to critique careless science, to offer caveats and clarifications, to anticipate counter-arguments and to acknowledge areas where further research is desperately needed. Much of this (including his statistical analyses) may not be directly useful to the lay reader, but it does underscore the author’s honesty and diligence, strengthening his credibility.

Do not be fooled into thinking that this book is not for you because it is an academic literature review – apart from being a helpful encouragement that ‘the science’ behind same-sex parenting is still developing and certainly does not discredit the common-sense view derived from Scripture, it is just as valuable for its window in on the battle for ideas raging in academia.

Though aimed predominantly at scholars and students, it is a surprisingly easy read that will be both accessible and relevant to church leaders, professionals and anyone seeking to better their own understanding of the issue. An ideal resource for anyone concerned to confront the gender ideology juggernaut and its over-simplistic, ideological claims with a more reasonable, evidence-based view of reality, written in the belief that science should be about searching for the truth, however inconvenient it may end up being.

‘Same-Sex Parenting Research: A Critical Assessment’ (308pp, paperback) is available from Amazon for £14. Also on Kindle. Read more on the Wilberforce Publications website.

Charles Gardner reviews ‘A Better Story’ by Glynn Harrison.

The sexual revolution that has caught the Church napping is an opportunity to show that Christians have something infinitely more superior to offer…

…that love and sex is created by God for pleasure and purpose and is all the more enjoyable when following his guidelines. And that it is also a taster and picture of the beautiful intimacy of divine love.

This is the kernel of a thesis ably put forward by Professor Glynn Harrison in his excellent book A Better Story: God, Sex and Human Flourishing (IVP).

Worth Pursuing

Actually, it’s a great read – very well written, not too academic (the author, now retired, used to head the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Bristol), but scholarly nevertheless.

I’ll be honest; due to time constraints, I had intended to simply peek into sample chapters and so started somewhere in the middle. But I was eventually forced to go back to the beginning, and so ended up reading it backwards, in a sense.

But I got the picture. In expanding on an inspiring talk he gave at Keswick in 2016, which I reported on at the time, the professor contends that Christians have been caught off-guard by the revolution which began in the 1960s and which now offers a smorgasbord of sexual options.

Instead of retreating into our holy huddles and pointing fingers, we should have taken the opportunity of demonstrating how exciting, fulfilling and purposeful is traditional marriage – that it’s worth pursuing and waiting for because it is potentially far more rewarding, fruitful and loving than any other sexual liaison.

Instead of retreating into our holy huddles, we should take the opportunity of demonstrating how exciting, fulfilling and purposeful is traditional marriage.

Pride in Biblical Values

As homosexuals have promoted their movement with Gay Pride parades, so Christians should have been taking pride in the biblical call for purity and faithfulness.

As I recall the author saying at Keswick, God doesn’t do one-night stands; he is forever faithful and loves us totally and unconditionally. This is the sort of message married couples need to convey to the watching world – that the union is a beautiful picture of the Gospel, which tells the story of God seeking a bride…of a bridegroom who so loves his wife that he is prepared to die for her.

At the same time, the professor also points out that the sexual revolution has failed in its goal of freeing adherents from the stifling restrictions of earlier generations. For surveys apparently show that people are now actually having less sex.

Meanwhile, we need to prepare for ‘messy church’¹ where people in same-sex relationships, and others who are perhaps transgender, get converted. We will need to pray for a balance of grace and truth as we seek to minister effectively to broken people in these dark days.

The Holy Spirit’s Power

I felt there was something missing in the professor’s analysis, however, in that the book lacks an emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit to help us live right and witness boldly to the truth, along with the vital need for spiritual warfare in the face of the powers of darkness that blind society (and believers too in some cases).

The Christians of 1^st-Century Rome condemned the debauched culture around them by their uncompromising, godly lifestyles, refusing to swim with the prevailing tide. No matter how many adjustments we make as we reach out to the sexually confused and wayward, at the end of the day we have to stand up to be counted and risk being thrown to wild animals, as our Roman brothers and sisters were.

Having said that, I highly recommend this book. May we not fail in rising to the challenge it presents.

'A Better Story: God, Sex & Human Flourishing' (192pp, Inter-Varsity Press) is available from Amazon in paperback, e-book and audio-book forms. Also available from the Evangelical Bookshop.

Notes

1 Not to be confused with the growing method of informal outreach used by many churches.

For the next generation – and for this one.

The controversy begun by the remarks of Australian rugby player Israel Folau, supported by England’s number 8, Billy Vunipola, has caused a stir far beyond the game of rugby. Izzy Folau simply quoted the Bible in warning that those who practice homosexuality go to hell.

Biblical teaching says “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman, that is detestable” (Lev 18:22). And the Apostle Paul states explicitly, “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9-10).

According to Paul’s teaching, practising homosexuals should be treated in the same way as drunkards, swindlers, slanderers in our society and not given preferential treatment or be allowed to promote their activities.

These rugby players are simply stating the obvious. It’s a bit like the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Everyone was simply copying everyone else in praising the Emperor’s non-existent clothes. It took an innocent child to state the truth: “The Emperor is naked!”.

The New Normal

Billy Vunipola is quite right in saying that “man was made for woman to procreate”.¹ Two men practising anal intercourse cannot create life any more than two lesbian women pleasuring each other can create a human baby. But our teachers are told to tell the children that these are normal relationships and that gay parents having children through adoption, surrogacy or artificial insemination creates ‘normal’ families.

We all know that the ‘new normal’ being taught to our children in state schools is a blatant lie! There is a mass of sound academic research to show that the only type of family that consistently produces good results for children is the happy, faithful, heterosexual married couple. But we have a Parliament that has passed a law forcing teachers to indoctrinate four-year-olds with the idea that it is quite normal for some children to have two mummies or two daddies, and that all forms of family are equal.

We all know that the ‘new normal’ being taught to our children in state schools is a blatant lie!

Slippery Slope

This is a reversal of truth, an utter lie that can only lead to the destruction of society. It is social engineering: trying to mould the minds of children to accept LGBTQ+ values before they are able to think for themselves. It was Prime Minister David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May who started us down this slippery slope, forcing the legalisation of gay ‘marriage’ through Parliament with the support of the Labour Party, against the wishes of more than a hundred Conservative MPs.

This virtually pronounced the death knell of the Conservative Party as the party of the family, and the party that works to conserve our heritage of biblically-based values - the Judeo-Christian foundation stones of Western civilisation.

It produced the Parliament that we have today consisting of 650 individuals who cannot agree on anything to give clear guidance for the future of the nation. The plain fact is that when they passed the Same-Sex Marriage Bill, Parliament brought judgment upon itself. It is, in effect, a Parliament doomed to fail, and no doubt that is how it will be known by future historians.

A Soulless Nation

Yes, of course we need to get out of the European Union, which is the most secular humanist political institution in the world. But leaving the EU will not solve our national problems or redeem our Parliament.

Indeed, this whole Parliament needs to be swept away and replaced by a new reforming group of politicians, not only with high moral principles but with an understanding of the Judeo-Christian spiritual convictions that have been at the heart of our Parliamentary system for hundreds of years and formed the bedrock of the British character that was admired by the world. We need a political revolution - and maybe, if we have to participate in the EU elections, we might just get one, as the result is likely to further shatter and divide our political parties.

Of course we need to get out of the European Union, but leaving will not solve our national problems or redeem our Parliament.

Meanwhile, the whole world is viewing Britain with amazement! They simply cannot understand what is happening in our Westminster Parliament, which for centuries has been renowned as a model of democratic government. Even those who were not great friends of Britain admired our stability and reliability. Today that has been shattered – maybe irretrievably; certainly it will not be easily retrieved.

Winston Churchill, reminding the nation of the great Christian heritage underlying the British Commonwealth of Nations, rightly warned that “A nation without a conscience is a nation without a soul, and a nation without a soul is a nation that cannot live.”²

The Message of Good Friday

This is where the message of today, Good Friday, offers the only hope for our nation. On this day nearly 2,000 years ago, God carried out an act of divine intervention into human history by allowing his own Son to commit his life into the hands of violent, hate-filled, sinful human beings. He willingly sacrificed his own life to make possible a new relationship with God the Father, Creator of the universe.

Through faith in Jesus we all have the opportunity, not only of forgiveness of our sins, but of actually entering into a new relationship with God that transforms our sinful human nature.

This is the good news that Christians have to proclaim to the world: that God has done something for us that we could not do for ourselves, in overcoming our self-centred propensity to love the world and indulge in everything that is evil and corrupt, rather than things that bring health and happiness and put the welfare of others ahead of ourselves.

Hope for Britain

As any sociologist will tell you, all forms of social change tend to go to extremes: the pendulum swings too far one way and then the backlash begins. The rugby players who have dared to tell the truth, bringing on themselves the wrath of the secular humanist establishment, may be a little sign that the backlash has begun.

There are many other signs that young people are open to the truth: they are fed up with the mess that the older generations have created and they are looking for a new way. Last week Charles Gardner reported on evangelism happening in schools in Doncaster – and since then we have heard other reports from elsewhere in the country of hundreds of young people giving their lives to Christ.

There are many signs that young people are open to the truth.

There is a group of Christian rap artists, singers and dancers based in Manchester who are touring northern towns and cities and seeing hundreds of young people respond to the Gospel. Next month there is a great Christian gathering planned in Trafalgar Square on Pentecost Sunday, when thousands of young people are expected to fill the Square and demonstrate their faith in Jesus.

For those who have eyes to see and an understanding of the times, these may be little signs of the turning of the tide. The message of this Good Friday, that Jesus is the hope of the world, is our only hope for a turning point in the history of Britain. This is certainly something to which we should be directing our prayers!

References

1 The Times, 13 April 2019.

2 Sandys, J, 2015. God and Churchill. London: SPCK, p182.

Bible-believers chased out of Britain for not keeping to the script

It is perhaps ironic that, on the approach to the 400^th anniversary of the Mayflower’s sailing in 1620,¹ the British nation is plunged into the same sort of fractious, volatile scenario that led to that great exodus of the faithful.

When, following the Elizabethan era, James I ascended the throne in 1603, he introduced a policy enforcing religious conformity which almost blew up in his face.

First, there was the unsuccessful ‘gunpowder plot’ through which Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators registered Catholic opposition to the new king with their attempt to reduce Parliament to rubble.

Then the Puritans and Separatists came in for the monarch’s ire. At a time of significant political and religious tension, he tried to steady the ship by ensuring that all his people followed the same pseudo-Protestant script.

Harrying Out the Faithful

As with the Catholics, he also saw the Puritans as potential enemies, warning that he would “harry them out of the land”.

And indeed his dire threat duly succeeded in driving out the so-called ‘Pilgrim Fathers’, who had inaugurated the Separatist Church on the borders of Yorkshire and north Nottinghamshire.

Like other Puritans, they were devout Christians who believed the Church needed purifying from ritualistic dross. But whereas the Puritans sought change from within, the Pilgrim Fathers were convinced such endeavour was a lost cause and that they needed to “come out from among them” (Isa 52:11).

But some were fined, others were imprisoned and the pressure of persecution eventually led, in 1608, to their escape to a more tolerant Holland.

In the 17^th Century, devout Christians were imprisoned, persecuted and driven out of the country.

James I, whose policy of religious conformity made life difficult for Puritans like the Pilgrim Fathers.Seeking Freedom

It was a further dozen years before they sailed for the New World in the Mayflower, the king having changed his mind and given them permission to establish a colony there.

And so these Christians laid the foundations of what was to become the greatest nation on earth, built firmly on the principles of the Bible that had been challenged back in England.

These courageous pioneers were thus used to loose us from the chains of slavery to religious conformity which saw communities forced to attend the state-recognised Church where ritual and dead orthodoxy reigned, and where the Bible was chained to the pulpit.

Those who sought to experience the vitality of New Testament Christianity with its emphasis on freedom of the Spirit and a personal relationship with God were deemed outcasts.

Back to the ‘Dark Ages’?

It seems we have come full circle. Faced with the ever-present threat of terrorism, along with aggressive lobbying of secular humanists, we are now urged to follow the politically correct script - or else.

The Bible has been jettisoned in favour of what is effectively cultural Marxism, commanding what is and is not permissible to say and do.

Politicians condemn Brunei for proposing draconian new laws on corporal and capital punishment, seen as a return to the ‘Dark Ages’. But we are hardly squeaky clean ourselves in the way we have driven a coach and horses through the Ten Commandments, seriously undermined marriage (which is designed to create safe boundaries for the protection of family life and society in general) and by proposing state-sponsored child abuse through the indoctrination of children as young as four with the idea that they can choose their gender.

I suppose, in a way, this is the natural outcome of the state-sanctioned massacre of nine million unborn babies over the past 50 years.

Today, we are all urged to follow the politically correct script – or else.

The Blame Game

When will we acknowledge our own guilt? When will we stop pointing a finger at other people’s sins and take the ‘plank’ out of our own eye?

Under the proposed ‘no-fault’ divorce law, adultery will no longer be regarded as a sin – not even legally. It is supremely ironic that in a culture in which we are encouraged to blame everyone else for our troubles at a cost of millions, we are about to be exonerated in a key area of life on which almost everything else depends – that is, marriage and the family.

It means that no-one will officially be to blame for break-ups which will have caused untold heartbreak in countless homes. If we are no longer to be held responsible for solemn vows we have made in front of witnesses, what hope do we have of carrying out honest business in the wider world, or of being trusted by others?

What sort of spineless adults will emerge from witnessing their parents split at the drop of a hat? Throwing your toys out of the pram is surely an indulgence reserved for babies who are subsequently disciplined to consider the wider effects of their tantrums.

Shirking Responsibility

New housing estates cannot be built fast enough to keep up with the ever-increasing number of people who no longer know how to live with one another. It’s surely time we encouraged people to take responsibility for their actions.

Instead of honouring role models of commitment to family life, we fawn over celebrities and sportsmen who become the heroes we worship even though, as in some recent high-profile cases, they have set a shocking example of leadership in the home.

On the other hand, rugby stars soon get knocked off their pedestals when they express Christian beliefs on the subject, as did multiple Wimbledon champion Margaret Court.

It’s surely time we encouraged people to take responsibility for their actions rather than resorting to the default position of blaming someone else.

The Way of Escape

The fact is, there is always someone to blame – not just for break-ups, but for the mess we get ourselves in every day, including the Brexit botch-up. That is why Jesus came – to set us free from the burden of brokenness, guilt and regret, and give us new hope, especially with broken relationships.

As we celebrate Easter, we remember that Jesus became our Passover Lamb who frees us from sin through his blood shed on the Cross, prefigured in Egypt 1,500 years earlier by the freedom from slavery of the Jews who marked their doorposts with the blood of a sacrificial lamb.

What Jesus has done for us can be likened to the action of a First World War chaplain who, when asked for prayer by an officer who was about to embark on a dangerous mission into ‘no man’s land’, said he would do more than that – he would go with him. And when a shell exploded near the two men, the chaplain threw himself on the officer and died in his place.²

Offer of Peace

Do not follow the politically correct script. When ancient Israel disobeyed the Lord’s commands, the Prophet Isaiah warned them that “there is no peace for the wicked” (Isa 48:22). But there is peace - and forgiveness, and life - with Jesus!

References

1 Find out more on the Mayflower 400 website.

2 CWR’s Every Day with Jesus, 15 April 2019.

Our present chaos and our future hope.

“Write down the revelation” is a word from Habakkuk 2:2 that strongly came to me 40 years ago and resulted in me writing the book Towards the Dawn which changed the direction of my life, leading me to apply academic sociological concepts to contemporary issues in a new way. The new way brought together my training as a sociologist with my biblical theology, seeking understanding of how God was working out his purposes through the forces of social change that have been driving Western civilisation.

The book was written in 1979 – 40 years ago! It’s been long out of print and I’d not looked at it for decades, but last week I felt a strong urge to take my solitary copy off the shelf and read it again.

The book looked at the situation in Church and State, where we had largely turned away from biblical truth since the 1960s. Listen to this from page 72: “There are no certainties, no yardsticks, no basic principles to provide a compass point of reference by which the changes occurring in society can be evaluated and on the basis of which they can either be rejected, modified or accepted. Without such a yardstick all is uncertain and the result will be chaos.”

State of Chaos

Looking ahead to the future, I said: “With no certain basis to the values of society and an ever-increasing rate of change, the end result in terms of mounting chaos, normative anarchy, the breakdown of social organisation and the final disintegration of the entire social system is inevitable.”

This, of course, is exactly what we are seeing today. It is not only our Westminster Parliament that is in a state of chaos: the social scene is also chaotic with knife crime, gang warfare, drugs, domestic violence, school exclusions, family breakdown, mental health problems, fatherlessness, homelessness and thousands of other symptoms of a sick society.

But my purpose here is not simply to recount daily news items that you can see on TV, on social media, on websites and in the newspapers. I want to offer an answer to the questions in the minds of millions in Britain today – why is all this happening? What has gone wrong and is there anything we can do about it?

It is not only our Westminster Parliament that is in a state of chaos: the social scene is also chaotic.

Pulling the Linchpin Out

The simple answer is that we have rejected the basic standard of truth, and therefore we have no yardstick by which to measure the changes in the value system upon which all our personal and corporate behaviour is based.

The linchpin that held the whole of our civilisation together was the Bible, regarded as the revealed word of God, the Creator of the universe. Basic biblical truth provided us with our personal and social values of faithfulness, integrity, loyalty and trustworthiness which determined our relationships with other people in our families, workplaces, neighbourhoods and nation. When you pull out the linchpin everything collapses; which is what we have done.

The bad news is that even more danger faces us because our chaotic Parliament has announced its intention to change the divorce laws – legalising ‘no-fault divorce’, which will have a devastating effect upon marriage and family stability in the nation.

The State of Marriage in Britain

A new analysis of national statistics data published last month shows that marriage is already in a bad way in Britain. Only half of today’s teenagers will get married, in spite of survey evidence showing that the vast majority of teens want to get married.¹

Marriage trends follow family tradition: where there is divorce or family breakdown in a family, the next generation usually follows the same example. Whereas 91% of women and 86% of men in their 60s have been married at some point in their lives, current research projects that only 57% of today’s teenage girls and 55% of teenage boys will marry.

The linchpin that held the whole of our civilisation together was the Bible, but this linchpin has been removed – and so everything is collapsing.

Marriage of under 25-year-olds has virtually disappeared. In 1970, 81% of women and 62% of men had married by the age of 25: today, only 8% of women and 4% of men have done so. Marriage before the age of 30 has fallen from 85% to 21% for men and from 91% to 30% for women.

In Defence of Marriage

Nevertheless, study after study shows that marriage is the only relationship that provides a stable, happy and successful family life for children. Couples who marry are significantly more likely to stay together than those who don’t. Marriage provides the best outcomes for children. Teenage self-esteem is boosted in families with married parents and this affects their education and life chances. Teenage mental health is best protected in families with married parents.

All other types of family, especially re-constituted families bringing together children from different relationships, negatively affect the mental health of children, especially teenagers. Even in intact families, having married parents (cf. cohabiting) has a unique protective value on the mental health of young people, especially teenage boys.

Despite all this massive evidence in favour of marriage, our confused politicians in this chaotic Parliament are likely to nod through with little informed debate this new legislation for ‘no-fault divorce’ (which is being welcomed almost universally in the press), making it easy for people to break their marriage vows of lifelong fidelity and commitment to each other.

But on the subject of finding fault, it is not just Brexit that has produced this Parliament of 650 individuals who cannot find any agreement with each other on the most fundamental issue affecting the future of the nation for decades to come. It is we as a nation, who elected them - and we as a nation have despised our biblical heritage, casting out truth from national life.

Marriage is already in a bad way in Britain – and the Government’s plans to introduce ‘no-fault divorce’ will only make things worse.

Time for Fresh Vision

But there is still a remnant of Bible-believing Christians scattered across the nation – many thousands meet regularly in small groups for prayer and Bible study.

This remnant has undoubtedly been galvanised by Brexit, but it is surely God’s intention to rouse, organise and strengthen us further, not only to fervent prayer but to make our voices heard and to declare Gospel truth into the nation, for the sake of our children and grandchildren and their future!

We need to catch a fresh vision for the testing season ahead, seeking the Lord for what each of us should be doing. If the remnant began by petitioning their MPs to vote against this diabolical divorce bill, it might make them start to think about the real issues in the nation!

Moreover, regarding Brexit, while the rest of Britain remains ‘in purgatory’, seemingly until October, what is the Lord calling believing Christians to do? Ought we to march on London demanding that our MPs fulfil the declared wish of the people? We certainly ought to be reminding ourselves just why Brexit is so worth defending (I warmly recommend my friend Nick Szkiler’s short film on this).

Action and Prayer

Now is the time for action, as well as for prayer! I am reminded of Jean Darnall’s vision of the myriad prayer groups across the nation as little lights shining in a dark place, gradually becoming brighter as they link together and as the darkness intensifies. The little lights become a great light shining across the nation that overcomes the darkness and brings light, truth and salvation to Britain – even flooding across to the continent of Europe.

Although I do believe that things are going to get darker for a season, I also believe Jean Darnall’s vision will one day be fulfilled, because God still has good purposes for Britain.

References

1 Benson, H. Unfulfilled aspirations: Half of teens will never marry. Marriage Foundation, March 2019. All subsequent statistics taken from this document.