Ansley came to me last night and asked if she could read to me what she wrote and wanted to make sure it was correct.  I listened as she read from this piece of paper, blown away!  Lately, her heart has been burdened that her teacher and kids in her class use the Lord’s name in vain and so many don’t know that God created them.  (She’ll ask them “Who created you?” and they will say all sorts of answers, but some have never heard that God created them)  She wanted to find a way to tell them.  For at least an hour, Ansley worked diligently to write this note and this morning made sure it was in her backpack going to school.  Allow me to interpret the writing:

If you are shaking as long as you can in your room alone

You are not alone because somebody is with you.  His name is Jesus and his father is God. 

God and Jesus, they are the same person.  There are three people that makes only 1 person and the names are God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  

And you can not say his name in vain and you can talk to Jesus by praying.

This really encouraged Trace and me, just to see her heart.  Six year olds talk about alot of things and their moods are as quick as their attention spans, so its good to see that she is learning and desiring to share this truth with others.

Our kids have had to defend their faith at these young ages (9 & 6), but we have seen God give them grace for the moment.  Cullen has had several discussions after Religious Ed classes, with people telling him they believe in the Big Bang theory or that we came from monkeys.  He confidently tells them that scientists are people and can make mistakes.  He’s had people mock the Bible and Jesus Christ, but the Lord has given him courage to be the lone voice for Christ.  We are amazed and praise God, that He is training them and building their faith.  I don’t think they would have these opportunities in a rural Alabama school.  Raising children in a post-Christian country seems to be building my faith as well, seeing God do more than I could imagine!

Click to read this article and pray for the UK, its leaders and the residents of these towns!

Denied permission to foster children because their Christian beliefs won’t let them say homosexuality is OK, a British couple took their local council to court Monday. It’s a groundbreaking case, Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission said.

“It’s raised a really interesting question that needs to be addressed, and we are very keen to see what the court will decide in this case,” the commission’s Zena Ambrose said, adding that the case was “broad-ranging and sets a legal precedent.”

“How do you balance between a person’s right to practice their religion and the right to have a sexual orientation?” she asked. Eunice and Owen Johns are suing the Derby City Council to force a clarification in British law, their legal team said Monday.

They applied to be foster parents in January 2007, but their application was halted later that year, they say.

The Johnses’ “orthodox Christian views on the practice of homosexuality and their commitment to attending church with their children came to the notice of a social worker. As a result of this they were withdrawn from the process,” says the Christian Legal Centre, which is assisting them.

“If the court believes that Christian views on homosexuality can be discriminated against, the state has taken a position on a moral question; namely that such religious belief is morally problematic,” said Andrea Minichiello-Williams, the director of the legal group.

She said it was “a remarkable reversal in the concept of the public good and the traditional definition of sexual morality” that the court even needed to consider whether traditional Christians were fit to be foster parents. The city council declined to comment on the case because it is ongoing.

The council, in northern England, has a shortage of foster parents, it said in a statement last month unrelated to the case.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is involved in the case as an adviser, explaining relevant law to the judge, Ambrose said. It is not taking sides.

The High Court judge will have to balance competing rights, since it is against British law to discriminate on the basis of either religion or sexual orientation – in this case, against Christians or against gay people. Relevant human rights law suggests that freedom of religion is not absolute, Ambrose said.

“There is case law that establishes that the right to practice religion can be curtailed,” she explained. “You can’t use religion as a way of saying you are allowed to treat somebody else less humanely.”

The case has echoes of other recent legal actions in Britain. A Catholic adoption agency was told this summer by England’s Charity Commission that it could not place children only with heterosexual parents.

And the British Supreme Court sided against a Christian woman who said she was was forced to quit her job for refusing to register same-sex civil partnerships.

The High Court case is expected to wrap up Tuesday. It’s not clear how long it will take for a ruling.

• Teens just one click away from internet sex and porn

An investigation into a disturbing playground craze involving coloured wristbands and sexual acts between children has uncovered a hidden online world of teenagers, sex and porn, a BBC broadcaster has revealed.

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/teens-just-one-click-away-from-internet-sex-and-porn/?e081010

• Girl, 12, dies after being bullied for her innocence

A “beautifully innocent” 12-year-old girl has died in her father’s arms after she was tormented by school bullies because she didn’t know much about sex.

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/girl-12-dies-after-being-bullied-for-her-innocence/?e081010

• Video: Agony aunt claims it’s OK to smother children

Virginia Ironside horrified viewers by saying that she would be willing to smother a sick child and by describing abortion as a “moral”, “unselfish” act of a loving mother.

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/agony-aunt-claims-its-ok-to-smother-children/?e081010

• Dad of disabled girl slams Ironside’s smothering claim

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/dad-of-disabled-girl-slams-ironsides-smothering-claim/?e081010

• Nine-year-old kids caught dealing cannabis at school

A group of nine-year-old boys has been suspended from primary school after they were caught selling cannabis in the playground for pocket money prices.

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/nine-year-old-kids-caught-dealing-cannabis-at-school/?e081010

• Waitrose ditches halal lamb from Prince of Wales’ range

Waitrose is set to introduce non-halal lamb in the Prince of Wales’ Duchy range following complaints from customers.

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/waitrose-ditches-halal-lamb-from-prince-of-wales-range/?e081010

• ‘Hate crime’ trial opens against Dutch anti-Islam MP

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/hate-crime-trial-opens-against-dutch-anti-islam-mp/?e081010

• Last RC adoption agency renews fight to stay open

The last remaining Roman Catholic adoption agency in England has appealed to a High Court judge in a desperate attempt to preserve its religious ethos and stay open.

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/last-rc-adoption-agency-renews-fight-to-stay-open/?e081010

• How true are the stats on UK homosexual numbers?

New official statistics showing the small numbers of homosexuals in the UK have been met with disbelief and scepticism from some, so just how accurate are the findings?

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/how-true-are-the-stats-on-uk-homosexual-numbers/?e081010

• ‘Hate crime’ guide: protect people who have sex in public

Scots police officers have been ordered to protect exhibitionists who engage in illegal outdoor sex, according to highly controversial ‘hate crime’ guidance.

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/hate-crime-guide-protect-people-who-have-sex-in-public/?e081010

Scots police to investigate decade-old ‘hate incidents’

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/scots-police-to-investigate-decade-old-hate-incidents/?e081010

• C of E: Shops are reluctant to sell Christian Easter eggs

Supermarkets are reluctant to stock an Easter egg which mentions Jesus Christ and his crucifixion, the Church of England has warned.

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/shops-dont-want-christian-easter-eggs-warns-c-of-e/?e081010

• Scots End-of-life Bill could lead to 1,000 deaths a year

Legalising assisted suicide in Scotland would result in a far greater number of people ending their lives than previously claimed, an MSP has warned.

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/scots-end-of-life-bill-could-lead-to-1000-deaths-a-year/?e081010

Also in the news

—————-

• Video: 60,000 children in Britain are problem gamblers

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/video-60000-children-in-britain-are-problem-gamblers/?e081010

• Pro-lifers outraged at first ever NI abortion conference

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/pro-lifers-outraged-at-first-ever-ni-abortion-conference/?e081010

Britain From the Air

Why don’t politicians do God any more?

Our religious leaders’ pleas are falling on deaf ears, argues Allan Massie.

By Allan Massie
Published: 6:17AM GMT 03 Mar 2010

Should the Church keep out of political affairs? s

This election becomes more intriguing by the day. Distaste for politicians and their parties is rife. We have an unpopular Prime Minister who may nevertheless be returned to office, and a leader of the Opposition who is failing to convince the uncommitted that the most incompetent government of modern times should be thrown out. Now we have the clergy getting in on the act.

Today, the Roman Catholic Church publishes its own election manifesto, Choosing the Common Good. Admittedly, this doesn’t tell us how to vote. Indeed, readers are likely to be left in two minds. On the one hand, it is critical of free market capitalism, which has been the Church’s position at least since Leo X’s 1893Encyclical De Rerum Novarum. On the other hand, it is equally critical of the Labour’s policies on gay adoption, the Equality Bill, sex education, and what it sees as the Government’s undermining of marriage and family values. Like David Cameron, it affirms that our society is “broken”, and that something must jolly well be do to repair it.

Voters are urged to uphold “traditional Catholic concepts of social thought”, such as solidarity. But whether this means they should vote Labour or Conservative or anything else is left open. For all the willingness of the churches to get involved, we are a long way from the days when priests told the faithful how to vote, and threatened them with a longer spell in purgatory if they put their mark in the wrong place.

In Scotland, where the Catholic vote used to go reliably Labour, relations between the party and the hierarchy have been bad for years, and the SNP has been siphoning off Catholic votes even though, on the social issues which concern the Church, it is every bit as secular-liberal as the other parties.

Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, himself a Catholic, made a speech intended to lure back the lost sheep and was promptly smacked down by Cardinal O’Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland . The Cardinal has also told Iain Gray, Labour leader in the Scottish Parliament, that when the Pope visits next year, he hopes His Holiness will “really give you hell for what you have done to our country over 10 years, demeaning family and married life”.

Evidently, the churches hold politicians responsible for the mess we are in.

Well, of course, so do most of us, even if we wouldn’t go as far as Cardinal O’Brien, who blames this Government for “drug and alcohol-fuelled promiscuity, hedonism, vandalism, outright nihilism and the undermining of chastity and modesty”.

We may agree, sorrowfully, with the document’s claim that “regulation has replaced virtue in public life”, and it may be what we are seeing is the first wave of a shift in moral attitudes from liberalism to a new Puritanism. There was a comparable shift in mid-19th-century Britain when respectability and a rigid moral code became the norm. Now we have lived through half a century in which liberal social and moral values have been in the ascendant; a swing of the pendulum is possible. Though I’m not convinced it is happening yet.

No doubt the churches long for this. In an address this week, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, complained that religion has been marginalised, and that politicians, even when they are churchgoers, will not proclaim their faith. “We don’t do God,” as Alastair Campbell put it, despite his master, Tony Blair’s, commitment to Christianity. Similarly, Gordon Brown, son of the manse, and David Cameron, unlike that born-again Christian George W Bush, keep God in the back room.

They are wise to do so, and to be shy about playing the faith card. They may usually be good men and sincere Christians, but they are politicians and the reputation of our politicians is soiled. We don’t look to them for moral guidance; if they offered it, we would respond with mockery or contempt. Fewer of us than ever before even seek that from the clergy. Though we may nod our heads, and say, “Yes, society’s broken and the churches make some good points”, how many of us are ready to act as the logic of their argument demands?

For better or worse, Britain is not a Christian country in the sense it once was. The moral code of a book compiled more than 2,000 years ago in Palestine no longer governs our behaviour. We live in a pick-and-choose society. Some may choose Bible-based religion, some lukewarm religion, some, perhaps a majority, no religion. Politicians recognise this and speak and act accordingly.

We may be looking for moral certainties but it’s unlikely that the churches’ intervention in this election will determine the way many of us vote.

“Things have come to a pretty pass,” said Lord Melbourne, “when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life.” The old Whig cynic might say it had even less place in political life.

A 14 February 2010 Ekklesia article titled “Tories Say they would Close Down Creationist Schools” reported on a 14 February 2010 BBC1 television interview with Tory Michael Gove, Member of Parliament for Surrey Heath and “shadow” schools secretary, where Gove said that a Conservative government in Great Britain would not tolerate schools that teach biblical creationism as science.

Gove said: “To my mind you cannot have a school which teaches creationism. And one thing that we will make absolutely clear is that you can not have schools that are set up which teach people things which are clearly at variance with what we know to be scientific fact.”

Gove continued: “”We do have some schools at the moment - independent schools - that have been set up by religious groups. You mentioned Islamic groups. Let’s be clear, there are other fundamentalist groups as well which have schools in the private sector. If those schools are properly regulated and inspected then we can ensure that anyone who teaches in a way that undermines our democratic values can be brought to public light, challenged, and if necessary, closed down.”

Gove’s comments were made during a debate in honor of Darwin Day, marking the 200^th anniversary of the birth ofCharles Darwin, author of “Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”

+ Ekklesia, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St. John Street, London EC1V 4PY, England, 0845 056 5445, press@ekklesia.co.uk
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