I have found a new role model. A woman prepared to act against her family for the sake of the Lord and his people.
She used her abilities and the resources at her disposal to serve the Lord’s cause even at the risk of her own life. She is a little intimidating because she seemed so in control despite her vulnerability. Her nerve extended to extreme violence. She is Jael, and we read about her in the book of Judges.
About 300 yards from my house is the grave of an 18-year-old paratrooper killed in Helmand province.
I’ve never been convinced by the reasons given for our Afghan adventure, and why this young man was put in harm’s way by our government. We have now abandoned Afghanistan and we are left wondering if there is any hope for that country.
The Psalmist writes of crying to God ‘out of the depths’. I’m sure many of us have been there at times during lockdown.
The job I do at present for the Pastors’ Academy in providing support for church leaders tends to lead me into some pretty depressing situations. I don’t get a balanced view of churches. I’m like a doctor. It’s generally those who are ill and unhealthy who turn up at the surgery.
This summer has seen the start of a new cricket competition, The Hundred. This has been developed to make cricket more accessible.
Each side faces 100 balls, bowled in lots of t e n balls rather than six- ball overs. The shorter games produce greater excitement, are more attractive to families and provide entertaining television. Needless to say, traditionalists are outraged. Simon Heffer has written that it is a ‘bastardisation of a once-great game.’ Many have repeated the obvious cliché that The Hundred is ‘just not cricket’.
If you are able to enjoy a holiday this August, why not give a thought to the unsung heroes of the last year.
As I write, the news is full of the resignation of the Health Minister, Matt Hancock, for breaching the Covid guidelines; no one seems to me much interested in his breaching of the seventh commandment on adultery, though I hope he will become repentant about that as well.
If you want to waste time on the internet, put church names into the search engine of the Charity Commission and see how many ‘volunteers’ they have.
Lots of churches do what ours has done. The number of volunteers recorded is the size of the church family – it seems that everyone who belongs to the church is a ‘volunteer’.
One of the stranger things to make its way to the editor’s desk this month was the rather zany (for want of a better word) video from which a picture is shown here.
It is safe to say that the photo is probably quite unlike any other you have seen recently! But all credit to the ministry team behind it, for it has achieved its purpose – raising the profile of world mission. Now not only do the members of St Giles’ Church, Normanton, where the video originated, have more awareness of the mission work going on in Namugongo, Uganda – but so do you. You may even be inspired to find out more about the Uganda Martyrs’ School there, which commemorates 32 young men who in 1886 were burned to death for refusing to renounce their faith.
When the Equalities Act was passed more than a decade ago, it seemed to limit the freedoms that Christians had long taken for granted.
It became unlawful to discriminate against others on grounds of religion or sexual orientation with the result that, for example, a Christian-owned hotel could no longer refuse a room to a same-sex couple. Similarly, a Christian could not serve as a magistrate and take the view that children were always better adopted by a heterosexual couple. New laws against hate speech meant Christians were more fearful of preaching the gospel in case they offended others; and they faced the possibility of disciplinary action in the workplace if they challenged transgender ideology. These changes reflected the fact that we live in a secular, post-Christian context. Christian views and values are no longer widely shared across society and deemed worthy of privileged status. Instead, government has to balance the interests of competing opinions in a multicultural society.
Instead of hosting a party to celebrate her son’s tenth birthday Seema Misra was sent to prison. She was eight weeks pregnant.
What was her crime? She had run the village post office in West Byfleet, but had unaccountable shortfalls in her accounts. She put in £20,000 from her family savings to resolve the issue, but the problems continued and, eventually, she was convicted of stealing £74,000. The local newspaper described her as the ‘pregnant thief’. Her life was in tatters.
I have a great love for cities;
especially London, where
I was born and bred.
However, despite
their
attractiveness as major
centres of cultural and
intellectual activity, when
we consider the UK’s soaring
urban crime rates and the relatively higher
incidences of self-harm and suicide in our
cities,
it’s clear that something has gone
seriously wrong.
Last year, in our urban cities and towns,
there were 34.7 recorded acts of violent crime
per 1,000 population, compared to 6.8 in
rural areas. Additionally, there were more than
double the number of vehicle offences per
1,000 in predominantly urban areas, when
compared to predominantly rural areas.
While social scientists have discovered an
exponential relationship between population
density and both deprivation and the crime
rate, unravelling
the underlying causes –
and, more importantly, potential cures – has
proven far more difficult.
Frederic
Le
Play
was
a
celebrated
19th-century French
sociologist, engineer
and economist, who,
in his twenties, was
converted to Christ from atheism. He was also
the first scholar to investigate shifts in family
configurations systematically. His ability to
speak five languages and understand eight
facilitated his extensive surveys of working-class families in different European, North
American, Asian, North-African and Asian
countries.
Although a pioneering technologist, one of
the key findings from his 1855 publication
‘Les ouvriers européens’ (‘European workers’) was that, despite the benefits of
industry
and urban development, the major social
upheaval that they caused had resulted in
smaller nuclear families replacing traditional
extended
families. He also explained that
the resultant
loss of
intergenerational ties
(including moral and
religious
traditions)
had led to moral decay.
Despite this evidence, Le Play’s findings
were keenly contested by some of the 20th
century’s
leading
sociologists,
until
his
position was eventually vindicated by later
studies.
Wrestling
is
a
strange
image of prayer. If you
read some of the pieces
written
about
prayer
today,
it
seems
even
more strange.
They
tell us
(rightly)
that prayer is about intimacy
and relationship, about knowing God. The
Bible’s image of wrestling suggests instead
conflict and hard work. It may be an intimate
way to fight, but it isn’t sweet. This kind of
fighting is sweaty, painful – and all about
endurance.
We need to be bold when the moment arises
I have found a new role model. A woman prepared to act against her family for the sake of the Lord and his people.
She used her abilities and the resources at her disposal to serve the Lord’s cause even at the risk of her own life. She is a little intimidating because she seemed so in control despite her vulnerability. Her nerve extended to extreme violence. She is Jael, and we read about her in the book of Judges.