Politics
Prayer answered, but we need repentance!
Here is the Hansard record of last night’s debate with the divisions. Our MPs received much prayer through this month, over the weekend and indeed as they met yesterday afternoon to vote on Brexit and amendments to the G+overnment plans.
Some of the amendments the House voted against would have impeded or delayed Brexit, They were all defeated by the grace of God. Remember to thank him for his grace and mercy and praise his holy name.
The only two which succeeded were Dame Caroline Spelman’s rejecting leaving without a deal and Sir Graham Brady’s, approving the May Deal without the hated Backstop.
Brexit next steps
So Mrs May is back off to Brussels with the Brady Amendment in her bag. She will tell the EU removing the Backstop is what Parliament wants. The EU have immediately said they will not renegotiate. But they would say that. As the clock ticks down to No Deal on 29th March 2019, despite the aspirations of Mrs Spelman and the House, they may well budge. Otherwise it’s No Deal, the default position. Pray for Mrs May to find favour with the Lord:
Prov 8:32 Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways. … 35 For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD.
And to be frank, at some stage the UK will leave the EU. All the questions raised by supermarkets and farmers’ unions and industry about markets and supply chains and tariffs on imports from and exports to the EU will one way or another eventually have to faced. Moreover, our United Kingdom needs repentance, and that requires a heaven-sent leader. So keep praying!
Yesterday the BBC reported that Theresa May’s neutral motion was designed to allow discussion of next steps on Brexit. MPs tabled amendments. The Speaker decided on which amendments to select impartially, as we prayed, reminding the Lord of his word set out in scripture:
Lev 19:15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.
Labour Front Bench amendment
The opposition’s amendment instructed the government to rule out what it refers to as a ‘disastrous No Deal’ scenario. It proposed an alternative Brexit deal involving Labour’s plan for a permanent customs union with Brussels and a version of the EU’s single market. Mr Corbyn’s amendment also proposed legislating to hold a public vote on either a deal or a proposition that had MPs’ support.
It was defeated by 327 votes to 296. ‘No Deal’ is of course the default scenario under the legislation on Article 50 which a huge majority of MPs voted for two years ago.
Lib Dem amendment
Once again, Mr Speaker did not select Mr Vince Cable’s amendment instructing the government to take steps to rule out ‘No Deal’ and to ‘prepare for a People’s Vote in which the public will have the option to remain in the European Union on the ballot paper’.
The BBC said: ‘The People’s Vote campaign for a fresh referendum on EU membership held back from tabling a similar amendment, saying it would not get the backing of a majority of MPs without Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn telling his party to back it.’
He did not, and it wasn’t called anyway, so that is an answer to prayer.
Yvette Cooper’s amendment
This was the big one. It demanded parliamentary time to pass a new law ruling out No Deal. The new law would also have required Theresa May to seek to postpone Brexit day (currently 29th March) until 31st December. That would all have come into effect if MPs do not approve a deal by 26th February.
Firstly, the prime minister would have to ask the EU 27 to agree to extend the two-year limit on Article 50. Secondly they would have to agree. Thirdly,. they will only do that if it looks like it might achieve something to benefit them. Fourthly, any extension past July will need the UK to hold elections to the European Parliament.
The amendment had the backing of senior Conservative backbenchers such as Nicky Morgan and Oliver Letwin, former Lib Dem health minister Norman Lamb and Plaid Cymru’s Ben Lake. Miss Cooper tabled it with Tory Remainer Nick Boles. It was the only amendment which would have bound the Government. Labour supported it. But it was lost by 23 votes. Dominic Grieve’s (The Grinch!) amendment calling for every Tuesday from now on to be Brexit debating day was rejected by 20 votes.
The successful amendments:
Amendment proposed: (i), at end, add
“and rejects the United Kingdom leaving the European Union without a Withdrawal Agreement and a Framework for the Future Relationship.”—(Dame Caroline Spelman.)
Ayes: 318 Noes: 310 Question accordingly agreed to.
Amendment proposed: (n), at end, add
“and requires the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border; supports leaving the European Union with a deal and would therefore support the Withdrawal Agreement subject to this change.”—(Sir Graham Brady.)
Ayes: 317 Noes: 301 Question accordingly agreed to.
(At some stage we might analyse all the voting – but that’s a bigger project to be done right now!)
False positive prophecies
Finally, what of so-called prophecies claiming the world is going to flock to the UK as a paragon of progress and virtue once we leave the EU? Some of us need to see things from the point of view of the Lord Almighty. The way to do that is to get into his word, which is in the Holy Scriptures. There we see that God hates wickedness. It is that simple:
Hos 5:4 They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God: for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the LORD.
The UK is promoting the wickedness of sodomy, feminism, abortion and even transgenderism at home and around the world. The Department for Education promotes promiscuity and perversion to our nation’s children in England. In the devolved administrations it is just the same.
International wickedness
Our Foreign Office and the Department for International Development are pouring millions into pro-LGBT NGOs all over Africa and wherever else they can get a toe in. The EU also does that, but we led the way and we taught them. The Foreign Office started wars in Iraq and Syria and is responsible for massive loss of life and property, ruining people’s lives.
Jer 9:9 Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
Is the Almighty going to hold a nation such as ours up as a standard in opposition to his word? Really? The best we can say is that coming out of the revived Roman empire of the EU is an opportunity for national repentance. That on its own will be by the grace of God.
Psalm 106:47 Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise.
Spiritual significance
For the spiritual significance of coming out of the EU, see this link here on our website. And keep praying!
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200 MPs meet Mrs May to oppose No Deal
A group of over 200 MPs opposed to the United Kingdom leaving the European Union without a deal are to meet the Prime Minister today.
Sky news reports: ‘The politicians are from the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, SNP and Plaid Cymru parties and the letter was written by Meriden MP Caroline Spelman (Conservative) and Birmingham Erdington MP Jack Dromey (Labour).’
How it will go
This is what will happen at the meeting:
Mrs May will make sure everyone has a drink of some sort. That is what she did yesterday, says The Sun, when she entertained Conservative and DUP MPs including Boris Johnson and Nigel Dodds, as stage one of her charm offensive. Not that any changed their minds, but hey, one does what one can. Then after a warm welcome, the Prime Minister will ask the 200 MPs about their concerns.
They will say manufacturing in the UK, especially in the Midlands, will grind to a halt if there is no deal. Thousands of their constituents will lose their jobs. There will be no exports to the EU any more, and no drugs or nurses for the NHS. It will be like jumping off a cliff-edge. Or being involved in a car-crash. Aircraft will fall out of the sky, some may assert. Others will report the Chicken Licken Think Tank has said the sky itself will fall down.
Mrs May will immediately express herself extremely sympathetic to the MPs. She will say she understands their concerns. The Prime Minister will add she fully shares their horror of leaving the EU without a deal. It really must not happen, despite Government planning for it just in case. ‘No Deal’ would be unthinkable, she will say, nodding her head earnestly.
What deal do the 200 MPs prefer?
That is why, she will continue brightly, the assembled MPs must vote for her deal. The only way to safeguard against No Deal is May Deal, she will tell them. A vote against May Deal would be ‘uncharted territory’ at best.
At that moment, many of the 200 MPs will say they oppose May Deal. ‘Oh I see’, the Prime Minister will respond, appearing shocked, ‘Then what deal do you prefer?’ At this, some will say they would like a Canada Deal, others will propose a Norway Deal. Some will say ‘the People’ should decide in a #PeoplesVote. Still others will venture that actually, to be honest, they want the UK to Remain in the EU.
‘Oh dear,’ Mrs May will say, ‘But if you cannot even agree amongst yourselves what deal you prefer, and some of you even want the ‘no deal’ of remaining, and you all know there is no time for a second referendum even if were democratic to hold one which it isn’t, then No Deal is the only outcome left standing.
It has to be May Deal
‘But we don’t want No Deal’, they will wail. ‘Our constituents’ jobs, no more exports, drugs, nurses, aeroplanes and cars crash, sky falls down, etc.’
‘That is why’, Mrs May will repeat, ‘You must all vote for my deal. It’s the only way to prevent No Deal.’
After more drinks and more exchanges, the 200 MPs will leave. They will leave reflecting on a lesson learned. It would have been much more clever to hold a series of indicative votes among themselves before they went in so they could present Mrs May with one collective preferred option. But it’s too late now. In fact, it really is too late now.
As for Mrs May, she will sit down and plan for episode three of her charm offensive. That is tomorrow’s invitation to yet more Conservative MPs for drinks and a promotional chat for May Deal. This time, of course, because so many will be in favour of No Deal, she will probably major on ‘No Brexit at all’ as the alternative to May Deal. But that would mean Mrs May delaying Article 50 or pulling it altogether. They all know she won’t do either. But it was a free drink at No 10. And that can’t be bad.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay denying there have been meetings between UK and EU officials on extending Article 50.
Spiritual significance
For the spiritual significance of coming out of the EU, see this link here on our website. And keep praying!
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Mrs May faces no-confidence vote
This morning Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the Conservative Party’s 1922 Committee, revealed he had received more than 48 letters of no confidence in Theresa May as leader of the Party and therefore as Prime Minister.
1922 Committee meeting and vote
Sir Graham is arranging for Mrs May to address Tory MPs at the Committee’s normal Wednesday meeting at 5pm this afternoon, although some reports suggested the meeting could be brought forward.
Voting will take place between 6pm and 8pm tonight. The result could be declared soon after. Brexiteer MPs are angry that it has all happened so soon. They wanted the weekend to drum up support. But they are where they are, and the timing is surely of the Lord, however it turns out.
The Independent reminds us the 1922 Committee is named after a Tory rebellion: ‘The 1922, which meets in Parliament’s oak-panelled Committee Room 14 at 5pm every Wednesday afternoon, is named after the historic Carlton Club meeting between Tory rebels Stanley Baldwin and Bonar Law on 19th October 1922, in which the men successfully plotted the withdrawal of the party from its coalition with David Lloyd George’s Liberals.’
Mrs May ‘will fight’
Theresa May said this morning she would fight the no confidence vote with ‘Everything I’ve got.’
She added: ‘A new leader wouldn’t have time to re-negotiate a withdrawal agreement and get the legislation through Parliament by March 29, so one of their first acts would have to be extending or rescinding Article 50, delaying or even stopping Brexit when people want us to get on with it.’
Well, that depends on whom any new leader is. If they were a Remainer, it might almost be true, although any Prime Minister who extends Article 50, let alone withdraws it, would find his position untenable. He would almost certainly lose a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons, since the DUP would no longer support him. He would almost certainly lose the general election which would follow.
Scare tactic aimed at Brexiteers
MPs decide the short-list of two but then the leader of the Conservative Party is elected by ordinary members of the Party. They are overwhelmingly pro-Brexit. So let us say Mrs May lost and that triggered a leadership election. The next leader and prime minister would be a Brexiteer of some sort or another. We can be sure his platform would not have included delaying or withdrawing Article 50.
Furthermore, in truth, there is very clearly no scope to re-negotiate the withdrawal agreement either. In yesterday’s whirlwind tour European leaders made that very plain to her.
So Mrs May’s is just a scare tactic directed at Brexiteer MPs. Why should Mrs May pick on them? Because they are the ones most likely to vote against her. What a coincidence.
Making the contest less about her and more about her deal and the Brexit outcome could be yet another mistake.
Bookmakers odds
Nevertheless, the bookmakers think Mrs May will survive the vote. William Hill put the Prime Minister’s chance to win at 6 to 4 on. Spokesman Rupert Adams said: ‘The odds suggest Theresa will be safe but it could be a close run thing.’
It would not be a total surprise for Mrs May to win the vote narrowly and then decide to resign. Knowing perhaps 40% of your colleagues have no confidence in you and that any number more are merely lukewarm is not a good place for any leader to be. If just 100 out of 330 Tory MPs vote against her, the word is the Cabinet will be advising her to resign.
But against that happening is Theresa May’s renowned stubbornness and her inability to face up to reality. But she may survive, and if so, that will be the Lord’s doing (and I might add, after all that has taken place in the last week, ‘wondrous in our eyes’!)
The Lord disposes
I was at a meeting of Prayer for Parliament in the Palace of Westminster last night. It was adddressed by Sir Jeffrey Donalson MP, DUP member for Lagan Valley. Sir Jeffrey also prayed into the Brexit situation in the House. He revealed that he has had the same revelation as I had yesterday.
That is that everything which has happened over Brexit has been orchestrated by the Lord. Furthermore, it is hard to escape the conclusion that his divine purpose is to bring the United Kingdom swiftly out of the EU’s Revived Roman Empire with no deal.
Prov 16:9 A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.
Just consider the Referendum Party launch in 1996 and the subsequent rise of UKIP to their heights of 2014. That, and pressure from his own Brexiteer MPs, forced Mr Cameron into putting a promise to hold a referendum into the Tory manifesto in 2015. He made good his pledge in 2016. The Referendum result was an unecpected victory for Leave over Remain by 52% to 48%.
Commons approved Article 50
Mr Cameron resigned the day after the result and Mrs May was appointed leader after Andrea Leadsom dropped out. Next, Remainers went to court to force a House of Commons vote on Article 50
The Supreme Court ruled in their favour on 24th January 2017. They hoped the House would block it. But the Brexit Bill cleared all its hurdles on 13th March 2017. Thanks to the Reminers, Article 50 had a Parliamentary legitimacy it would not have had.
Her Majesty’s Government served a notice under Article 50 on the EU on 29th March 2017. Now consider Mrs May’s botched General Election campaign during May and June 2017. I specifically prayed for a hung parliament with a Tory administration but with the DUP holding the balance of power, in effect, keeping them honest. That is what turned out.
Then came two wasted years of negotiation with an intransigent EU more concerned to punish the UK than look forward to a future trading relationship. During that time, the Government were forced in June 2018 to agree the Commons having a ‘meaningful vote’ on any resulting deal. Remainers thought that would ensure a deal more favourable to them.
The Lord knows the heart behind our prayer
Many of us prayed against the Commons have a meaningful vote for the same reason. How wrong we were. But the Lord knew what we were really praying for and disposed accordingly.
And now the Commons will not agree the May Deal. Moreover, there is no course around which the House of Commons can agree. The Brexit legislation sets a 21st January deadline. If there is to be a deal it must be approved by then. If not, ministers have to tell the House what they are going to do in its absence.
Finally, if there is no deal ratified by the UK and EU by 29th March, the United Kingdom leaves the EU on World Trade Organisation rules. In addition, we leave withpout paying £39 billion. And that is £733 for every person of working age in the UK, or over £1,400 per household.
The Metro newspaper headline yesterday was ‘The Clock is now ticking for No Deal’.
One could be forgiven for thinking the Lord himself has engineered a No-Deal Crash-Out outcome.
Has the Lord engineered No Deal?
Prov 16:9 A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.
PRAY that the United Kingdom comes out of the European Union one way or another. An orderly way would be preferable. But it looks as if our esteemed Government has missed the boat for that outcome. They are stumbling towards ‘No Deal’, whoever is leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister.
The only danger in such a case is they might ask for an Article 50 extension. The EU would attach strings before granting such a request. A withdrawal of Art50 would be politically impossible. In any case, the Lord will decide against them.
Both sides of the Irish border and both sides of the Channel had better start preparing for No-Deal and WTO rules. They, and businesses, should have been doing this two years ago.
World trade collapsed
Finally, in Isaiah 23, we read of the Lord’s judgment on Tyre. If affected trade worldwide, including the mineral-rich isles of Tarshish. Many scholars now view ‘Tarshish’ as the British Isles. We were a known source of copper, tin, silver, gold, iron and lead in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Indeed, to have a ‘bronze age’ at all you need copper, found in Wales and Somerset, and tin from Cornwall. Isaiah writes of the destruction of Tyre as a catastrophe for trade:
Isa 23:1 The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Chittim it is revealed to them.
Ezekiel also pronounces a judgment on Tyre in Ezekiel 27. He lists the extensive and astonishing world trade at the time. Do read it! Like Isiaah he speaks of a collapse in world trade:
Eze 27:35 All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their countenance.
Be realistic in our prayer
What I saying is that we should be realistic in our prayers. Recognise a ‘No Deal’ exit will inevitably impact on people’s livelihoods. Companies may have to restructure.their markets or accept lower margins. Some may go out of business. It will be tough. Nevertheless, it will not be the disaster predicted by those of ‘Project Fear II’.
I believe if the Almighty orchestrates such an outcome it will be to benefit the UK in the longer term. Tarshish no doubt recovered and secured new markets. Isaiah promises after a 70-year period, a Biblical time of completion, not just prosperity but blessing in the purposes of God:
Isa 23:18 And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.
PRAY: That the repentance which will bring that about will be our portion in this United Kingdom, to the glory of God. And of course pray into this no-confidence vote and the aftermath. Moreover, remind the Lord what he has done for us so far, not because of our goodness – God knows our national sin – but because of his grace. And perhaps because he still has a purpose for this United Kingdom. Pray without ceasing!
For the spiritual significance of coming out of the EU, see this link here on our website.
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Porton Down can’t say poison from Russia
The Government’s defence research laboratory have not established whatever poisoned Sergei and Yulia Skripal was made in Russia.
Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), said the poison had been identified as a military-grade novichok nerve agent. He said it could probably be deployed only by a nation state.
Porton Down leaves embarrassment
The UK government moved quickly to make the best of the embarrassment. According to the Guardian, Theresa May ‘had always been clear the assessment from Porton Down was “only one part of the intelligence picture”.’
Mr Aitkenhead backed up the Prime Minister. He said the government had reached its conclusion that Russia was responsible for the Salisbury attack by combining the laboratory’s scientific findings with ‘information from other sources’.
The scientist also denied Russian claims that the substance could have come from Porton Down, which is eight miles from Salisbury. He said: ‘There’s no way that anything like that would ever have come from us or leave the four walls of our facilities.’ The comment stopped short of a complete denial that Porton Down had ever manufactured ‘Novichok’ or had the chemical on its premises.
The Russian embassy in London said: ‘This only proves that all political declarations on the Russian origin of the crime are nothing but assumptions not stemming from objective facts or the course of the investigation.’
Theresa May’s backtracking
Theresa May’s choice of words is also revealing. On 12th March 2018 she said that it was ‘highly likely’ that Russia was responsible for the attack. On 14th March she said that Russia was ‘culpable’ of the attack on Sergey and Yulia Skripal. Since the EU Council meeting of 22nd March 2018 the British government together with the EU have reverted to Theresa May’s original 12th March 2018 position that it was ‘highly likely’ that Russia was responsible for the attack. On the Off-Guardian website, Alexander Mercouris says:
‘Gary Aitkenhead’s comments taken by themselves in my opinion make it impossible even to say that Russia was ‘highly likely’ to have carried out the attack.’
Mr Mercouris also voices what many of us have been wondering about the potency of whatever it was poisoned the Skripals. We were told Novichok was ten times more lethal than VX agents. The scientist who developed it said there was no antidote. Mr Aitkenhead confirmed this. Yet DS Bailey walked out of hospital two weeks ago, and Yulia is recovering and talking. Mr Mercouris says this, ‘suggests either that her contact with the poison was very slight, or that the potency of the poison has been greatly exaggerated.’
Boris Johnson misled public
Two weeks ago, broadcaster Deutsche Welle, asked Mr Johnson how the UK had been able to determine so quickly that the novichok came from Russia.
The Independent reports he replied: ‘When I look at the evidence, the people from Porton Down, the laboratory, they were absolutely categorical.’
But they say they were not. The scientists were almost cdertainly pressured by the Government to conclude the poison came from Russia. It is to their credit they refused to do so. Mr Johnson must have known they could not identify its origin.
Foreign Office deleted tweet
Even worse, the Foreign Office had to admit it deleted an “inaccurate” tweet stating that scientists had concluded the novichok used in the attack had been “produced in Russia”.
It read: “Analysis by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down made clear this was a military-grade Novichok nerve agent produced in Russia.”
The Foreign Office blamed mistakes in tweeting a briefing given by the UK’s Ambassador to Russia “in real time” for its blunder.
“One of the tweets was truncated and did not accurately report our Ambassador’s words. We have removed this tweet,” a spokeswoman said.
Foreign Office lied about speech
Neverrtheless, Dr Lawrie Bristow said in a speech on 22nd March: ‘…There is also no doubt that the Novichok was produced in Russia by the Russian state.’
A gov.uk web page carries a transcript of his speech ‘exactly as was delivered’, it says. Except it doesn’t. On this page, the Foreign office has removed the crucial definite article, to make the ambassador’s words more vague: ‘There is also no doubt that Novichok was produced in Russia by the Russian state,’ (sic) says the web page.
There is a video of the ambassador right above the false quote. At 21 seconds he clearly says ‘the Novichok’ meaning ‘the Novichok used in Salisbury’. How does our government think it can get away with such a brazen lie? But even given that, again and again Dr Bristow says ‘the nerve agent was produced in Russia.’
That goes beyond evidence and into what the Uk Government refers to as ‘assessments’. That’s ‘best guesses’ to you and me. The UK Government has plunged the world into a diplomatic crisis on guesswork.
Yulia Skripal ‘growing stronger’
Happily, Yulia Skripal is now said to be growing stronger in hospital. The Police issued a statement claiming to be ‘on her behalf’, according to the BBC. It is also on the police website here.
(We ought just to mention a purported telephone conversation between someone who may be Yulia Skripal and someone who is probably Viktoria Skripal. It took place on a Russian media channel and is reported verbatim on the BBC. We make of it what we will.)
In the police statement, Miss Skripal says she is ‘grateful for the many messages of goodwill’ she had received.
‘I woke up over a week ago now and am glad to say my strength is growing daily,’ the statement said. She thanks the people of Salisbury who went to her aid and ‘the staff at Salisbury District Hospital for their care and professionalism.’
Press not welcome
There follows a strange passage asking for privacy. It is reminiscent of the alleged statement by policeman DS Bailey. He was released from the same hospital on 22nd March. ‘I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you’ll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence.’
There have indeed been no interviews of DS Bailey that we can discover. That is yet another strange incident in a very strange affair. Nor have the press in any shape or form been allowed anywhere need the recovering Yulia. Sherlock Holmes famously found a clue in the fact that a dog did not bark. There are too many non-barking dogs in the Salisbury poisoning. There are too many things that just do not add up.
Moreover, if the press are not allowed to interview either Nick Bailey or Yulia Skrpial, it’s because someone high up does not want them to share what they know. That could mean the authorities do not want the perpetrators alerted. (But days ago the Sun reported police were ‘closing in’ on ‘the gang’. ) Or it could mean there is a fear they will tell the public something ‘off-message’. In that case, their lives could be seriously in danger.
Park bench taken into custody
Meanwhile, according to a Metropolitan Police press release, the park bench that Sergei and Yulia Skripal were sitting on when they were found unwell in Salisbury was removed on Friday, 23 March. Police used an angle grinder to cut it from its fixings. The Met said: ‘It is being removed from near Zizzi restaurant in order to preserve it as a potential crime exhibit as part of the investigation into the attempted murders.’
Another press release, dated 28th March, said: ‘As a result of detailed forensic and scientific examination, detectives believe the Skripals first came into contact with the nerve agent at their home address. Specialists have identified the highest concentration of the nerve agent, to-date, as being on the front door of the address.’
A press officer, who refused to give her name, could not say what ‘the’ alleged nerve agent actually was. Nor could she say whether whatever it was appeared on the inside or the outside of the door. If it was on the inside, how did it get there with no signs of forcible entry? If it was on the outside, why were police women photographed guarding the door in their ordinary uniform?
Precautionary
A day later, three-and-a-half weeks after the Skripals were found unwell, another press release said the Met ‘placed a cordon around a children’s play area at Montgomery Gardens, near the Skripals’ home.’
‘Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon said: “I would like to reassure residents that we have placed the cordons around the park, and officers will be searching it, as a precautionary measure. I would like to reiterate Public Health England’s advice that the risk to the public is low.’ As a precautionary measure against what, exactly? The Met did not say.
There has been no further press release from the Met to date. Their current press releases may be found in this link.
Reckless disregard for truth
But on the same day, in a speech to the Lord Mayor’s Easter Banquet, the Foreign Secretary was still spreading disinformation. He spoke of a ‘reckless and contemptuous disregard for public safety that saw 39 others seek medical treatment.’ But not one of those who sought medical treatment actually needed treatment. That is according to Stephen Davies, consultant in emergency medicine at the Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.
But Dr Davies also said something puzzling, which he has not clarified. He wrote to the Time: ‘no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning.’
Boris Johnson is not alone. The Government reports our ambassador to the OPCW, John Foggo, said on 4th April: ‘What happened in Salisbury on 4 March was a reckless and indiscriminate act, which threatened the lives of innocent civilians. More than 130 people were affected by the attack. More than 50 people, including first responders and 3 children, reported to hospital.’
Again, we have to say, not one of them received treatment.
‘Limited evidence’ of Skripal neice
The pulling of wool over eyes was also taking place in the courts. The UK Government applied to the Court of Protection for permission to take blood samples from Yulia Skripal and her father. These were for analysis analysis by the OPCW. Mr Justice Williams concluded, on 22nd March, on the evidence offered to him:
“…Given the absence of any contact having been made with the NHS Trust by any family member, the absence of any evidence of any family in the UK and the limited evidence as to the possible existence of family members in Russia I accept that it is neither practicable nor appropriate in the special context of this case to consult with any relatives of Mr Skripal or Ms Skripal who might fall into the category identified in s.4(7)(b) of the Act.”
And yet Viktoria Skripal, niece of Sergey and cousin to Yulia was interviewed by the Sun on 14th March. That was one week before the court judgment. She also appeared on the BBC.
Writing on the Off-Guardian website, one ‘Catte’ said: ‘These interviews suggest this particular relative is pretty real, and not very hard to locate. If the Sun could find her on March 14, it’s hard to see how she could still be a mere thought experiment and “limited” theory for the Home Office eight days later.’ The conclusions the court reached were ‘obviously untrue’, said Catte, asking ‘why has the Home Secretary (SSHD) not “sought to make contact with” the Skripals’ mother/grandmother and niece/cousin?’
Presumption of innocence
Barrister James O’Neill, also writing in Off-Guardian, spoke for ‘those of us with fond of memories of some of the traditional virtues of common-law justice, such as the presumption of innocence, the onus of proof upon the accuser, a verdict based upon evidence beyond reasonable doubt, and a prohibition on prejudicial pre-trial comment…’ Indeed, are these not the sort of ‘British values’ Mrs May hopes we think she is defending?
Mr O’Neill went on: ‘The Skripals were admitted to Salisbury Hospital on 4 March 2018 and it took until 14 March for the British government to invite the OPCW to assist in the technical evaluation of what had caused the Skripal’s illness.
‘The Judge did not comment on why it took 10 days for this invitation to issue, particularly as the Russian government had correctly pointed out that it should have been done much earlier in accordance with the article 9 of the Convention.’
The UK’s case: 5 slides
Lastly (almost) details have emerged of the case the UK put to the Europeans. Again, thanks to Off-Guardian, it’s all here. (in far better resolution). It consists of five slides. Firstly, a sort of timeline of events from 4th to 20th March. Secondly, a lie that only Russia can make Novichok. And a picture of men in scary bio suits.
Thirdly, a pseudo-medical ‘Effects of Novichok.’ (This was written before Nick Bailey was released. It was well before Yulia began to recover.) It’s coupled with numbers of people thought to have been affected. We now know that was entirely bogus.
Fourthly, there’s a whole load of other stuff the UK blames Russia for. It will come as no surprise that Alexander Litvinenko is there. And the Skripals. So is ‘interference in 2016 US election.’ As if we would never … And my favourite: ‘February 2014: Occupation of Crimea; Destabilisation of Ukraine’.
For the last time (no it won’t be). It was the EU and Soros who destabilised Ukraine. And Crimea held a referendum in which 96% voted to rejoin Russia on a turnout of over 80%. Historically, the Crimean parliament has on multiple occasions attempted to trigger this referendum, every one of which was stopped by the larger Ukrainian government.
Lastly, the fifth slide sports the UK’s hysterical reaction. Or ‘UK’s Measured and Proportionate Response’. This starts with ‘attribution to the Russian State’. With no evidence. And that’s it. It truly makes one ashamed to be British.
The case continues!
Make no mistake, this curious case is not over yet. Please continue to pray the truth will come out. Pray fervently for protection for Sergei and Yulia Skripal. This is especially serious. Pray our leaders will act with integrity and honesty, and embark on the ways of peace:
Proverbs 3:13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. …17 Her Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
Proverbs 25:5 Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness.
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Skripal: Nerve Gas and Evidence
MPs and the mainstream media were queuing up last night to blame Russia for the Skripal Nerve Gas incident. This morning’s headline in the Metro was ‘From Russia … with hate.’ Theresa May shot off a letter to the Russian Ambassador demanding an explanation. The BBC reports: ‘The UK has given Russia a midnight deadline to explain why a Russian-made nerve agent was used in the attack.’
The principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ appears to have been suspended. And it is a very Biblical presumption. It is founded on the necessity to find at least two actual witnesses to a crime before any conviction:
Deut 19:15 One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.
The Lord Jesus confirmed this word:
Matt 18:16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
Nerve Gas: what evidence?
So what evidence lies against the state of Russia for the apparent attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia? Alternatively, because a nation state is not an individual, can we argue that rules of evidence may be suspended? However, if the latter is assumed, it could become murky. There are just too many agencies and state players – and political expediencies – to pass definitive judgment.
So what can we say we safely know? What matters are agreed as fact? Furthermore, what is in dispute?
We know Yulia Skripal and her father Sergei were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury. We know they are currently ill in hospital. As Yulia’s concerned friends have pointed out, we know no more than that. What is their condition? We know a policeman, Detectice Sergeant Nick Bailey, was affected by some substance as he responded. He is still in hospital and well enough now to sit up and talk. Or is he ‘seriously ill’? However, we know from the BBC that a doctor who was out shopping attended Yulia and suffered no ill effects from examining her and her father as an ambulance was being called. The doctor has not been identified but said Yulia was “slumped in her seat, completely unconscious.”
Yulia Skripal flew in the day before
Furthermore, the same BBC web page informs us: ‘Yulia Skripal flew into London’s Heathrow Airport on a flight from Russia at about 14:40 GMT on 3 March’. (Yulia lives in Moscow according to her Facebook page. Curiously, no arrivals from Moscow appear to be scheduled to land next Saturday at Heathrow at that time.) The next day, 4th March, ‘at about 13:40 GMT, Mr Skripal and his daughter arrived at the Sainbury’s upper level car park in Salisbury city centre’. After that they ‘went to the Bishop’s Mill pub’. Then they ate at the Zizzi restaurant at 14:20 GMT. They stayed ‘until 15:35 GMT’.
So here is a strange co-incidence. Father and daughter were both found incapacitated the day after she flew in from Russia. If someone intends to kill them both he must know her movements. It would be easy for a Russian agent to find Yulia’s departure time. However, British intelligence could do that as well. But who planted poison in their home? Why have the police given no description of anyone they want to interview? Did no witness see someone loitering around their home? If there was a break-in, why did Mr Skripal not report it to the police?
With the death in New Malden of Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov, the BBC reports police are appealing for witnesses who saw anything near his home. Yet there has been no police appeal for witnesses who saw anything around the Skripal home.
Or perhaps there is no description or appeal because the police know no other party was involved. In that case, was Yulia carrying something that accidentally went wrong?
Was DS Bailey infected at the Skripal home?
Returning to DS Bailey, Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary said: ‘The officer was one of the first responders on Sunday, acting selflessly to help others.’ That is as reported in the Independent (caution: video ad!) ‘The latest update from the hospital is that the officer remains serious but stable and is conscious, talking and engaging.’ Police sources have also been giving the impression DS Bailey became ill because he rushed to help the couple as a ‘first responder’.
However, the Guardian stated this, some days ago: ‘DS Nick Bailey is seriously ill in hospital having visited the home of Skripal after the defector and his daughter were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on Sunday afternoon.’
Did DS Bailey attend at the scene or not? And if so, given he is a detective sergeant, in what capacity? Suppose the nerve agent was at the home of Mr and Miss Skripal. Numerous police who attended the scene in ordinary uniforms have not fallen ill, as reported in this story.
No nerve gas on the streets
Yet another Guardian story said:‘Earlier, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, described the use of a nerve agent in a busy city centre as “attempted murder in the most cruel and public way”.’ But if the nerve agent was at the home of the defector, it was not deployed ‘in a busy city centre’. Albeit, we understand traces can adhere to clothing, if the two were in contact with it at their home. And how did that happen? The Guardian also spoke of ‘pressure’ on the government and police ‘for answers’. Nevertheless, few are forthcoming. Why is the Government being so cagey about the evident contamination in the Skripal residence?
According to the BBC on Thursday 16th March, ‘Wiltshire Police said 131 people had been identified as potentially being exposed to the nerve agent – but none has shown any symptoms.’ The head of counter-terrorism, Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, even said 35 people had been seen by doctors.
But the truth is, there was nothing wrong with any of them. The BBC went on: ‘Salisbury District Hospital has also assessed 46 people who came forward expressing health concerns but they were not admitted.
‘In a letter to the Times, Salisbury NHS Trust emergency medical consultant Stephen Davies said only three people – the Skripals and Det Sgt Nick Bailey – had needed treatment.’
Here is the plain and honest truth. We have seen men in chemical suits, the disruption of Salisbury businesses, and the scaremongering of AC Basu. Despite all that, nobody at all has been affected by a nerve agent in the street. As a more honest policeman might say: ‘There is nothing to see here; move along please’.
Nerve Agents
On 12th March, Amber Rudd identified the toxin as ‘Novichok’. We only have the word of the UK Government for that. Craig Murray says Porton Down have not identified it as such at all. (Thanks to ‘Off-Guardian’ for that.) On 16th March they said they had sent it to the OPCW. Be that as it may. This substance is one of a family of organophosphates known as ‘nerve agents’. Nerve agents were discovered in the 1930s. This website explains how they work.
Apparently, nerve agents, of which Sarin is the most famous, are relatively easy to make. You take two base materials and mix them. The difficulty, if you are the perpetrator, lies in keeping out of the way of the finished product. New Scientist reports: ‘Andrei Zheleznyakov, a Russian scientist involved in their development, reportedly died not long after being exposed to a small amount that leaked out of a rubber tube in the lab.’
New scientist also tells us Novichok is ‘eight times as deadly as VX, the V-series agent that was used to kill North Korean exile Kim Jong-nam last year. Just 10 milligrams of VX on the skin can be lethal.’ So just 1-and-a-bit milligrams of Novichok will kill you. Yet Sergei and Yulia are still alive, we are told, and DS Bailey is awake.
They quote John Lamb of Birmingham City University, UK: ‘The Novichok family was specifically created by Russia to be unknown in the West and as such it’ll be one of their most tightly guarded secrets.’
But is it? Martin Boland of Charles Darwin University in Australia says: ‘Western intelligence agencies probably have knowledge of the exact Novichok structures, allowing them to detect a match,’ in hospital analysis of enzymes in the body.
How to make nerve gas
This website tells you how to make VX nerve agent, but warns you not to bother. The author also explains why it is unlikely that it was VX used to kill Kim Jong-nam.
Putting it all together, Novichok, meaning ‘newcomer’, was developed in Russia in the 1970s. It was manufactured at a plant in Uzbekistan. So there is a definite ‘Kremlin link’. But the Metro tells us US experts arrived post-Soviet era in 1999 ‘to dismantle and decontaminate the facility’ in Uzbekistan.
The US experts must have left after documenting everything they found. They must know by now how to make Novichok. According to RT, a Russian chemist named Vil Mirzayanov published the formula for Novichok in his book. He now lives in the US. And it would stretching credulity to suppose the clever boys and girls at Porton Down can’t make this nerve agent as well. However, if they can, we can be certain the Home Secretary will not tell us. The fiction that it is a closely-guarded Russian secret suits the narrative.
So there is much here that just does not add up. Above all, there is a great deal about which we have to trust our politicians to tell us the truth. Moreover, since the Dodgy Dossier, that level of trust simply is not there. The Russians have denied they were involved. As even Al Jazeera reports, suggestions of British or US involvement are plausible. Russia’s foreign minister said claims of Russian involvement were ‘rubbish’. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia had been refused access to the substance that was used to poison Mr Skripal. It would not respond to the ultimatum until it was given access.
Needs to be a ‘direct act’
According to RT: Maria Zakharova for the Russian Foreign Ministry called the events in Parliament ‘circus show’. She went on, ‘The conclusion is obvious: this is another information and political campaign, based on provocation.’
Miss Zakharova’s comments came after Mrs May said the ‘attempted murder’ of Skripal was either ‘a direct act by the Russian State against our country, or the Russian government lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.’
But what would Russia have to gain from murdering a double-agent they let go in a spy swap in 2010? And with an easily-identified nerve gas? We do know that in the shadowy world of the ‘spooks’ anything can happen. We also know that there are people in this world who benefit from war and distrust between nations.
According to the BBC, ‘Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said if the attack was shown to be a “direct act” by the Russian state it would be a “clear violation of the chemical weapons convention, a breach of international law and a threat to those who abide by the rules-based international order”.’
There is a big ‘if’ there. And scant evidence of it. The best Mrs May can do is to say it’s “highly likely” Russia was involved. So on no more than a ‘highly likely’ she is setting back diplomatic relations between the UK and Russia. She could also disrupt businesses in both countries with sanctions. This is not statesmanship. Who benefits from such trouble-making if not the warmongers?
The Russian response to the OPCW
Russia was never going to respond to an ultimatum. Furthermore, to give twenty-four hours for a response is quite unreasonable. It is certain the police are still gathering evidence. Not even the Home Secretary has all the facts yet. To act as if they know it all already itself raises suspicions.
But Russia’s Ambassasdor to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons at the Hague has made a statement. We are grateful here to the Off-Guardian website. In a measured response, Alexander Shulgin told the OPCW:
‘… clarifications under the Convention are provided to the requesting member state as soon as possible, but in any case no later than 10 days following receipt of the request. As such, the ultimatum’s demand that information be provided immediately, by the end of today, is absolutely unacceptable.
‘Britain’s allegations that they have everything, and their world-famous scientists have irrefutable data, but they will not give us anything, will not be taken into account. For us, this will mean that London has nothing substantial to show, and all its loud accusations are nothing but fiction and another instance of the dirty information war being waged on Russia.’
How to respond – an object lesson
On Thursday 16th March, Jeremy Corbyn wrote in the Guardian warning against “hasty judgements”, and not to “rush ahead of the evidence”.
Jeremy Corbyn was right to object to the UK’s incursion into Iraq, right over Afhganistan, right to voice concerns about destabilising Libya and Syria. He is right to be cautious now. The Bible says:
Prov 14:29 He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.
Contrast Mr Corbyn’s statesmanlike approach with that of our Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, Who says Russian President Vladimir Putin is “overwhelmingly likely” to have ordered the nerve agent attack on an ex-spy and his daughter. How can you have “overwhelmingly likely”? The Bible warns:
Prov 25:8 Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbour hath put thee to shame.
Even worse is the behaviour of Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Defence. He said Russia should ‘go away and shut up’. As reported by RT, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed Gavin Williamson (41) as lacking in ‘upbringing’.
He has a point. The Lord disposed of Mr Williamson’s predecessor, Sir Michael Fallon. Sir Michael’s friends excused his inappropriate advances towards women by saying he was drunk at the time. Instead of a drunk in charge of our defences, we now have a petulant schoolboy. There is so much to pray for here!
Nation shall speak peace unto nation
It is rather sad to find the BBC so often leading the anti-Russia charge. That’s despite this motto chosen by Lord Reith on its coat of arms: ‘nation shall speak peace unto nation.’ It is a reference to a verse from the prophet Micah:
Micah 4:3 And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
That is a millennial prophecy of the just rule of Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Nevertheless, it shows one thing above all. The heart of God is for peace. And if so, those who engage in sabre-rattling in what is supposed to be a time of peace are opposed to the purpose of God.
So let us keep a sceptical eye on what our politicians say and pray that the truth will come out. The words of Jesus himself:
Matt 10:26 Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.
Hamish de Bretton Gordon and Doctors Under Fire – FO Sock-Puppets
BBC television news ran a piece bemoaning the bombardment of the rebel-held East Ghouta area of Damascus on Tuesday morning 20/02/2018. They interviewed Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, supposedly representing ‘Doctors Under Fire’. What he said could have been scripted by the UK’s Foreign Office.
Watch our Video Here. (All links in this story open automatically in a new tab.)
The Syrian army is trying to recapture the jihadist-controlled enclave. De Bretton-Gordon appeared to be arguing for injured and sick children to be allowed to leave.
For De Bretton-Gordon, everything bad happening in East Ghouta seemed to be the fault of ‘Assad’ and ‘Putin’. The Al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat al Nusra which holds the area held for him no responsibility at all.
Even the UN Security Council has declared Al Nusra a terrorist organization. These Islamists control the Idlib enclave as well. They have torched churches and beheaded opponents. Further evidence here. And De Bretton-Gordon had not one single critical word to say about them.
Liberation of Aleppo
Civilians were under fire, he went on. He failed to mention that Al-Nusra might be holding them as human shields, as they did in Eastern Aleppo. The Syrian army liberated that area in December twenty-sixteen.
The UNHCR tweeted in October last year: ‘After years of darkness, city of #Aleppo is lit at night, we hope that #Syrians find light at the end of the tunnel finally #SupportSyrians‘
We ran a report on Aleppo’s liberation at the time.
For the first time in five years the city’s Christians were able to celebrate Christmas free from constant bombardment from the Al-Nusra terrorists in the east .
The US and UK Governments and the mainstream media hated the liberation of Eastern Aleppo. They will equally bewail the liberation of Eastern Ghouta, when it comes.
Indeed, during the BBC interview, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon came across as nothing more than a UK government sock-puppet. He confirmed this when he commended what he said were ‘the peace talks in Geneva’. We shall come to that below.
Doctors Under Fire
But what of this man, and what of ‘Doctors Under Fire’? Well, the latter has apparently just two members, De Bretton Gordon and one David Nott, a surgeon who has been in war-torn areas. Mr Nott similarly finds no good word to say about the Syrian government.
Oddly, in a video on Vimeo from 2016 he says Doctors Under Fire will be a charity. The Charity Commission has no record of it, nor of ‘Medics under Fire’ which is what the Doctors Under Fire website is called. When you go to the website, at this time of writing, you’re invited to a rally on 7th May. On further investigation, that is 7th May 2016. Their website is two years out of date. Of course hospitals should not be attacked in war zones, but the Doctors Under Fire platform gives Messrs De B-G and Nott credibility to advance another agenda.
Hospital bombing scam
Furthermore, this astonishing video collated all the times the ‘last hospital’ in eastern Aleppo was put out of action by ‘Syrian regime airstrikes’. Can you guess how many it was? And how do the mainstream media source their footage of sick children, hospitals, and dare we add, ‘doctors under fire’? They are entirely dependent on the terrorists. No western journalist can venture into their areas. Why? For fear of being kidnapped and held for ransom by the very people they champion.
De Bretton Gordon also claimed on the BBC a hospital in eastern Ghouta had been hit. That was why they gave him a platform under his ‘Doctors Under Fire’ persona. But again, it was second-hand terrorist propaganda. Here, the impressive ‘Off-Guardian’ website exposes the Syrian totem head of the ‘White Helmets’, which was a British Foreign Office creation, as we investigated here. This relentless tugging at western heart-strings is a scam and the msm know it.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a retired Colonel with an OBE. He commanded NATO’s Rapid Reaction Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Battalion. He ran a company called SecureBio with, we read on this ‘military speakers’ website, ‘an impressive list of blue chip clients globally.’ However, Companies House says SecureBio resolved to go into liquidation in June 2015.
The Colonel now apparently works for a company which makes breathing masks, Avon Protection. His LinkedIn profile claims he is ‘Managing Director CBRN’ of Avon, despite not actually being a director. He also claims still to be director of SecureBio. He does not mention that company was dissolved in August 2017 with debts over £715,000.
Call for France to drop bombs on Syria
De Bretton-Gordon teamed up with Avon in 2014. Avon then took over the SecureBio name in June 2015 as SecureBio Ltd shut down. Avon did not take over SecureBio Ltd’s large debts.
De Bretton-Gordon no longer has any connection with military field-work. Nevertheless, he has continued access to the world’s media when subjects like Syria and alleged chemical weapons come up.
Securebio’s YouTube channel is still online and has a number of videos of the colonel calling for ‘safe havens’ for terrorists. He has appeared frequently on Sunni-Muslim Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV channel.
And as this Guardian opinion piece shows, he is not slow to blame ‘Assad’ and ‘Putin’ for each and every alleged chemical attack, just as the UK Foreign Office would want him to do. In this belligerent BBC article he even calls on France to declare war by dropping bombs on Syria.
Geneva vs Astana Peace Talks
Finally, why did the Colonel’s promotion of the Geneva peace talks raise the alarm? Because this is a UK-driven political view. In reality the Geneva talks stalled in February twenty-seventeen. The Kurds took against the inconsequential opposition in exile pompously called the High Negotiations Committee.
The Geneva talks finally collapsed in November when the Syrians would not agree to President Assad stepping aside, a key, but stupid, UK and US demand. The Guardian’s highly-respected Patrick Wintour says the talks De Bretton Gordon extols are ‘perilously shorn of credibility’.
Meanwhile, the real peace talks, unmentioned by the Colonel, have been held in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan. They are brokered by Russia, so the UK wants them to fail. But the UN’s Staffan de Mistura says the Astana talks are making small but ‘clear progress’ to reducing violence in Syria. They have now moved to Sochi on the Black Sea and we need to pray for them.
Terrorists should lay down their arms
Make no mistake, the UK government helped start the dreadful civil war in Syria. Even now its tame media pundits cannot bear the idea that the Islamic terrorists we assisted are mercifully losing.
They need to lay down their arms. But don’t expect the Colonel to agree. The Bible says in Psalm 120:7:
I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.
Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon will keep ringing the UK Government bell. A knighthood cannot be far away. But we must take what he and the rest of the BBC’s pro-Foreign Office pundits say with a very large pinch of salt.
Ofsted targets ‘fundamentalists’
According to the BBC, England’s chief inspector of schools is targetting what she calls ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘religious extremists’.
Amanda Spielman, head of Ofsted, says some community leaders see schools as vehicles to ‘indoctrinate impressionable minds’.
They use schools to narrow children’s horizons and ‘pervert education’, she says. Some schools even promote ‘extremist ideology’.
She is asking head teachers to confront those who foster what she terms ‘extremist behaviour’.
Ofsted on ‘Forms of liberalism’
‘Rather than adopting a passive liberalism that says anything goes, for fear of causing offence, schools leaders should be promoting a muscular liberalism,’ Ms Spielman said. She was speaking today at a conference held by the Church of England in London.
‘That sort of liberalism holds no truck for ideologies that seek to close minds or narrow opportunity.
‘Occasionally that will mean taking uncomfortable decisions or having tough conversations.
‘It means not assuming that the most conservative voices in a particular faith speak for everyone.’
She added: ‘Ofsted inspectors are increasingly brought into contact with those who want to actively pervert the purpose of education’.
Extremist ideology
‘Under the pretext of religious belief, they use education institutions, legal and illegal, to narrow young people’s horizons, to isolate and segregate, and in the worst cases to indoctrinate impressionable minds with extremist ideology.
‘Freedom of belief in the private sphere is paramount, but in our schools it is our responsibility to tackle those who actively undermine fundamental British values or equalities law.’
She is making the speech to support head teacher Neena Lall, of St Stephen’s state primary in east London. Ms Lall has tried to prevent children under the age of eight from wearing the hijab in class. Generally speaking, Muslim girls, although not all of them, wear the hijab after the age of 10. Ms Lall also tried to stop younger pupils from taking part in Ramadan fasting during school hours.
‘All forms of fundamentalism’
So far, so anti-Muslim, but naturally the Chief Inspector implied she also has Christian schools in her sights. Ofsted said Ms Spielman was not targeting the Islamic faith, but ‘all forms of fundamentalism’.
A Department for Education official said: ‘Extremism has no place in our society.
That’s why we changed the law and the requirements on schools so that they have to actively promote the ‘fundamental British values’ of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and the mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.
‘If there are any allegations of schools promoting ideologies or discrimination in the classroom, we will not hesitate to take action.’
What it means for Christians
There are two ways of looking at this story. Maybe it really is all about Islam. In this view, Ofsted is putting up a smokescreen with its ‘all forms of fundamentalism’ line.
Or perhaps Ofsted really have Christian schools in their sights. This view might make better sense. There have already been disturbing accounts of Ofsted inspectors marking down Christian schools.
The Independent reported in January 2017: ‘A number of Christian fundamentalist schools have been downgraded by government inspectors following an investigation by The Independent which revealed children at some schools that follow the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) curriculum are taught that LGBT people are inferior and girls must submit to men.’ There are 26 ACE schools registered in the UK.
According to the Daily Telegraph, ‘Nine out of 10 schools linked to the Christian Education Europe network were deemed inadequate or said to be requiring improvement in their latest visit by the regulator in October 2016, despite most receiving positive feedback previously.
‘Criticisms included failing to balance lessons on the creation with teaching about evolution and not addressing other faiths in class in deep enough detail.’
Christian school forced to close
And in November 2015, as a local paper reports, Cornerstone School in Epsom was forced to close. Ofsted reported pupils at the small Christian faith school in Epsom had ‘a limited view of the world.’ They were not ‘open to the views of those who might have different beliefs than those offered by church members’.
In the Guardian’s article, Ofsted reported: ‘Pupils do not have sufficient opportunity to learn about and consider the lives of those who have a different religious faith or no faith.’
Headteacher Grahame Davies said: ‘The mountain of demands made by Ofsted meant that, after over 27 years as headteacher, I felt I was not the person to take the school forward.
‘Our unique setting means that this is much easier said than done, so the governors realised they had little option but to close the school.’
Parents’ responsibility
Teaching about creation has been one other way in which Christian schools have incurred the wrath of Ofsted. So is teaching Biblical morality and not giving room to condom-based sex education. The Bible shows the importance of sound teaching here, but it cuts both ways:
Prov 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Going further, parents have the responsibility for their children’s education:
Deut 6:7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
The New Testament reinforces that doctrine:
Eph 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
It follows that Muslim parents have the right to bring up their children as they see fit. Nevertheless, they should not do this at public expense. If they are delegating the duty, as is their right, they should pay for it themselves. Moreover, we should be clear. They may not teach murder or treason. However, teaching against the transient fashion of ‘equalities law’ may be a prophetic act, whoever does it.
Indoctrination
Muslims, however, prefer to have their cake and eat it. They put their children into state schools. When there are enough Muslim children, they make sure the school becomes Islamic. However, the State will certainly inspect schools which have public funding. Moreover, if it finds that a Muslim clique has taken over, Ofsted should take action. This was what happened in the Trojan Horse scandal in Birmingham.
But firstly, as is clear, even private schools are under the inspection regime. Secondly, Ofsted used the Trojan Horse problem to bring in the absurd ‘British Values’ idea, and try to compel all schools to become ‘liberal’ and ‘tolerant’ notably of perversion.
Amanda Spielman, head of Ofsted, says some community leaders see schools as vehicles to ‘indoctrinate impressionable minds’. But Ofsted itself wants to ‘indoctrinate impressionable minds’ – in all schools. It will do that with its own liberal values.
Ofsted express outrage at schools ‘promoting ideologies’. But every school does that. Ofsted mean ‘ideologies we do not share.’ We may feel a constitutional Christian State should insist on Christian ideology. But the elite are now overwhelmingly secularist, and they defend their privileged position by all means possible.
Home schoolers
Finally, home schoolers should be on guard. Ofsted and its Scottish and Northern Irish equivalents will not stop until home schooling is either outlawed or registered. The Biblical idea of parents educating their children is anathema to the elite.
They believe the ‘purpose of education’ is to make children uncritical servants of the state.
Radical Christians or New Agers often head such households. Either way, the elite see them as places of insurrection against the system.
Do not think a clamp-down cannot happen. Home schooling is illegal in Germany. Children will be taken away from home-schooling parents, as we reported here.
In 2009, an MP proposed outlawing home schooling in this jurisdiction. The move led to a huge petition, in which Christian Voice was involved. Our report on that is here. And local authorities have been known to take children into care because they are being home-schooled. You can find our report on such a travesty of justice in Medway here.
Be on high alert.
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Army puts diversity above effectiveness
The MOD have enlisted a supposed Russian threat in their bid for more money. But are the armed forces now more keen on ‘diversity’ than effectiveness? What are they for in today’s world? And could they make cuts in their inflated levels of top brass?
Nick Carter: Russia Threat
First out of blocks was General Sir Nicholas Carter. The Chief of the General Staff was warning at the end of January that British forces must ‘keep up’ to counter an alleged Russia threat. General Carter said Moscow is building an increasingly aggressive and expeditionary force. It already boasts capabilities that outmatch UK forces, he said. Furthermore, last year Russia undertook simulated attacks across Northern Europe.
According to the Independent, the month before, the head of the Armed Forces spoke. Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach claimed Russia poses a threat to Britain’s internet access and trade.
Russia’s “modernised” navy would be cutting underwater transcontinental cables. The UK had to bolster its naval forces to counter the threat, he went on.
Gavin Williamson: They’ll kill thousands
Nick Carter had barely stepped from his podium when Rt Hon Gavin Williamson MP chimed in. The Daily Telegraph interviewed the Defence Secretary as its main front-page story on Friday last week. Russia was spying on Britain’s critical national infrastructure, claimed the Secretary of State.
‘The plan for the Russians won’t be for landing craft to appear in the South Bay in Scarborough, and off Brighton Beach,’ he said.
‘What they [Russia] are looking at doing is they are going to be thinking “How can we just cause so much pain to Britain?” Damage its economy, rip its infrastructure apart, actually cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths, but actually have an element of creating total chaos within the country.’
Gavin Williamson asserted that Moscow had been researching the UK’s critical infrastructure and how it connected to Continental power supplies with a view to creating ‘panic’ and ‘chaos.’
‘Scaremongering’
But energy experts said Mr Williamson’s claims were scaremongering. As the Guardian put it, the lights were ‘unlikely to go out even if the electricity interconnectors, which supply about 5% of UK power, were somehow cut off.’
“It does sound a bit like scaremongering really. If you take out one interconnector it’s clear the UK can survive. We saw that last year with the one to France,” said Jonathan Marshall, energy analyst at the ECIU thinktank, referring to a major power cable to France running at half capacity after it was damaged by a storm.
John Feddersen, the chief executive of Aurora Energy Research, agreed. “Electricity is not a major problem, we’ve got a decent amount of capacity. No house lights are going to go out,” he said.
The Daily Express ventured Mr Williamson’s outburst was timed to deflect attention from an embarrassing story about him.
Non-existent Russian Threat
With virtually the whole of the Ministry of Defence talking up some kind of a threat from Russia, it is good to remind ourselves there is no actual threat to British interests from Russia at all. Of course the Russians will conduct scary exercises on their borders. NATO has enough forces spread across eastern Europe to convince the Russians they are under an imminent threat.
Britain currently has 800 infantry and 150 armoured personnel wasting their time and our money in the Baltics. The Americans sent 87 tanks to Poland this time last year. We reported on NATO’s sabre-rattling at the time. It all creates jobs in the armaments manufacturers, for sure. But NATO and EU expansionism worries the Russians, who feel they have to stress their capability to respond.
Psalm 120:7 I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.
In reality, Russia can hardly govern its own vast territory. BAE Systems might not like it, but the Cold War is over. The Russians are neither our ‘enemies’ nor ‘our adversaries’. They are our allies in the real fight against militant Islam. The military and associated politicians need to grow up and smarten up.
Equality & Diversity
However, if the armed forces really are serious about their operational ability, why do they divert their energies into something as non-productive as equality and diversity?
The British Army has a full general (one of only three) in charge of equality and diversity. General Sir James Rupert Everard, KCB, CBE (born 23 September 1962) serves as NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe. But General Everard is also, as Wikipedia puts it, a ‘strong advocate of diversity’. General Everard has served as Patron of the Army LGBT Forum since 2010 when he was a Lt-General. He himself is not that way inclined, being married with three children.
Furthermore, Christian Voice has learned the General has a whole department at Home Command headquarters at Andover working on the subject. The unit must be commanded by a Major-General or Lt-General reporting directly to Gen Everard. It could even be Lt Gen Patrick Sanders, who is ‘LGBT Champion for the Army’. (See ‘Stonewall’ below.) Equality and Diversity is now the main focus of the British Army.
Diversity Statistics
But what good is all the emphasis on women, BME personnel and gays doing?
According to the UK Armed Forces Biannual Diversity Statistics of 1st October 2017, ‘18.8 per cent of service personnel declared a sexual orientation. There were 23.3 per cent of Officers and 17.8 per cent of Other Ranks declaring a sexual orientation.’
Now then, how many owned up to being homosexual? It might be more fashionable in today’s armed forces to be homosexual, but in any event, the Biannual Diversity Statistics failed actually to give a heterosexual / bisexual / homosexual / transsexual / queer / intersex etc breakdown. So for all the money spent on diversity no-one knows. And who cares whether female representation in UK regular forces is stable at 10.3%?
The Bible, of course, shows God expects men to do the fighting, but it also stresses the virtue of peace.
Isaiah 9:7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
Black and Asian recruits
Turning to black and minority-ethnic personnel, here are figures from the same report. ‘BAME personnel accounted for 10.5 per cent of intake into the UK Regular Forces in the 12 months to 30 September 2017.’ But, according to the statistics for England and Wales alone, black people and Asians made up 10.8% of the population at the last count. Other ‘non-whites’ were 3.2%.
Talking about religion, Christians made up 71.9% of the total armed forces. ‘No religion’ was 25.5%. According to UK statistics, Hindus are outnumbered four-to-one by Muslims in the UK population. Despite that, Hindus provide 0.8% of the armed forces, double the Muslim 0.4%.
Given the reluctance of Muslims to join the armed forces, the Army, Navy and Air Force are not doing that bad. It could indeed be argued that recruitment should be colour-blind, and there is no need for a diversity unit at all.
Stonewall Equality Index
With General Everard in charge of appeasing the LGBT lobby, it comes as no surprise that the Army has made the ‘Stonewall 100 list’. It even boasts about it on its website.
‘The British Army is delighted to be counted once again, as one of the top 100 employers in Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index 2018. This listing is prestigious (sic) as it is judged against more than 430 organisations and companies. It is also testament to the increasingly inclusive environment within the Army’, it simpers.
“We are delighted to be included in Stonewall’s listing of Top 100 employers,” says Lt Gen Patrick Sanders, Commander Field Army and LGBT Champion for the Army. “It recognises our commitment to diversity and the importance we place on allowing soldiers to be themselves.
Darren Towers, Executive Director, Stonewall said: ‘The British Army and all those who have made this year’s Top 100 Employers list have done a fantastic job. Taking part in our Index shows real commitment to understanding and advancing LGBT equality. This year, for the first time, the Index looked at what employers were doing for trans equality in the workplace. This work is crucial.’
British Army Bedtime stories
On top of this, the Army gained ridicule in January for its latest recruiting campaign. Its previous ‘Be the Best’ adverts, (Here’s one on YouTube), emphasised ruggedness and action. It showed the benefits of joining the army. That was all the qualifications in jobs you could train for. There was only a gentle nod towards black recruits.
But the latest (shown here) is more emotional (’emo’) showing men under strain. Their mates are giving them coffee. Moreover, around half the section are black, making the video more aspirational than true. It has a ‘This is Belonging’ strap-line. One fully expects the Sergeant to read you a bedtime story if you are afraid of the dark.
Even the Philistines in the Bible could do better than that:
1Sam 4:9 Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and fight.
Another ad features a cartoon baby and mummy, a Muslim bowing down on his prayer mat, and apparently, someone asking whether they can be ‘gay’ in the army. According to this video, which shows some of the ads, on Channel 5 news, the British Army spent £1.6 million on the campaign.
Threats now more sinister
Major General Tim Cross thought it could reach out to ‘various aspects of the community’. But should marketing probe an unrepresented market, or play to the product’s market strengths? Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan is in the latter camp. He said the ad campaign was “neglecting the main group of people who are interested in joining” and will not solve the “recruiting crisis” facing the armed forces.
But if there is a recruiting crisis, the UK’s trend to full employment will not help. And threats are now more sinister, more home-grown, or arising from Islamist terror groups. The threat from expansionist nations (the EU excepted) is vanishing. Even North Korea is more concerned with Kim Jong-Un’s survival than with over-running its southern neighbour.
Is there a case for a British Army of the present strength at all? According to this excellent resource, it has no fewer than fourteen Lieutenant-Generals commanding just three or four corps, 112,00 personnel, in all. These split into Field Army and Home Command. There need to be soldiers doing paperwork, working on logistics, training schedules, procurement and so on. But fourteen Lieutenant-Generals?
How many Brigadiers?
A Division Contains 3 Brigades and numbers 10,000. The Army would have perhaps twelve Divisions spread out over the Field Army and Home Command. So why do we need thirty-nine Major-Generals to command them?
A Brigade Contains 3-5 Battalions and has 5,000 personnel. In terms of numbers, the British Army has perhaps twenty-four brigades. Now, guess who commands a brigade? Yes, it’s a Brigadier. Each of those twelve Major-Generals would have two Brigadiers under him. Each Brigadier would command a brigade. We understand that Brigadier is a rank, not a job description, but, seriously, why do we need one hundred and thirty-six of them?
Conclusion
We could go on. From scare-stories, to wasteful diversity programmes, to mis-directed advertising, the British Army has a quite different challenge from the simplistic financial one its leaders put forward. And apart from the ridiculous diversity unit, and the top brass overstaffing, we have not even touched upon the myriad ways in which the army wastes tax-payers’ money – in procurement for example. Maybe the lack of sufficient recruitment reflects society’s confusion about what the British Army is there for at all.
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Tim Farron: sodomy is sinful
Tim Farron has said he regrets saying he did not believe homosexual sex was a sin during last year’s general election.
During the six-week long campaign, he was asked repeatedly about his religious beliefs and, specifically, about whether he believed gay sex was a sin.
After initially appearing not to answer the question directly, he said he did not want people getting the ‘wrong impression’ about his views, telling the BBC ‘I don’t believe that gay sex is a sin’.
Foolish and wrong
But yesterday, the ex-Lib Dem leader told Premier Christian Radio he had been ‘foolish and wrong’ and had spoken partly to try and get the issue of his faith ‘off the table’.
The committed Christian said the focus on his beliefs stopped him getting his message across during the campaign.
‘It was a little bit like having your main advertising hoarding permanently damaged and vandalised,’ he said.
Mr Farron stepped down as leader of the Lib Dems after last year’s election. He is now his party’s environment spokesman.
But in an interview yesterday with Premier Christian Radio, he said he now regretted not being honest with himself at the time. Furthermore, he admitted his answers had been motivated, partly, by political expediency.
Tim Farron under pressure
Asked whether he had felt under pressure to deal with the issue while touring the country, he replied: ‘The bottom line is, of course, I did.’
‘There are things – including that – that I said that I regret. There was a sense I felt I had to get this off my table: here’s a general election, a great opportunity for the Liberal Democrats… and all they wanted to do was talk about my Christian beliefs and what it meant.’
‘I would say foolishly and wrongly, [I] attempted to push it away by giving an answer that, frankly, was not right.’
Part of the difficulty he said he found himself wrestling with was the different understanding of what sin constitutes for Christians and non-Christians.
‘In the end, if you are a Christian you have a very clear idea of what sin is. It is us falling short of the glory of God, and that is something all of us equally share.
‘So to be asked that question is essentially to persecute one group of human beings because sin is something, Jesus excepted, we are all guilty of. But if you are not a Christian, what does sin mean? It is to be accused of something, to be condemnatory, and so we are talking different languages.’
Society tolerant – apart from …
Reflecting on his experience, he said he did not believe there was ‘a wicked agenda’ to marginalise or ridicule Christians. Nevertheless, there was a risk of society becoming ‘tolerant of everything apart from the things we don’t like’.
He added: ‘There are some who just can’t comprehend that somebody can have really strong convictions and be a Bible-believing Christian on the one hand and at the same time really passionately believing in people’s rights to make their own choices, which essentially is what liberalism is.’
Our only point of difference with Mr Farron is over his belief that his faith should not colour his political views. That is a form of pietism. It stands in contrast to a theonomic view that God makes laws, not man. For example, Jacob Rees-Mogg holds, with Tim Farron, a scriptural view on the sinfulness of sodomy. But Mr Rees-Mogg voted against gay marriage. Mr Farron voted for it.
More Credit to Tim Farron than Vince Cable
Nevertheless, we give Tim Farron great credit. He did wrong, he has admitted it. And full credit also to Premier Christian Radio for giving him a platform. Ours is not an army which shoots its wounded. His humility and repentance should encourage us all to stand full-square on the rock of faith, trust the word of God and proclaim the truth.
In addition, we know where Tim Farron stands. He has made himself perfectly clear. The one who comes out with no credit at all is Vince Cable, current leader of the LibDems.
@vincecable tweeted: ‘I strongly disagree with @timfarron’s personal views expressed today. @libdems have a long & proud record of fighting for #LGBT+ rights: campaigning to repeal section 28, equalising age of consent and legislating for equal marriage. I will continue to champion rights and dignity.’
Is Mr Cable stupid or just being deliberately obtuse? Tim Farron voted for all those things. He may well have been wrong to do so, but he did.
‘Dangerous’ and ‘offensive’
Back in November 2017, Mr Farron gave a speech to the Theos think tank. He said devout Christians are seen as ‘dangerous’ and ‘offensive’ in modern Britain.
Tim Farron said the idea that there was a ‘unifying set of British values’ was a ‘myth’.
The MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale said: ‘If you actively hold a faith that is more than an expression of cultural identity you are deemed to be far worse than eccentric.
‘You are dangerous. You are offensive,’ he said.
‘Being homosexual’ not a sin
We want to be very clear that ‘being homosexual’; in the sense of suffering from same-sex attraction, is not a sin. It is pathological and may keep someone from full communion with the Almighty, but ‘being’ that way inclined is not a sin. It is doing homosexual acts which is sinful and dwelling on them ‘in the heart’. There is such a fine line between temptation and sin, but temptation as such is not sin. The Lord Jesus experienced temptation, but never sinned:
Heb 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Lev 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. 23 Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
Lev 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
An abomination
Moreover, we read in the words above that homosexual activity is an abomination. Verse 22 is the only time that word is used in Leviticus 18 and verse 13 the only time in Lev 20. The Hebrew word is ‘To’ebah.’ It means morally disgusting.
(By the way, the word for shellfish and other unclean foods, also unfortunately translated ‘abomination’ all through Leviticus chapter 11 in the King James Bible, is the Hebrew word sheqets.’ Sheqets just means ‘dirty’. Not that homosexual acts aren’t dirty as well as being an abomination. But the Bible doesn’t say that. We digress. But we see the difference.)
In response to those homosexuals who snarl, ‘So I’m an abomination, am I?’ we need to say having same-sex desires itself is not an ‘abomination’. Nor is any individual homosexual ‘an abomination’. That is, not until their doing becomes their being. There comes a point where your day-to-day sinful activity defines you. And we have to say that promoting such activity to school children is an abominable thing to do as well.
Moreover, I strongly believe that such depravity in mind or body provides an open invitation to the demonic.
God’s plan for humanity
Many people think Leviticus, or even the story of Sodom in Genesis 19, is the first time God speaks about human sexuality. But it isn’t. The Creator’s plan is for humanity to be formed around the societal institution of heterosexual love and marriage is revealed in the first two chapters of the first book of the Bible. In Genesis we read:
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
The Lord Jesus brought these two scriptures together in his answer to the Pharisees:
Mark 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;
8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
And of course, being one flesh, in that full physical, emotional and spiritual sense, is something a pair of gays, or two lesbians, can never do. They lack the complementary physical, emotional and spiritual equipment.
Forgiveness, deliverance and change
We need to bring in some good news at this point. Yes, we know there are many routes into homosexuality, which we might define as an inability as an adult to relate emotionally and sexually to a person of the opposite sex.
Homosexual activity is sinful. Nevertheless, it is not an unforgiveable sin. Jesus Christ went to the cross so that all sinners might be forgiven. Furthermnore, the indwelling Holy Spirit, there for every believer, can heal and deliver.
So however someone became gay, they do not have to stay gay. There is a way out. Christ’s shed blood wipes away the stain of sin and releases believers from the power of sin.
It is do-able. Many men and women have walked away from homosexuality after realising that it was never God’s plan for their lives.
Why are the godless bothered?
Why is anyone who is not a Christian bothered about whether Christians believe homosexual activity is sinful in the eyes of God? To put it another way, why are we ‘dangerous and offensive, as Tim Farron suggests?
I suggest it may be because:
1 They are deeply intolerant of any view but their own,
2 They are totalitarian, wanting to impose their views on others,
3 Maybe they are worried God might exist and be right,
4 They know deep down what they (or homosexuals) are doing is wrong,
5 We challenge and disturb their cosy world,
6 The thought there is one higher than them to whom they are responsible annoys and terrifies them,
7 Because from sodomy being a sin to sodomy being a crime is just one theonomic step away.
Nevertheless, no atheist should be at all concerned that I and however many others think buggery and gross indecency should be re-criminalised and recent laws repealed in this respect. We are a long way from the corridors of power.
The traffic is all in the opposite direction. Children are being taught that sodomy is just great and the Government even want to increase the propaganda level. The Government want people to be able to change their God-given gender at will.
Rubbish chute of history
I, and our wonderful Christian Voice members, are just a voice crying in the wilderness, calling for national repentance, urging Christian to pray, and pointing out that every previous society which has passed this way has gone down the rubbish chute of history.
Moreover, every previous civilisation which allowed its family base to crumble and institutionalised sodomy has been conquered by a stronger, self-confident, monogamous culture.
Now, where would we look for one of those on our doorstep today?
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What kind of Brexit?
There is everything to pray for as her majesty’s ministers meet today and tomorrow to discuss what kind of Brexit they will propose to the European Union as negotiations move onto the UK’s trading relationship with the EU.
The BBC’s Norman Smith says some ministers, ‘like Chancellor Philip Hammond and Home Secretary Amber Rudd’ want the UK to stick closely to the EU’s single market to preserve access for British firms.
Others, he says, ‘like Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Michael Gove’, want ‘more divergence so the UK has more freedom to strike its own trade deals with other countries’.
The United Kingdom is ripe for judgment. Indeed, the judgment is falling. We are becoming more secularist, more crass, less respectful, more immoral, more acquisitive and more brutal almost week by week, as our weekly news round-up shows. The prophet said:
Habakkuk 3:2 O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
We should pray fervently for the Lord to grant national repentance in his mercy. Much of our society is in a state of disorder. British troops are still unnecessarily deployed abroad. We must also pray for peace:
Jer 29:7 And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
The Hebrew word ‘shalom’ also includes prosperity. Ours is historically a trading nation. Much of our economy depends on trade overseas. Which Brexit outcome will best help the sort of trade which assists peace and prosperity? What should we pray for?
Is reversing Brexit an option?
The arch-remoaners want the UK to stay in the EU. According to the Independent, Former Prime Minister Tony Blair says Labour should even prioritise stopping Brexit ahead of winning the next election.
Early last year, I made a video record of my travels around three European capitals. I came to the conclusion the European Union was deliberately conceived as a revived Roman Empire.
That means it is at war with Christ:
Rev 17:14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.
To have any chance of being on the right side in that battle, the Government must honour last year’s referendum result. We can see the June 2016 result as an answer to prayer.
However, so is the presence of Brexiteers (albeit of the closet variety) at the top of today’s Labour Party. Mr Blair’s calls will by the grace of God fall on deaf ears.
In another column in the Indy, Conservative MP Suella Fernandes remembers how much Tony Blair destroyed confidence in politics. We well remember the Iraq incursion.
But the MP also accuses Mr Blair of failing to give the British people a say on the EU’s proposed constitution. She says: ‘The electorate’s and Parliament’s clear will is to leave the EU. Reversing that now would be deeply divisive, fundamentally undemocratic and destroy the trust of the British people who now just want the government to get on with delivering Brexit.’
Remainers to be coordinated
And yet the Guardian reported over the weekend: ‘One of Britain’s most senior former diplomats, Lord Malloch-Brown, is to take a lead role in coordinating the pro-remain groups towards a more coherent campaign focused on shifting public opinion before MPs hold a “meaningful vote” next autumn on Theresa May’s Brexit deal.’
Lord Malloch-Brown is trying to coordinate his own Best for Britain, Open Britain and the European Movement. If they cannot actually reverse the Brexit decision, the groups will try to force a ‘soft Brexit.’ This would keep Britain in the Single Market and Customs Union.
But Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson says such an option would leave the UK as a ‘vassal state’ of the EU. We should be beholden to the bloc for our trade rules, unable to trade freely outside, but have no say in EU policy.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Mr Johnson said any deal must give Britain ‘that important freedom to decide our own regulatory framework, our own laws and do things in a distinctive way’.
He said if the UK was forced to mirror EU laws, many people ‘would say, “What is the point of what you have achieved?” because we would have gone from a member state to a vassal state.’
No Deal, Canada or Norway?
At the opposite end is the ‘no deal’ scenario, in which Britain leaves the EU with no agreement. The UK would rely on World Trade Organisation tariffs to trade with firms in the EU and elsewhere. We should also be totally free to strike trade deals around the world. But 25% of our financial services depend on EU trade. A last-minute collapse in negotiations would be the proverbial ‘cliff-edge’. No-one would be prepared.
Norway has an agreement with the EU which gives it membership of the European Economic Area, the EEA. This gives the country full access to the EU’s Single Maket. Fullfact.org said in August 2016 Norway was then paying the EU around £740 million compared to the UK’s £14,000 million a year to be a full member. They said ‘This translates to £140 per Norwegian, compared to £220 per Brit.’
A ‘Norway’ agreement would ensure virtually seamless trade with the EU. Nevertheless, it would be expensive and would constrain the UK in negotiating abroad. And Mrs May has ruled out staying in the Single Market.
Theresa May and David Davis appear to favour instead the ‘Canada’ model with additions. This is called ‘Canada-plus’ or even ‘plus-plus-plus’.
Negotiate free trade agreements
City AM says this: ‘Under this option, the UK would enter into a free trade agreement in goods with the EU along the lines of the agreement just concluded between the EU and Canada.
‘In addition, free trade in services and possibly in agriculture would ideally be agreed to as an add-on. At the same time, pursuing its broader Drakean strategy, the UK would negotiate free trade agreements with other, more economically vibrant, partners such as China, the US and India.’
But firstly, the EU insists free trade in services must be linked to freedom of movement of people. Secondly, ‘Canada-plus’ would take more time to negotiate than the fifteen months the two sides have left.
City AM even quotes scripture:
Eccl 3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
From this scripture, it says slowing down the Brexit process was smart, but it is now to get on with negotiations.
Wisdom comes from the fear of the Lord
But another scripture now comes into play:
Prov 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
For prayer, our first objective must be for the Lord to safeguard the principle of Brexit. The spiritual dimension is vital. It says the UK cannot safely stay in a revived Roman Empire. Moving on from that, our prayer is for Her Majesty’s Government to seek a level of wisdom which only comes from the Lord himself. Which trade model will really be best for Britain? We will all have our own ideas. We cry to the Lord to have mercy, because unexpected things can happen:
Eccl 9:11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Pray the Lord will at some stage make us stand, look up, and say: ‘How did you do that?’
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Pray for Tuesday’s elections in Kenya
On Tuesday 8th August, the people of Kenya go to the polls. Voters will elect the President and Deputy, Members of Parliament (Senate and National Assembly) and devolved government members. That’s county governors and ward representatives.
Kenya shaken by violence in 2007
Ten years ago (2007), an outbreak of tribal violence followed the presidential elections. The violence flared up after Mwai Kibaki narrowly beat Raila Odinga. Mr Kibaki is from the Kikuyu people, Kenya’s largest ethnic group. Mr Odinga is a Luo, who form the fourth-largest ethnic group. Raila was supported by many from the Luhya and Kalenjin communities, the second and third-largest tribes. When the result was announced, ethnic Kikuyus were targeted by elements of Luo and Kalenjin. The attacks led to retaliation. In all, thirteen hundred people lost their lives. On top of that, the criminal low-life came out, taking advantage of the disorder. From the violence, thousands were also internally displaced and many people were injured.
Kenyans were dismayed by the tragedy. Around eighty per cent of Kenyans practice Christianity. (There are also 10% Muslim, concentrated near the coast. 10% of Kenyans are Animist, found mainly in the rural areas). Pastors led prayers for peace.
Tribal jokes and a move for peace
Kenyans like to play down their ethnic divisions, especially to outsiders. However, amongst themselves, tribal characteristics are a rich source of humour. The Kikuyu have a reputation for running everything and never passing up an opportunity to make money.
The Luo inhabit the areas around Lake Victoria. They are renowned for their diet of fish and for taking themselves seriously. The Luhya are also characterised for their diet, which centres on chicken and the drinking of copious volumes of tea. The Kalenjin are Kenya’s distance runners and traditional keepers of cattle.
But election time is not a time for ethnic jokes. Even Kenyan comedians are emphasising togetherness. And they have taken their lead from the candidates themselves.
In 2012 Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Jomo, faced Raila Odinga in the Presidential race. But that is not the whole story. In order to avoid further ethnic tensions, and let it be said with an eye to winning, Mr Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, teamed up with William Ruto as his running mate. Mr Ruto is a leading Kalenjin. After the 2007 elections, allegations surrounded both Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. Both were accused of inciting the violence. But for many Kenyans, the two men coming together on a single ticket was a clear call for peace and stability. Similarly, Raila ran for president with a member of another tribe. Again the church prayed. Accordingly, there was no violence following the 2012 elections, which the Kenyatta / Ruto ticket won.
Journalists stirring up trouble
This time, 2017, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto are running for re-election. Once more they are up against Raila Amolo Odinga. RAO has again appointed Kalonzo Musyoka as his running mate for the post of deputy president. Mr Musyoka is from the Kamba, the fifth-largest tribe.
We should pray that everything passes off peacefully. And indeed we can feel we are pushing at an open door in that prayer.
But more than that, let us pray for an end to tribalism so that commentators stop feeling a need to talk about post-election violence every time there is an election in Kenya.
Above all, journalists should certainly not talk violence up. The Independent have a shabby story based on suggestions by Western-funded human rights activists that violence is about to break out again. It isn’t. The article, by Tom Odula of Associated Press in Nairobi, even claims some sad, inevitable and periodic clashes between nomadic herdsmen and farmers in the Rift Valley is ‘pre-election violence’. It isn’t. Those tragic shootings have nothing to do with the election. The Indy should have known better.
Elsewhere, the BBC is running a piece saying Kenyan ‘mixed-tribe’ couples fear animosity. It really is barely a story and it stokes trouble up. Wikipedia’s entry on the Kenyan 2017 elections has a ridiculous section on ‘pre-election violence’. They don’t stoop to Mr Odula’s level, but they still manage two entries. Firstly, an election official called Christopher Msando died a week ago in suspicious circumstances. Secondly, days ago a lunatic with a machete tried to gain entry to William Ruto’s home when the DP was away. A policeman was injured. That’s the sum total of your ‘pre-election violence’ in Kenya.
Giving God the glory
Christian Voice is not taking a position on the candidates. Kenya has distinct problems. The Nairobi Star newspaper reports for example on high levels of youth unemployment.
The country is politically stable but corruption puts a brake on enterprise and opportunities. Kenya also faces challenges with immigration from unstable South Sudan to its north-west and Somalia to the North-East.
There is constant political interference from the US, EU and UK. China is trying to secure access to raw materials by building infrastructure that is not always as good as it should be. Moreover, in Kenya, as elsewhere in the developing world, Western governments and NGO’s funded by anti-Christian American and European foundations are constantly trying to impose immorality on the country, and undermine its stability.
Yet in all this a vibrant church is praying and political leaders are not afraid to ‘do God’. William Ruto, for example, is one devout Christian who completely gave God all the glory after his election in 2012.
A call to prayer
The Bible records the Lord saying to Israel:
Leviticus 26:3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4 Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. …
Lev 26:6 And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. …
Lev 26:12 And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.
Every nation is called to keep the Lord’s statutes. The Bible says clearly:
Proverbs 16:12 It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness.
The Apostle’s wish was for always for peace amongst the Lord’s people:
2Thess 3:16 Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.
So please pray for a peaceful election. Pray for great faith for the Christians of Kenya. Please also pray that whoever is elected to office in Kenya on Tuesday 8th August 2017 will walk in the Lord’s ways of obedience, honesty, justice, peace and prosperity.
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BBC unwatchable on Gay Jubilee
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the legalisation of sodomy. Consequently, the BBC will be unwatchable and unlistenable for a week at least.
Especially today, all BBC channels will be awash with ‘Gay Britania’. It is exactly fifty years since the enactment of the Sexual Offences Act 1967.
BBC reflecting the Establishment
One can argue the BBC is simply reflecting the Establishment. It is impossible to be a candidate for Labour, the LibDems or the Tories without being a ‘Diversity’ wonk. Plaid Cymru, SNP and Sinn Fein are almost as bad. And anyone Christian or just pro-family in government needs to keep his views to himself.
Moreover, in the broadcast media, Sky, ITV and Channel 4 news will no doubt be promoting what they will see as a joyous day. It is always interesting to discern between what is news and what is the advancement of the Establishment agenda. This author reckons BBC ‘news’ is usually 50% propaganda.
Nevertheless, TV viewers have a choice. RT (Freeview 135) ought to be free of homosexual promotion while Yesterday (19) and TBN (65) should be gay-free zones.
Never satisfied
The homosexual mindset is never satisfied. Neither with life as a whole, nor with sexual expression, nor indeed with political gains. It was never enough just to be left alone to do whatever they were going to do in private. As it happens, we all now know rather more than we ever wanted to about what homosexuals do in private. That is largely owing to the AIDS crisis, forcing gay charities like Terrence Higgins Trust to list homosexual activities in order of health risk.
So in 2004 Tony Blair enacted Civil Partnerships. The BBC celebrating that event with footage of happy couples. Nevertheless, civil partnerships were not good enough. Equally, gay politics had moved out of its Labour redoubt. Therefore, a Conservative Party Prime Minister, David Cameron, inflicted same-sex ‘marriage’ on the nation in 2013. More celebratory BBC footage, this time of gays getting gay-married.
And now the elite are moving on again. They want to allow anyone, for any reason or none, to change his gender at will. The Government have announced a new ‘Gender Recognition Bill’ for the autumn. Our story on that is here.
Homosexuality … universally condemned
How did it come to this? Was such a degradation of society in the minds of those who framed the Sexual Offences Act? Not at all. The 1967 Act was ‘permissive’ legislation. That does not mean it was part of the ‘permissive society’, although of course it was. It means it permitted something still illegal to happen in certain circumstances. The Abortion Act of the same year is another example of ‘permissive’ legislation.
So the Sexual Offences Act allowed acts of sodomy and gross indecency to take place in England and Wales between two consenting adults (aged 21 or over) in private. It was a Private Member’s Bill, brought in by Leo Abse MP, at the instigation of Antony Grey of the Albany Trust and the Homosexual Law Reform Society.
In the debates on the 1967 Sexual Offences Bill, MPs and Peers made clear Parliament was refusing to do anything more than permit homosexual acts in certain circumstances. This was emphasised again and again by, for example, Lord Arran, who said:
‘In all the discussions we have had, and in all the speeches, no single noble Lord or noble Lady has ever said that homosexuality is right or a good thing. It has been universally condemned from start to finish, and by every single member of the House.’
First Gay Pride March in 1972
Strangely enough, under a Christian legal system, there would be no need for the Sexual Offences Act. The Bible requires at least two witnesses before a court can convict anyone of a crime:
Deuteronomy 19:15 One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.
If two men were doing something indecent in private there would be no witnesses. Accordingly, there could be no prosecution.
But the sentiments of their Lordships, no doubt well-intended, were to fall on deaf ears. Homosexuality would not now stay private. Activists held the first ever gay pride march in London five years later in 1972. Veteran campaigner Peter Tatchell was on it. He gives a valuable Gay Liberation Front insider’s view here.
Eschew ostentatious behaviour and flaunting
In a later House of Lords debate, one Lord Henderson slightly misquoted the Earl of Arran. In 1967, said Henderson, Lord Arran ‘asked the homosexual people of the future to comport themselves quietly and with dignity and to eschew any form of ostentatious behaviour or public flouting.’ Lord Arran actually used the word ‘flaunting.’ He said any evidence of it would ‘make the sponsors of this Bill regret that they have done what they have done.’
One homosexual activist, John Marshall, summed up the arguments of the Bill’s supporters like this:
‘The protection afforded by the Sexual Offences Bill, particularly for young people, was stressed repeatedly; homosexuality was a lesser evil than the blackmail which its prohibition encouraged; relaxing the law would make it easier for homosexuals who wished to be free of their practices to seek help from the caring ministries.’
The Sexual Offences Act 1967 was extended to Scotland in 1980 and to Northern Ireland in 1982. The latter happened after a European Court ruling and despite a campaign led by the late Dr Ian Paisley MP to ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy.’
Homosexual lobby group founded
Even twenty-one years after the Sexual Offences Act, in 1988, homosexual activity was still viewed with distaste. That was the year of Section 28, which banned promotion of homosexuality in the classroom.
Section 28 and its description of homosexual couples as being in a ‘pretended family’ energised gay activists. They founded the Stonewall lobby group in 1989.
Five years later, under John Major, Parliament lowered the minimum age in the Sexual Offences Act to eighteen. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 also permitted buggery on women.
The Christian Voice group was founded in the same year to inform Christians so they could pray into such matters and take action. But a tidal wave was approaching.
In 1998 activist MPs voted to lower the homosexual age again, this time to sixteen. The House of Lords objected. Undaunted, Prime Minister Tony Blair used the Parliament Act. Accordingly, in 2000 homosexual men gained legal access to sixteen-year-old boys. In 2003, his administration repealed Section 28. The Scottish Parliament repealed its equivalent in 2000.
In 2003, Parliament allowed homosexuals to adopt children. The following year saw civil partnerships. Also in 2004 Parliament legislated a lie. They passed the Gender Recognition Act. That allowed someone to go back and falsify his birth certificate if a doctor agreed he was a woman – or if a woman thought she was really a man.
Like a flood
Gay-promoting legislation was now coming in like a flood. In 2007 we had the Sexual Orientation Regulations, forcing Christian B&B owners to offer beds to homosexual couples. In 2008 Parliament abolished the offence of blasphemy and passed their own blasphemy law, a ‘gay hate speech’ law.
2009 saw the Equality Act placing a duty on public authorities to promote sodomy and transgenderism. And then David Cameron forced through the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013.
It is difficult to promote homosexuality politically any more. The activists have achieved virtually everything. Accordingly, the BBC is simply leading today’s celebrations. Of course, reparative therapy offering people a progression out of same-sex attraction is still a target, because the idea there could be something wrong with being homosexual is anathema to the ungodly. Additionally, it is true there are still grumblings in society. For example, many parents still do not want teachers promoting homosexuality to their children. And the Independent says today that 42% of people in Britain still think homosexual activity is unnatural. Curiously, 59% of Brexit voters said gay sex was unnatural, compared to a quarter of Remain voters. (And if you want to know which countries in the world say sodomy is unacceptable, click here!)
But one UK institution in particular remains a thorn in the activists’ collective side. The stronger elements of Christianity are still holding out. Homosexuals demand full acceptance from the church. Tolerance is not enough. So our openly-lesbian Education Secretary has demanded churches offer ceremonies for people getting gay-married. According to the Daily Mirror, Justine Greening said: ‘I think it is important that the church in a way keeps up.’
Lift up a standard
The Bible shows God Almighty does not ‘keep up’ with wickedness. In contrast, the Prophet of God says:
Isaiah 59:19 So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
And on this day of shame, this satanic jubilee, good Lord, that is what your Church is praying for. For men of God to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to lift up the Lord’s standard and press the Crown Rights of King Jesus!
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They’re all backing London Gay Pride
Businesses and politicians fell over each other to support the London Gay Pride parade at the weekend.
The BBC reported: ‘With almost 50 official partners, ranging from airlines to mobile networks, and a list of over 60 supporters, companies are signing up to try to stamp out prejudice.’
Well, no, they are not trying to ‘stamp out prejudice’, BBC, they are simply trying to sell product. To do that, a bit of good old ‘virtue signalling’ will do the trick.
The inverted commas indicate that we have come to a strange place when supporting a group defined by vice is ‘virtue signalling’ in the first place. But clothing retailers such as Topshop are definitely adopting a ‘more progressive than thou’ stance.
London Gay Pride sponsored by Barclays and the Mayor
Costa coffee also went rainbow coloured. In addition to the opportunists on the street, the ‘Pride in London’ website indeed lists around fifty corporate sponsors of one kind and another.
London Underground is a sponsor, putting the six-coloured rainbow up at Oxford Circus with a slogan: ‘#LoveisLove’. Or five minutes in the bushes on Hampstead Heath.
Barclays Bank was joint ‘headline’ sponsor with the Mayor of London.
That’s devout Muslim Mr Khan. There is obviously a time and a place for Islam in a politician’s life.
Gold sponsors include Starbucks and Tesco. Tesco seem not to have learnt the lesson of their disastrous financial calamities following their £30,000 sponsorship of the 2012 Gay Pride.
Gay flag flying over Downing Street
Politicians other than the mayor of London jumped on the bandwagon. The London Evening Standard gleefully reported that the Houses of Parliament were lit up in rainbow colours. Well, after a fashion.
“The rainbow illumination of Parliament is our signal of support for sodomy,” said John Bercow, the Commons Speaker. Sorry to misquote him. Actually, he said: ‘.. of support for equality’.
Moreover, the Prime Minister flew the rainbow flag over 10 Downing Street. Thersa May put every true Christian, Othodox Jew, Muslim and for that matter every decent person in the realm, firmly in their place.
From protest to fashionable
Gay Pride has moved from protest to fashionable in forty years. However, not everyone in the gay sub-culture is happy. Peter Tatchell complained in the Guardian: ‘What began in 1972 as a protest for gay rights has now morphed into a commercialised, bureaucratic and rule-bound event, which too often reflects the wishes of the city authorities, not the LGBT community.’
The veteran campaigner went on to observe ‘a mere 26,500 people will be permitted to march. This is a fraction of the number who would march if it were a free and open event’.
Many might think 26,500 is more than enough dysfunctional people parading through our capital city. But when Gay Pride becomes as much a part of the calendar as Christmas, we need to take notice and start praying very hard for our nation to repent. And keep our passports up to date just in case the mind of God is for judgment on the UK, rather than for mercy.
Conversion therapy ‘abusive’, says Jayne
Meanwhile, one Jayne Ozanne, speaking at a weekend event in York, condemned so-called conversion therapy. This is where people who wish to be free of same-sex attraction seek psychiatric help. She said:
“Conversion therapy is condemned by professionals as being harmful to LGBT people as it is based on a misguided belief that being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is wrong. This leads to increased mental health problems for LGBT community due to stigmatization.”
No, that’s not a ‘misguided belief’, Jayne, that is the plain teaching of scripture:
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Lev 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Mar 10:6 (Jesus said) But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
And being ‘one flesh’, in that full wonderful God-given spiritual, emotional and physical sense, is something a pair of gays, or two lesbians, can never do. Moreover, the ‘increased mental health problems’ are from gays and lesbians knowing what they are doing is plain wrong. If it were from ‘stigmatization’, mental health problems for LGBT’s would be diminishing with greater media-driven acceptance. They aren’t. It isn’t.
Postscript
Just why is transgenderism an even greater assault on the Gospel than homosexuality? Click here to read about the Canadian baby whose mother (sorry, ‘parent’) insists she (sorry, ‘they’) has no gender.
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