29 Mar

For charity covereth the multitude of sins

The director of OXFAM has “demanded” that the governments of “rich” countries take in a great many more refugees than they are admitting at present. Now let me suppose for a minute that the governments of these “rich” countries accede to the “demand” of OXFAM and allow in many more refugees. Let me further suppose, in the interests of a fair discussion, that this influx of refugees leads directly to unpleasant consequences for the citizens of “rich” countries: consequences such as overcrowding, increased burden on the NHS and welfare, shortage of school places, damage to social cohesion and more terrorist atrocities. Would OXFAM then accept responsibility for these undesirable consequences? Would the director put on sackcloth and ashes and, with weeping and gnashing of teeth, call on the leaders of the “rich” countries and say, “I’m really very sorry. I now see clearly that these shocking consequences are a result of my quite unjustifiable ‘demand’ that you let in more foreigners. In future, therefore, I will stop interfering in matters which have nothing to do with the work of an international charity. I will return OXFAM to its original purpose of providing blankets for disaster victims and water pumps for people who live in arid areas”?

No, of course he would never admit to having been in the wrong. And he would not cease to meddle in global politics.

OXFAM is not a solitary example of this kind of corruption – the corruption of exercising political power without political responsibility.

The RSPB long opposed wind farms, saying that these are a danger to birds – until its directors decided to spend £100million of their receipts from public donations to build a wind farm for themselves. Then they attempted to mitigate this hypocrisy by claiming that the “single biggest threat to life on earth, including bird life, is global warming.” And therefore it is right to construct wind farms. Outrageously, this ignores the fact that the public donates generously to the RSPB for the protection of birds, and not to fund the private political fantasy of the charity’s directors. The RSPB also claimed, falsely, that it devotes 90% of its funds directly to the care of birds – while spending £21million annually on advertising.

Where does this stop? It doesn’t – for the abuse of charitable purpose is widespread.

The RSPCA has changed itself into a political force to campaign against hunting with hounds – thereby, it is reported, risking the forfeit of its royal patronage.

Meanwhile, the fabric of thousands of parish churches is being ruined because of the sentimentalists who run the Bat Conservation Trust.

I’m reminded of the saying, “They want to ban bear-baiting – not for the pain it causes the bears, but for the pleasure it affords to the baiters.” When one considers the way charities today politicise themselves, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that – as with the environmentalists – it is power over the lives of others that is the first item on their agenda.

And in their sights they have particularly anyone they consider to be “rich.”

Really, they are Marxists fighting class warfare under the cover of their charitable status.

This privileged status should be taken from them.

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27 Mar

Happy Easter Mr Cameron!

The prime minister has taken on something of the job of the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury and given us an Easter message. He says the UK must “stand together and defend its Christian values” in the face of threats from terrorism.

He is hardly expert in the subject of Christian values, having introduced homosexual “marriage” in clear opposition to both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Apart from this atrocity, he has a strange idea about what Christian values are. Among them he includes, “responsibility, hard work and compassion” which are “important to people of every faith and none.”

If these things are shared by every faith and none, in what sense can they be called Christian?

Perhaps I can help clear his head about Christian values. Christian values are inseparable from the Christian truth on which they are based.

The shortest summary of Christian truth is The Apostles’ Creed. You can find this, prime minster, in the order for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer in The Book of Common Prayer

Happy Easter Dave!

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24 Mar

let’s get a few things clear…

Following this week’s unpleasantness in Brussels, it is crucial that we get a few things clear.

Terrorist attacks have nothing to do with Islam.

Muslims are not murdering their perceived enemies on three continents.

Neither are they persecuting and ethnically cleansing Christians and Yazidis in the Middle East.

There are no Muslim ghettos or no go areas in British towns and cities.

Muslims are well-known for integrating fully into British society and upholding British values

Muslims are very tolerant in their attitude towards other minorities, especially Jews and homosexuals

When thousands of children and young girls were raped and sexually abused in many British towns and cities, Muslims showed great eagerness to help the police identify the sexual predators

Muslims never accuse their critics of Islamophobia.

No British Muslim girl is ever subjected to the depraved rite of female genital mutilation

Among Muslims there are no “honour killings”

Among Muslims there are no forced marriages

The attitude of Muslim husbands and Muslim men in general towards women and girls is exemplary

Muslims fully accept the authority of British laws and they do not set up sharia courts to decide their affairs

There is no newsreel film of Muslims rejoicing in the streets after a terrorist atrocity perpetrated upon US or European citizens.

Islam is a religion of peace and love

These things must be made clear and universally understood. So please pass on this message to all your friends – some of whom may have entirely the wrong idea about our Muslim friends

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23 Mar

Easter Syringe-Head

The Most Reverend Justin Welby has occupied the throne of Canterbury for three years, so this Easter is as good a time as any to examine the condition of the Church of England under his leadership.

Some years ago, the Church irritated many when, in an advertisement, it depicted Jesus as Che Guevara. It seemed shocking at the time, but it was a gesture of piety compared with the blasphemous atrocity produced this year. In the advertisement, a former drug addict takes the place of Jesus, wearing a crown of thorns made from syringes. The Church hopes this will attract new worshippers this Easter.

Rob Jones, 46, from Halifax, West Yorks, who spent years living rough punctuated by time in prison before turning his life around, plays the central role in a short film modelled on a traditional passion play.

He appears with, among others, a former white witch who converted to Christianity, in the video made as part of the Church’s “Just Pray” campaign.

It follows a previous advert, featuring the Lord’s Prayer which was banned from cinemas last year for being “too religious.”

The Church’s latest publicity stunt is based on the text of Psalm 22, in which the Psalmist utters his despair and asks, “My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?” These words were repeated by Jesus from the cross.

All the main parts in the film are played by people who have recently found faith through an informal church in Halifax called “The Saturday Gathering”.

In the central scene, Mr Jones is grabbed by a crowd and has the mock crown, made from the plastic tubes and syringes used by drug addicts to inject themselves, forced on to his head.

It then cuts to a scene in a church, in full colour, accompanied by a message about resurrection.

To describe the whole performance as inappropriate is something of an understatement but, whatever else it is, it is inappropriate too – because inaccurate. It fails as an analogy. 

The central character Mr Jones is a reformed drug addict. Jesus, the original wearer of the crown of thorns, was never a drug addict. It is thus entirely misleading to make the comparison between an addict who claims to have been redeemed by his encounter with Jesus, and the Jesus who does the redeeming.

But you may well ask what has this obscene parody of the faith performed in  Halifax to do with the Archbishop residing in Canterbury? Much. Of course, the Archbishop is not to be expected to micromanage everything that takes place in the Church which he leads. But his role in the governance of the Church of England is like that of a minister of the crown. The departmental minister is not occupied in the minutiae of the day-to-day running of his department, but he is the person ultimately responsible for the integrity of his department. This is why, when a section of his department is found to be seriously at fault, the minister resigns.

There is a lesson here for the Archbishop of Canterbury

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21 Mar

Sentient beings are an endangered species

The presenter of a BBC television natural history programme invited us to weep with her over the diminishing number of snow leopards: “There are probably no more than 4000 left.” Of course their demise is very largely “our fault.”

But the basic premise of that BBC programme – and indeed of the whole series of which it was a part, of David Attenborough passim  and of the entire natural history department of the BBC – is the doctrine of evolution which, as we all know, involves natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Specifically, evolution has no room for sentiment. Human beings are not a special creation but entirely a part of the natural order.

It’s not so much the atheism of this view which I detest – though I do detest it –  as the inconsistency amounting to self-contradiction.

If, by their actions, human beings – a few of whom are said to be homo sapiens – reduce the population of snow leopards, then their reducing the number of snow leopards also is part of the natural order.

Evolution knows nothing of ethics.

So that presenter cannot legitimately introduce an ethical proposition, as she did, without stepping outside the doctrine of evolution. But this is precisely what she is not permitted to do – because she holds that doctrine exclusively and absolutely.

Evolutionists believe there is no God and there is no teleology. It has no use for the concepts of praise and blame. So it is senseless to say that the demise of the snow leopard is “our fault” – or anybody’s fault.

Incidentally, the disjunction between evolution and ethics also extends to a similar disjunction between evolution and aesthetics: that is we cannot say that the snow leopard  is beautiful without employing criteria which derive from outside the dogma of evolution.

It is impossible to combine natural selection with cuddly snow leopard cubs. But it doesn’t stop our contemporary Darwinists from going “Ooh!” and “Aah!”

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