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Showing posts with label resolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resolution. Show all posts

Tuesday, 31 December 2024

New Year's resolution

King Charles delivering his Christmas Day speech   Source: Christian Today

I did not have the same enthusiasm for the King's Christmas message as I did for his mother's messages. 

As head of the Church of England, HM Queen Elizabeth II could always be relied on to uphold the Christian faith.

In a 2022 entry I wrote Christianity on the wane in England and Wales commenting on Charles' wish be 'Defender of Faith', rather than 'Defender of the Faith', as though all faiths are the same when they clearly are not. 

The speech, broadcast from an ex-hospital chapel which is available to all faiths as if to emphasise the point, was watched by 6.8 million out of a UK population off around 69 million people. For comparison Gavin and Stacey: The Finale was warched by 12.32 million and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl by 9.38 million.

In his 2024 message Charles said, "But, on this Christmas Day, we cannot help but think of those for whom the devastating effects of conflict – in the Middle East, in Central Europe, in Africa and elsewhere – pose a daily threat to so many people's lives and livelihoods."

King Charles went on to say "Diversity of culture, ethnicity and faith provides strength not weakness" but as commented on in Christian Today 'That is not self-evidently true'.

There is one faith/ideology that frequently appears in the news as the main source of conflict. Less frequent is the reporting of the deaths, kidnappings and other atrocities regularly perpetrated in Africa and elsewhere around the globe. According to Open Doors, three fifths of the countries listed suffer persecution as a result of this one ideology.

While the hand of friendship is extended to its adherants in the United Kingdom, blind eyes are turned to world events. Thousands of people who do not share our values continue to enter the UK seeking to replace our culture with theirs. 

As demonstrations in the UK are becoming more devisive it has become risky to comment on such matters for fear of attracting accusations of a hate crime. Free speech in Britain is at risk.

Christianity is being diluted in the name of diversity. Recently I read a report “Woke” MoD Bosses to Strip Cross From Military Cap Badge  as part of efforts to make the British Army chaplains department more diverse and multicultural. I wonder what Queen Elizabeth would have had to say about that.

The situation is becoming dire. We have a woke government and a woke church.

For full assessment by former Queen's Chaplain Gavin Ashenden watch King Charles Christmas Speech - A Declaration of Civil War

 A good New Year's resolution would be to pray for our increasingly dis-United Kingdom.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Postscript 03.01.2025

PRAYER ALERT: One-year-old killed as Nigerian Christians targeted at Christmas

Wednesday, 22 March 2023

This is not Dibley

Fowey Parish Church: Source Parish Website

From Mail Online: "‘Remind me, it is 2023, isn’t it?’: Why has the Cornish town Dawn French loves risked such an unholy row by refusing its own Vicar of Dibley?"

Yes, it is 2023  but the author of the Mail article headlined above appears unable or unwilling to separate fact from fiction. It is riddled with prejudice against those who follow traditional Christian teaching rather than the fad of the day.

Under the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1993 (No. 2) a Resolution may be made "That this parochial church council would not accept a woman as the minister who presides at or celebrates the Holy Communion or pronounces the Absolution in the parish."

That is the factual position.

The Vicar Of Dibley is a TV fantasy show but it is portrayed as reality by people with no religion of their own and feminists in the Church wishing to undermine fellow Anglicans who, on theological grounds, are unable to receive the sacramental ministry of women. 

Ignorance offers no hinderance.

Some comments from the Mail article:

'It appears the parish church representatives here are obviously bigots,' said one comment on a community Facebook page.

'You should hang your heads in shame, such a bad decision,' read another. 'Remind me, it is 2023 isn't it?'

Progressives resort to lies and false accusations because they can muster no valid arguments to defend their own position This is typified by the Chair of Women And The Church (WATCH) who endlessly protests on Twitter and elsewhere about so called discrimination, simply because others disagree with her misrepresentations.

In this Christian Institute video the question is asked Do Christians want to drown children who 'might turn out to be gay'? 

The video illustrates how LGBT activists Jayne Ozanne and Peter Tatchell think so while Archbishop Justin Welby appears to agree with them. 

Also present at the confrontation was Ben Bradshaw MP who yesterday introduced a ‘ten minute rule motion’ aimed at forcing the Church of England to conduct same-sex marriages. It was passed by the House of Commons without a vote. This was despite Bradshaw himself saying in 2013 that it was the “prerogative” of the C of E’s leadership to decide not to allow gay weddings.

Beth Rigby of Sky News peddled the same discrimination line when mixing unrelated issues in an interview with Archbishop Justin Welby after the Ozanne/Tatchell demonstration. In the interview the archbishop refers to 'equal marriage' which implicitly accepts the redefinition of Holy Matrimony as not being solely between one man and one woman for life. 

The concepts of mutual flourishing and twin integrities have been swept under the carpet under the guise of equality. Traditional beliefs are now classified as bigoted, homophobic discriminatory simply because progressives have no valid arguments to support their stance.

People not toeing the progressive line are shut down or removed. Witness Christian theology lecturer Dr Aaron Edwards who was sacked for misconduct and threatened with a counter-terrorism referral by a Methodist Bible college for allegedly “bringing the college into disrepute” on social media for a tweet on human sexuality that went viral.

On 19 February 2023, Dr Edwards posted: "Homosexuality is invading the Church. Evangelicals no longer see the severity of this b/c they’re busy apologising for their apparently barbaric homophobia, whether or not it’s true. This *is* a 'Gospel issue', by the way. If sin is no longer sin, we no longer need a Saviour."

The Ordinariate has also succumbed to intimidation. The Rev Calvin Robinson, an orthodox Anglican deacon, fighting the culture wars on behalf of the Christian faith is being cancelled 'step by step, day by day'. 

Robinson has been cancelled by a group of Catholic choir singers and the Catholic clergy to whom they made an ultimatum. According to Church Militant, the English Ordinariate withdrew an invitation to broadcast Robinson's celebration of Easter on GB News after complaints allegedly initiated by members of the choir who disagreed with views expressed by the preacher.

This is progress?