The orner Post

March 25, A.D. 2018 Weekly Bulletin for Cornerstone Presbyterian Church cornerstonehobart.com

Cornerstone is part of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, and supports the vision100.org movement.

Looking for Rest? Today is the last of our nine week series on

Genesis 1:1-2:3. When God rested, not only

do we see a great hope of perfect rest for

exhausted and restless people, we also see

the way by which we may obtain that rest.

Easter Services

Good Friday 9 am, combined

with Soul Presbyterian.

Easter Sunday 10am.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 In the beginning God

created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the

earth was formless and empty, darkness was

over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit

of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and

there was light. 4 God saw that the light was

good, and he separated the light from the

darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and

the darkness he called “night.” And there

was evening, and there was morning—the

first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault

between the waters to separate water from

water.” 7 So God made the vault and

separated the water under the vault from the

water above it. And it was so. 8 God

called the vault “sky.” And there was

evening, and there was morning—the

second day.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky

be gathered to one place, and let dry

ground appear.” And it was so. 10

God

called the dry ground “land,” and the

gathered waters he called “seas.” And God

saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, “Let the land produce

vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on

the land that bear fruit with seed in it,

according to their various kinds.” And it was

so. 12

The land produced vegetation: plants

bearing seed according to their kinds and

trees bearing fruit with seed in it according

to their kinds. And God saw that it was

good.13

And there was evening, and there

was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the

vault of the sky to separate the day from the

night, and let them serve as signs to mark

sacred times, and days and years,15

and let

them be lights in the vault of the sky to give

light on the earth.” And it was so. 16

God

made two great lights—the greater light to

govern the day and the lesser light to

govern the night. He also made the

stars.17

God set them in the vault of the sky

to give light on the earth, 18

to govern the

day and the night, and to separate light from

darkness. And God saw that it was

good.19

And there was evening, and there

was morning—the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with

living creatures, and let birds fly above the

earth across the vault of the sky.” 21

So God

created the great creatures of the sea and

every living thing with which the water

teems and that moves about in it, according

to their kinds, and every winged bird

according to its kind. And God saw that it

was good. 22

God blessed them and said, “Be

fruitful and increase in number and fill the

water in the seas, and let the birds increase

on the earth.” 23

And there was evening, and

there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce

living creatures according to their kinds: the

livestock, the creatures that move along the

ground, and the wild animals, each

according to its kind.” And it was so. 25

God

made the wild animals according to their

kinds, the livestock according to their kinds,

and all the creatures that move along the

ground according to their kinds.And God

saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in

our image, in our likeness, so that they may

ruleover the fish in the sea and the birds in

the sky, over the livestock and all the wild

animals,[a]

and over all the creatures that

move along the ground.” 27

So God

created mankind in his own image, in the

image of God he created them; male and

female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be

fruitful and increase in number; fill the

earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the

sea and the birds in the sky and over every

living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-

bearing plant on the face of the whole earth

and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.

They will be yours for food. 30

And to all the

beasts of the earth and all the birds in the

sky and all the creatures that move along the

ground—everything that has the breath of

life in it—I give every green plant for food.”

And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was

very good. And there was evening, and there

was morning—the sixth day.

2 Thus the heavens and the earth were

completed in all their vast array.

2 By the seventh day God had finished

the work he had been doing; so on the

seventh day he rested from all his

work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh

day and made it holy, because on it he

rested from all the work of

creating that he had done.

You Need Rest My good friend has a heart

problem. Sometimes it races

uncontrollably, and dangerously. He’s a

very busy man, with lots of plates in the

air. The doctor says he has to slow

down: “There needs to be time each day

when you end up saying to yourself, ‘What

shall I do now?’” Times of boredom are

highly recommended. Does he ever find

such times? I doubt it.

Our pace of life is frantic, perhaps especially

if you have some kids running around. And

then there’s our minds. There’s a three-

ringed circus going on up there: action,

anguish, anger, drama, dismay, debate, and

more action. “When I lay me down to

sleep” is exactly when the circus of the mind

is unmasked, “with inward furies

blasted.” It can take a while to find sleep,

and when you wake in the night...

When ever do we find rest for our

bodies and minds? Rest from our

worries? Rest from our financial

obligations and strains? Rest from

relationship clouds and

puzzles? Above all, rest

from sin? From relentless nagging

temptation? From failure? From

guilt and shame? When will we be

able to look at one another with a

placid conscience? When will we be

able to look full into the awful and

holy face of God without flinching

with the shame and guilt of a sin-

stained soul?

Rest is right here. Right here in the first

three verses of Genesis chapter two.

Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth

were completed in all their vast array.

Array translates צבא, tsābā, meaning

“army,” or “host.” It is the same word used

for God’s famous title, so common in the

kingly books, “Jehovah Sabaoth,” the LORD

of Hosts.

Moses pictures completed creation: light,

firmament, verdant land, sun, moon, stars,

birds, fishes, and the mighty creatures of the

ocean deep, the land animals domestic, wild,

and swarming, as a mighty and splendid

army, a great host arrayed before her

general. And we, male and female in the

image of God, are at the head of that array,

made by God to enjoy, subdue, and govern

it all for the mutual benefit of humanity and

creation.

God was thus successful in his work. This

is emphatic—both verses one and two begin

in the original language with the phrase

“God finished.” The Septuagint translates

this συντελεω, synteleō, “to bring to

completion, fulfilment, or accomplishment”;

the word telos referring to a “conclusion,”

“the last in a series,” or “the goal to which a

movement is being directed.”

How many times do we start something that

we never finish: War and Peace, a home-

project, learning German, or writing a piece

of music? And we fail so often to complete

far more important things: we pull out of a

friendship, we give up on parenting, or even

a marriage. Why do we fail? Sometimes

because we lack the strength and ability: we

thought we could write an EP, or build a

greenhouse, but we just can’t. More often

we get bored, or we simply lack the will to

stick with what we promised to stick

with. God set out to create the universe,

with humanity as his leading image-bearers

and, lacking neither the power, ability, or

will, he completed his work.

Genesis 2:2-3 By the seventh day God had

finished the work he had been doing; so on

the seventh day he rested from all his

work. Then God blessed the seventh day

and made it holy, because on it he

rested from all the work of creating that he

had done.

God worked. Work is good. We were

created to work. Work is not the result of

the curse anymore than childbirth is the

result of the curse. It is the difficulty and

frustration of work that came as part of the

curse, just as it is the pain of childbirth—of

bringing a child into a world of war and

disease and evil—that was curse-caused.

The great goal of many in the West

is retirement from work: endless

summers of Eggs Benedict, country

drives, and barge tours down the

Rhone. Work is painful and

frustrating. Who does not want to

be freed from that? But our Maker

works (“My Father is always at his

work to this very day,” John

5:17), and he made us to

work. Work is good, and it is sin to

want to have no work and

responsibility. To get old and frail

in body and mind, where we can no

longer do as much work, is a

sadness. We should look forward to those

new bodies that are promised to Christ’s

people, so that we can get back to

work! What we need is not the absence of

work, but the redemption of work.

Yet on the Seventh Day of creation week,

God stopped working, and rested. (Note the

emphatic repetition within verse 2.) Work is

good, yet work is not an end itself. It is

done to make something good, to achieve

something worthy, and then after

completion there is rest and the enjoyment

of what is made. It is very bold of Moses to

say that “God rested,” and to even to say

that he was “refreshed” on that day (Exo

31:17). The idolatrous mind, always

hankering to belittle God, instinctively

seizes at his phrase: “Who is this god who

is so wearied by his exertions that he needs

to rest? Is he really almighty and self-

sufficient?” Genesis 2 doesn’t say

that a tired god needed to stop. This is

God’s way: he works, then he ceases

from work and rests.

This is likewise to be the way of

God’s image-bearers. For God

“blessed the seventh day, and made it

holy.” When God blesses, he turns his

face towards someone or something,

communicates his goodness to that

thing, and bestows function. (Thus

God had blessed the birds and fishes,

land-animals, and humanity.) The

Seventh Day alone is blessed, to reflect the

face of God and all his goodness. The

Seventh Day will carry a special function,

God makes it holy—distinct, life-imparting,

and good.

Thus a principle and pattern is

established. We note here the

correspondence between the Hebrew ordinal

“seventh” (ׁשביעי, shabīī), and the verb “to

rest, cease, stop, take a holiday”

whose equivalent noun ,(shābat ,ׁשבת)

is ׁשבת, shabāt, “Sabbath,” “a set-apart day

of rest,” or a “week.” We can see then in

the OT how intertwined are the ideas of

Sabbath, seventh, rest, and week.

In the world’s first week sacred principles

are thus blessed: of work not being in itself

an end, of working for something, of

enjoying its completion in subsequent rest,

and of all God’s work tending toward

supreme life and goodness.

For the first readers of Genesis, the Hebrew

slaves of Pharaoh, this represented 1)

salvation liberation, and 2) its means.

1) The Hebrew slaves’ work was bitter,

unreasonable, and driven by the overseer’s

blood-caked lash. The days were very

long. There was no day of rest.

God showed them his original plan and

design: six days of work, then one day of

rest. And God pledged to replicate this

work with his people. From the black chaos

of slavery he would bring light and life. He

would redeem his people from the lash into

the Promised Land, a place of salvation

plenty, freedom, and rest.

2) By establishing among the freed

Hebrews a weekly routine of human work

and rest, patterned on creation week, God

also showed how salvation liberty would be

won. We see this with the establishment of

the Sabbath in Exodus 16 and the gracious

provision of manna. Every day God would

rain down food from heaven, except on the

sixth day, when he would rain down double,

so that they would not have to go out and

collect food on the seventh. This inculcated

faithful reliance on God’s gracious

provision. “On the Sabbath we don’t have

to work for this life-giving food: he has

given it to us already! And we will trust

week-after-week that he will do this.”

God reinforced this blessed pattern with a

rule: “This is what the LORD commanded:

‘Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy

Sabbath to the LORD.... Everyone is to stay

where he is on the seventh day; no one is to

go out” (Exo 16:23-29).

This command is then generalised and

enshrined as the Fourth of the Ten

Commandments:

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it

holy. Six days you shall labour and do all

your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath

to the LORD your God. On it you shall not

do any work, neither you, nor your son or

daughter, nor your manservant or

maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien

within your gates.”

The reason given for the Fourth

Commandment, in Exodus, is God’s own

creation-week work:

“For in six days the LORD made the

heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is

in them, but he rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath

day and made it holy” (Exo 20:11).

The reason for the Fourth Commandment,

given in Deuteronomy, is God’s redemption:

“Remember that you were slaves in Egypt

and that the LORD your God brought you

out of there with a mighty hand and an

outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your

God has commanded you to observe the

Sabbath day” (5:15).

The Seventh Day of creation was thus a

pattern for God’s image-bearers, and a

picture of redemption. The Seventh Day

teaches that God will save his people from

slavery. Obeying the creation week pattern,

and resting on the Seventh Day, teaches that

we are saved not by our works, but by

trusting in God’s work for us. Thus for

Isaiah the Sabbath is a delight:

“If you keep your feet from breaking the

Sabbath and from doing as you please on

my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a

delight and the LORD's holy day

honourable, and if you honour it by not

going your own way and not doing as you

please or speaking idle words, then you will

find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause

you to ride on the heights of the land and to

feast on the inheritance of your father

Jacob” (58:13-14).

In the Gospels we see Jesus taking complete

charge of the Sabbath. He taught on the

Sabbath (Mark 1:21, 6:2). He picked heads

of grain on the Sabbath, and demolished the

Pharisees protests, teaching that “the

Sabbath was made for man, not man for the

Sabbath” (2:23-23). He defiantly healed

people on the Sabbath. “Which is lawful on

the Sabbath: to do good, or to do evil, to

save life or to kill?” (3:1-5) Above all, he

declared about himself: “The Son of Man is

Lord even of the Sabbath” (2:28).

The Pharisees loaded the Sabbath with

untold dumb laws, and turned it into a day

of fear and misery. Jesus now recovers

it. For he is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is

the God of the seven days of creation. He

was the one who created the world, and who

rested on the Seventh Day. He determines

what is good for the Sabbath because it

is his day.

Hebrews 4:9 says that “There remains, then,

a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for

anyone who enters God’s rest also rests

from his own work, just as God did from

his.” With Jesus we are delivered from lives

cut short by death, and are brought to the

fulfilment of our God-given destiny. With

Jesus we are delivered from cursed

frustrating work, and brought into

rest. Jesus wins for us Sabbath rest. We

stop trying to work and win for salvation for

ourselves, and we trust in him and his work

for us, for:

“We know that a person is not justified by

observing the law, but by faith in Jesus

Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in

Christ Jesus that we may be justified by

faith in Christ and not by observing the law,

because by observing the law no one will be

justified” (Gal 2:16).

Thus in the New Testament God’s blessed

day shifts from the last day of the week, to

the first—the day when our salvation was

completed, the day of Jesus’ resurrection

(John 20:1; Mark 16:2), and the day of his

repeated resurrection appearances (John

20:19, 26). Christians met on this day (Acts

20:7, 1Co 16:2), and thus it came to be

known as “the Lord’s Day” (Rev 1:10).

The ancient church manual known as the

Didache commends this: “But every Lord’s

day do ye gather yourselves together, and

break bread, and give thanksgiving after

having confessed your transgressions, that

your sacrifice may be pure” (14:1). And

Justin Martyr (110-65) said:

“On the day called Sunday, all who live in

cities or in the country gather together to

one place, and the memoirs of the apostles

or the writings of the prophets are read, as

long as time permits; then, when the reader

has ceased, the overseer verbally instructs,

and exhorts to the imitation of these good

things.

“Then we all rise together and pray, and

when our prayer is ended, bread and wine

and water are brought, and the overseer in

like manner offers prayers and

thanksgivings, according to his ability, and

the people assent, saying Amen; and there is

a distribution to each, and a participation of

that over which thanks have been given, and

to those who are absent a portion is sent by

the deacons....

“But Sunday is the day on which we all hold

our common assembly, because it is the first

day on which God, having wrought a change

in the darkness and matter, made the world;

and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same

day rose from the dead.”

You will find the peace that your mind and

soul craves, and rest from your sin, in the

Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus Christ.

Campbell.

Membership Classes

Continue Today

Giving at Cornerstone

At Cornerstone you can give by putting your offering in

the Blue Box at the back of church, or electronically.

BSB: 037001, Account: 586161

Budget 2018, $15,500 per month. January $21,423, February $15,278

Quarry Youth has begun for

2018. All youth Gr 6-12 welcome.

See Elya for more info

or

email quarryyouth@cornerstoneh

obart.com

Contacts Elders Campbell Markham (Minister) 0404

456 962 Simon Boonstra 0458 600 286

Derrick Clack 0419 004 167 Rafael

Muggeridge 0477 529 137 Des Richardson

0417 554 385 Nathaniel Richardson 0419

962 473 Evangelist David Gee 0421 022

202 Women’s Ministry Cristiane Baker

0404 392 812 Cornerpebble Anna Gee

6247 8976 Deacons Jane Maarseveen 0498

367 536 Trish Smith 0416 562 715 David

van Emmerik 6278 1668 Treasurer Libby

Dilger 0448 554 845. Admin. Trish Smith

0416 562 715, Gail Forder 0422 022 733

Ministry Apprentice Dan Probert 0437 985

271 If you need help or prayer please

contact an elder or deacon.

Systematic Theology Course, 2018-19

7-9PM Tuesday Nights This Week: the History of the

English Bible More info: Contact course

administrator Cristiane Baker on 0404 392 812 or c9baker@gmail.com.

GROWTH GROUPS

Study the Bible in a small midweek group! Wednesday Night in Kingston

7.30pm at the Vonk’s, 48 Corlacus Drive,

Kingston. 6267 1113

Ladies’ Group Wednesdays

10:00am for coffee & chat, study starts

@10.30am, at Libby Dilger’s, 40 Phoenix

St, Howrah. Phone 0448 554 845.

Thursday Night 7.30 PM in Kingston, 6

Tanina Mews , Contact Ian and Kym

Headley on 0419 525 292.

Thursday night in Lindisfarne 7.30pm at

James and Cristiane Bakers’. 164 Derwent

Avenue. Contact leader Matt Delphin 0478

769 009.

Thursday Night 7:30pm-8:30pm in West

Hobart with the Bartlett Family. Starting

8/2/2018, following school terms.

Studying Luke. For teenagers and older.

Contact Paul Bartlett 0406 605 419

Women’s Bible Study, Thursday 1:30 -

3pm at Annie Bartlett, West Hobart. Led by

Melanie Muggeridge. Contact Annie

Bartlett: 62319493, 0466 980 887.

Bible study for Mums with young children.

Thursday 9.30 am at Elodie McCausland’s,

101 Norma Street, Howrah. Led by Anna

Gee, 6247 8976.

Annual Congregational

Meeting Immediately after church today.

(Approximately 20 mins.)

Agenda items:

1) Budget update from Treasurer.

2) Voting: James Baker, eldership

3) Voting: Amy Glynn, B.O.M.

4) Pastor’s study and teaching plans

2017-22.

A Message from the elders:

“As elders, we recognise, and we

want all of us to recognise, that

Cornerstone is entering a new

phase of cultural and legal change

in a rapidly changing Australia.

We recognise that life as

Christians in Australia is going to

be very different – very

challenging. We also recognise

that the church may contract and

or grow with those accelerating

challenges.

We want to us all to be prepared,

and so share the following vision

of planting churches in the future,

but by growing new leaders over

the next ten years.

Short term strategy focus on:

Individuals devoted to private

prayer and Bible reading.

Healthy family devotionals.

Church meetings that are Christ-

glorifying.

Families that are strong.

Long term strategy: invest in

Christian education, and

particularly a fledgling satellite

theological college. This will

include Campbell Markham

commencing part-time doctoral

research in 2018; using long-

service leave at end of 2018 for

study and travel. (The Australian

College of Theology requires

lecturers to have a PhD.)

There will be an acting preacher

at Cornerstone during those three

months.

Short term needs of

congregation: be encouraged to

be privately in the word and

prayer daily as individuals and as

families, and do whatever we do

whole-heartedly. This means

investing adequate time preparing

carefully and prayerfully for

church services, but also giving of

our time and finances.”

Roster 1 April 25 March

MC Ian Derrick

Music Team 3 Team 4

Data Isaac Luke

Welcome/Info

Nikki, Gerald Shirley, Trish

Kitchen Webbs Raylee

M/ Tea Please bring hot cross buns!

Raylee, Bethany, Robyn

Creche Catherine, Caitlin

Brigitta, Elodie

Setup Bakers Headleys

Part Four of a summary by Stefanie

Mapley of Patrick Sookhdeo’s 2017

THE DEATH OF WESTERN

CHRISTIANITY

CHILDREN, FAMILY AND

EDUCATION

‘The culture war is all but over and far-

right evangelicals have precious little to

show for their efforts.’ Steve Bennen

from the Washington Monthly (2009).

The darkness deepens and gloom turns

to doom, with the emergence of a

number of alarming trends that threaten

the traditional value-systems of

children, families and education.

State interference in parenting

In 2016 a Christian family in England

engaged in a dispute with local

authorities who were encouraging a 14

year old girl to change her name to a

boy’s name because she believes she is

transgender. Parents told the media,

‘The rights of parents in the UK are

being eroded, especially those who have

traditional Christian values.’

The Canadian government is able to

intervene if there is ‘a risk that the child

is likely to suffer emotional harm ….

and that the child’s parent or person in

charge does not provide services or

treatment. Moreover, new legislation

requires parents to ‘direct the child or

young person’s education and

upbringing in accordance with the

child’s or young person’s creed,

community identity and cultural

identity’.

Christianity is dangerous to children

Western governments are systematically

stripping parents of their fundamental

rights to impart moral and religious

teaching to their children. No more is

this more pernicious than within the

school system.

Oxford biologist and militant atheist

Richard Dawkins claims that teaching

children religion as facts constitutes

child abuse.

Schools and education

Scottish Parliament became the first

government in Europe to indicate

majority support for the mandatory

teaching of LGBT issues in schools.

Authorities in Europe have also

attempted to clamp down on home

schooling. Armed German police

stormed a house in Darmstadt in August

2013 because the family’s four children

were being home schooled. The

children, between seven and fourteen

years old, were forcibly removed from

their parents and taken into state

custody at an unknown location. The

court transferred formal custody of the

children to the state, despite there being

no allegations of abuse or neglect

against the parents, because they wanted

to raise them according to Christian

values.

Principals of schools in Victoria,

Australia have decided to axe Religious

Instruction (RI) from their schools.

Cathy Byrne, a sociology tutor, claims

that her ’research has highlighted the

divisive implications of RI curriculums

that are racist, sexist, anti-science, age

inappropriate or somehow objectionable

- even to church-going Christians’.

Despite the rise of fundamentalist

Islamic schools and the reluctance of

Australian authorities to take a firm

approach to the teaching of Islam in

Australia, Byrne portrays teaching of

Christianity in schools as a public

hazard. ‘Whether we recognise it or not,

whether we develop policies to address

it or not, Christian religious extremism

can be a security risk, a risk to the

nature of our pluralist democracy and

our hard-won liberal freedoms.’

Narrative suggesting same-sex

couples make better parents

Destruction of conventional family

structures is the ultimate agenda of

homosexual activism. It has won the

battle for hearts and minds in the West

through the media, Hollywood and

popular culture.

A disproportionally favourable narrative

now dominates the portrayal of gay

parents. Thus, they are viewed as not

just acceptable, but demonstrably better

than heterosexual couples in parenting

skills and an ideal of love, stability and

progressive parenting. They supposedly

promote the healthy development of free

thinking children who are free of the

influence of backward, bigoted,

religious, extremist parents.

To abolish the family is to destroy

society

In the last century, the eminent Oxford

ethnologist and social anthropologist

Joseph Unwin, embarked on extensive

research to prove that monogamous

marriage and the family was an

irrelevant and harmful institution. He

discovered precisely the opposite of

what he had hoped. The massive data

revealed a positive correlation between

the cultural achievement of a people and

the sexual restraint they observe. He

concluded that only marriage with

fidelity would lead to the cultural

prosperity of a society. On the other

hand, the loosening of sexual restraints

and the breakdown of the family would

have calamitous consequences for

society that would become evident in

the third generation.

When he was chief rabbi of the United

Hebrews Congregation of the

Commonwealth, Sir Jonathan Sacks

described the maniacal destruction of

the family. ‘Today we have divorced

sex from love; love from commitment;

commitment from marriage; marriage

from having children; and having

children from bearing responsibility for

nurturing them and bringing them up. It

is as if somebody had planted a bomb in

the very midst of our most sacred

institution and all we have left is

fragments.’

THE MARGINALISATION OF

CHRISTIANITY

Christianophobia

The West is not merely passively post-

Christian; it is now actively anti-

Christian and profoundly intolerant of

the Christian faith.

George Yancey and David Williamson

believe that the West is moving into

Christianophobia, a state of fear and

hatred against Christianity and

Christians. In their book So Many

Christians, So Few Lions (2015) they

conduct what they believe to be the only

academic enquiry of American scholars

and their views on Christians and

Christianity. Below are some of their

findings.

‘I want them all to die in a fire’,

said one man with a doctorate. I would

be in favour of establishing a state for

them …. If not then sterilise them so

they can’t breed more,’ said a middle-

aged man with a master’s degree. ‘The

only good Christian is a dead

Christian,’ said another man with a

doctorate. ‘I abhor them and I wish we

could do away with them’ said a

middle-aged woman with a master’s

degree. ‘A torturous death would be too

good for them’, said a college-

educated man. ‘They should be

eradicated without hesitation or

remorse’ said an elderly woman with a

master’s degree. ‘Restrict their

ability to become judges, senators,

representatives, members of Cabinet,

military Chief of Staff and other

powerful members of government,’ said

a man over 75 with a bachelor’s degree.

‘Should not be able to make

decisions regarding the law, they should

somehow have to be supervised if they

are working with other people

(drastic I know)’ said a woman under 45

with a master’s degree. ‘We should put

in place mandatory

extreme prison sentences for anyone or

any group that attempt to take away

civil liberties guaranteed by our

constitution’ said a middle-aged man

with a master’s degree. Conservative

Christians should ‘not be allowed to

hold political office, be police

etc. serve in the armed forces’ said

another middle-aged man with a

doctorate.

Sections of society infected with

Christianophobia tend to be powerful

elites with influence in certain important

areas, such as higher education.

Christianophobes are also prominent in

government and the judiciary and so the

targeting of Christians is probably

intentional and systemic.

Christianity in the West is facing its

most vicious attack from the

postmodern ‘cultured despisers of

religion’. Over decades, the Church has

been progressively marginalised, but

now basic Christian beliefs are even

criminalised.

Legal structures

After the Second World War, the shock

and horror of the atrocities committed

by Nazis against the Jews compelled

many Western nations to introduce laws

aimed at eliminating hatred and violence

based on ethnicity and religion. These

laws were intended to guard against the

virus of anti-Semitism. Over the years

and with the rise of women’s rights and

civil rights movements, western nations

passed laws to include other groups

facing discrimination based on gender,

colour and race. More recently

governments legislation banning

discrimination against people on the

grounds of race, gender, pregnancy,

marital status, ethnic or social origin,

colour, age, disability, religion,

conscience, belief, culture, language,

birth, trade and sexual orientation. At

first glance such laws appear noble and

commendable. However, the avalanche

of legislation under the heading of

‘human rights’ is now increasingly open

to abuse, subjective interpretation and in

many cases is in clear conflict with

other freedoms, such as freedom of

expression and religion.

Laws specific to protecting minority

groups in most countries generally fall

into three main categories:

Discrimination

Hate speech

Hate crime

The silencing of Christian belief

A tidal wave of restrictive legislation is

battering the church and orthodox

Christians who find themselves slapped

with penalties ranging from diversity

and sensitivity training and fines to

community service and prison.

The Bible teaches that the only way to

salvation is through Jesus Christ. This

belief cannot avoid clashing with other

religions and worldview. However, such

a view is condemned as exclusive,

intolerant and hateful. It must be pointed

out that all religions make exclusive

claims in conflict with the claims of

other religions. Communism believes in

the abolition of private property, while

capitalism believes that private property

is absolute.

Christianity holds that life is sacred and

God-given and must be protected. This

is in direct conflict with pro-choice

beliefs which promote abortion as a

fundamental human right, and its

corollary in the form of assisted suicide

or euthanasia.

Christians believe that God created

humans male and female. There are very

rare instances where genetic dysfunction

results in cases of intersex. However,

society is widely embracing the idea of

gender fluidity and affirms that people

can now choose their own gender. In

June 2017, the province of Ontario,

Canada, passed a law that allows

government to remove the child from its

parents if the parents use the child’s

biological gender pronoun, rather than

the child’s preferred one.

Western society not only accepts same-

sex sexual relations but celebrates and

validates them with laws allowing same-

sex marriage and same-sex parents to

adopt children. LGBT groups, who

believe any criticism of homosexual

behaviour is tantamount to a hate crime,

have gone out of their way to trap and

target conservative Christians.

Since its inception the Church has

upheld the biblical idea of a lifelong

monogamous marriage between a man

and woman.

A person who is living habitually and

unrepentantly in a sexual relationship

outside marriage is living in sin. This is

one of the most counter-cultural

teachings of the church since living

together before marriage without any

desire to get married has become the

norm.

It is important to distinguish between

individuals and ideas. People must

always be protected from harm and

allowed to express their beliefs freely

but the beliefs themselves should not be

protected from analysis, critique and

criticism. No matter how much we may

disagree with a person’s beliefs,

ideology or practice, Christians must

never attack the person; indeed they

must be willing to protect that person

when attacked by others, To support that

person when vilified and to stand

alongside them , despite their difference

of belief. This is part of the Christian

command to live a life of love.. The

criminalisation of homosexual practice

is completely unacceptable, as is the

criminalisation of opinions disagreeing

with homosexual practice; any

judgement must be left to God.