faith

Fear Uncertainty Doubt

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The ability to create fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD for short) has been shown over millennia to be an effective way to control people.

Tyrants rule by fear.

Politicians seek to score political points over their opponents or to undermine ideologies they disagree with, causing uncertainty.

Doubt arises when we believe that somebody cannot be trusted.

FUD is present everywhere in society and it takes many names.

People can be emotionally abusive to a spouse, using FUD to make the partner become more dependent on their abuser.

Gaslighting uses lies to cause a person to doubt their own senses, memories and sanity.

Technology businesses use FUD to make people lock into their products rather than a competitor.

I have been on the receiving end of a FUD attack and the emotions it generated in me were deep dread, fear and hopelessness. It was awful! Some people live with this every day.

All of this is opposed to God’s way of love. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:13. “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Faith is the opposite of fear, because by faith we believe that God is greater than anything that can destroy us.

Hope is opposed to uncertainty because hope looks forward to a better future, one that is held in God’s hands and not the manipulations of people.

Doubt is overcome by love because we can trust God to love us without fail.

Don’t let FUD overcome you. Instead let faith, hope and love flourish in your spirit.

Get You A Bible

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‘Get You a Bible’: Couple Married 84 Years Delivers Powerful ‘God’ Response While Sharing Secrets to Love, Long-Lasting Nuptials

Photo by Jeremy Wong Weddings on Unsplash
A couple with the longest-running marriage in the state of Arkansas has some simple advice for a successful marriage: seek the Lord.

Cleovis Whiteside, 102, and his wife Arwilda Whiteside, 98, got married in 1939, and with 84 years of matrimonial ups and downs under their belt, the couple recently delivered pointed advice to others.

“Pray,” Arwilda told USA Today, speaking to anyone considering walking down the aisle anytime soon. “Know how to get on your knees, and get you a Bible, because that Bible is going to have to take you through all kinds of storms.”

The couple openly credited God for their long-lasting nuptials, with Arwilda saying the Lord placed them together to “love one another.”

“We can hardly believe this is happening to us because we feel like we were the least, but God said, ‘No. You’ll glorify my name and love one another,’” she said, according to KATV-TV.

The Whitesides were honoured by the Arkansas Family Council, a Christian organisation that celebrates traditional families and marriage. The organisation honours the longest-married couples in the state, with the Whitesides reportedly currently holding the record in Arkansas.

The couple told USA Today about how their love story began, with the two meeting when Cleovis was 13 and Arwilda was 9; they married just a few years later.

The loving husband and wife had 12 children of their own and also housed others in need of families, with the duo being described as “pillars in the community.” Generosity, it seems, is ingrained in the fabric of the family, with Arwilda praising her husband’s kindness.

“He is always trying to help people,” she said.

Read more about the family’s story here.

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‘Get You a Bible’: Couple Married 84 Years Delivers Powerful ‘God’ Response While Sharing Secrets to Love, Long-Lasting Nuptials

Photo by Jeremy Wong Weddings on Unsplash
A couple with the longest-running marriage in the state of Arkansas has some simple advice for a successful marriage: seek the Lord.

Cleovis Whiteside, 102, and his wife Arwilda Whiteside, 98, got married in 1939, and with 84 years of matrimonial ups and downs under their belt, the couple recently delivered pointed advice to others.

“Pray,” Arwilda told USA Today, speaking to anyone considering walking down the aisle anytime soon. “Know how to get on your knees, and get you a Bible, because that Bible is going to have to take you through all kinds of storms.”

The couple openly credited God for their long-lasting nuptials, with Arwilda saying the Lord placed them together to “love one another.”

“We can hardly believe this is happening to us because we feel like we were the least, but God said, ‘No. You’ll glorify my name and love one another,’” she said, according to KATV-TV.

The Whitesides were honoured by the Arkansas Family Council, a Christian organisation that celebrates traditional families and marriage. The organisation honours the longest-married couples in the state, with the Whitesides reportedly currently holding the record in Arkansas.

The couple told USA Today about how their love story began, with the two meeting when Cleovis was 13 and Arwilda was 9; they married just a few years later.

The loving husband and wife had 12 children of their own and also housed others in need of families, with the duo being described as “pillars in the community.” Generosity, it seems, is ingrained in the fabric of the family, with Arwilda praising her husband’s kindness.

“He is always trying to help people,” she said.

Read more about the family’s story here.

5 Lies Our Culture Is Telling Us: Rosaria Butterfield

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5 Lies Our Culture Is Telling Us

September 11, 2023by: Rosaria Butterfield

 

Lie #1: Homosexuality is normal.

Included in this lie is the belief that homosexual orientation is true and immutable—fixed and never-changing. Homosexual orientation, a nineteenth-century Freudian invention, is an unbiblical category of personhood and an antagonist to the creation ordinance because it redefines sinful desire as something that defines who you are rather than how you feel. Lie #1 claims that the word of God doesn’t apply to homosexual orientation because homosexual orientation represents a person’s core truth. Some professing Christians believe that homosexual orientation is fixed, immutable (unchangeable), and part of God’s creational and eternal plan. Some people believe that homosexuality is embedded in a person’s identity.

We must ponder why God’s attribute of immutability has been embraced by the LGBTQ+ movement as an attribute of homosexual orientation. God is immutable—God never changes. One theologian defines God’s immutability as “that perfection in God whereby He is exalted above all.” But if you exchange the Creator for the creature, you impose God’s attributes on man. When we hear “homosexual orientation is fixed and immutable—it never changes,” this is only imaginable in a world that has already exchanged the worship of the Creator for the worship of the creature—of God for an idol. “Gay Christians” (an oxymoron if there ever was one) teach that you can’t repent of who you are, how you feel, or even what you desire. They believe that homosexual orientation is morally neutral, separate from one’s sin nature, cannot be repented of, and rarely changes over a person’s lifetime. This is a lie.

Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age

Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age

Rosaria Butterfield

Bestselling author Rosaria Butterfield addresses 5 lies modern culture has embraced about sexuality and spirituality, using the word of God to help illuminate each topic. 

Lie #2: Being a spiritual person is kinder than being a biblical Christian.

Unbiblical spirituality welcomes people exactly as they are or, at least, makes this promise. This is a religion that elevates being a “good” person over giving your life to Christ. To the unbiblically spiritual person, everything is one. Distinctions and hierarchies are called abusive, and true spirituality is supposedly found inside ourselves. This sort of spirituality, unbiblical spirituality, believes that everything in the universe supposedly shares in this divine power and unifying balance. Rules, divisions, and distinctions are violent, or so says the unbiblically spiritual person.

In contrast, for the biblical Christian, there are two kinds of reality: God and creation. God is eternal, triune, personal, holy, loving, and separate from his creation. According to biblical spirituality, there are two kinds of people: those who love God and those who defy God. Even though we create our own problems by refusing to live by his laws, God provides the only solution through the Lord Jesus Christ. Pastor and theologian Peter Jones, founder of TruthXchange, offers the most helpful paradigm for comparing unbiblical spirituality to biblical spirituality. While unbiblical spirituality self-promotes as kind and inclusive, it is in reality narcissistic and damning.

Lie #3: Feminism is good for the world and the church.

Feminism began in 1792 with Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. As its title suggests, it sought to “vindicate,” which means “to assert one’s right to possession.” And what rights needed possessing? Women needed to possess the rights to citizenship. Wollstonecraft sought rights for education and voting for women. Feminism has gone through four “waves” or phases since 1792, with the most recent wave so tied to the LGBTQ+ movement that now, in 2023, we cannot even define what a woman is or defend her right to exist—least of all to be noted as a citizen. Feminism in the world is passè—it has been displaced by transgenderism. Feminism in the evangelical church, however, is alive and well. When the church sets itself up to follow the world and not to lead it, it necessarily lingers long with discarded trends and affections.

We don’t need to be all-knowing, because God is. Christ alone can solve the problems we face today.

Adherents of feminism believe the Bible has no bearing on gender roles, responsibilities, or requirements because the idea of men and women being made by God’s design for God’s purposes on earth is old-fashioned, silly, dangerous, abusive, and culturally driven. Some professing Christian feminists believe that Adam’s headship is a consequence of the fall—and thus a sin. They claim that there is no biblical warrant for a married woman’s submission to her husband and elders or for elders and pastors to be qualified men. Bible verses that call for a wife to obey her husband in the Lord, such as Titus 2:4–5, 1 Peter 3:1, 5–6, and Colossians 3:18, are “contextualized” and then dismissed. Such feminists believe that feminism offers a corrective to Christianity because, without it, misogyny (the hatred of women) will run rampant with biblical support. Without feminism to the rescue, they argue, the church will unwittingly promote sexual abuse by giving perpetrators extreme and unchecked power and spiritual abuse by prohibiting a woman from using her gifts of teaching from the pulpit and assuming the roles of pastor and elder. This is a lie.

Lie #4: Transgenderism is normal.

People who believe in what is called “gender fluidity” also believe that sexual difference has no biological or ontological (original and eternal) integrity. Transgenderism is supposedly as normal for some people as freckles and a blue sky on a North Carolina summer day. Transgenderism maintains that there are more than two biological sexes and even more genders. The year 2022 boasts seventy-two genders and seventy-eight gender pronouns. In time there may be ten thousand. What does this all mean? How did we get to a place in the United States where someone can walk into Planned Parenthood and, forty-five minutes later, leave with a prescription for powerful hormones that will leave her sterilized for life if taken over time? We got here by believing the lie that transgenderism is normal—at least for some people.

Lie #5: Modesty is an outdated burden that serves male dominance and holds women back.

People who believe this lie dismiss the virtue of modesty for Christian women. Having denied that men and women are different, with different responsibilities, callings, and boundaries, those who reject modesty believe that calling women to a different standard of dress, speech, and conduct is oppressive. They deny that women owe their brothers the kindness of modesty. At the bottom of this is a feminist belief that it is not fair that women are different from men and that asking women to dress and behave with biblical modesty serves male dominance and holds women back. In the contemporary church climate, modesty has been replaced by exhibitionism.

Cling to Christ with Courage

When it seems like we are living at ground zero of the Tower of Babel, when the whole world seems to have gone mad, we need to cling to Christ with courage, read and memorize our Bible with fervency, be active members of a faithful Bible-believing church with passion, sing psalms with joy, and pray for our enemies with humility. We need to be humble people, remembering that we were not created to be all-knowing. We don’t need to be all-knowing, because God is. Christ alone can solve the problems we face today.

God calls us to live our Christian lives with courage, tell the truth, and fear God and not man. Can we with Jesus sing Psalm 118:6: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” I know. You can think of a long list of things the world can do to you. Your son, who calls himself Julie, won’t talk to you. You will be fired from your job if you don’t put a rainbow sticker on your door. Your neighbors will hate you when they learn that you believe in the God of the Bible. All of this may be true, and still this verse calls us to put things in perspective, specifically the Lord’s perspective as seen in Hebrews 11, where we see firsthand that God uses our faith whether we live or die.

This is the faith story we like:

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. (Heb. 11:32–34)

This is the faith story that terrifies:

Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy. (Heb. 11:36–38)

God records that both life and death, if done in faith, advance the gospel and give glory to God. Christians ought never despise suffering for Christ. And as we are seeing today and have seen throughout church history, all true Christians will suffer for the truth of Christ.

This article is adapted from Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age by Rosaria Butterfield.

Rosaria Butterfield

Rosaria Butterfield (PhD, Ohio State University) is an author, pastor’s wife, homeschool mom, and former professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse University. She is the author of The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert; Openness Unhindered; and The Gospel Comes with a House Key.

 

Casey Chalk: Texting With AI Jesus

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From firstthings.com

 

Logo for print screen

Want to talk to the Son of God? There’s an app for that. Text With Jesus, a Los Angeles–based product that launched in July, replicates an instant messaging platform and features biblical figures impersonated by the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT.

Among the characters available on the app are the Holy Family, the apostles, various prophets, Ruth, Job, and Abraham’s nephew Lot. Mary Magdalene is also available, but only to premium subscribers for $2.99 a month. You can even chat with Satan, who signs his texts with a “smiling face with horns” emoji.

Perhaps such an app provokes fears of blasphemy. Not to worry: Stéphane Peter, the app’s developer and the company’s CEO, ensured that character responses always include a Bible verse. “Our AI always generates responses that are in line with the teachings of the Bible,” explains the website. He also invited unnamed “church leaders” to try the beta version of the app. Though some pastors had reservations at the beginning, the app’s final version received “pretty good feedback.” 

Text With Jesus’s characters typically avoid any stance that might be perceived as offensive, instead maintaining a line of inclusivity and tolerance. If asked about gay marriage, for instance, the app will respond that it is “up to each individual to seek guidance from their own faith tradition and personal convictions,” and that users should “prioritize love and respect for all people regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity” (followed by a rainbow and red heart emoji). If queried about feminism, app Jesus will explain the importance of “empowering women and breaking societal barriers that limited their opportunities.”

So far, so “healthy.” The app aligns with our clinical culture, which emphasizes personal affirmation and physical and mental wellness. Text With Jesus offers a moral, therapeutic god for a moral, therapeutic age, as sociologist Christian Smith calls it in his 2005 book Soul Searching. It replaces the arcane “second person of the Trinity” with Jesus the therapist and social worker. 

This Jesus is not here to condemn (obviating less “warm and fuzzy” Gospel episodes such as the improperly dressed wedding guest of Matthew 22:1–14, or Jesus’s statements about the “Sign of Jonah” in Luke 11:29–32). He is here to affirm us and our behaviors and opinions. He certainly wouldn’t want you to feel bad about yourself and repent (unless you are repenting of “bigoted,” “patriarchal,” or “fascist” opinions on race, sex, or gender). 

Text With Jesus represents the age-old human vice of pride. Through our creativity and brilliance, we seek to ascend to God’s level, to be like him, and even to dictate terms to the divine. Or rather, the app is a diabolical inversion of this: Instead of being transformed into God’s image, we aim to make him into our own. Is seeking to communicate with and control God through a handheld device really all that different from the ancient metalworkers who fashioned little totems to whom they could offer supplication for their own health and prosperity?

The app’s insistence that its content is “Bible-based” is curious, given that the biblical characters sidestep Scripture’s more controversial and provocative claims. It does then seem to reflect the embarrassing biblical illiteracy even of those claiming to be Christians, and that people, even the pious, tend to prefer a religion that avoids uncomfortable truths in favor of what we want to hear.

Yet perhaps most sadly, that Text With Jesus would even be conceived and consumed reveals how deeply wedded we have become to our smartphones. Prayer is such a remarkable human experience because of its universality, both in terms of who can do it (everyone) and where it can be done (anywhere). I pray in my bedroom, on my commute, waiting in line, and while exercising. I can pray the divine liturgy, a rosary, or simply talk and listen. 

Indeed, one of the most beautiful things about Christian prayer is the quality of the access. “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. . . . If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:9–10, 13) What has happened to us, that anyone would contemplate inserting a gimmicky Silicon Valley tool into something so profoundly human and liberating? (I should note that I do not intend to “throw shade” on apps such as Magnificat or Hallow that help facilitate prayer through Scripture readings, meditations, or the divine liturgy.)

To be a people formed by prayer, we Christians need to protect and cultivate our little spiritual gardens, where we can let Jesus be himself, in all his terrifying glory. Because it is in “practicing in the presence” that we can appreciate the reality of an omnipotent, omniscient God who deigns to care about us and our problems. But in order to walk with him, and talk with him, and share that joy, I wager we’ll need to put our phones on silent.

Casey Chalk is a contributing editor at the New Oxford Review. 

Queen Elizabeth wanted to see Jesus return, so she could cast her crown at his feet

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From godreports.com

 

Queen Elizabeth wanted to see Jesus return, so she could cast her crown at his feet

By Charles Gardner —

Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth based her entire life, and her extraordinary 70-year reign, on Jesus, the Jew, the rock and guide of her long reign. Yet though she has travelled the world more than most, she never set foot in Israel, the land which gave birth to the Christian faith she so devoutly followed.

Every year at Christmas, in a broadcast to the nation watched by millions worldwide, the Sovereign shared her personal Christian faith as key to all she does.

Some years ago, for example, she quoted a verse from a well-known carol, In the bleak midwinter: “What can I give him, poor as I am, If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb, If I were a wise man, I would do my part, Yet what I can I give him, give my heart.”

As a true evangelist in the spirit of Billy Graham, she encouraged millions of viewers to give Jesus their heart. This was our Queen, and we are all so proud of her! Only today I heard of a conversation she held with an acquaintance in which she is said to have stated: “I wish Jesus would come back in my lifetime.” Asked why, she reportedly replied: “Because I would place my crown at his feet.”

In his sermon at St Paul’s Cathedral to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June, Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said she was “someone who has been able to serve our nation faithfully because of her faith in Jesus Christ”. And then he added this challenge: “Perhaps there is no better way of celebrating her Platinum Jubilee than by doing the same ourselves.”

On this point, it is truly exciting to witness how the entire nation, led by the secular media, is being taken up with the wonder and reality of our late Queen’s faith.

Referring to the Apostle Paul, the Archbishop said he was only worth following because he was following Jesus, adding: “For me, the best leaders – like Paul, like Jesus – are those who know how to be led.”

The UK’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis testified: “I recall how, on one occasion, she showed me and my wife items of Jewish interest and value in her private collection at Windsor Castle, including a Torah scroll rescued from Czechoslovakia during the Holocaust. Her affection for the Jewish people ran deep, and her respect for our values was palpable.”
The long exile from the modern Jewish state by British royalty is perhaps complex, but seems to reflect Foreign Office policy, which generally amounts to appeasement of the surrounding Arab nations.

The Queen’s affection for the Jewish people ran deep. But it was her faith in Jesus, the Jew, that proved the light and strength of her long life and reign.

The Queen’s mother-in-law, Princess Alice of Greece, was honored with the title of ‘righteous among the nations’ for her bravery in hiding a Jewish family during the Holocaust, and is buried on the Mt of Olives.

Jerusalem as seen from the Mt of Olives, where the Queen’s mother-in-law, Princess Alice, is buried. (Picture: Charles Gardner)

In 2018, significantly 70 years¹ after the rebirth of Israel, British royalty ended their ‘exile’ from official visits to the Holy Land when Prince William, the Queen’s grandson (now the Prince of Wales and first in line to the throne) toured the country.

The Queen’s eldest, now King Charles III, had already visited Israel twice to pay respects at state funerals as well as fulfilling a longstanding wish to visit his grandmother’s grave, but these were not considered official tours.

However, in what was seen to contribute to a positive new era in British-Israeli relations, Charles then attended the World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem in January 2019. Charles has shown constant support for Holocaust survivors over the years, regularly inviting them to lavish teas, as one of them has shared with me.

In 2017, a rumored visit by Prince Charles was reportedly cancelled by the Royal Visits Committee on the grounds that it would “upset Arab nations in the region who regularly host UK royals”.²

The Queen’s late husband Prince Philip’s only trip was in 1994 to attend a ceremony commemorating his mother, Princess Alice who, as Princess of Greece, hid Jewish widow Rachel Cohen and two of her five children in her home. Rachel’s husband had in 1913 helped King George I of Greece, in return for which the king offered him any service he could perform, should he ever need it. When the Nazi threat emerged, his son recalled this promise and appealed to the Princess, who duly honored her father’s pledge.

As I watched Charles’ beautiful tribute to his mother shortly after she died, I found myself praying the prayer of William Tyndale as he was about to be martyred for daring to translate the New Testament into English: “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”
We know the new king has been less vocal and precise about his faith than his mother, but I pray that God will also open his eyes to the uniqueness of Christ and his gospel. God save the King!

1 The period spent in Babylon by the Jews of old.
2 Daily Mail, 2 March 2018

 

Survey Shows Many Pastors Are Teaching Deception

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‘What a Lie’: Franklin Graham Reacts to Shocking Pastoral Survey, Lambastes ‘False Teaching…Leading People & Churches Astray’

Evangelical leader Franklin Graham (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

From faithwire.com

 

Evangelist Franklin Graham reacted this week to shocking survey data showing more than one-third of senior pastors purportedly believe “good people” can earn their way to heaven, with Graham lambasting some of the findings as “false teaching.”

“I don’t know which 1,000 pastors this group surveyed, but the results are concerning,” Graham tweeted Monday. “39% of ‘evangelical’ pastors they asked said there is no absolute moral truth & that ‘each individual must determine their own truth.’”

He added, “What a lie.”

Graham’s strongly-worded response came after pastoral survey results were published by The American Worldview Inventory, an annual report from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University.

At least one-third of respondents also said they believe the Holy Spirit isn’t a person and is instead a “symbol of God’s power, presence, or purity,” with at least the same proportion preferring socialism over capitalism. At least one-third also believe “having faith matters more than which faith you have.”

Perhaps most stunning, though, is the 39% figure Graham cited, as that’s the percentage of evangelical pastors who reject the idea of absolute morality and believe individuals get to “determine their own truth,” as The Christian Post reported.

In an age of moral chaos and confusion, these statistics are deeply troubling, which is something Graham underscored as he warned of the impact false beliefs have on the body of Christ.

“The survey also said that 30% of evangelical pastors do not believe that their salvation is based on having confessed their sins & accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior,” he continued in another tweet. “This kind of false teaching is what is leading people & churches astray.”

Graham concluded his tweets on the matter with a passionate defense of the Gospel.

“The Bible is God’s Word, from cover to cover,” he wrote. “It is the absolute truth — it is what counts, not our opinion.”

As Faithwire previously reported, alarming data on American pastors’ beliefs is nothing new. Earlier released data from the Cultural Research Center revealed just 37% of U.S.-based pastors hold to a “biblical worldview.”

Stephen McAlpine: Planting Flowers in Wartime

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People are planting flowers in Kyiv. Spring is coming.

In the midst of all the chaos, horror and death that the Russian invasion has inflicted on Kyiv, there is something beautiful about people planting flowers in wartorn Kyiv.

As The Times reports, in the light of the Russian withdrawal from the city, the city’s mayor, former world heavyweight boxing champion, Vitaly Klitschko declared:

The municipal services have started spring cleaning. Parks, green areas are being arranged and trees and flowers are being planted.

The war isn’t finished of course. Far from it. Half of the city’s population is still missing, some dead, many in other countries. The devastation and pain will continue for some time yet.

But the normal process of planting seedlings in the flowerbeds, much the same as in my suburb on a seasonal basis, has recommenced. Spring in the air. Easter Resurrection in the air.

Planting flowers in wartime? It could be construed as denial. It could be misdiagnosed as futility or nihilism. Or it could be seen for what it is: Hope sprouting from the ground again.

And it’s a lesson too. A lesson for so many things, but a lesson, I think, for the church. I’ve written much about the straitened times that the church of God finds itself in in the West, either due to its own folly, or because of the turn against the Gospel in the hard secular age. There is much to be sober about. And let’s not get too shy about calling the Christian life a battle, or the spiritual work of the Church a warfare, for the sake of not offending, or for fear of being labelled seditious. If we were to jettison that language we’d have to cut large swathes out of the New Testament documents.

But in the midst of that, let’s remember the better story, the truer narrative of human flourishing, the light to the world, salt of the earth, shining like stars in the dark, sorta stuff that the New Testament speaks of as well. Let’s not forget the new citizens of a heavenly kingdom, the people who have a hope beyond the hope of this age.

In other words, the church gets to plant flowers in wartime. We have a hope that what springs from the ground in our midst, and as we do good to the world and in the world, will not be wasted. Our Resurrection Day is coming. Not Easter Sunday, that was the proto-type, the first-fruits springing from the ground, of which our resurrection will be the full planter bed, blossoming into eternity.

And that should encourage us as we approach what I believe could well be darker and harsher times ahead, both geo-politically and for the church.

The always brilliant Anglican rector and UK journalist Giles Fraser, pointed out recently in UnHerd, that in response to the Ukraine war, the Christian hope leaves the humanist hope quite literally for dead. Humanists have no way of explaining evil away, other than it being a good opportunity for humanity to glint through the darkest body count.

And while I think that humanists could look at the flower-planting in Kyiv and say “See? There’s humanity in all its glory!”, they are unable to counter that glory with any sense of the true horror of humanity that makes such a photograph as the one I posted above, truly memorable.

Read the rest of the article here

Canberra Declaration: Faith Is Good For Women

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WHAT HARVARD UNIVERSITY KNOWS THAT ‘THE HANDMAID’S TALE’ DOESN’T

Does religion oppress women, or liberate them to live with deep meaning and purpose? A new study undertaken by Harvard University suggests the latter.

Author Margaret Atwood’s novel (and now TV series) The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian story set in the near future, when a kooky religious cult takes over much of the US.

In the story, women are marginalised and relegated to second class citizens, and many become enslaved. These female slaves — ‘Handmaids’ as they’re known — have little bodily autonomy, reduced to breeding machines for their wealthy masters.

And you don’t need to watch many episodes before the underlying narrative of The Handmaid’s Tale hits you in the face: religion oppresses women. [1]  

It’s a narrative that resonates deeply with many secular feminists today. From restricted abortion rights to patriarchy, religious women are considered to be worse off than their more enlightened secular sisters.

As such, many secular feminists have taken to wearing the red and white of Handmaids at pro-choice rallies. As author Rebecca McLaughlin points out: ‘It’s a story told in red and white: Christianity is [seen to be] bad for women’s rights’. [2]

What Harvard Medical School Knows That ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Does Not

And yet, a recent study from Harvard University challenges this narrative. Its conclusion will surprise many secular readers:

‘Compared with women who had never attended religious services, women who attended once or more per week had a five-fold lower risk of suicide.’

(Not quite the narrative from The Handmaid’s Tale.)

And a study like this couldn’t have come at a better time.

Mental Health and Women’s Wellbeing

Mental health across the Western world — including for women — is in crisis. According to Lifeline, around two women die each day in Australia from suicide.[3] Those women are daughters, sisters, mothers, wives. It’s a devastating tragedy on every level, as those touched by a loved one’s suicide can attest.

Many of these women might have been saved if they had received the right support. And according to Harvard University, churchgoing is a very effective form of support.

What the Harvard Study Shows

The study, entitled Association Between Religious Service Attendance and Lower Suicide Rates Among US Women, was run by the Harvard School of Public Health. It was a longitudinal (long term) study of around 90,000 women — so it was comprehensive. According to the study:

‘We… examine[d] the association between service attendance and suicide… adjusting for demographic covariates, lifestyle factors and medical history, depressive symptoms, and social integration measures.’

And their results are mind-blowing:

‘Compared with women who had never attended religious services, women who attended once or more per week had a five-fold lower risk of suicide; results were robust across various exclusions, methods of analysis, and in sensitivity analysis.’

But as the study points out, the results aren’t merely because of the social benefits of regular churchgoing:

 

Read the full article at canberradeclaration.org.au

Becky Dvorak: Speak “To” and “Not About” that Mountain

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Speak “To” and “Not About” that Mountain

So often, people speak about the mountain, the problem, the sickness or disease when Jesus clearly says to us in Matthew 17:20 that we are to speak to the mountain. “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

As a healing evangelist people say they want to speak to me about their healing, but what I often find out is that what they really want to discuss with me is about the sickness, the disease, the weakness, or the problem. And as I try to teach them about God’s healing power, and how to activate it in their lives they continue to go back to the disease. This scenario is a prime example of someone that speaks “About”, and “Not to” that mountain.

When we speak “About” the sickness we magnify it with our words. We actually give it more power, more strength inside our bodies. It is like when a man verbally beats down his wife, eventually his daily beating breaks her down, and he reaps what he sows, a sick relationship. The physical body responds the same way. It will become weak and sick as we continue to speak ill words over it. And I doubt that is what we desire.

Our Lord, Jesus Christ teaches us that “If we have faith as a mustard seed, we will say “To” this mountain to ‘Move from here to there’, and it will move.” If this mountain standing in front of you is sickness you will say to it, “Get out of my body in Jesus’ name”. If you believe in the power of the words you speak it will happen.

It all comes down to two things, the first being responsibility, and the second is choice. In Isaiah 53:4-5 he Great Physician, Jesus Christ has already released His healing power for us. But just as it is with the gift of Salvation so too is this great gift of healing that our Lord gave to us by the power of His shed blood. 

But [in fact] He has borne our griefs, and He has carried our sorrows and pains; yet we [ignorantly] assumed that He was stricken,
struck down by God and degraded and humiliated [by Him]. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our wickedness [our sin, our injustice, our wrongdoing]; the punishment [required] for our well-being fell on Him, and by His stripes (wounds) we are healed, Isaiah 53:4-5, AMP.

This healing promise must first be believed and then it can be received into our bodies. But it is a choice to believe or not to believe, this is part of our free will. And with free will comes great responsibility. And when we are responsible with God’s promises and choose to believe in God’s promise we reap the blessing of all of His benefits. 

Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s, Psalm 103:1-5, NKJV. 

God gives to us His promise for healing, and He also tells us what we must do, “Believe”, and then we speak words of faith “To” and “Not about” the disease. And when we follow His instruction His promise comes to pass, and we are healed.